Ben Shapiro Calls Out Congressman Who Politicized Moment of Silence, Prayer for Texas Church Victims — it Ends Exactly as You’d Suspect

Image: Getty
Image: Getty
By
Managing Editor

Regardless of what one thinks about conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s views, one thing is for certain: he is a razor sharp debater and unless you are very prepared, it is generally inadvisable to verbally spar with him. Unless, of course, you enjoy looking foolish on the national stage, then by all means look him up on Twitter.

Apparently, Congressman Ted Lieu proudly counts himself among those who enjoy being humiliated in front of millions, because he decided to respond to Shapiro earlier today, and like most who’ve tried, failed miserably.

It doesn’t help matters that he was already on the wrong side of the argument, having just selfishly grandstanded during a moment of silence/prayer for the victims of the Texas church massacre. Instead of keeping all the attention on the victims, Congressman Lieu felt the need to walk out of the moment of silence, thus drawing all of the media attention on himself instead of the victims. This move was clearly in poor taste, and likely motivated by the fact that his supporters weren’t thrilled about his offering of  “thoughts and prayers” to the victims.

Feeling pressure, here’s how Lieu thought he’d fix things:

Using the victims in Texas to shamelessly promote voting for democrats seems like a big, giant leap in the wrong direction. But he wasn’t done, following that cringeworthy tweet with the walking out of the moment of silence stunt. He later bragged about it on Twitter:

Shapiro called him out on it:

Here’s where Lieu would’ve been better off refraining from any type of response, knowing the only possible outcome was him looking even worse. Then again, this is a guy who just shamelessly used the deaths of 26 people to plug voting for democrats, so it’s reasonable to expect he wasn’t thinking rationally. He thoughtlessly pecked at the keyboard, and here’s what spilled out:

Ted Lieu, you have chosen… poorly. But it’s educational for the rest of us, to see through the politics and play out these stunts to their logical end.

Shapiro responded with a question:

Lieu should’ve known this was a largely rhetorical question that did a great job of highlighting out awful a decision it was for Lieu to disrespectfully walk out. But having come this far, Lieu wasn’t about to quit losing now:

Lieu basically admits defeat here, agreeing that what he did would not be acceptable and essentially a sign of disrespect in other venues where the loss of life is being mourned. But this is Twitter, and this is Ted Lieu, and he wasn’t going to stop until his failure was complete:

Lieu still doesn’t realize he sounds like a democratic talking point bot in damage control mode. He is making no sense, it is clear he is putting petty politics over human dignity, and Shapiro called him on it:

He has not directly responded to this particular tweet.

He did reiterate, however, that he believes jarring people is the best way to honor victims.

There are plenty of ways to get attention, and Lieu refuses to admit that disrespecting those who offer “thoughts and prayers” during a moment of silence is a particularly terrible way to achieve his goal. This was his way of correcting his earlier ‘mistake’ by tweeting “thoughts and prayers” which is apparently a no-no for the pc among us.

Hopefully people realize sooner than later they can make their voices heard without disrespecting someone else in the process. We can do better than this, and kudos to Shapiro for calling this out.