Megyn
Kelly argues that Bari Weiss and Ben Shapiro ‘are making antisemites’
‘They are
making antisemites. Tucker is not making antisemites. They are,’ Megyn Kelly
told Vanity Fair this week.
Justin
Baragona in New York
Tuesday
23 December 2025 16:22 GMT
After Ben
Shapiro accused her of “cowardice” for refusing to denounce Candace Owens’
conspiracy theories and Bari Weiss amplified Shapiro’s condemnation, Megyn
Kelly returned fire by claiming that the Daily Wire founder and CBS News
editor-in-chief “are making antisemites” with their overt pro-Israel stances.
The
former Fox News host’s swipe against Shapiro and Weiss comes amid the roiling
MAGA civil war that exploded into public view during this past weekend’s
AmericaFest, the annual year-end convention held by prominent right-wing youth
organization Turning Point USA.
With the
American conservative movement already tearing itself apart in recent months
over the Epstein files and Tucker Carlson’s chummy interview with notorious
white nationalist Nick Fuentes, Owens threw more gasoline in the fire in recent
weeks by peddling increasingly unhinged claims about Turing Point USA chief
Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Owens, a
far-right provocateur who shot to fame as a host for Shapiro’s Daily Wire and
once served as TPUSA’s communications director, has sparked backlash among
conservatives for wildly asserting that Kirk may have been killed by Israeli
government figures with the help of senior Turning Point staffers, suggesting
it was due to Kirk’s supposed change of heart on the Gaza war.
As Owens
continued to lean further into antisemitism with her baseless claims, Kelly has
stood by her fellow right-wing podcaster and even took credit for setting up a
“detente” between Owens and Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk who called on
Owens to “stop” pushing conspiracies about her slain husband’s death.
Former Fox
News host Megyn Kelly claims that Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss are responsible
for making young conservatives antisemitic.
During
his Thursday night speech at AmericaFest, which directly followed Erika Kirk’s
address, Shapiro lashed out at Kelly, Carlson and former Trump strategist Steve
Bannon, whom Shapiro referred to as “a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein.” Calling
the influential right-wing figures “charlatans” who “traffic in conspiracism
and dishonesty,” he blasted Carlson’s “moral imbecility” over the Fuentes
interview while taking specific aim at Kelly for her embrace of Owens.
“There is
only one moral side here: Erika Kirk’s side,” he said. “You know, the side of
the widow with two children whose husband was shot live on camera in front of
all of us. Friendship with the person accusing TPUSA of a coverup of Charlie’s
murder is no excuse for cowardice.”
While
Kelly would respond in kind during her appearance at AmericaFest, much like
Carlson and Bannon did, she also doubled down on her defense of Owens – and
even applauded her for invoking Israel in the killing of Kirk.
“I don’t
think Israel had anything to do with it,” Kelly declared from the stage. “But
why did I have an obligation to stop Candace from asking those questions? I
didn’t, and I didn’t call her out because I favored her asking them.”
Still,
Kelly saved her harshest reactions to Shapiro for her follow-up interview with
Vanity Fair, which also included a broadside against Weiss for adding herself
to the fray – all while claiming that the two prominent Jewish media
personalities were responsible for pushing conservatives towards antisemitism.
Much as
Carlson had also claimed Shapiro’s criticisms from the TPUSA stage were due to
his support of Israel, Kelly said “Ben is Israel first” while noting that
Shapiro would likely call that charge antisemitic.
“And I'm
sorry, but his behavior has proven that charge to be correct. Why would you
divide the American conservative movement—which was gelling, which was becoming
much more cohesive for a moment after Charlie died—over Israel!” Kelly pondered
in her Vanity Fair conversation.
Kelly
also made sure to add Weiss, who has described herself as a “Zionist fanatic”
and is the founder of the stridently pro-Israel digital media outlet The Free
Press, to her list. Weiss, installed as CBS News’ top editor this fall and
currently under fire for pulling a 60 Minutes story on CECOT at the last
minute, published a version of Shapiro's speech in The Free Press and
approvingly shared it on social media.
“It’s
this very loud group of pro-Israel activists that is trying to make this the
litmus test about whether you get to call yourself a conservative, and they
lack standing to do that,” Kelly declared. “Bari in particular has made her
career on the anti-cancel culture thing. Meanwhile, she's never been canceled.
And she's basically supporting Ben's attempt to cancel me from the conservative
movement, of which she's not a part.”
Adding
that what “Charlie [Kirk] and I saw at the same time was that the country is
turning” and “young Republicans are turning on Israel,” Kelly then accused
Shapiro and Weiss of fomenting anti-Jewish hatred with their efforts at
censoring criticism of Israel.
“They are
making antisemites. Tucker is not making antisemites. They are,” Kelly stated,
referencing allegations that Carlson is pushing antisemitic tropes with his
rhetoric and conspiracy theorizing, an accusation the fired Fox News star
vehemently denies.
On
Tuesday morning, Kelly continued to take aim at Weiss, prompting conservative
pollster Frank Luntz to note that it was just two months earlier when Kelly had
heaped praise on Weiss following the Free Press founder’s ascension to the top
of CBS News.
“What
prompted the shift from ‘deserves every bit of this success’ to ‘knows
literally nothing about television?’” Luntz wondered, only for Kelly to
snarkily reference Shapiro’s “cowardice” line.
“I was
reliably informed this week that it is cowardly not to call out your friends
with the unvarnished truth about their defects. So my days of being a polite
friend (to her) are over. And there’s more truth coming,” Kelly tweeted in
response.
Meanwhile,
it would appear that the growing rift that has been splintering MAGA will not
heal itself anytime soon.
Owens,
despite her meeting with Erika Kirk last week, has doubled down on her crazed
conspiracy theories and even recently hosted a “witness” who claimed to have
seen Kirk at a military intelligence base a day before her husband’s death –
seemingly as a way to implicate her in an assassination plot.
“A day
later, Owens weighed in again with a staggeringly antisemitic video where she
called Shapiro and his father “belly creatures who slither on” and urged her
audience to read The Talmudic Jew, a nineteenth-century anti-Jewish tract that
became popular with the Nazis,” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer wrote.
“That’s
some sick stuff that would have been utterly disqualifying not too long ago,”
Sommer added. “Yet only a few hours after that episode went live, Kelly said
from the AmFest stage that she welcomed Owens’s questions about whether Israel
was involved in Charlie Kirk’s murder.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário