Ben Shapiro laid into the “low IQ grievance ideology” of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly on Tuesday night, urging a packed crowd of college students to reject the conspiracy theories, doomsday predictions, and anti-Trump rage being pushed by the podcasters.
During a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, the Daily Wire founder said that the three are pushing “a grievance-based view of the world in which they and those like them are perennial victims of the American system.”
Shapiro’s speech came just a few days after President Donald Trump ripped Carlson, Owens, and Kelly, saying they all have “Low IQs.”
“They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Shapiro expanded on the president’s observation and argued that the group of anti-Trump podcasters has bought into “conspiratorial grievance politics,” which he compared to a “zombie infection.”
“The attraction of low IQ ideology is envy,” Shapiro said. “A belief that lack of success is somehow a reflection not of bad decision-making or the hardship of life, but of a cruel system, designed by a nefarious cadre of evildoers. Envy. As Adam Smith put it, envy is ‘that passion which views with malignant dislike the superiority of those who are really entitled to all the superiority they possess.’”
Some of these beliefs have recently been demonstrated by Carlson, Owens, and Kelly, Shapiro said, giving multiple examples of how they have pushed conspiratorial grievance politics.
“You are indeed rolling in low IQ horesh*t if you believe, as Tucker Carlson does, that the president is a ‘slave’ to Israel, or that Alex Jones is a ‘prophet,’ or that the chief opposition to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was ‘globohomo,’ or that Russia is wonderfully run, or that Sharia Law produces wonderfully clean and robust civilizations, or that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, or that Nick Fuentes is less evil than Ted Cruz.”
Shapiro then called out the “low IQ slop” and “conspiratorial trash” pushed by Owens, who has suggested that Erika Kirk and Turning Point USA, along with the Israeli government, were involved in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Shapiro also blasted Owens for saying that Charlie Kirk appeared to her in a dream and for latching onto the conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron “has testicles.”
“And worst of all, you are preying on low-IQ people when you cynically humor all of the foregoing for clicks and cash, as Megyn Kelly does,” Shapiro continued. “Nobody is upset with Megyn Kelly’s facile, trite, hackneyed takes on Middle Eastern politics. People are upset with her absolute cowardice and annoyed by the fact that, as a 55-year-old person, she cosplays courage like a clout-chasing 16-year-old girl.”
Shapiro said the “low IQ grievance ideology” pushed by Carlson, Owens, and Kelly opposes the basic principles of what Shapiro called “high IQ conservatism.”
“High IQ conservatism rests on four foundations: free minds, free markets, public virtue, and a properly constructed government designed to protect these first three values,” he said.
To Make America Great Again, we need high IQ Conservatives. @benshapiro pic.twitter.com/YZ56hkT1ie
— YAF (@yaf) April 15, 2026
“But low IQ grievance ideology rejects the fundamental basis of these central principles,” Shapiro added.
He broke down how “low IQ grievance ideology” attempts to tear down free minds by arguing “that we are all victims of a sort of Marxist false consciousness, implanted in us by nefarious outside forces.” The ideology also attacks free markets “in true Marxist style.”
“Low IQ grievance ideology also argues that public virtue is a sham. The church your parents sent you to as a child? It’s probably fundamentally broken. Either it’s cucked, or it’s intolerant,” Shapiro said.
The ideology says “the people we really need to emulate are true heroes like alleged rapist Andrew Tate and role models like Clavicular,” Shapiro added. “Or people spouting new forms of Christianity that are actually old forms of non-Christianity that revive the Marcion heresy and revel in attributing literally everything to demons, from aliens to underwater sea creatures to strange nighttime dog scratches.”
The line for Shapiro’s speech at UPenn, his first college speech this year, stretched around the block.
Students are lining up around the block to see @benshapiro speak tonight at the University of Pennsylvania! pic.twitter.com/qTakAnsrNt
— YAF (@yaf) April 14, 2026
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