Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro railed against Tucker Carlson‘s interview with former President Donald Trump, calling portions of it “Orwellian” and filled with “softball” questions.

While speaking on The Ben Shapiro Show hosted by The Daily Wire, Shapiro particularly took aim at a question Carlson had for Trump about former Vice President Mike Pence. Shapiro played a portion of the interview where Carlson asked Trump why Pence has been attacking him and said, “You’ve always been nice to Pence. I’ve never heard you criticize Pence.”

In response, Shapiro said that Carlson’s remark about Trump being “nice” to Pence “is one of the craziest Orwellian statements I have ever heard.”

“‘You were always very nice to Mike Pence’ is an insane statement. That’s, that’s like truly, that’s a crazy, crazy question,” Shapiro said during his show.

On Wednesday evening, Carlson’s interview with Trump aired on X, formerly Twitter, at the same time as the first Republican primary debate, which the former president skipped, citing a lead in recent polling over the other candidates. The interview has received over 200 million views on X; however, the social media platform tracks views by any user who saw the post, meaning that not every viewer of the interview watched the full video.

Carlson and Trump touched on a wide range of topics during the interview, such as the current Republican presidential candidates he is running against, the death of Jeffrey Epstein, the January 6 riots at the Capitol and the different indictments against the former president.

During his show on Thursday, Shapiro went on to criticize Carlson, saying that he “has principles” but failed to display them during the interview with Trump.

“This would’ve been a great opportunity for him to ask the former president and leading Republican candidate about some of those principles. He didn’t do any of it. Instead, he sort of, I mean—how soft were the softballs that Tucker was throwing to Donald Trump?” Shapiro said. “He asked Donald Trump to rip on Mike Pence by suggesting that Donald Trump had always been very nice to Mike Pence. This question is so bizarre, like, I don’t even know what to say about this.”

Shapiro continued, “I mean, it’s just a propaganda, 45-minute softball for Trump. That’s all that is. I mean, just, realistically speaking. Now, you may love it. Maybe that’s your bag, but that’s what it is.”

Shapiro also questioned if Carlson’s interview with Trump counter-programmed the debate on Fox, to which he said, “I watched both. I doubt very many people actually did.”

Newsweek reached out to Carlson’s attorney via his website for comment.