News/Commentary

Ben Shapiro takes sides in tariff war: ‘Navarro is wrong. Elon is right’

April 8, 2025 | | Print Article

A public spat between two of President Donald Trump’s advisers found Ben Shapiro asserting which one was “100% right” on tariffs.

As the markets reacted wildly to the advancement of the president’s tariff policy and he discouraged “panic” while nations around the world reportedly reached out to negotiate, Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk and senior counselor for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro were having their own war of words over the weekend.

By Monday, after the world’s richest man had slammed Navarro who, “ain’t built sh*t,” The Daily Wire host and co-founder was siding with Musk, “Elon happens to be 100% right about this.”

Summing up the spat during a segment of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” Shapiro asserted, “The most obvious manifestation of debate inside the administration is coming courtesy of Elon Musk. Elon happens to be 100% right about this. So Elon Musk is ripping into trade adviser Peter Navarro. Navarro is a big tariff advocate. He’s been a big tariff advocate for years. And the Tesla CEO ripped Peter Navarro as someone who ‘ain’t built bleep.'”

On Saturday, Musk reacted to a clip of Navarro making an appearance on CNN to promote the tariffs by stating, “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem.”

Shapiro, who himself had received his Juris Doctor from Harvard University, brought that up along with a reaction to a quote and said, “And then when asked about his Harvard PhD in economics, he said, that’s a bad thing, not a good thing. And then he posted a quote from economist Thomas Sowell that said ‘In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it.”

“Meanwhile, Musk himself suggested that he wants a zero-tariff situation, which, again, this is the good explanation for why you would do the tariff game. I urge the president to do precisely what Musk is saying here. Go to zero with all these countries. Go to zero. That’s a win. Take the win, move on. That would be good for the economy, good for you, you’d have flexed your muscle, you’d flexed American muscle. That’d be good,” asserted the commentator.

For his part, Navarro challenged the motives of the DOGE head who’d promoted a zero-tariff scenario between the United States and Europe, arguing that Musk’s own economic interests were at play on Fox News.

“Elon, when he’s in his DOGE lane, is great. But we understand what’s going on here. We just have to understand, Elon sells cars. And he’s in Texas assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China, the batteries come from Japan or China, the electronics come from Taiwan, and he’s simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do,” the adviser said.

Among those who were also speaking out against the risk of a trade war, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said on his “Verdict” podcast Friday, “I’m seeing a lot of Republican cheerleaders reflexively defending what the White House is doing,” while warning about the potential it might “destroy jobs here at home and do real damage to the U.S. economy.”

“If we go into a recession, particularly a bad recession, 2026, in all likelihood, politically, would be a bloodbath,” continued the senator, speaking of the potential outcome of the midterm elections. “You would face a Democrat House, and you might even face a Democrat Senate.”

Concluding his own point in part, Shapiro added, “Navarro is wrong. Elon is right. It’s that simple.”

Kevin Haggerty
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