The “Piers Morgan Uncensored” host responds to criticism from Ben Shapiro for not being sufficiently pro-Israel. “What Ben really takes issue with is that, among the many guests supporting his worldview-and specifically supporting Israel-we also invite people who don’t share his worldview and don’t support the Israeli government,” Morgan said. “Ben lacks the self-awareness to realize that many pro-Palestinian contributors got very angry with our show for hosting so-called ‘genocide enablers’ like him.” “That’s exactly why I’m not partisan and don’t want to be. There is more than one view on any emotive or consequential subject. You can’t possibly know you’re right if you don’t know what the other side thinks,” he said. “That’s precisely why free speech exists.” “Ben Shapiro used to mock the idea of deplatforming-especially when the person being deplatformed was Ben Shapiro,” Piers Morgan said. “But his uncompromising views on Israel and America’s military support for Israel have turned him into a cancel-culture vulture with the same sneering intolerance he used to loathe.” “If you disagree with him, he says, you’re a Nazi, he says.” “The difference between me and you, Ben, is that I’m criticized by both sides because I listen to both sides-and often criticize both sides too,” Morgan said. “You’re criticized by only one side because you choose to hear only one side.” “I’m a journalist. You’re a propagandist. And facts don’t care about your feelings.”

PIERS MORGAN: Ben Shapiro is undoubtedly an intelligent and influential commentator. I’ve always liked and respected him, even when we disagree-and I still do. He’s stridently partisan and staunchly conservative, of course, but he’s willing to criticize Trump and others in the administration when he thinks they’ve got it wrong. One thing he doesn’t criticize, however, is Israel. And he routinely gets very upset when other people do. It’s such a blind spot for Ben that, through the red mist of his rage, he sees an alternate reality where anybody who disagrees with him is a demonic, America-hating terror apologist who can only possibly be doing it for ratings. It was brought to my attention that he was very upset about a debate last week featuring Dave Smith. So last night, on Piers Morgan Uncensored-which Ben described as the Jerry Springer of political television, where people gather to throw chairs at one another and determine paternity-he said that Piers Morgan has made a mockery of the entire industry by putting on screen whatever dregs are still willing to appear on his show. He had on Dave Smith, who apparently-according to Ben-has a job never to tell jokes but instead to give poorly informed foreign-policy takes and to hate America. Well, first: Jerry Springer was a very good friend of mine. He was a beloved national treasure who hosted one of the most successful shows in television history and became a media mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So thank you for that comparison, Ben. Second: we proudly host lively debates on things people care about, featuring guests that people care about, to cover both sides of complex news stories in an engaging way. Do the debates sometimes get a bit combative? Yes. Do audiences tend to enjoy a bit of theatrical rough and tumble? Of course they do. That’s why The Daily Wire, Ben’s company, has an entire political debate show literally called “Barfight.” It’s also why Ben’s own show features hard-hitting segments such as: Ben Shapiro destroys celebrity ICE reactions. Ben Shapiro destroys the Golden Globes. Ben Shapiro reacts to woke TikToks. Ben Shapiro reacts to woke socialist TikToks. Ben Shapiro reacts to woke religious TikToks. And when it comes to humiliating the industry, please tell me why the Pulitzer Prize committee did not reward Mr. Shapiro for this masterpiece… You could say that makes a mockery of the industry. Third, I want to examine the charge that I’ve committed a sin against journalism by hosting what Ben Shapiro describes as whatever dregs are still willing to appear on my show. On the subject of Iran and U.S. foreign policy specifically, recent guests have included Masih Alinejad, Lisa Daftari, Patrick Bet-David, Carla Sands, Rob O’Neill, Goldie Ghamari, Jonathan Schanzer, Alan Dershowitz, Ambassador John Bolton, General Wesley Clark, General Mark Kimmitt, a former UN prosecutor accusing Iran of mass murder, Ambassador Mike Huckabee, former Vice President Mike Pence, Eric Weinstein, Josh Hammer, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and IDF spokesman Nadav Shoshani. It’s unlikely Ben is talking about any of these people because they are either vehemently pro-Israel or supportive, to some extent, of attacking Iran to destroy its regime. It’s also unlikely he’s talking about, say, Michael Knowles or Isabelle Brown, who make valuable contributions to the show and who, of course, work alongside Ben Shapiro at The Daily Wire. So what is he really talking about? Well, we know he doesn’t like Dave Smith and flat-out refuses to debate him, which strikes me as pretty cowardly. You can make up your own minds about why he refuses. What Ben really takes issue with is that, among