Leah Hogsten/AP
- Ben Shapiro stormed out of a BBC interview after getting heated over questions related to his stance on abortion and a harsh new law in Georgia.
- Shapiro accused Andrew Neil, who’s a well-known conservative in the UK, of being a "leftist."
- "I am not inclined to continue an interview with someone as badly motivated as you," Shapiro said before abruptly ending the discussion.
- Shapiro, a conservative commentator famous for challenging people to debate him, has apologized over the interview and said he was bested by Neil.
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Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator who’s garnered a reputation for challenging people to debate him, stormed out of a BBC interview when he didn’t like the questions being posed.
Shapiro accused the interviewer — Andrew Neil, the chairman of the conservative magazine The Spectator — of being a "leftist" after a question on abortion and then abruptly ended the conversation.
But Shapiro was particularly annoyed with Neil’s suggestion that a harsh new anti-abortion in Georgia would take the US back to the "Dark Ages," and repeatedly harped on that point throughout the interview. Neil noted that under the law a woman could potentially get 30 years in prison for having a miscarriage or could get 10 years for traveling to another state and having an abortion, describing these as "extreme, hard policies."
"You purport to be an objective journalist," Shapiro said. "BBC purports to be an objective, down-the-middle network. It obviously is not, it never has been. And you as a journalist are proceeding to call one side of the political aisle ignorant, barbaric, and sending us back to the Dark Ages, why don’t you just say you’re on the left."
Shapiro was on the program to promote his new book, "The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great," which Neil noted focuses heavily on upholding Judeo-Christian values.
Neil pointed out a number of Shapiro’s controversial statements and tweets against certain groups, including Arabs, and suggested that the conservative commentator had turned his back on the Judeo-Christian culture he’s sought to defend.
Read more: How ‘owning the libs’ became the ethos of the right
"I hope you’re having fun," Shapiro said, accusing Neil of engaging in "gotcha questions."
At another point, Shapiro accused Neil of trying to make a "quick buck…off of the fact that I’m popular and no one has ever heard of you."
"I am not inclined to continue an interview with someone as badly motivated as you," Shapiro said before abruptly ending the discussion.
Shapiro, who’s well-known for stating "facts don’t care about your feelings," later apologized over the interview and admitted he’d been unprepared.
"Just pre-taped an interview with BBC’s @afneil. As I’m not familiar with him or his work, I misinterpreted his antagonism as political Leftism (he termed the pro-life position in America "barbaric") — and that was apparently inaccurate," Shapiro tweeted on Thursday. "For that, I apologize."
The interview went viral on Friday and Shapiro, who’s got over two million followers on Twitter, further tweeted, "Broke my own rule, and wasn’t properly prepared…it’s Neil 1, Shapiro 0."
See Also:
- Women could get up to 30 years in prison for having a miscarriage under Georgia’s harsh new abortion law
- The Alabama Senate floor broke out into a chaotic screaming match over a bill that would ban almost all abortions
- Georgia governor signs ‘heartbeat bill’ restricting abortion access, setting the stage for a court battle over the law
SEE ALSO: Nearly half of Republicans say it bothers them to hear a foreign language in public
DON’T MISS: Women could get up to 30 years in prison for having a miscarriage under Georgia’s harsh new abortion law
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (John Haltiwanger)