- The two most prominent conservative commentators, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, are at war.
- Shapiro delivered a speech at the Heritage Foundation, arguing that Carlson is not a conservative.
- New poll finds GOP voters also diverge on national identity, foreign policy and conspiracy theories.
The conservative civil war over national identity, foreign policy and conspiracy theories escalated on Wednesday as Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro made the case that fellow podcast host Tucker Carlson is not, in fact, conservative.
Shapiro and Carlson were recently recognized by the Reuters Institute Digital News Report as the two most prominent conservative commentators in America. They also represent two sides of a struggle over how to define the conservative movement.
A survey from the conservative Manhattan Institute published earlier this month found that new members of the coalition assembled by President Donald Trump in 2024 hold less conservative policy positions and more conspiratorial attitudes.
“The conservative movement is at an inflection point,” the report’s co-author, Jesse Arm, told the Deseret News. “Trump is sort of a singular political talent and an incredibly unique figure in the arc of American political history. So what comes next remains to be seen.”
As Republicans begin to look forward to a post-Trump GOP, Arm said Shapiro and Carlson are battling it out over how to define the conservative movement so that it can be best represented by candidates in the 2028 presidential election.
What did Shapiro say about Carlson?
During his Wednesday speech at the Heritage Foundation — a policy institute at the center of right-wing rifts — Shapiro argued that the conservative movement will fail if it embraces Carlson’s disregard for traditional conservative principles.
These principles are outlined in the Heritage Foundation mission statement, Shapiro said, which include: “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
Shapiro outlined Carlson’s well-established views criticizing free market capitalism, casting doubt on constitutional institutions, catastrophizing global military intervention and claiming foreign control over the U.S. government.
This Carlson does all while accusing conservatives of committing “Christian heresy” for supporting Israel, praising dictators who oppose U.S. interests and elevating guests like white nationalist Nick Fuentes, according to Shapiro.
The ideology Carlson has articulated to his “gigantic audience” since starting his own independent platform in 2023 “does not resemble actual conservatism in any way, shape or form,” Shapiro said. Carlson’s followers total nearly 17 million on X and 5 million on YouTube.
But the “real question” is not about online influencers like Carlson, according to Shapiro. It is about why the stewards of the conservative movement would choose to treat him “as a thought leader,” Shapiro said.
“A movement without a border is no movement,” Shapiro said. “If conservatives do not stand up and draw lines, conservatism, and the dream of America itself, will cease to exist. It will cease to exist because the conservative movement will have committed suicide.”
The Heritage Foundation fiasco
Since the first Reagan administration, the Heritage Foundation has functioned as one of the most effective Republican think tanks in Washington, D.C., vetting conservative judges and preparing the Project 2025 policy brief for the Trump administration.
The Heritage Foundation has also historically been one of the leading institutions “helping to define and shape the contours of conservatism,” Shapiro said. But that is now up in the air, according to Shapiro, because leaders have failed to “maintain the foundations of that movement.”
In October, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts recorded a short video in defense of Carlson after the former Fox News host welcomed Fuentes on his show for a friendly interview. The organization hemorrhaged donors, scholars and partnerships in quick succession.
During his interview with Fuentes, Carlson offered minimal pushback as Fuentes blamed “organized Jewry in America” — and identified the “common denominator” of “Jewishness” — as the “main challenge” to keeping the country together.
Carlson did not ask Fuentes about his stances downplaying the Holocaust, celebrating Hitler, or declaring the need to remove Jews from government, force women to “shut up,” incarcerate most Black people and let white men “run everything.”
In the months since his interview with Fuentes, Carlson has dismissed the uproar over his interview — which included a video rebuttal from Shapiro that garnered over 40 million views — as an attempt to “cancel” him, and his authentically “America First” agenda.
Carlson has increasingly referenced Shapiro on his show, alleging that Shapiro — who is an American Jew with dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship — “does not care” about Americans, that he prioritizes Israeli interests over America’s and that he is falling in popularity.
Where is conservatism headed?
The Manhattan Institute poll found that while longstanding GOP voters hold consistently small-government positions, new entrants leaned more liberal and were more than three times as likely to believe in conspiracies and to openly express racist views.
The findings among young conservatives were similarly stark: They were significantly more likely to believe the Holocaust did not happen as historians describe, and significantly less likely to say those with antisemitic views aren’t welcome in the conservative movement.
Over the past two years, Carlson has focused his program more and more on Israel, decrying the country’s killing of civilians in Gaza, and alleging the corrupt influence of Israeli intelligence operations at the highest levels of American power.
In October, Carlson described his “five pillars of MAGA” as being: always use an “America First” lens on policy decisions, secure the country’s borders, put a stop to “endless wars,” reorient the economy toward “real” manufacturing jobs and protect free speech.
Over the years, Carlson has often shifted his views on key issues, as he often admits on his show. Since leaving Fox, it appears he is “going where the incentives take him” to sell a “different product” to a “different audience,” according to Arm.
It is an open question whether institutions like the Heritage Foundation are even able to build guardrails around the conservative movement, like they did historically, in an information era dominated by decentralized media and internet algorithms, Arm said.
“We’ll find out,” Arm said. “It’s just a whole different world out there.”