Conservative political pundit Ben Shapiro voiced his frustrations with the “bizarre” and “ugly” take on Israel’s war with Hamas, calling out former Fox News host Tucker Carlson over a recent interview he had conducted.

“There are some people on the right who I think are being fully disingenuous and who are looking for an excuse to jump right on the same moral equivalency bandwagon as the left. I think there are certainly people like that. We’ve talked about them on the show before. I’m sure we’ll talk about them on the show again,” he began on “The Ben Shapiro Show” Monday.

“But one of the moves that’s being made in order to stifle Israel’s response to this is to claim that if Israel does respond, as it has to respond, to root out Hamas entirely, and this will end in World War III,” he said.

“[Tucker] and I want the same thing: no war with Iran, no American involvement in this region of the world that amounts to American boots on the ground. We all want the same thing here. But the idea is that if you think America should flex its muscles to push Hezbollah off the… pic.twitter.com/7tmwWkWRug

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 24, 2023

“So yesterday, Tucker had on his program a general named Douglas MacGregor. MacGregor has in the past suggested that Jewish money is behind American support for Israel and all the rest. But MacGregor has military expertise and he is essentially now warning that Armageddon is coming and his proposed solution would be that Israel does nothing,” he continued. “Which, by the way, absolutely promotes the idea of Armageddon, because if Israel does nothing after 1,500 of its citizens are slaughtered and Hamas remains in place, the chances of a broad-scale multi-front attack on Israel that will require American intervention go up radically.”

Shapiro was referring to Carlson’s recent talk with retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor who seemed to propose that that U.S. support for Israel could trigger a war with Iran.

Ep. 33 Looks like we’re actually going to war with Iran. Are we ready for this? pic.twitter.com/Ap09hWnvnj

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 23, 2023

“MacGregor has also been an advocate of the United States basically leaving Ukraine to fry. But when MacGregor says things like ‘We are right on the verge of war,’ the whole point is deterrence. Deterrence is a thing,” Shapiro said.

“You know what emboldens Iran? Weakness. This has been true for literally ever. But there’s been this equation that’s now happened on the right where if you stand up to a terror power, the idea is that it somehow puts America in a position that is weaker, which again, is a not right-wing position, that is not a conservative position. It’s never been a conservative position so far as I’m aware,” he continued.

“Peace through strength has been a conservative position for as long as I’ve been alive, certainly. This idea that you are heightening the chances of a world war if America actually flexes its muscles sometimes, it’s a bizarre one when what we know is precisely the opposite,” he went on, adding that President Joe Biden’s administration has been “conciliatory toward Iran,” thus triggering the response from Israel.

“That’s one of the reasons. The pullout from Afghanistan is another reason,” Shapiro told listeners.

“So McGregor says this thing won’t stay contained, which would be mostly true if America weren’t there to keep a lid on it. The whole point of America having aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean is to say, keep it, keep a lid on it. Don’t open up a second front with Hezbollah, because that is going to tear the lid off,” he added.

He played another excerpt from the more than 25-minute interview before continuing his commentary.

“First of all, everyone has an interest in keeping this contained. Everyone,” he declared before calling out Carlson for a “scurrilous” take on the issue.

“So but again, there’s this ugly thing that’s been happening, Tucker does it a lot, in which he suggests that if you disagree with him on the tactic to keep the thing contained — he and I want the same thing: No war with Iran, no American involvement in this region of the world that amounts to American boots on the ground, we all want the same thing here — but the idea is that if you think America should flex its muscles in order to push Hezbollah off the ball, for example, then this means that you actually want the war with Iran, which of course is really scurrilous. It is not true,” Shapiro contended.

Earlier this month, Shapiro had criticized Carlson for “downplaying” the terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, saying, “But here is Tucker playing — I don’t even know the game he’s playing. It’s just a dumb, it’s a dumb game.”