Ben Shapiro Launches Scathing Attack on 'Con Artist' Andrew Tate

Ben Shapiro and Andrew Tate have once again exchanged a war of words after the former accused the controversial influencer of being a "con-artist".

The conservative political commentator slammed the former professional kickboxer as a "grifter" for his stance on pro-creation during a rant on The Ben Shapiro Show on Wednesday.

Tate is currently in Romania awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, rape, evidence tampering and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. Once his trial is concluded in Romania he will be extradited to the United Kingdom to face further charges of rape. He has denied all charges.

While he awaits trial, Tate has continued his controversial online series where he instructs men on his version of masculinity and his views on society, which Shapiro did not approve of, especially his attitude to fathering children.

Shapiro's rant was in response to a post by Tate on X, formerly Twitter, in which he lamented his belief that white men were having less babies with women and this meant their "genetic potential was stumped" and that "your race will be nothing more than a few pages in a history book."

Along with labeling men as "losers" for the perceived drop in birth rates amongst white people, he also blamed women for being "obsessed with money and social media as opposed to being one of many baby factories for a king."

"The way that he [Tate] quote unquote 'explodes the myths' is he plays a really stupid game. It's a game for stupid people," Shapiro began.

"The game is like this. I'm going to say two transgressive things, things that violate the taboos of the culture around me. One of those things is true, and one of those things is false."

Shapiro added: "But because they are both transgressive and because people will oppose me on both of them — one for bad reasons and one for good reasons — this means that I have somehow gotten under the skin of the matrix. Everyone opposes me, which is why I'm a rebel. That's Andrew Tate's entire game."

He then described Tate as "evil" for his attitudes towards women claiming he tells his followers to "treat women like garbage," and specifically in reference to comments Tate made about his belief that white men needed to procreate more.

"He is a con artist and he is conning you into doing something," Shapiro said. "He is conning you into giving away the only pathway toward actual societal success and personal success in favor of his vision of a Genghis Khan-like spreading of his seed," he added, referring to the 13th-century Mongolian ruler who was believed to be so prolific at procreating that he still has 16 million descendants living today.

Tate's comments exploit the global trend of a declining birth rate, but his reasoning for the drop, is deeply flawed.

Young people now have more fear about the future, so are reluctant to bring a child into the world, says one expert. "Young adults are living in a world which is characterized by many crises," Jessica Nisén, a family demographer at the University of Turku in Finland told Vox.

And economics plays a huge part in decisions about raising a family. People in the U.S. are less keen to have children because of financial insecurity and a lack of family-friendly policies which would support them juggling work and parenthood.

A 2018 poll by the New York Times found many respondents put off or stopped having children because of concerns about having enough time or money. The poll results showed 64 percent made the decision because child care was too expensive, 43 percent waited too long because of financial instability and about 40 percent because of a lack of paid family leave.

Tate responded to Shapiro's takedown by replying to a video of it posted on X.

"[sic] I inspire white people to have more children and Bens upset. I wonder why." Tate wrote.

Newsweek contacted Tate's representatives by email but they declined to comment.