Tucker Carlson Accuses Ben Shapiro of ‘Shilling’ for Israel: ‘Too Much for My Tiny Brain to Deal With’

Former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson slammed The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro during an appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show Wednesday.

Carlson’s comments came toward the end of an extended monologue about American foreign policy as it pertains to the Middle East, and especially Iran — and days after Shapiro suggested Carlson is “ally” of Aleksandr Dugin, a top advisor to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, during an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Expressing his frustration with critics of his relatively dovish views, Carlson mused that because he’s questioned advocates of regime change in Iran, he’s “been attacked as a tool of Iran.”

“I’m a freaking Episcopalian, I am not Shiite. As a tool of Qatar, who’s like one of our closest allies in the world. The largest American air base in the Middle East is in Qatar, they’re a close ally of ours, and all of a sudden it’s like ‘Oh, you’re taking Qatari money.’ I’ve never taken a dollar, I’ve never taken a dollar from any government. I mean are you joking,” continued Carlson. “And these are people who are acting on behalf of a foreign government telling me that I’m unpatriotic. And I try not to get like crazy angry about it, but it’s hard because you see these people, you know, Ben Shapiro or these shills, like come out and like attack you personally because-”

“He was bashing you just this week,” interjected host Megyn Kelly.

Carlson picked up where he left off:

But it’s-, what’s so infuriating is like I’m 56 in two weeks, so I’ve watched this, I was in Iraq. Like I’m not an expert on anything, and I would never claim expertise, I try not to
not to claim expertise I don’t have, but just-, I have a good memory and I was there for a lot of this stuff, and I have unresolved rage for the reasons I just explained. No one’s apologized, no one’s repented, no one’s changed. And so to attack me as I’m selling out my country, which is the only thing I care about, I don’t have another passport, I have no plans to go anywhere — I could, I could certainly afford to move some other country — I’m not, I live directly across from my parents’ grave and I’m never leaving. So to attack me as a shill for another country when you yourself are shilling for another country, it’s almost too much for my tiny brain to to deal with actually.

How much better it would be if someone like Ben Shapiro, who’s smart and I don’t think Ben Shapiro is like evil, I’m not attacking him as a person, but how much better would it be if he could just sit and say, “Okay here’s what I think would happen if we joined an attack on Iran.” Or stop lying to me and telling me that we’re going to defeat the Houthis. The whole point of getting involved in a war with the Houthis is to suck us into war with Iran, like I know that because I know a lot about this topic, so don’t patronize me and lie to me just be straightforward and say, “I think we can affect regime change in Iran here’s how we can do it.” And then I could say. “Well here are my concerns.” But instead it’s like, “Oh, you’re weak, you know you don’t love America.” I don’t love America? Really? It’s too much! I can’t deal with it!

Ironically, while Carlson professed to be incensed by those who accuse him of not caring for his country, he made the exact claim about Shapiro in December 2023 in another instance in which he accused the Jewish-American commentator of being more loyal to Israel than the United States.

After marveling at Shapiro’s reaction to the October 7 terrorist attacks in the latter, Carlson complained that Shapiro wasn’t similarly vexed by problems in the U.S..

“I’m shocked by how little they care about the country and including the person you mentioned [Shapiro],” he told Saagar Enjeti at the time. “And I can’t imagine how someone like that could get an audience of people who claim to care about America, because he doesn’t, obviously.”