Ben Shapiro Honors Charlie Kirk While Condemning Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson for Spreading Conspiracy Theories
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Ben Shapiro Honors Charlie Kirk While Condemning Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson for Spreading Conspiracy Theories
Ben Shapiro delivers a powerful tribute to Charlie Kirk at Turning Point USA, celebrating the life of his friend while calling out prominent conservative figures for spreading dangerous conspiracy theories about Kirk's murder. Shapiro condemns Candace Owens for accusing TPUSA and Erika Kirk of covering up the murder, criticizes Tucker Carlson for platforming extremists like Nick Fuentes, and challenges the conservative movement to prioritize truth over friendship and loyalty. In this emotional and confrontational speech, Shapiro lays out five key obligations that public figures owe their audiences, emphasizing evidence-based reasoning over conspiracy thinking and demanding accountability from those who claim to speak for conservatism.
Ben Shapiro opened his speech at Turning Point USA with a tribute to Charlie Kirk, describing the moment as "incredibly bittersweet." He praised Erika Kirk as "a heroic figure and a true American patriot," stating his belief that "the best way to judge the goodness of a man is to see the goodness of his wife and his children. And on that measure, Charlie was unsurpassed."
Shapiro reflected on his long friendship with Kirk, noting, "I knew Charlie from the time he was 18 years old. And I watched him build himself into one of the most powerful exponents of conservatism in America, one of the most powerful coalition builders in American history." He acknowledged the bitter reality of Kirk's murder while finding solace in "the number of people who continue to remember Charlie each and every day and to carry on his mission."
The Future Depends on Truth
Shapiro shifted to his central theme: the critical importance of truth in the conservative movement and American politics. "The future of this country, this amazing country relies on the future of the conservative movement," he declared. "It relies on what TPUSA defines as its core mission. Freedom, free markets, and limited government. And most of all, most of all, the future of this country relies on truth."
He emphasized that "victory, true, real lasting victory cannot be achieved without truth. Victory without truth is victory for a lie. And that is no victory at all. And unity without truth is no unity. It is merely solidarity and falsehood."
Shapiro acknowledged the legitimate debates within conservatism about "the relationship between free markets and traditional virtue," foreign policy pragmatism, and appropriate governmental means. However, he warned that the movement faces danger "not just from a left that all too frequently excuses everything up to and including murder" but also from "charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty."
Five Obligations to the Audience
Shapiro outlined five duties that public figures owe their audiences:
First Duty: Truth
"We owe you the truth," Shapiro stated. "That means we should not mislead you. It means we shouldn't hide the ball. We shouldn't be deliberately obscure about what we're telling you. We have an obligation to clarity and to honesty."
He criticized vague language and conspiracy thinking, specifically addressing those who say "they shot Charlie without specifying whom we mean by they." He clarified: "The person who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk and whom all the evidence points at, all of it is a gay trans." He argued that if people want to target ideological movements, they should "talk about the fact that the radical trans movement treats all those who oppose it as existential threats" or discuss "the Democratic party making room for the radical trans movement and echoing its inflammatory rhetoric."
"When people say they shot Charlie, however, they are instead trafficking in vaguery that results in increased hatred without proposing any effective response. They are fostering despair and rage, and that makes things worse," Shapiro explained.
Confronting Candace Owens Directly
In one of the speech's most dramatic moments, Shapiro directly condemned Candace Owens by name. "We must not let fear of audience deter us from telling the truth. We must not let fear of other hosts deter us from telling the truth," he declared.
"If Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions at TPUSA and the people who work here who worked with Charlie every single day his best friends to cast aspersions at Mikey McCoy and Andrew Kolvet and Blake Neff and Tyler Bowyer and yes at Erika Kirk and to imply or outright claim complicity in a cover up over Charlie's murder to spew absolutely baseless trash implicating everyone from French intelligence to Mossad to members of TPUSA in Charlie's murder or a cover up in that murder, then we as people with a microphone have a moral obligation to call that out by name."
He continued with passion: "Erika Kirk and TPUSA never never should have put in never should have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against such specious and evil attacks, particularly in a time of mourning."
