The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2399 - NBA Player RELEASED For Expressing Traditional Christianity
31 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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That's trustandwill.com slash Shapiro to get your 20% off trustandwill.com slash Shapiro. Folks, here are some things you can do and still not get waived from your team in the NBA. You can wield a gun while drunk at a strip club. You can knock up every woman in a four-mile radius of every NBA stadium. You can get arrested for alleged felony assault after concussing and strangling your girlfriend.
What is the one thing you absolutely, positively cannot do, especially during Holy Week? I'll explain in a moment. Welcome back to The Ben Shapiro Show. All right, so Jaden Ivey, NBA guard out of Purdue. He used to score about 17 points, grabbed 4.9 rebounds as a sophomore. So he was drafted fifth overall in 2022 by the Detroit Pistons. And he's a good player.
He posted 16 points and five assists and four rebounds in his rookie year. And then in his second season, he scored 16 points per game. And then he was up to almost 18 points per game. And he got hurt in his third season. And then he was traded to the Chicago Bulls. And that is where the trouble began. So this week, Jaden Ivey posted a video about the NBA's Pride Month.
This, of course, is the month where the NBA and pretty much all the NBA teams have nights dedicated to LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign. And Jaden Ivey got himself in trouble because he posted on Instagram a video talking about NBA's Pride Month. He is a converted, newly religious Christian. They proclaim Pride Month and the NBA. They proclaim it. They show it to the world.
They say, come join us for pride. For pride month. To celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it. So that seems like fairly traditional Christian belief right there, that you should not actually celebrate pride in what is considered a sin by the vast majority of the religious world. Well, the immediate response of the Chicago Bulls was to can him.
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Chapter 2: Why was an NBA player waived for expressing traditional Christian beliefs?
I don't know, you know, like I've had conversations with Jaden and stuff, and he's been always about rehabbing his knee and trying to get what he wanted to play. But I think organizationally, there's certain standards I think we want to have as an organization and try to move up to those each and every day. And so, again, not a ringing rebuke there from the coach.
Nonetheless, the Bulls let him go because, of course, you cannot say anything that violates the precept of full-scale wokeness on these sorts of issues. So Jaden Ivey then went to Instagram Live to defend himself. He was at the airport. They said my conduct is detrimental to the team, right?
Why didn't they just say we don't agree with his stance on LGBTQ people? Why didn't they say that? How is it conduct detrimental to the team? What did I do to the team? What did I do to the players? I did nothing but practice with them, play with them, pass the ball to them, good teammate to them, said good job, good shot. I said good job, good job, good pass, way to play, bro. Right?
I said these things to my teammates. It was never detrimental to them. So why is it that the NBA and the Chicago Bulls say that I'm detrimental to the team? How? Because I believe in the truth?
Because I know Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? I mean, again, he has a point. The team could have just said, we disagree with his comments. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. By the way, in the UFC, this happens all the time. Dana White routinely says this about people that he disagrees with in the UFC who say things that are actually quite morally bad.
And he will say, you know, you're allowed to say what you want to say. I disagree with it, but it's not my job to sort of police the speech of other people. But the Bulls just cut Ivy, just waved him, which is kind of incredible. Well, Ivy also went off on Steph Curry.
And the reason he's going off on Steph Curry is because Steph Curry is frequently brought up by critics of traditional Christianity in the league, apparently, as sort of the example of what Christianity should look like. Meaning that you sort of cite the vaguest verses from the Bible while ignoring actual sort of traditional moral practice. So here's Ivy talking about Steph Curry.
That's why you got Steph Curry and he not even surrendered. And y'all believe he's a Christian. Y'all believe he's a Christian because he wrote Philippians 4.13. Y'all think he's a Christian. But he's cursing just like the world. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. He's friendship with the world. He don't know Jesus. And I pray he comes to the truth.
that him and his family would be saved in Jesus' name. Because all that stuff is not going to matter on Judgment Day. All them rings he got.
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Chapter 3: What were the Chicago Bulls' reasons for waiving Jaden Ivey?
His family were literal members of a terrorist group. James Gorgon, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, he says, listen, this was not some guy who was self-radicalized or something. He was a Hezbollah agent.
Do not be misled. This terrorist acted on behalf of Hezbollah, and he intended to kill others, not just himself. He could have done that in a garage or in his basement. He did not need to plan for days, arm himself, and try to take dozens of Jewish American children with him. His death was just a means or a tool to kill as many Jews as he could.
That's why his last statements were that he was on a special operation to kill as many of them as he possibly can.
And as Gorgan expressed, it's not that Ghazali was some sort of lone wolf that he was just reading stuff on the Internet. He was an actual adjunct member of Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group that has been targeting Israel for destruction for literally decades.
They're also responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans back during the Beirut barracks bombing in the early 1980s. Here is Gorgan saying that Ghazali was not, in fact, a lone wolf. He was a terrorist living on American soil. And we allowed him to enter.
I've seen some odd attempts to explain away or even lessen this terrorist attack by claiming that he was an isolated lone wolf, but that is misleading. Terrorist propaganda is designed to activate the so-called lone wolf to act on behalf of the terrorist organization.
and it makes no legal difference if the current leader of Hezbollah himself, Naim Qasem, called this man and told him to attack Temple Israel, or whether he simply heeded Hezbollah's call to kill Jews, and in his words, burn their world.
Again, this is exactly right. We need fewer people immigrating to America who are terrorists. I know this may be controversial to some, but I don't know. I feel like that one is pretty commonsensical. We also could use fewer elected officials who agree with actual honest to God terrorists. So this person, this terrorist came from Dearborn, Michigan.
