Remember — President Donald Trump didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Although it’s not set to take effect until early 2020, Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed an abortion ban into law recently that prominent conservative Ben Shapiro had, let’s just say, a hard time defending during a recent interview for BBC. After going round and round his “grr grr fear my facts and logic” routine, he stormed out of the interview.
“I am not inclined to continue an interview with someone as badly motivated as you”
US conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro ends spiky interview with @afneil
Watch #politicslive interview in full: https://t.co/tXVdNWnXWi pic.twitter.com/WEO2UKOc79
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 10, 2019
He had been discussing his new book The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great, and interviewer Andrew Neil asked him how he could reconcile the stance the work presents with real-world issues like the harsh rhetoric Shapiro has personally routinely issued and other GOP pushes, like the Georgia abortion ban.
The prominent conservative commentator didn’t have an answer, instead varying between taking issue with Neil characterizing the abortion ban as sending constituents back to the Dark Ages and shouting about how the host was supposedly so deeply embedded with the left.
Ironically, Neil has served as editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times and currently serves as chairman of the also right-wing magazine The Spectator.
Neil told the sputtering talking head:
‘Mr. Shapiro, if you only knew how ridiculous that statement was, you wouldn’t have said it.’
He’s just apparently completely unfamiliar with the concept of someone who might sometimes be on his side posing a challenging question. My way or the highway, he might as well have screamed.
Stick this in my veins. pic.twitter.com/j2XEekjwe7
— Mark Di Stefano ?? (@MarkDiStef) May 10, 2019
He eventually delivered the entirely self-contradictory screed:
‘The problem that I have is not with charged language in politics, which I’m generally in favor of. I like a robust public debate and a very loud and spirited public debate — I have no problem with that whatsoever. What I’m talking about is the assumption that people with whom we disagree politically are inherently of bad character or in your words want to bring us back to the dark ages.’
Shapiro, Neil has pointed out, has repeatedly derided his opponents as everything from fascists to “rotten to the core,” but simply refuses to accept harsh, fact-based criticism for himself. The commentator wasn’t interested in much of a discussion, ranting:
‘Honestly, this is a giant waste of time in the sense that the entire interview is designed for you to shout slogans or old things that I’ve said at me. I don’t see how this forwards the debate… It seems to me that simply going through and finding lone things out of context… is a way for you to make a quick buck on BBC off the fact that I’m popular and no one has ever heard of you… I don’t frankly give a damn what you think of me since I’ve never heard of you.’
Neil retorted, trying to get him to discuss the issues really at hand:
‘And I’ve never heard of you until I briefed myself on this!’
Shapiro wasn’t interested, instead preferring to take the questions as a personal attack that he must be ready defend himself and his honor against at all costs — instead of, you know, confronting the facts like that sometimes abortions are medically necessary for the mother’s survival and so on, not to mention the issues sometimes surrounding other aspects of bringing a child into the world.
Check out the full Shapiro meltdown below:
Featured Image via screenshot
