Conservative activist Chris Rufo weighed in on Candace Owens’s recent departure from The Daily Wire on Friday, accusing her of following an “ugly” path and suggesting she find a new audience on InfoWars.
“I generally avoid intra-Right conflict, but the ongoing Daily Wire-Candace Owens dispute is an important moment for the Right, which, I believe, merits comment,” began Rufo on X before wading into the the debate:
First, it’s not a violation of “free speech” to let a multimillion-dollar contract expire, which is reportedly what happened. The Daily Wire is not obligated to subsidize Candace Owens’s speech, especially if she is deviating from the publication’s editorial standard or causing problems for the business. DW is not an open platform such as YouTube, Facebook, X, etc., and the owners of a publication are under no obligation to subsidize someone whose trust and friendship they no longer enjoy. Owens spent months taking public shots at @benshapiro and @JeremyDBoreing , which is a tacit request to get canned and then play the martyr.
“Owens is a talented speaker, who has been able to turn controversy into attention—a valuable capability—but she does not advance a serious politics. She is clearly traveling down an ugly, but, unfortunately, well-trodden path,” continued Rufo. “She has rationalized Kanye West’s antisemitic rants, speculated about Jewish gangs murdering people in Hollywood, accused @BariWeiss of being a CIA asset, and claimed that Emmanuel Macron’s wife is a man. There is an audience for this kind of material—Inforwars [sic] does a robust business in vitamins and emergency prep kits—but it’s a political dead end.”
He went on to submit that “the Right faces an inflection point.”
“There are serious people who are trying to advance a serious political movement with a vision for governing—I consider the Daily Wire to be among them. And there are unserious people who are willing to sell kayfabe and conspiracy, leading us nowhere,” concluded Rufo. “The choice is ours.”
Owens was fired last month after she repeatedly used her platform to advance various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