the many guests supporting his worldview-and specifically supporting Israel-we also invite people who don’t share his worldview and don’t support the Israeli government. BEN SHAPIRO: Take Piers Morgan. He once suggested the only reason I was no longer appearing on his show was because of my criticism of Israel, which is odd because I appeared on his show for months after October 7 even though he was already critical of Israel. I haven’t said anything to or about Piers in about a year. I simply stopped appearing because he kept bringing on actual Nazis and Nazi-adjacent figures and then treating them far too often as voices worthy of a large audience. For example: I believe that Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to America and the world. You think Hitler was very cool? – Yes, I do. And I’m tired of pretending he’s not. Those young men in Gaza were born into a concentration camp. Israel is is a terrorist statecommitting a genocide. Listen, it’s Piers’s choice who he decides to have on his show and how he conducts it. And it’s my choice not to join that circus. We all make our choices, and we all live with them. But some of us make our choices based on principles-not clicks. PERS MORGAN: The last time Ben Shapiro appeared on Uncensored to discuss Israel’s war with Hamas was in March 2024. At which time, I was being accused daily of being a paid-up Israeli shill. Ben lacks the self-awareness to realize is that many pro-Palestinian contributors got very angry with our show for hosting so-called “genocide enablers” like him. That’s exactly why I’m not partisan and don’t want to be. There is more than one view on any emotive or consequential subject. You can’t possibly know you’re right if you don’t know what the other side thinks. That’s precisely why free speech exists. When it comes to principles, I’d remind Ben that I’ve left several high-profile jobs over mine-principles like my views on gun control and my belief that criticizing a princess is an essential right. I give my opinions based on the information I have at the time, and I change my views when facts change. Some people may find that irritating, but it’s because I’m not an ideologue. Ben Shapiro calls our debates a clown-show circus, and that’s fine. He’s entitled to his opinion. Many people choose to watch Uncensored-including, clearly, Ben Shapiro. It’s ironic that the clips he showed weren’t from our debate panels but from long-form one-on-one interviews, which we do a lot of the time. And it’s outrageously disingenuous that he didn’t include the parts where I challenged those guests directly. That montage of the same interviews could have looked like this: “You sound like a Nazi.” “That’s literally what Nazis would have said in World War II.” “If half your family had been wiped out by very f–king cool Hitler, would you still think he was very f–king cool?” “Hamas and ISIS are nihilistic terror groups intent on killing as many Jewish people as possible. “That’s not true, it’s just not true.” “They wereb’t pretending to be refugees, they were fleeing the Holocaust!” You can take the view that interviewing people with extreme opinions is pointless. You can stick your head in the sand like an ostrich or hide behind your very big desk and pretend they don’t have an audience. But they do. My view is that these voices already speak unfiltered to large audiences. On my show, at least, viewers see them challenged. Ben Shapiro used to mock the idea of deplatforming-especially when the person being deplatformed was Ben Shapiro, usually by shrieking protesters on woke campuses. But his uncompromising views on Israel and America’s military support for Israel have turned him into a cancel-culture vulture with the same sneering intolerance he used to loathe. If you disagree with him, he says, you’re a Nazi. Everybody knows my position on Israel. I vehemently defended Israel’s right to respond after October 7. But I became increasingly critical of Israel as its government’s actions in Gaza became impossible to defend. We don’t need to relitigate that right now, but as Dave Smith correctly points out, it is not just me. Polling now shows many Americans feel the same way. If Ben listened to those arguments instead of throwing tantrums about them, he might understand why. Just as I continue to host people who defend Israel’s conduct in Gaza-something many viewers wish I wouldn’t do-Ben Shapiro could easily debate critics. He has my phone number. He has my email. He could have discussed his differences with me privately, which I would have preferred. He hasn’t bothered to reply to my personal messages in a very long time, oddly, since the very moment I started criticizing the Israeli government. Instead, he gets on his podcast and throws pathetic potshots at me. So let me respond directly. The difference between me and you, Ben, is that I’m criticized by both sides because I listen to both sides-and often criticize both sides too. You’re criticized by only one side because you choose to hear only one side. I’m a journalist. You’re a propagandist. And facts don’t care about your feelings.

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