Second Duty: Principle Over Personal Feeling
"Because we owe you the truth, we owe you the duty to speak out of principle, not personal feeling," Shapiro argued. "It should not matter whether we despise someone or whether we love someone. The question is what they say and what they do and whether those things are morally decent or not."
He directly criticized other conservative figures for their silence on Owens' behavior: "The people who refuse to condemn Candace's truly vicious attacks, and some of them are speaking here, are guilty of cowardice. Yes, cowardice."
Shapiro called out Tucker Carlson specifically: "No, Tucker Carlson, it is not an excuse to go silent on Candace's targeting of TPUSA or to mirror her lines of questioning because you love Candace personally."
He also addressed Megyn Kelly: "The same holds true of Megyn Kelly, a person I consider a friend, characterizing Candace as a young mother and thus shying away from condemning her actions or filming me about them. That is a non-starter. Meghan Markle is a young mother. Ilhan Omar is a young mother. That doesn't matter."
Shapiro quoted Kelly's recent statement and responded: "When Megyn said this week, quote, 'My goal and my job here is to try to understand, yes, where Candace is coming from on this and says she sees no purpose in inserting herself quote into this on one side.' That is a moral and logical absurdity. There is only one moral side here. Erika Kirk's side, you know, the side of the widow with two children whose husband was shot live on camera in front of all of us."
Third Duty: Take Responsibility
"We have a duty to take responsibility for what we say and do," Shapiro stated. "If we hire awful people, we're responsible for that." He noted he has "some experience there."
He then launched into a scathing critique of Tucker Carlson's guest choices: "If you host a Hitler apologist Nazi loving anti-American piece of refuse like Nick Fuentes, you know the Nick Fuentes who said that the vice president of the United States is a quote fat gay race traitor married to a Jeet. The person who said that Charlie Kirk was a quote idiot. The person who said, and pardon my language here, it's his quote, that he quote took Turning Point USA and effed it, and that's why it's filled with groypers. If you have that person on your show and you proceed to glaze him, you ought to own it."
Shapiro explained why this matters: "There is a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes and indeed even chided Dinesh D'Souza for debating him. He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility. And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson did. He built Nick Fuentes up and he ought to take responsibility for that just as he ought to take responsibility for glazing pornographer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate or for mainstreaming fake historian and pseudo Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper as America's best and most honest popular historian."
"Hosts are indeed responsible for the guests they choose and the questions they ask those guests," he concluded.
Fourth Duty: Provide Evidence
"Because we have a duty to truth, we also have a duty to provide you with evidence of the claims that we make," Shapiro argued. "Emotive accusations, conspiracy theories, and just asking questions. That's lazy and stupid and misleading. None of them are a substitute for truth. None of them are a substitute for evidence."
He addressed Stephen Bannon's tactics: "When Steve Bannon, for example, accuses his foreign policy opponents of loyalty to a foreign country, he's not actually making an argument based in evidence. He's simply maligning people that he disagrees with, which is indeed par for the course from a man who was once a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein. Check the record."
Shapiro criticized the "just asking questions" approach: "Just asking questions is something my 5-year-old does, and it's really cute when it comes from my 5-year-old. But when grown men and women spend their days just asking questions without, you know, seeking answers, they are lying to you. In fact, they're doing something even worse. They are seeding distrust in the world around you and they are enervating you in the process."
He provided a specific example: "If many speakers, including Tucker Carlson and others, get on stage here at TPUSA and claim without proper evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was running a Mossad rape ring being covered up by the Trump administration. They are not actually uncovering a conspiracy or effectuating a solution. They are claiming a special providence to information they won't let you see, which builds their power and leaves you with none."
Shapiro pointed out the implications: "They are also implicating in their speculation actual human beings, good human beings like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi and yes, the president of the United States, even if they're too cowardly to say President Trump's name. And that means you won't trust those good people in the future. You haven't gotten smarter. You've just been manipulated."
He noted the hypocrisy of some conspiracy theorists: "When forced to demonstrate their evidence, these same people will often refuse to provide it. They'll claim ignorance. They'll pretend they're outside the system and they don't have access to actual information. You know, they're just asking questions. But many of these same people have direct pipelines to informational sources. So, for example, if Tucker wants answers to his questions about, say, Jeffrey Epstein, he could call the vice president of the United States. He's quite close with him. But he won't because that might undermine the empty speculation."
