Ben Shapiro rails against Tucker Carlson in Heritage Foundation speech: Opponent of conservatism

WASHINGTON — Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro denounced right-wing podcast titan Tucker Carlson as “an opponent of conservatism” who “has trafficked in nearly every conspiracy theory under the sun” in a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday.Shapiro appeared at the largest conservative think tank in DC ostensibly to discuss his book, “Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America (and Her Critics).” Instead, he took advantage of the platform to address what he called “the elephant in the room.”“If we care about conservatism, if, as Heritage Foundation proclaims, our goal ought to be to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense,” he rattled off, “then we must stand up against those who would pervert and twist the conservative movement into a movement without principles, or worse, a movement that promotes the very opposite of the principles that conservatives hold dear.”“The Ben Shapiro Show” host then railed against Carlson’s influence in the conservative movement for at least 15 minutes, accusing him of flirting with socialism, conducting softball interviews with dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the president of Iran and hosting “conspiracists on nearly every topic under the sun, uncritically nodding at their most bizarre assertions.”“He has accused the Trump administration of covering up a Mossad-run child sex trafficking ring run by Jeffrey Epstein without of course actually mentioning Donald Trump’s name because Tucker is a coward when it comes to President Trump,” Shapiro said.“Carlson, of course, reserves his chief foreign policy ire, unsurprisingly, for Israel with which he has a peculiar obsession,” he said.“And of course, Tucker Carlson has hosted and glowingly treated America’s foremost Hitler apologist, Nick Fuentes.“A conservatism that...