The Ben Shapiro Show - June 19, 2026


Meet Mat Nuclear: The Left’s Newest Internet Nightmare Joins Daily Wire

The Truth About the American Affordability Crisis And Why Don Lemon Is Wrong JD Vance's Weekend Was Worse Than You Think

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

208.66

Word count

2,104

Sentence count

125

People

Also mentioned:
Matt Nuclear Zip Recruiter Gen Z Jubilee Chrome Dude

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Matt Nuclear joins us on the Daily Wire to talk about his new show, The Nuclear Reaction, where he takes on all comers on a variety of controversial topics. We talk about how he got into the field, how he prepares for each episode, and what he looks for in a caller.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 We are very excited about Matt Nuclear joining the Daily Wire.
00:00:03.000 Now, if you haven't seen Matt before, I'm sure you probably have, just don't know his name.
00:00:06.000 Matt is the kid, and he is like 19 years old, who became pretty famous for debating Amanda Seals on Jubilee and just taking her apart.
00:00:15.000 Matt is dedicated to the facts.
00:00:17.000 He's dedicated to doing his research.
00:00:19.000 He is whip smart, and he's quite clever.
00:00:22.000 I mean, if you watch him debate, it is a thing, which is why we decided that we wanted to bring him on board to be a person who just debates.
00:00:30.000 And that is what his show is.
00:00:31.000 His show is just a series of debates with pretty much anybody who wants to debate him.
00:00:35.000 He is part of the TikTok Gen Z culture, changing minds, changing hearts by having open discussions with literally anyone.
00:00:42.000 He will take on all comers on his new show, The Nuclear Reaction.
00:00:46.000 And we are very excited to be joined on the line by brand new Dailyware personality, Matt Nuclear.
00:00:51.000 Matt, thanks so much for the time.
00:00:55.000 I am honored to be here.
00:00:55.000 Thank you, Bam.
00:00:56.000 Thank you.
00:00:58.000 So, I mean, first of all, congratulations on.
00:01:01.000 It's awesome.
00:01:01.000 The show.
00:01:02.000 It must also be pretty exhausting.
00:01:03.000 I mean, debating people for two hours at a time, pretty much every weeknight, that's a lot.
00:01:07.000 How do you prep for this sort of stuff?
00:01:10.000 Well, I do constant research.
00:01:12.000 I'm constantly reading books and constantly reading academic articles and trying to keep up with things on the media and just doing research even on past and prior events, especially when we're talking about a lot of conflicts in terms of foreign policy to make sure I'm up to date, that I'm very well read, so that I'm always prepared to debate these callers.
00:01:29.000 And typically, I'm more informed than they are because they're.
00:01:31.000 Just calling in.
00:01:32.000 You know, it depends, obviously, whether or not they're like specifically going out for me, but yeah.
00:01:38.000 So, what are some of the big trends that you're seeing when it comes to the people who are calling in?
00:01:43.000 Obviously, people love the debate, they love the back and forth, but what topics are particularly hot right now?
00:01:48.000 I assume the Middle East, but what else?
00:01:51.000 The topics that are really hot that I see are like things in reference to DEI, things in reference to affirmative action.
00:01:51.000 Right.
00:01:56.000 I'm black, obviously, and I have sort of like a right wing conservative take on this.
00:02:00.000 I'm similar to you, obviously, but you're not black.
00:02:03.000 And so I give my perspective.
00:02:05.000 From that side of the aisle.
00:02:06.000 And a lot of older people that, you know, from all walks of life come in and they're like, okay, like, why do you believe DEI is bad?
00:02:13.000 Why do you believe affirmative action is bad?
00:02:14.000 Why do you believe that, you know, socialism is bad?
00:02:17.000 Why are you for a strong border?
00:02:19.000 Why are you for, you know, free market policies?
00:02:22.000 And so they come in and I give them my sort of perspective on it.
00:02:25.000 And those are the topics that are pretty hot as well.
00:02:27.000 But the main hot one that people really get, you know, thrilled for or excited about is the topic about Israel and the Middle East.
00:02:37.000 It is sort of fascinating how that's risen to the top of the charts over the course of the last couple of years.
