Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Full Send Podcast/YouTube
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an interview on the “Full Send Podcast” on July 8, 2025; the interview was broadcast on July 21, 2025
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in an interview broadcast on Monday on a podcast popular with young men in the United States. What emerged is how strong the hostility to Israel and Netanyahu is among a significant segment of young Americans.
While the podcasters were friendly during the interview, their subsequent actions revealed how they felt the need to bend over backward to satisfy the hostility of their audience, going so far as to invite anti-Israel and antisemitic influencers for a live-streamed conversation immediately following the interview’s broadcast.
Kyle Forgeard and Aaron Steinberg, both 30, who host the “Full Send Podcast,” understood there would be blowback.
“Probably going to be a lot of hate in the comments and stuff,” Forgeard said to Steinberg before bringing Netanyahu on. “We’re journalists, right?” said Steinberg. “How can you pass up this opportunity at the end of the day?”
Forgeard and Steinberg are part of the Nelk Boys, a group of influencers known for online pranks and interviews with athletes and pop culture figures. The group has started promoting right-wing figures and causes. They endorsed U.S. President Donald Trump in his 2024 election bid.
The duo interviewed Netanyahu at Blair House on July 8, when he was in Washington, D.C. to meet with Trump.
In the live-stream after the Netanyahu interview, Forgeard and Steinberg asked the opinion of anti-Israel influencers Sneako, Myron Gaines, Hasan Piker and, most notoriously, Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes, a white supremacist, has denied the Holocaust, said “Talmudic Jews” should convert or be forced to leave the U.S., and rejected a papal document declaring that modern Jews bear no guilt for the death of Jesus.
The influencers criticized Forgeard and Steinberg for giving Netanyahu a platform in the first place. (Hasan Piker, who goes by the online moniker HasanAbi, said it was like interviewing Adolph Hitler during the Holocaust.)
They also criticized the two for what they considered softball questions.
Forgeard and Steinberg defended themselves, saying they would invite anyone on their podcast no matter how controversial, and soon plan to host a pro-Palestinian guest with diametrically opposite views to those of Netanyahu.
“The Full Send Podcast for me has always been about: If we get the opportunity to have someone extremely controversial on, we’re never going to turn it down,” Forgeard told Fuentes.
“We’re getting a lot of flak. People don’t care what we ask Netanyahu. It’s just the fact that we had him on in general. It’s automatically, ‘F**k you guys.’ Platforming him is the thing that people are pissed about,” Forgeard said.
“We should be allowed to have controversial people on. They should be allowed to say their opinions,” Forgeard said.
While admitting he didn’t know much about Fuentes’s opinions, Forgeard said he’d love to have him on as a podcast guest as well.
Fuentes said, “The reason people are being critical is because, of course, the State of Israel and Netanyahu are extremely unpopular with young people.”
While noting that there is still broad American support for Israel, Netanyahu said that he was concerned about the younger generation, which is what led him to do the interview. “I’m doing this podcast, among other things, to reach out,” he said.
Netanyahu said Americans are “getting the wrong picture” of Israel, having been fed a steady stream of demonization and lies. He said the best way to fight those lies is with the truth, telling it often and in numerous forums. He described the fight against disinformation as another battlefield.
