Ben Shapiro has been a fixture in American politics for more than 20 years. We met him on the set of The Ben Shapiro Show, one of America’s most popular podcasts. A natural communicator, he seeks to deliver a no-nonsense conservative message.
Decades before the camera, however, Shapiro prepared for the spotlight in a much different way, spending years of intense, deliberate practice from childhood as a violinist.
“My dad would take me into the restaurant and play piano, and I’d be playing in front of crowds, and I was like 6 or 7 years old, just for fun,” Shapiro tells CBN News. “And so I’ve never been concerned about being in front of crowds or speaking publicly or anything like that. It just doesn’t compute.”
It’s all part of a Jewish middle-class upbringing in Southern California where he learned valuable life lessons from two loving parents.
“My parents were always extremely duty-driven and meritocracy-based,” says Shapiro. “So the idea was if you work hard, then you will succeed, and it’s incumbent on you to work hard. You don’t get to whine unless you’re doing the work.”
And work he did… graduating high school at 16, becoming a syndicated columnist at 17, graduating college at 20, and finishing Harvard Law School at 23.
Eventually Shapiro settled into media full-time, ruffling feathers along the way. Years ago, as a commentator, he called transgenderism a lie, logically arguing that biological sex is determined by biology and chromosomes. When a transgender man aggressively told Shapiro he better stop talking like that or he’ll go home in an ambulance, Shapiro calmly and famously retorted, “That seems mildly inappropriate for a political discussion.”
Combining that wit and wisdom with a lot of logic and facts, Shapiro began the influential Daily Wire. With his popular show and viral clips, he still carries enormous sway, although now, as a father of 5, he also enjoys life as a regular dad.
“I get up in the morning, I take care of my kids. I make them all breakfast,” Shapiro tells CBN News. “I get them off ready for school. I try to let mommy sleep in a little bit because of the new baby. And then, they go to school. I try to get all my work done before they get home from school. They get home from school. I’m playing ball with my 10-year-old son. I’m doing homework with my 12-year-old; I’m giving people rides around the house. My kids think I don’t have a job. Thank God that that’s the way I’ve been able to construct my life.”
As an Orthodox Jew, Ben Shapiro found his world shaken on October 7th. “The reaction to the full scale pogrom style massacre of 1,200 Jews, which was by a lot of people, that the Jews had it coming, and that they deserved it, and that this was part of a broader Jewish plot globally to control events, that was something I did not really see coming,” Shapiro says. “I thought that was kind of shocking and astonishing to me. And the amount of criticism that was directed at me on a personal level because I am a Jew, as opposed to the arguments that I was making… that was kind of shocking.”
He believes the politics of envy, pitting the successful vs. the unsuccessful, is in large part helping fuel the antisemitism growth of today.
“When that is grafted onto foreign policy, the idea is that Israel, particularly successful, its opponents are unsuccessful; therefore, Israel is the great exploiter,” he says. “Or if you take it to American politics, the idea is the Jews are disproportionately well-educated and high income; they must design the system for their own benefit in order to harm others. And so that policy, I think, was brewing under the surface, and I think October 7th was the opportunity for a lot of people to sort of shout that from the rooftops.”
So what is Shapiro’s definition of antisemitism? “What antisemitism really is, is a conspiracy theory about the power of Jews in the world,” Shapiro says. “That’s what it is. The idea that there is a collective Jewish body that is desiring to keep you down through manipulation of the systems.”
Former Fox News host turned podcaster Tucker Carlson is a leader of this conversation and seems a bit obsessed when it comes to talking about Shapiro on his show. I asked Shapiro if he considers Carlson antisemitic. “I would say that Tucker traffics in antisemitism as a matter of course, literally every day. There’s not an episode of his show that I can recall in which is not posited the disproportionate power of conspiratorial Jewry.”
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
So is there a difference between Carlson and Candace Owens? “I would say that Candace’s view of antisemitism is more overt, pretty obviously,” Shapiro tells CBN News. “I mean, she spreads theories up to and including the idea that Jews drink Christian blood, which is like full-scale blood libel, Middle Ages kind of stuff. And Tucker is, frankly, higher IQ than Candace. So I think that he doesn’t tend to fall into that trap. Instead, he tends to channel it into what his preferred sort of foreign policy critique, which is that a cabal of various Jews is controlling American foreign policy.”
It also forces Shapiro to constantly deal with a conspiracy theory crowd who trusts no one, not even basic facts. “There’s no way for you to even have a basic argument. And you see this, people who are just so adrift in the conspiracy theories that there’s no way to have a normal conversation, because the minute you debunk the conspiracy using facts, they think you’re part of the conspiracy.”
In addition to taking on conspiracy theorists, Shapiro knows there’s a battle for the future of the conservative movement post-Trump.
“I think the attempt to replicate Trump’s coalition is going to fail. Because I don’t think that any politician can just pick up the prior politician’s coalition and win with it,” he says. “I do not see an area of Trump’s coalition that does not shrink under JD Vance. You’ve got to build your own coalition. There’s a world where JD builds an entirely new coalition that looks different, but does he win more blue-collar white voters than Trump? Hard to see how, because Trump won every single blue-collar, white voter. Does he do better with evangelical Christians than Trump? I’m not sure that he does…I know Republicans are very optimistic about 2028. I’m far less optimistic because again, the pendulum in American politics swings. The president is riding in the mid-30s, low 30s right now. And so anybody who’s a member of his administration is going to have an uphill battle.”
Ultimately for Ben Shapiro, this isn’t about politics or even conservatism. It’s about a way of life: taking personal responsibility and making wise choices.
“I think that a lot of my key worldviews come directly from Jewish thinking, Old Testament Jewish thinking. So the basic idea, which is that responsibility lies with you; you should do better; that is a key biblical worldview.”
And then the Orthodox Shapiro laid out his number one suggestion for a return to sanity in American politics. “Go back to church. I’m a Jew. Everybody who’s Christian needs to go back to church. If you’re a secular, go back to church, like go to church because this is where you learn fundamental truths. It’s where you form social fabric. It’s where there’s still a mooring.”
So what is Shapiro’s message to the next generation?
“It’s in your hands, and anyone who tells you that it’s not in your hands, in the freest, greatest country in the history of the world, is lying for their own gain,” Shapiro emphatically says. “Like, go do something today that is going to make your life and the life of somebody around you better. And if you keep doing that over and over and over, you will end up with just a better life, and you will end up marrying, and you’ll have kids, and it will be wonderful. If you don’t, if you sit there and you let everybody else tell you that nothing is in your hands, then sin crouches at your door, and you won’t be able to overcome it.”
Wise counsel from a man who preaches common sense for a living.