Shapiro clarified his position on conspiracies: "None of this means there aren't actual real conspiracies in the world. Of course, there are. But actual conspiracies require actual evidence. Yes, there was a Russiagate conspiracy and we know the names of the people involved and what they did. We know Hillary Clinton and Fusion GPS and James Comey and Loretta Lynch and Adam Schiff. We know all of those people. Yes, there was a COVID-19 conspiracy. We know that Anthony Fauci worked to shut down alternative solutions from people like Jay Bhattacharya. But when people posit a conspiracy and then provide you no evidence, they are doing you a fundamental disservice and they are making you stupider in the process."
Fifth Duty: Propose Solutions
"Finally, because it is our job to make the lives of our audience better, right? That's really our job is to give you more information to make your lives better. We have a duty to propose solutions," Shapiro stated. "That's why we have to talk about our problems in order to find the solutions. That's what politics was supposed to be about after all, finding solutions to our common problems."
He warned against endless negativity without constructive purpose: "If we speak endlessly about the problems we face without ever positing a solution other than wrecking the system or centralizing power in a cult-like figure, we are not finding solutions. We are merely making problems worse. Just asking questions, positing vague conspiracies, raving like Alex Jones about the secret confederacies that control your life. None of it makes your life better. None of it. In fact, it makes your life markedly worse."
Shapiro explained the danger of this approach: "That's because if you truly come to believe that nothing in your life is in your control, you can't even take control of your own life. You despair of your ability to change your own circumstances and then you fail. And you must not fail."
America's Greatness and the Path Forward
Shapiro concluded with optimism about America: "For all of its problems, many of which a huge number of which are real and serious, the United States is still the greatest constitution ever devised by man."
He emphasized the mutual obligations between public figures and their audiences: "We owe you that quest for truth. You owe yourselves that quest for truth."
Questions and Charlie Kirk's Legacy
During the Q&A session, Shapiro was asked about balancing truth with polite delivery. He responded: "I think obviously the truth comes first. We ought to be polite, but the truth comes first. And if you can tell the truth in a polite way, that's the best way to do it. But sometimes people perceive truth as impolite and that's just the way of the world."
He reiterated his famous principle: "I rather famously have said that facts don't care about your feelings. And that happens to be true." He advised that "truth always has to take precedence over politeness if the two come into conflict. Particularly if you're talking publicly as we all do for a living."
When asked about bridging divides in the conservative movement, Shapiro emphasized principles: "Unity has to be reliant on first principles. No one would ask conservatives to unite with radical trans activists because that would be silly. And so we first have to decide what are the principles that we hold in common and then actually determine who are our allies in that particular fight."
In a final question, a college student asked for encouragement on starting a TPUSA chapter. Shapiro pointed to Charlie Kirk as the ultimate example: "Look at Charlie Kirk, right? That's the words of encouragement. Charlie was your age when he started doing this. Again, I referenced earlier that I met Charlie when he was 18 years old. It was actually at David Horowitz Freedom Center conference and Charlie was going around trying to meet donors and I saw this really nerdy tall gangly kid walking around trying to meet people and I started introducing Charlie to a few of his sort of original donors."
Shapiro shared a personal memory: "I've said this before but it's true. Charlie walked away and I turned to my friend Jeremy Boreing I said that dude's going to be the head of the RNC one day because Charlie was just that much of a go-getter and it turns out that he was a lot bigger than that."
He emphasized that anyone could follow Kirk's example: "Everyone has the potential to do that. Not everybody has the same exact skill set and you have to find the skill set that best suits you. Maybe you're great at debate. Charlie was great at debate. Actually, what's fascinating about Charlie is that Charlie made himself great at debate. I knew Charlie when he wasn't great at debate and then I knew Charlie when he was great at debate. He actually cultivated a skill set. It was really impressive and cool to watch him do that."
Shapiro concluded with inspiration: "If Charlie can do that, a raw kid out of high school, no college degree, and build the most powerful conservative organization in America, then you can do it, too, because that's what America's all about. You're an American. Go do it."
