Ana Kasparian, a co-host of the popular progressive online news show “The Young Turks,” lauded Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro’s fairness in conversation after someone pilloried her for conducting interviews and debates with him.

The pair had a debate back in 2021 and Kasparian was welcomed on Shapiro’s “Sunday Special” show for an hour-long sit-down interview this year. Though the pair disagree fiercely on most issues, both events were cordial and respectful.

In a post published Thursday on X, Kasparian suggested she is willing to speak to Shapiro because he has shown her respect, while she reserves the right to reject conversation with others she doesn’t find respectful — even if they happen to be on the Left politically, as she is.

“Unlike Vaush, Shapiro never once called me ‘retarded’ or a ‘b****’ over disagreements,” Kasparian wrote. Vaush is a popular Left-wing YouTuber and Twitch streamer whose real name is Ian Kochinski.

“That’s how big boys who don’t snort addies during unhinged streams act,” she continued. “I don’t owe anyone a conversation or debate. But I especially have no interest in anti-social creeps like Vaush. Simple.”

Unlike Vaush, Shapiro never once called me “retarded” or a “bitch” over disagreements. That’s how big boys who don’t snort addies during unhinged streams act. I don’t owe anyone a conversation or debate. But I especially have no interest in anti-social creeps like Vaush. Simple. https://t.co/jThgWUiH0l

— Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) August 10, 2023

Kasparian has taken heat from some extremists on the Left for engaging with Shapiro, who is one of the most prominent figures in conservative media.

In 2021, Shapiro and Kasparian debated topics like education, Critical Race Theory, and the news media during a discussion headlining the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry’s annual dinner. Following the debate, Kasparian seemed to address the backlash she received from the Left for engaging in the conversation, emphasizing that it was Shapiro who was “platforming” her, since he had a bigger audience than hers, and his “audience isn’t crying about it.”

“Going to be insufferable for a second to make an important point to those who want to accuse me of being some sort of demon for allegedly ‘platforming’ another demon just by debating Shapiro,” Kasparian started a four-tweet thread.

“I went before a room full of (literally) a thousand people who disagree with me. Health industry lobbyists, health care companies, oil businessmen, Republican politicians were all there in the audience,” she wrote. “No one (except one worker at the venue and my husband) was on my side, and I went in to debate a guy who is admittedly known as a good debater.”

“That took f***ing balls and I’m sick of being underestimated and attacked as some sort of bimbo,” Kasparian said. “I went in because I know I can defend my views assertively.”

“Ben has a bigger following than me. I can assure you he’s platforming me and his audience isn’t crying about it,” she wrote.

“I wish the left was more confident,” Kasparian closed the thread. “We look weak with the platform scolding. I think we’re right on the issues, and I think we can change more minds if we speak to more people.”

Shapiro agreed with Kasparian’s take, calling it “exactly right.”

This is worth the read, and @anakasparian is exactly right https://t.co/Fk5Y7Vlqog

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 7, 2021

Related: ‘I Get So Much Flack For Saying This’: Ana Kasparian Talks Failed Leftist Policies With Ben Shapiro

Right-wing Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated by “organized crime,” according to a statement from the country’s president.

President Guillermo Lasso said he was “outraged and shocked by the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio,” according to a translation of his statement by The New York Times.

Lasso said that those behind the assassination would “not go unpunished.”

Villavicencio, a former journalist, had been highly vocal about the ties between organized crime and government officials in the South American nation, the report said.

The report added that while an “oil boom” lifted the country out of poverty earlier this century, Ecuadorians have been weighed down by a recent infestation of foreign drug trafficking organizations that have descended upon the country and sent homicide rates to all-time highs.

The man suspected of killing Villavicencio died while in police custody, the attorney general’s office said on X.

“A suspect, who was injured during the shootout with security personnel, was apprehended and moved, badly injured, to the (attorney general’s) unit in Quito,” the statement said. “An ambulance from the fire department confirmed his death, the police are proceeding with collection of the cadaver.”

Villavicencio was an opponent of former leftist President Rafael Correa and was sentenced to 18 months in prison back in 2014 for allegedly slandering Correa, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Latin America news division. He remained a fugitive for three years and was granted political asylum in Peru, where he stayed until 2017.

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After returning to the country, he went to Ecuador’s attorney general and accused the government of misusing public resources in the “commercialization of crude oil between Ecuador and private company Petrochina,” which he estimated resulted in billions of dollars in loss for the country.

The report said his campaign’s theme was building safety in the country by focusing on five pillars: citizen, food, economic, environmental, and health.

“In the 2021 elections, he was elected a national congress member for the so-called Honesty Alliance, and in September 2022 he was the victim of an attack at his residence,” the report added. “As an investigative journalist, he has also contributed with information to denounce cases of corruption in oil, mining, electricity, telecommunications and criminal structures.”