Skip to main content
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Epstein
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search
  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Epstein
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS

VIDEO: The Daily Wire's obsession with violence

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Research contributions from John Knefel

Published 02/12/24 12:30 PM EST

As right-wing blog The Daily Wire expands its reach, it has also stepped up calls for violence against LGBTQ people and others. 

Founded in 2015 by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing, The Daily Wire has grown beyond its significant Facebook following — recently signing a streaming deal with X (formerly Twitter), pouring $100 million into new children's programming, and producing feature-length movies. But amid all these efforts to expand The Daily Wire into new markets, its hosts have continued pushing bigoted, extreme rhetoric targeting trans people, unhoused people, health care providers, and more. 

Daily Wire personalities often use a rhetorical device called stochastic terrorism, a process of associating marginalized groups with vile or disgusting acts in order to incite violence against them.

Hosts Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, and Candace Owens frequently uses their programs to attack doctors who provide gender-affirming care, even smearing a children's hospital by claiming children were being tortured and mutilated there while dismissing the potential harm that could result from their words. Then, when the hospital received a bomb threat, Walsh dismissed concerns by suggesting that liberals were responsible.

Stochastic terrorism can result in real harm, and The Daily Wire has become a platform for amplifying these calls for violence.

The Latest

  1. Trump's Jeffrey Epstein post contradicts what top Fox hosts have argued

    Article 07/14/25 12:23 PM EDT

  2. Benny Johnson: “The release of the Epstein client list ... is the number one motivating issue for the base”

    Video & Audio 07/14/25 11:29 AM EDT

  3. Fox host Brian Kilmeade on California farm worker who died fleeing an ICE raid: “Sad, but why are you running?”

    Video & Audio 07/14/25 10:16 AM EDT

  4. MAGA media are seemingly flooding the internet with AI slop about Florida's new detention center

    Research/Study 07/14/25 9:26 AM EDT

  5. Daily Wire host asks if John Brennan and James Comey investigation was leaked to “distract us” from Jeffrey Epstein

    Video & Audio 07/14/25 9:09 AM EDT

Pagination

  • Previous page ‹‹
  • …
  • Current page 52
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • The Daily Wire

    daily wire_mmfatag
  • Matt Walsh

    Matt Walsh tag
  • Ben Shapiro

    Ben-Shapiro-MMFA-Tag.png
  • Candace Owens

    Candace-Owens-MMFA-Tag.png

Related

  1. As mass deportation intensifies, right-wing media expand their aim to include American citizens

    Article 08/25/25 11:50 AM EDT

  2. Candace Owens lashes out at Donald Trump for “letting go of the Jeffrey Epstein story”

    Video & Audio 08/21/25 4:47 PM EDT

  3. Media Matters weekly newsletter, August 15

    Narrative/Timeline 08/15/25 10:44 AM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates
  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS

© 2025 Media Matters for America

RSS