Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America / Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Screenshot, X (@realchrisrufo) / Screenshot, YouTube (Unherd), Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have tentatively agreed to a debate about definitions of antisemitism and Israel after some catty squabbling on X, and pundits across the political spectrum have weighed in with their own commentary.

Owens, who recently left Shapiro's The Daily Wire amidst a slew of disagreements over subjects relating to Jewish people and Israel,  began the interaction by challenging the Jewish pundit to a debate—an inversion of one of Shapiro's own trademarks, turning the tables against Owens' former colleague, who is famous for challenging progressive adversaries to debate him.

“I would like to debate Ben Shapiro on Israel and the *current* definition of antisemitism. Can somebody make that happen?” Owens asked on X.

Shapiro responded with his own proposal, which he claims he offered Owens over a month ago while she was still a part of The Daily Wire.

“Sure, Candace,” Shapiro said. “I texted you on February 29th offering this very thing. Let's do it on my show this Monday at 5pm at our studios in Nashville; 90 minutes, live-streamed.”

However, the terms of Shapiro's proposal were unacceptable to Owens, who proposed an alternative platform for the interaction.

“I’m sure you can appreciate why I’d prefer to keep this off the Daily Wire platform—as well as the true reason why we were never able to make any discussion happen,” Owens said. “Let’s choose a neutral, trustworthy platform. I vote [Patrick Bet-David].”

Shapriro dismissed this proposal and responded with hostility to the idea of having a moderator.

“Candace, I can see why you'd want to hide behind a moderator—particularly one who said we should rename our company the 'Daily Jewish Wire' just yesterday. No. One on one. Monday at 5 PM,” Shapiro said.

“We can sit down and have a healthy debate like adults, and we'll live-stream it on X and YouTube. Take it or leave it. As to the “true reason” you didn't respond to my offer to sit down with you and discuss these issues publicly or privately back in February, I have no idea what the hell you're talking about,” the yarmulke-wearing conservative pundit added.

After some more bickering, which involved Owens suggesting Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman as moderators, Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing stepped into the fray, essentially agreeing to most of Owens' conditions.

“You asked for a debate. Ben agreed to a debate. You don’t want it on a DW channel? Fine. We can live-stream it to your channels. You don’t want to shoot it at DW’s studios, fine, we’ll rent a studio in Nashville. You don’t want a DW crew? Fine. We’ll hire a local crew. You don’t want DW to pay for it? Fine. You’re rich. You can pay for it yourself. You don’t want to do it Monday? Fine. Let us know how long you need to prepare,” Boreing said.

“We will not agree to a moderator. No third party to put their finger on the scale. We will not agree to a virtual event or edited video. Live. In-person. One-on-one. The rest of this is just noise,” Boreing added.

This response provoked the sarcastic derision of Muslim Skeptic founder Daniel Haqiqatjo, who responded on X to Boreing's proposal.

“Wow, you're sooo generous to agree to the very basics of neutrality,” Haqiqatjo wrote.

Dissident pundit Nicolo Soldo, who frequently criticizes the “American empire” and the conservative movement in his Substack “Fisted by Foucault,” responded dismissively to the entire squabble, deriding the pending “debate” at the heart of the matter.

“Gayest slapfight ever…naturally a “debate” is part of it,” Soldo wrote on X.

Before the terms of the debate were settled, activist Chris Rufo also stepped into the fray, purportedly making an exception to his general policy of not getting involved in intra-conservative disputes and levying criticism of Owens' conduct.

“Owens is a gifted speaker, who has been able to turn controversy into attention—a valuable capability—but she does not advance a serious politics. She is clearly traveling down an ugly, but, unfortunately, well-trodden path… There is an audience for this kind of material—Inforwars does a robust business in vitamins and emergency prep kits—but it's a political dead end,” Rufo wrote on X.

Journalist Michael Tracey also opined about the perceived weaknesses of Candace Owens, contending that the Daily Wire exile suffered from a lack of a coherent worldview.

“The problem with Candace Owens (and myriad other online political personalities) is there's no apparent systematized thinking to her output—she just flails around from drama to drama. It's fine (even good) when people evolve their views—if it's based on rigorous thought, consideration of new information, and self-reflection or self-criticism.”

“But it's simply a bad mental habit when people swing volatilely back and forth between positions for no discernible reason other than, seemingly, response to algorithmic trends,” Tracey continued. “Here's one way to think about it: could Candace Owens sit down and write 2,000 cogent words on the Israel-Palestine conflict? (The topic she's now leveraging for her latest personal drama?)”

“If she'd be unable to accomplish this basic task, despite regularly opining about the issue in public, is Candace really a public “thinker” that anyone should go out of their way to model, exalt, or emulate?” Tracey concluded.