Netanyahu's appearance on popular Nelk Boys podcast draws criticism from right and left online

NBC News

4 days ago

A podcast popular among young men shocked the internet this week with an unexpected interview guest: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Netanyahu's bid to appeal to young people appeared to backfire online, where the interview drew widespread criticism from viewers across the political spectrum.
His interviewers, Kyle Forgeard and Aaron 'Steiny' Steinberg, are members of the Nelk Boys, a group of social media influencers known for their vlogs and prank videos. The group, which has amassed more than 8.5 million subscribers on YouTube, attracted even more fans after its content began to highlight more conservative political figures, including President Donald Trump, whom the podcast interviewed in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Netanyahu's hourlong interview, which dropped on the Nelk Boys' 'Full Send Podcast' on Monday, was met with overwhelmingly critical reception online, with viewers accusing the podcasters of asking softball questions and neglecting to push back against Netanyahu's claims.
Netanyahu and his government continue to face worldwide outrage over the war in Gaza that followed the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The podcast's YouTube channel lost more than 10,000 subscribers within a day, according to the social media tracking platform Social Blade. On YouTube, top comments on the episode were critical of the hosts' apparent lack of preparedness.
'I see so much stuff about what's going on in Israel and Iran and Palestine, and to be honest, I just really don't know what is going on there,' Forgeard said in the episode. Steinberg said he was similarly hoping to 'get educated' by interviewing Netanyahu.
At one point, the topic of discussion turned to Netanyahu's and Trump's shared affection for hamburgers. Asked about his go-to McDonald's order, Netanyahu revealed that he prefers Burger King, leading Steinberg to respond, appalled: 'That's your worst take, I think.'
Throughout the rest of the interview, Netanyahu condemned anti-Israel protesters as 'un-American' and contrasted life in Israel with life under the oppressive regime in Iran. He also railed against New York's Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, calling his proposals for the city 'nonsense.' (Mamdani has called Israel's military actions in Gaza 'genocide' and has said he would arrest Netanyahu, who is the subject of a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, if he visited New York City.)
Asked why he's 'so hated worldwide,' Netanyahu answered: 'Well, a lot of propaganda. First of all, I'm not hated worldwide.' He said Israel has received a lot of goodwill from many in Europe, claiming that Israel's attack on Iran also 'liberated them, because those Iranian missiles were geared at Europe, too, and ultimately at America.'
'The propaganda is there, I don't deny it,' Netanyahu said. 'But people also have, you know, sometimes the truth beckons. And what Israel did with President Trump is safeguard free societies from a menace. I mean, this Iranian regime hangs gays from cranes.'
On Monday, 25 countries, including Britain, Japan and many European nations, called on Israel to end the war in Gaza — a sign of Israel's traditional allies' dismay over the conflict's humanitarian toll. Close to 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities, with much of the enclave's population driven from their homes and pushed to the edge of starvation.
The Israeli military and government officials have repeatedly accused Hamas of exploiting civilian sites, including hospitals and schools, as cover for its operations, an accusation that health officials and Hamas have denied.
Israel has also faced mounting accusations of war crimes and genocide, including in a case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' top court. The court last year ordered Israel to do everything it could to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Both Israel and the United States have rejected accusations of genocide.
Online, clips of Netanyahu's interview drew viral backlash from viewers, many of whom accused the Nelk Boys of platforming 'genocide propaganda' and compared interviewing Netanyahu to interviewing Adolf Hitler.
Far-left political streamer Hasan Piker and far-right white supremacist Nick Fuentes were among those who criticized the latest 'Full Send Podcast' episode Monday during separate livestreams on their platforms.
'You just basically presented someone who is a war criminal, someone who is doing a genocide, in a somewhat neutral light,' Piker told Forgeard and Steinberg in his stream. 'And you can't be neutral when you have someone like Benjamin Netanyahu directly in an opportunity to talk to him. But that's what happened, so there is moral culpability here for you guys individually.'
He added that while he would agree to interview Netanyahu if he were given the opportunity, he would be 'well-equipped' to fact-check his statements and push back against potentially dubious claims.
Forgeard, in response, countered that their style of interviewing could "give us the opportunity to get the biggest people in the world."
"And I think you'll know by the 'Full Send Podcast' when you watch it, it's like, 'Hey, these guys are going to get big guests. We might not necessarily get these guys grilling these people,'" Forgeard said. "And that's just what you're going to come to expect."
Fuentes, in his own stream with Forgeard and Steinberg, also questioned the moral equivalency between himself, who has faced condemnation online for his views and beliefs, and 'a foreign head of state who is killing women and children.'
'This is somebody who's in the process of committing what is effectively an ethnic cleansing and a genocide,' Fuentes said.
The interview struggled to land positively even among some supporters of Netanyahu's military agenda. In The Times of Israel on Tuesday, contributor Elkana Bar Eitan expressed his disappointment that Netanyahu 'blew it' on the podcast, despite the lack of pushback he got from the hosts.
'It was painful to witness how Netanyahu, once a master communicator, missed this opportunity and showed that he's lost his touch, even in English,' he wrote in an opinion piece. 'Despite the friendly atmosphere and softball questions, Netanyahu came across as completely detached from reality.'
A representative for the 'Full Send Podcast' declined to comment.
In a video responding to the backlash, Steinberg and Forgeard said they plan to 'give the other side the opportunity' to speak on their next episode, though it's unclear what guest they're referring to.
'Someone has to do it,' Forgeard said. 'And if we have to take the fall and be the bad guys for having the controversial people on, I think we're willing to do it.'