00:02:43.000 I have my own theories as to why that has happened, but it is sort of fascinating.
00:02:47.000 This becomes a litmus test for a lot of people in the online world.
00:02:51.000 What do you find is the difficult issue for your debate?
00:02:54.000 What's the hardest one that you have a tough time with?
00:02:58.000 I mean, I would say probably economics would probably be the more difficult one, although, typically, when I'm talking to the average caller, there's still really no big friction or issue there.
00:03:07.000 Necessarily, although typically I'm talking about social policy and foreign policy and some domestic issues here in America. 0.74
00:03:16.000 So, obviously, the TikTok mind tends to be short attention span.
00:03:20.000 How long are each of these debates?
00:03:21.000 How long are these calls lasting on your show?
00:03:24.000 Well, it depends, actually.
00:03:25.000 Sometimes you get a caller that's coming in and he's really mad at you.
00:03:28.000 He's like, How dare you believe this?
00:03:28.000 He's screaming.
00:03:30.000 And sometimes you get people that are calmer and you have maybe a 10 minute conversation.
00:03:32.000 Sometimes, if it's a really good conversation, a 20 minute conversation.
00:03:36.000 And it's really exciting because you have the TikTok.
00:03:38.000 Chat that's going crazy, and they're spamming their emojis, and they're like, Yes, this is great, this is amazing.
00:03:43.000 And you have the YouTube chat and the X chat, and you know, on multiple different social medias, I'm basically streaming.
00:03:49.000 And what's more interesting about it is that with TikTok, it's kind of rapid fire. 0.86
00:03:54.000 People are scrolling through, just like people nowadays, Gen Z especially, is always doom scrolling. 0.53
00:03:59.000 And they'll come across a live and they'll see the prompts above and they're like, let me get into this, right?
00:04:03.000 So it depends on really the caller.
00:04:05.000 But yeah, I would say seven minutes maybe.
00:04:09.000 As an organization grows, time becomes the most valuable resource.
00:04:13.000 Everybody wants more of it, nobody has enough of it.
00:04:15.000 That's especially true when you're trying to fill an important role because most people don't wake up excited to spend hours sorting through resumes.
00:04:20.000 coordinating interviews, trying to figure out which candidates actually match what they're looking for.
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00:05:05.000 Daily Wire is one of them.
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00:05:11.000 ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.
00:05:15.000 And when it comes to, again, researching in real time, there are a lot of streamers who are doing sort of their research as things come up.
00:05:21.000 Are you doing that as the calls go on, kind of looking up facts and finding the studies that bolster your opinion?
00:05:28.000 So sometimes someone will come up and they'll like make an outrageous claim that I either know is false or sometimes like I may think that they may be right.
00:05:28.000 Absolutely.
00:05:37.000 And so I'll look it up and I'll like, I'm like showing this on screen.
00:05:40.000 I'm like, okay, guys, let's go into Chrome.
00:05:42.000 Let's look this up and maybe I'll be proven false.
00:05:45.000 And so we just do the research basically together and I show everyone in the audience real time.
00:05:50.000 Actually, last night we did the same thing, although a caller basically made the claim that, you know, many like Israeli soldiers were.
00:05:57.000 We're being exposed by the UN for like raping Palestinians or whatever.
00:06:01.000 And the article that he brought up actually said the exact opposite.
00:06:03.000 The article that he brought up actually said that on October 7th, the UN special representative in reference to sexual violence actually said that Israeli hostages were actually, um, you know, facing sexual violence to be subjected to by Hamas.
00:06:16.000 And so in real time, he actually admitted, hey man, I was wrong.
00:06:19.000 You know, I appreciate you educating me on this, but everyone got to see that in real time.
00:06:24.000 So yeah, I do indeed, um, pop these things up.
00:06:27.000 Even if I know it, I want to show everyone on screen and I want to source it so people can inform themselves as well.
