(LifeSiteNews) — The controversy on the political right over Israeli and Zionist influence in Republican politics came into full view at Turning Point USA’s AmFest in Phoenix this past weekend, with acute demands for “deplatforming” critics of Israel from Ben Shapiro and sharp rebuttals from Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon and Vice President J.D. Vance.
Tensions began when Shapiro gave his keynote address last Thursday evening where he attacked Candace Owens for “casting aspersions at TPUSA “ in a “vicious” way, charged his “friend” Megyn Kelly with “cowardice” for not condemning her, and then went on to assail Tucker Carlson for interviewing Nicholas Fuentes, who is often referred to as a “white nationalist and antisemite,” Andrew Tate, and Daryl Cooper.
Megyn Kelly: ‘We’re not the policemen of the conservative movement’
In addition to Owens providing her own response on her popular podcast, Megyn Kelly replied during a “fireside chat” the next day with Jack Posobiec, who happened to hold a Holy Rosary during the interview.
Though describing herself as “pro-Israel,” she recalled how she and Charlie Kirk felt pressured to “not allow the doubters their say, to try to censor them or disagree with them publicly or call them out. And neither Charlie nor I felt like that was what we wanted to do at all, nor was it our job. We’re not the policemen of the conservative movement. I’m not, he wasn’t. Ben Shapiro isn’t either.”
When Posobiec asked if she would like to respond to Shapiro’s comments directly, she said she “found it kind of funny that Ben thinks he has the power to decide who gets excommunicated from the conservative movement, which shows a willful blindness about his position in it.”
At AMFest, Megyn Kelly pushed back against calls to police conservative voices, saying, “We’re not the policemen of the conservative movement… and I resent that he thinks he’s in a position to decide who must say what to whom and when…”
Tune in here: https://t.co/Ci8c350hE1 pic.twitter.com/wsAPDwpmhG
— One America News (@OANN) December 20, 2025
Saying she resented and objected to his entire message, she observed “he had the nerve to call me a friend right before he called me a despicable coward for not calling out the people he wants called out.”
“So he both wants to parent me and be my child. He wants to tell me what I have to do, and who I have to say what to, and then when I don’t, he and some of his friends want to act like utter victims because I won’t do what they say,” she continued. “They need me. I have to be their daddy and step in to protect them. And I am not their daddy. And I resent that he thinks he’s in a position to decide who must say what to whom and when.”
Tucker: Charlie Kirk died for free speech
For his part, Carlson made light of Shapiro’s comments during his speech on Thursday and explained his dismay that leftist tactics of calling for cancellation had infected Republican ranks. He characterized demands for denouncing others to be part of “the whole Red Guard Cultural Revolution thing that was so hated and feared on the left,” and the goal of the past election was to “usher in a new time where you could have an actual debate.”
“This was kind of the whole point of Charlie Kirk’s public life,” he said about the young TPUSA founder who was assassinated in September. “And I think that he died for it. I really believe that.”
Tucker Carlson totally upstaged Ben Shapiro—very mature, well articulated response after Shapiro called for Tucker to be denounced on AmFest stage. Really poor use of his platform. That’s not what Charlie would’ve wanted. We’re better than this.pic.twitter.com/g0x7Edonnu
— William Branson Donahue (@realwilldonahue) December 19, 2025
Having come under “immense pressure” from donors to TPUSA over the summer to cancel the very speech Carlson was giving, the former flagship Fox News host said “Charlie stood firm in his often stated and deeply held belief that people should be able to debate, and that if you have something valid to say, if you’re telling the truth, you ought to be able to explain it calmly and in detail to people who don’t agree with you.” And further, one “shouldn’t immediately resort” to the sin of rash judgment of impugning their interlocutor’s motives.
“But the style of debate where you prevent the other side from talking or being heard because you immediately go to motive,” he explained, “I kind of thought we’d reached the end of that. And as far as I’m concerned, we have and I’m not going to play by those rules.”
Bannon: ‘It’s about an expansionist Israel,’ must ‘re-Christianize this country’
“War Room” host Steve Bannon was far blunter in his assessment of Shapiro’s attacks, saying they had nothing to do with freedom of speech and being “platformed or deplatformed,” but were rather a conflict over “this concept of what I would call ‘Greater Israel’ and ‘Israel First.’”
“It’s about an expansionist Israel, an imperial Israel that Netanyahu and that crowd have thought up. And the Israel First crowd is Ben Shapiro, Tel Aviv, Mark Levin, and many others who want to put that ahead of America’s interests,” he said.
Calling Shapiro “the farthest thing from MAGA,” Bannon contrasted him to Charlie Kirk, whom he described as a “populist nationalist” who thus believed “America makes its own decisions for America” and “the American people are the people that make those decisions.”
“But Ben Shapiro is like a cancer, and that cancer spreads. It’s a cancer and it metastasizes. He tried to take over Breitbart and I ran him out of there. He tried to take over David Horowitz, who was his mentor,” Bannon continued. “And mark my word, he will make a move on Turning Point because he’s always been envious of Charlie Kirk.”
“What was Charlie Kirk’s lesson? That we were a Christian nation that got off the rails. We have to re-Christianize this country,” he concluded.
JD Vance: No more ‘self-defeating purity tests’
For his part, Vice President J.D. Vance denounced the “endless self-defeating purity tests” which divide and shrink a necessarily broad political coalition during his closing keynote speech on Sunday.
“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” he said in his remarks. “The best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he himself refused to do in life. He invited all of us here. Charlie invited all of us here for a reason: because he believed that each of us, all of us, had something worth saying and he trusted all of you to make your own judgment.”
So Ben Shapiro opened AMFEST by demanding that everyone denounce Tucker, Candace & Fuentes. Then every speech after that was basically a denunciation of Ben Shapiro’s stupid speech. Including this one by JD Vance. pic.twitter.com/uOaDCKTI8j
— Anthony (@Catholicizm1) December 22, 2025
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