Shapiro’s Speech At Turning Point Event Sparks Debate

By
Billy Costigan
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In a moment that cut through the noise of AmericaFest like a scalpel, Ben Shapiro delivered a blistering address on Thursday night, warning that the conservative movement is teetering on the edge of collapse—not because of the Left, but because of those within its own ranks.

Standing on the main stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, Shapiro didn’t mince words. With the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk still casting a long shadow, and conspiracy theories swirling in the wake of that tragedy, Shapiro took direct aim at those he believes are poisoning the movement from the inside with what he called “bile and despair.”


“These people are frauds, and they are grifters,” he declared. “And they are something worse: a danger to the only movement capable of stopping the Left from wrecking the country wholesale.”

The conservative commentator and Daily Wire co-founder laid out five core obligations for right-wing voices in the media era: truth, principle, responsibility, evidence, and solutions—pillars he believes are being willfully ignored by some of the most prominent figures on the Right.


And then, in an extraordinary departure from conservative media’s long-standing culture of circling the wagons, Shapiro named names.

He called out Candace Owens—his former colleague at The Daily Wire—for using Kirk’s death to push conspiracies implicating everyone from Mossad to TPUSA staff. Shapiro didn’t just reject her claims; he called them “specious and evil” and condemned those who stood by silently.


“If Candace Owens decides to spend every day since the murder of Charlie Kirk casting aspersions… then we, as people with a microphone, have a moral obligation to call that out—by name,” he said.

Owens, who has increasingly leaned into fringe rhetoric, has been the subject of growing unease within mainstream conservative circles. But few with Shapiro’s stature have addressed her behavior publicly—until now.


He didn’t stop there. In one of the most searing lines of the night, Shapiro torched Tucker Carlson, accusing him of “glazing” a Nazi-loving troll—referring to Nick Fuentes, whom Carlson has given airtime to, along with other controversial guests like Andrew Tate and Darryl Cooper.

“If you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of sh*t like Nick Fuentes… and you proceed to glaze him, you ought to own it.”


Shapiro made it crystal clear: platforming people who spew hate or conspiracy theories isn’t edgy—it’s dangerous. He added that Charlie Kirk “despised Fuentes” and knew firsthand the damage he was doing to the movement.

Throughout his remarks, Shapiro argued that truth must supersede tribal loyalty, even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable. The Right, he said, can’t afford to tolerate deceit, conspiracies, or cults of personality, especially at a time when it positions itself as the last line of defense against a radicalized Left.


“The duty to speak from principle, not personal feeling… the duty to provide evidence — to do more than conspiracize or ‘just ask questions’… If we fail in those duties, you ought not listen to us.”

It was a sharp, much-needed indictment of grifters masquerading as thought leaders, and a line in the sand for what the next generation of conservatism must become—serious, principled, and solution-oriented, or risk sliding into self-parody and irrelevance.

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