Michigan, of course, is a very, very large radical Muslim population. One of those radical Muslims is a man named Abdul El-Sayed. He is a candidate in Michigan. And according to the Washington Free Beacon, he said they've discovered audio of him saying that he needed to stay silent about the killing of Ali Khamenei, who would be the leader of the Iranian regime.
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Chapter 4: How does Jaden Ivey defend his comments on Pride Month?
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Okay, so back to the Middle East. Where do things stand right now? Well, according to Channel 14 in Israel, They have now obtained an exchange between the Iranian President Mahmoud Pazeshkian and the IRGC's Ahmed Vahidi. Pazeshkian would be the quote-unquote moderate in this scenario, and Vahidi, of course, is a radical. He's the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Those are the quote-unquote hardliners. So Pazeshkian apparently said, quote, I want to be involved in the negotiations with the U.S. Without a quick deal, our entire economy will collapse in three weeks. So first of all, that is accurate. They do not have an economy. This is the great worry of the Iranians right now.
Right now, they're still being allowed to move oil out of Iran to the tune of a couple of million barrels of oil per day. If that stops, their economy does not exist. It does not exist. The IRGC chief, Vahidi, he said, that's exactly why you can't be involved. You'll give up everything for a deal. which shows you where the IRGC is.
Apparently, according to Channel 14 in Israel, after the call ended, the report says the Iranian president told his companions he feels like a hostage. Quote, I'm unable to resign. I can't make my own decisions. All I can do is read from a script I'm given. Yeah, fair. So where are the American people right now?
Well, if you watch again, all the online traffic, the American people are desperately upset about what's going on. Well, not so much, actually. Brand new Harvard-Harris poll. It shows 51% support for the airstrikes in Iran. In fact, it shows, according to this polling data, do you think it is in the U.S. 's interests or not to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon?
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Chapter 5: What insights does Bishop Robert Barron provide about Holy Week?
Obviously, the Old Testament is filled with figures who both prayed to God and went to war. Moses, Joshua, Barak and Deborah, Gideon, Samuel, King David, who wrote entire psalms to God while at war, Hezekiah. And there are lots of popes, it turns out, historically, who have initiated full-scale crusades or blessed them.
For example, Pope Urban II, who initiated the first crusade with these words, quote, She asks and longs to be liberated. And an incomplete list of other popes who blessed crusades or other forms of war. That would include, obviously, everyone from Eugenius III to Gregory VIII to Innocent III to Boniface IX to Nicholas V to Clement V.
So, I mean, again, this is why I don't think that the Pope means what people think he means there. I would assume that he means unjust war, not all war, because otherwise we sort of have to ignore the entirety of the Old Testament and pretty much all of Catholic history.
And just to clarify that, I did talk to my friend, Matt Fradd of Pines with Aquinas, who knows way more about this than I do in terms of Catholic doctrine. And he pointed me to the works of both Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who point out when war is justified. So again, if Pope Leo wants to make the case that the war in Iran is unjustifiable, he should make that case.
I'm not a fan in general of when leaders use inartful and broad language that can be deliberately misinterpreted by members of the legacy media. Joining me online to discuss this, the rest of current events, and of course, it's Holy Week is Bishop Robert Barron. He, of course, is the bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Rochester, and is one of the most prominent Catholic voices in modern media.
And he, of course, is the head of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. Bishop Barron, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it.
Ben, good to see you as always.
So let's do some news of the day and then we'll talk about Holy Week more broadly. So obviously made a lot of headlines yesterday or the day before when the Pope made this statement. A lot of people interpreted that as a slap at the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, or a slap at the President of the United States. How should people interpret that?
Again, my own take is that he's using language that I think is inartfully broad there because I assume he's talking about unjust war. Otherwise, he'd be in conflict with, from my understanding and from my Catholic friends, Catholic doctrine itself.
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Chapter 6: How does the FBI characterize the recent terrorist attack in Michigan?
So we call that
the Paschal mystery, the Passover mystery, Jesus passing from death to life. It's the event by which we are saved from our sins.
And I'd say this too, Ben, in light of Jerusalem and such a focus now on Judaism, it's the fulfillment of Israel. Christians are those who say that the great story of Israel, including temple and covenant and prophecy and promise, all of it is fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That's what St.
Paul, or Rabbi Shaul, who studied the feet of Gamaliel and knew the Hebrew Scriptures intimately, after he met the risen Jesus, he rethought his Judaism in light of the resurrection.
And it's also why when Paul went to these towns in the eastern Mediterranean, he first went to synagogues, because the Jews would understand his message, that the story of Israel has come to its fulfillment. That's why, see, we are tied to Israel. The recent popes have made that claim. It's up and down the Christian centuries, despite a terrible history of anti-Semitism. that pops up.
But the great Christian truth is we're tied to Israel. You cannot understand Jesus without reference to Israel because we see him as the fulfillment, as Paul said, yes to all the promises made to Israel.
So that's why anything like anti-Semitism, from a Christian standpoint, is intellectually incoherent. Well, why do you think it is? It does seem like there has been a resurgence of the Marcion heresy that is making new inroads at this moment. The Marcion heresy being the idea that the Old Testament was actually nothing to do with the New Testament, that actually it's completely irrelevant.
Why do you think that's making such a comeback right now? Because it does feel like it's making a comeback. Yeah, no, it's a good question. And Marcionism, you're right, it goes back to the second century, one of the oldest heresies and one of the most stubborn heresies. You know, I think part of it is that there's something that is simplifying about it.
So let's just get rid of the Old Testament. We'll keep parts of the New Testament that present a God that we can find more acceptable.
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