Dr. Drew spoke exclusively with Breitbart News following the heated exchange between Breitbart News’s Ben Shapiro and Zoey Tur, a special correspondent for Inside Edition, on his television show.
The two appeared on Dr. Drew’s show, aired on HLN, and had a fiery debate on Zoey’s transgender identity—followed by a threatening tweet posted to Twitter.
Tur is biologically male but identifies as a female. Shapiro said Tur was “delusional.”
“I thought the exchange was tough, it was problematic – it was intense, but I never had the sense in the room that anybody was actually going to manifest physical aggression,” Dr. Drew told Breitbart News.
Dr. Drew explained that he has run many groups and that part of his responsibility is to jump in between real aggression, and he takes his job as a moderator seriously.
“I was watching them very carefully and during the commercial break, I reiterated the need for respectfulness on all sides and made them contract with me verbally that there would be no physical – no violence, no acts of aggression, and everyone agreed,” he explained. “Of course, I wish it hadn’t been so intense.”
Dr. Drew had Tur on his show previously, but this was the first time Shapiro made an appearance.
“I just wrote Zoey a note and said that if nothing else it put into really sharp relief you’re up against as a transgender person, and I thought that was sort of interesting… and I felt a little cheated in the argument that Ben wanted to have because we didn’t have the time,” he said, explaining that television moves too quickly to be able to get into the weeds of the issues.
“Ben was sort of needlessly provocative… and zoey needlessly aggressive in response… but I still thought they were poised,” he stated. “I had no sense that either of them were endangering one another and I would welcome them both back – I don’t know if they want to come back at the same time – that’s up to them.”
As a moderator on both television and radio, Dr. Drew said, “I’m interested in good discourse in the room there – we had the limitations of television,” explaining that radio lends more air time to get into detailed issues than what he was able to do with Tur and Shapiro on his show.
Breitbart News questioned Dr. Drew about the tweet that was posted on Twitter threatening to “curb stomp” Shapiro, which Breitbart News previously reported.
Dr. Drew said, “I didn’t see it – what’s the tweet?”
After explaining that curb stomping is a violent act where one is forced to bite the curb of a street and another stomps on his or her head, Dr. Drew recalled Tur actually threatened Shapiro on the show, saying he would have to leave in an ambulance, and that is when Dr. Drew stepped in during the commercial break.
“Zoey is opinionated and Zoey does not back down from discourse,” Dr. Drew explained.
“I don’t believe she intends physical aggression – but if she were in a ring, I don’t think she would back down either – but I don’t think she had actual intent – but I’ll have to read it – I could be wrong.”