“Putin himself is a character out of fiction, an uber-macho former Soviet thug running a massive, expansionist kleptocracy. The man stages photographs riding horses barechested and hunting tigers. His enemies find themselves on the wrong end of radioactive poisoning.”

American conservative political commentator and media host

Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator and media host. He writes for Creators Syndicate, Newsweek, and Ami Magazine, and he is editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, which he co-founded in 2015. He hosts The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He was editor-at-large of Breitbart News from 2012 until 2016, and he has written 16 non-fiction books.