Laura Loomer, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

Podcast Wars: Benny Johnson on the “traitors,” Nick Fuentes on the “freaks,” and Ben Shapiro tells us who “dips his head in lard every morning”

This week's right-wing podcaster infighting

Written by Noah VanDowe & Ben Van Bloem

Published

Welcome to Media Matters’ regular debrief on the Podcast Wars. This week, online hosts in the right-wing podcast universe continued to launch vicious personal attacks at their contemporaries, with Tucker Carlson taking heat from a wide range of commentators on the right.

  • Tucker Carlson vs. ... everyone

    • Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro criticized JD Vance for refusing to condemn Tucker Carlson over ties to antisemitism, warning the vice president that their relationship “is going to come along with a political and yes, a moral cost.” Shapiro also mocked Carlson’s recent interview with artist Jeff Elofson in which the two decried the existence of algebra, which Elofson called “fake math with letters” used by “good little goy slaves.” Shapiro commented, “Every day, new levels of retardation are reached.”  
    • Carlson attacked Shapiro during his interview with Elofson last week, declaring, “The meritocracy as practiced in the United States is not a meritocracy. … That's how you wind up with a system where Ben Shapiro gets into Harvard.” Shapiro responded, “It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and it will only be uncovered by a man who dips his head in lard every morning.”
    • Right-wing host Tim Pool responded to Carlson’s interview with Elofson, asking, “I wonder if the goal of Tucker is to demoralize. And I mean that seriously.”

  • The influencers who are “too stupid” for Nick Fuentes

    • White nationalist Nick Fuentes took swipes at Carlson and his “idiot brother” Buckley, calling them “scum.” He encouraged his viewers to “decouple” from the “retard right,” condemning “these freaks, the Ian Carrolls, the Jake Shields, the Dan Bilzerians, the Candace Owens, the Tucker Carlsons. ... They're too weird, they're too stupid, they're not even right-wing.”

  • Laura Loomer takes a victory lap on Milo Yiannopoulos' deportation

    • After taking credit for the arrest and deportation of right-wing influencer Milo Yiannopoulos in August, right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer launched into an invective-filled rant last Friday calling him a “complete tweaker” and a “loudmouth, homosexual freak of nature.” Loomer then slammed “Mr. America First, Tucker Qatarlson” for speaking with Yiannopoulos — an “illegal alien amplifying divisive rhetoric against the president” — on his podcast.

  • Benny Johnson on Shapiro: “We should never forget these traitors”

    • Right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson declared he would “never forgive Ben Shapiro” for defending Jimmy Kimmel from pressure by the Federal Communications Commission last year. “We had people that betrayed us, traitors on our own side that betrayed us on behalf of Jimmy Kimmel,” Johnson complained, adding, “We should never forget these traitors, and we should come up with an actual — a list — a full list of exactly who these people are.”