00:06:33.000 And how often do you think that that's happening?
00:06:35.000 And when you're talking to people, how often does somebody actually sort of admit that they got it wrong?
00:06:40.000 How often are you able to convince someone?
00:06:42.000 And how do you think the audience is sort of viewing these debates?
00:06:46.000 So people like to keep their pride.
00:06:49.000 And so a lot of people don't admit they're wrong, although they are indeed wrong.
00:06:53.000 So they like to sort of stay consistent to the false view or the false opinion.
00:07:03.000 But the audience, I think, really gets a good grasp at it.
00:07:07.000 I do convince a lot of people.
00:07:08.000 I've had people come up that have called in angry before, and they were like, How dare you believe these things?
00:07:13.000 But the more they actually listen to me, and I'm like, I don't know why you're listening to me if you hate me this much, but the more they listen to me, you know, they actually start changing their views.
00:07:20.000 And I had this one guy call in later on after, you know, he used to call in debating me, and he was like, Dude, you've actually changed my mind.
00:07:28.000 Like watching more of these debates, watching these people that are trying to debate you, that are not able to actually.
00:07:34.000 Prove you wrong on any of the facts, but are really operating from emotionalism, right?
00:07:38.000 And only operating from buzzwords and phrases they've heard online has actually swayed me, right, to sort of align with your position.
00:07:45.000 And so I've had plenty of people actually tell me that they've been convinced because a lot of people just haven't actually heard the opposite side just really debate this in real time and really articulate their position.
00:07:56.000 And not like a straw man position, but the actual rational, honest position.
00:08:01.000 So obviously, you're a super young guy, you're 19.
00:08:04.000 The people who are your age, where are they getting this kind of bad information?
00:08:07.000 I mean, when I was your age, I know where people were, you know, MSNBC or they were reading the New York Times, but where are you traditionally finding that people who you're ending up in a debate with are getting their information?
00:08:18.000 That's a really great question, Ben.
00:08:20.000 I am currently 19 years old.
00:08:22.000 I'm Gen Z.
00:08:23.000 And a lot of people that are Gen Z, like me, the way that they consume their information is not actually by reading academic articles.
00:08:29.000 Sometimes, if they are looking something up, they will read the headline of the article and they don't understand how, like, yellow journalism works or how publishers will try to get the most enticing, interesting headline because the details are actually very, very important.
00:08:48.000 I would say most young people are consuming information through TikTok and through just scrolling.
00:08:54.000 And so they will see certain, you know, random things being posted by Al Jazeera, random things being posted by CNN.
00:09:01.000 And it's just like they're quickly scrolling.
00:09:03.000 They're seeing maybe a bombing happening somewhere and they don't really know the context or the history or any of the things that go behind any of those different factors.
00:09:10.000 And they're just consuming information from that purely.
00:09:14.000 So it's just headlines, it's just TikTok scrolling.
00:09:17.000 But it's very rare that I see a lot of other people my age, unfortunately, actually.
00:09:22.000 Read some books about certain topics and conflicts that they are so passionate about, especially the people that are doing the encampments at Ivy League universities.
00:09:30.000 And so that's sort of the issue that is that people are sort of very quickly consuming information by just doom scrolling instead of actually getting engaged with the actual content.
00:09:42.000 Well, folks, that's Matt Nuclear.
00:09:43.000 You can check him out debating pretty much every weeknight, Monday through Thursday, 7 to 9 p.m. Eastern.
00:09:47.000 It is fantastic.
00:09:48.000 Go check it out, The Nuclear Reaction.
00:09:51.000 You can check out Matt's work.
00:09:52.000 Thanks so much for the time, Matt.
00:09:54.000 Thank you, Ben.
00:09:55.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:09:57.000 Wasn't that amazing?
00:09:58.000 Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.