A podcast popular among young men shocked the internet this week with an unexpected interview guest: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Netanyahu\u2019s bid to appeal to young people appeared to backfire online, where the interview drew widespread criticism from viewers across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His interviewers, Kyle Forgeard and Aaron \u201cSteiny\u201d 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<\/a>, 2023<\/a> and 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu\u2019s hourlong interview<\/a>, which dropped on the Nelk Boys\u2019 \u201cFull Send Podcast\u201d 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\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The podcast\u2019s 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\u2019 apparent lack of preparedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI see so much stuff about what\u2019s going on in Israel and Iran and Palestine, and to be honest, I just really don\u2019t know what is going on there,\u201d Forgeard said in the episode. Steinberg said he was similarly hoping to \u201cget educated\u201d by interviewing Netanyahu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one point, the topic of discussion turned to Netanyahu\u2019s and Trump\u2019s shared affection for hamburgers. Asked about his go-to McDonald\u2019s order, Netanyahu revealed that he prefers Burger King, leading Steinberg to respond, appalled: \u201cThat\u2019s your worst take, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the rest of the interview, Netanyahu condemned anti-Israel protesters as \u201cun-American\u201d and contrasted life in Israel with life under the oppressive regime in Iran<\/a>. He also railed against New York\u2019s Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, calling his proposals for the city \u201cnonsense.\u201d (Mamdani has called Israel\u2019s military actions in Gaza \u201cgenocide\u201d and has said he would arrest Netanyahu<\/a>, who is the subject of a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court<\/a>, if he visited New York City.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked why he\u2019s \u201cso hated worldwide,\u201d Netanyahu answered: \u201cWell, a lot of propaganda. First of all, I\u2019m not hated worldwide.\u201d He said Israel has received a lot of goodwill from many in Europe, claiming that Israel\u2019s attack on Iran also \u201cliberated them, because those Iranian missiles were geared at Europe, too, and ultimately at America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe propaganda is there, I don\u2019t deny it,\u201d Netanyahu said. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday, 25 countries, including Britain, Japan and many European nations, called on Israel to end the war in Gaza \u2014 a sign of Israel\u2019s traditional allies\u2019 dismay over the conflict\u2019s humanitarian toll. Close to 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities<\/a>, with much of the enclave\u2019s population driven from their homes and pushed to the edge of starvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019 top court. The court last year ordered Israel to do everything<\/a> it could to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Both Israel and the United States have rejected accusations of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online, clips of Netanyahu\u2019s interview drew viral backlash<\/a> from viewers, many of whom accused the Nelk Boys of platforming \u201cgenocide propaganda\u201d<\/a> and compared interviewing Netanyahu to interviewing Adolf Hitler<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far-left political streamer Hasan Piker and far-right white supremacist Nick Fuentes were among those who criticized the latest \u201cFull Send Podcast\u201d episode Monday during separate livestreams on their platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou just basically presented someone who is a war criminal, someone who is doing a genocide, in a somewhat neutral light,\u201d Piker told Forgeard and Steinberg in his stream<\/a>. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t be neutral when you have someone like Benjamin Netanyahu directly in an opportunity to talk to him. But that\u2019s what happened, so there is moral culpability here for you guys individually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added that while he would agree to interview Netanyahu if he were given the opportunity, he would be \u201cwell-equipped\u201d to fact-check his statements and push back against potentially dubious claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forgeard, in response, countered that their style of interviewing could “give us the opportunity to get the biggest people in the world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “And I think you\u2019ll know by the ‘Full Send Podcast’ when you watch it, it\u2019s like, ‘Hey, these guys are going to get big guests. We might not necessarily get these guys grilling these people,'” Forgeard said. “And that\u2019s just what you\u2019re going to come to expect.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fuentes, in his own stream<\/a> with Forgeard and Steinberg, also questioned the moral equivalency between himself, who has faced condemnation online for his views and beliefs, and \u201ca foreign head of state who is killing women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is somebody who\u2019s in the process of committing what is effectively an ethnic cleansing and a genocide,\u201d Fuentes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The interview struggled to land positively even among some supporters of Netanyahu\u2019s military agenda. In The Times of Israel<\/a> on Tuesday, contributor Elkana Bar Eitan expressed his disappointment that Netanyahu \u201cblew it\u201d on the podcast, despite the lack of pushback he got from the hosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was painful to witness how Netanyahu, once a master communicator, missed this opportunity and showed that he\u2019s lost his touch, even in English,\u201d he wrote in an opinion piece. \u201cDespite the friendly atmosphere and softball questions, Netanyahu came across as completely detached from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A representative for the \u201cFull Send Podcast\u201d declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n