Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro delivered a powerful monologue at the opening night of Turning Point USA's AmericaFest on Thursday, clearly outlining what conservatism is, what it should strive to be, and what it must not become. He stood out as a figure of moral clarity, as conservatism approaches a new horizon, demanding that figures like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Nick Fuentes not become thought leaders of conservatism.
“The future of the country relies on the future of the conservative movement,” Shapiro said. “It relies on what TPUSA defines as its core mission: freedom, free markets, and limited government.”
Conspiracy theories, and those that push them unrelentingly, offer nothing but “bile and despair," he said.
“These people are frauds, and they are grifters,” Shapiro proclaimed. “And they are something worse: a danger to the only movement capable of stopping the Left from wrecking the country wholesale.”
Conservative commentators have “five obligations” to their listeners, according to Shapiro. In order of importance, they go: truth, principle, responsibility, evidence, and solutions.
“We owe you the truth,” Shapiro said. “That means we should not mislead you; it means we shouldn’t hide the ball; we shouldn’t be deliberately obscure about what we are telling you.”
Shapiro explicitly called out Candace Owens and accused her of using Charlie Kirk's assassination for her own gain. Her baseless allegations provide a “moral obligation” to call her out, he argued. Without a moral and principled foundation, conservatism ceases to be a movement at all.
“If Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions at TPUSA and the people who work here…to spew absolutely baseless trash implicating everyone from French intelligence to Mossad to members of TPUSA in Charlie’s murder or a coverup in that murder…then we, as people with a microphone, have a moral obligation to call that out, by name.”
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The crowd cheered.
Ben then went on to call out two other grifters by name, Tucker Carlson, who was going to speak later that night, and neo-nazi Nick Fuentes, whom Carlson hosted, and glossed over the fact that Fuentes claimed to be an admirer of none other than Joseph Stalin.
“If you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of sh*t like Nick Fuentes – the Nick Fuentes who said that the Vice President of the United States is a ‘fat gay race traitor married to a jeet,’ the person who said that Charlie Kirk was a ‘retarded idiot’ and that he ‘took Turning Point USA and f*cked it…and that’s why it’s filled with Groypers’ – and you proceed to glaze him, you ought to own it,” Shapiro said, adding that Charlie Kirk “despised Fuentes” because “he knew that Fuentes is an evil troll and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility.”
He went on to accuse Carlson of cowardice, claiming that Carlson often suggested, without directly naming whom he was discussing, that President Trump was beholden to the Israeli government and that he was attempting to cover up Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilic sex trafficking ring.
“It is our job to make the lives of our audience better-informed, and just generally better,” Shapiro concluded. “We have a duty to propose solutions.”
“We who speak to people on a regular basis have duties to you: the duty to speak the truth,” he said. “The duty to speak from principle, not personal feeling; the duty to take responsibility for our actions; the duty to provide you evidence — to do more than conspiracize or ‘just ask questions’; and the duty to posit real solutions.”
“If we fail in those duties, you ought not listen to us.”
I recommend you watch his fiery speech in its entirety:
🚨 Ben Shapiro goes SCORCHED EARTH at TPUSA on “frauds”, “grifters”, and “charlatans” Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens
— Ryan Saavedra (@RyanSaavedra) December 19, 2025
He blasts Megyn Kelly for her “cowardice” for refusing to stand up for the truth and condemn Candace’s conspiracy theories and lies
Watch every second of this pic.twitter.com/j7LvZFBDJN
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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