Candace Owens has responded to her former colleague Andrew Klavan's criticism of her after her departure from The Daily Wire last week.
Last Friday, Jeremy Boreing, the co-CEO of The Daily Wire, announced the outlet and Owens had ended their three-year business relationship. Later that evening, The Daily Wire's Andrew Klavan discussed Owens' departure from the outlet and addressed her use of the phrase "Christ is King," which critics have suggested has been an underhanded slight towards those of the Jewish faith.
On Wednesday, Owens responded to Klavan's criticism in a thread posted to X.
"For the last week, my former colleague at The Daily Wire, Andrew Klavan, has been spreading some inaccuracies about me that I view to be disparaging to my character," Owens wrote. "Let's slowly unpack his claims here publicly."
Owens shared Klavan's recent appearance on the Crosspolitic podcast where the Daily Wire host discussed how Owens' invocation of "Christ is King" was used with antisemitic subtext.
"Part of it was things that she was saying that we felt were strongly antisemitic," Klavan said of Owens' departure from the outlet. "She was doing it in such a way that it was kind of hard to pin down, so I was trying to show where these things happen."
Klavan then provided an example of Owens' sharing an X post which appeared to accuse a Jewish man of being "drunk on Christian blood."
"Wow! That sounds crazy! Candace Owens hates Jews so much that she’s randomly accusing some fine young Jew of drinking Christian blood! Crazy!" Owens wrote in response to Klavan's comments. "And also untrue and completely removed from some important context…"
The post in question featured Rabbi Shmuley, who has previously thrown criticism behind The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro for employing Owens, sharing a threatening DM from another user while also claiming Owens had incited her followers to "threaten to murder Jews" including himself. In response to Shmuley, one user questioned if he was "drunk on Christian blood again."
Owens noted she did not share the post, though she did "like" it.
"What is the appropriate context? The Jew Andrew Klavan is referring to is Rabbi Shmuley who spent TWO YEARS attacking ME," Owens wrote of Shmuley. "No one, (not a single one of my colleagues included) defended or said what he was doing was wrong. After two years I told the public about Rabbi Shmuley’s nonstop harassment plus showed proof of his threats."
"What did Rabbi Shmuley do in return? He libeled me harder. He accused me of directing my followers to murder Jews. I’m not kidding," she added.
"The Rabbi was clearly lying," Owens continued, noting the user who responded to Shmuley pointed out the direct message he shared was from Feb. 20. "The person who messaged him privately in that correspondence did so BEFORE I had ever informed the public about his harassment. It was quite literally a smear."
"That is the tweet I liked," she wrote. "I liked some random person on the internet who very quickly debunked the horrendous lie that I would ever send any person to threaten to murder Jews."
"Now that you have the full context, please revisit Andrew's remarks about my antisemitism," Owens added.
The former Daily Wire host then threw criticism toward those labeling her antisemitic, claiming the definition appeared to mutate.
"Today's current definition seems to be: A Christian defending herself from a predatory, dishonest Rabbi by liking a tweet for the OBVIOUS reason that it debunked is his lie," she wrote in another post.
"It really is nothing short of amazing that given all of the threats that Rabbi Shmuley made against me—what seemingly disturbed Andrew (or at least what moved him to action) was my unacceptable ’like’ of a tweet which underscored the Rabbi's dishonesty," Owens continued. "Really something."
Shortly after Owens' departure from The Daily Wire, Shmuley began mocking the former host in a series of X posts while wearing a costume depicting many Jewish stereotypes.
"For Purim I’ve dressed up as a Candace Owens Jew (or is it just dress up? Or are we Jews deep down always like this… filth, Money, drunk on Christian blood.. and … dual loyalties for Israel)," Shmuley wrote in one post. "I felt that since Candace got fired on Friday, I may as well try and bring her some Purim cheer by validating all her views about Jews, at least for one day."
"I am a Candace Owens Jew," Shmuley declared in the video while holding a red cup that read "CHRISTIAN BLOOD."
