LISTEN: Ben Shapiro wants Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin. Here's why.

The spark came fast and deliberate: Ben Shapiro wants Derek Chauvin pardoned. Not from the Minnesota cell where he’s serving time for George Floyd’s murder, but from any federal charges that might still loom. It’s a claim that landed like a brick through a window, and the Arican Americans and many others are furious. And then Elon Musk, ever the wild card, tossed it further into the fray with a repost on X—a quiet nudge that turned up the volume.

Shapiro’s argument is clinical, almost surgical. “Derek Chauvin didn’t murder George Floyd,” he counters, leaning on Floyd’s fentanyl levels and heart condition as evidence the trial got it wrong. To him, Chauvin’s conviction was a “railroading”—the match that lit the Black Lives Matter protests, burned $2 billion in property, and left race relations in tatters. “President Trump should consider this,” he said, pointing followers to PardonDerek.com, where a petition gathers steam.

Obviously, the backlash was instant. “Unbelievable,” one voice spat online, echoing a sentiment that sees Chauvin’s guilt as ironclad, etched in the nine-minute video of Floyd gasping under his knee. To them, this isn’t a debate—it’s a slap in the face. “Punks and fools,” snapped Sharon, a commentator whose words cut raw. “Agitators, gaslighters, that’s it.” She called it a cheap distraction—avocado prices climbing, the world creaking—and a sign of something uglier. “They’re so insecure about Black men they’d rather twist this than face it,” she said, leaving the rest unsaid but heavy.

“We were all on the same page once,” another voice recalled—white suburban moms marching with Black activists, a fleeting unity over Floyd’s death. “What now?” they ask, staring down Shapiro’s plea and Musk’s cryptic boost. Black Republicans got dragged in too, dubbed “runaways” by critics who smell hypocrisy or worse. It’s personal, messy, and loud.

Shapiro’s not backing off. His site’s live, signatures piling up, a corner of the internet betting on his version of the story. But the other side’s just as dug in—calling it insane, offensive, a bridge too far for a man convicted by a jury of his peers. Musk’s move only pours fuel on it, his X platform a battleground where the takes fly fast and brutal.

Under all the noise though, Shapiro’s core position is that Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted in the 2020 death of George Floyd, was “unjustly convicted” and should be pardoned by President Donald Trump—at least from his federal charges. He’s not arguing Chauvin should walk free entirely (since Trump can’t touch the state sentence), but he wants the federal slate wiped clean.

Here’s why he thinks this, step by step:

1. The Evidence Doesn’t Prove Murder

Shapiro zeroes in on the cause of Floyd’s death, challenging the narrative that Chauvin’s actions directly killed him. He points to Floyd’s toxicology report—high levels of fentanyl in his system—and a pre-existing heart condition as critical factors. “George Floyd was high on fentanyl; he had a significant pre-existing heart condition,” Shapiro has said, suggesting these could’ve caused Floyd’s death independent of Chauvin’s knee. He argues the autopsy showed no tracheal damage, implying the knee-on-neck story doesn’t hold up. To him, Floyd might’ve died of “excited delirium”—a controversial medical term tied to drug use and stress—rather than asphyxiation from Chauvin’s restraint.

He’s not saying Chauvin did nothing wrong—just that the evidence doesn’t meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for murder. He’s claimed that for “large segments” of the widely seen video, Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s shoulder or back, not his neck, which he says aligns with the autopsy and undermines the prosecution’s case.

2. Floyd’s Behavior Before the Restraint

Shapiro emphasizes that Floyd was saying “I can’t breathe” before he was even out of the police car—well before Chauvin pinned him down. This, to Shapiro, suggests Floyd’s distress wasn’t solely—or even primarily—caused by Chauvin’s actions. It’s a pivot to argue that Floyd’s physical state was already compromised, painting the incident as a tragic escalation rather than a deliberate killing.

3. The Trial Was Tainted by Pressure

A big chunk of Shapiro’s reasoning hinges on the trial itself. He calls it a “railroading,” claiming the jury faced “massive overt pressure” to convict, regardless of evidence. He’s pointed to public figures—like Minneapolis’s mayor settling with Floyd’s family mid-trial, or comments from then-President Biden and Congresswoman Maxine Waters—as proof the deck was stacked. “There was no opportunity for blind justice,” he wrote in an open letter to Trump, arguing that threats, coercion, and intimidation turned the verdict into a foregone conclusion. To him, this wasn’t a fair shake—it was a political hit job.

4. No Racial Motive, No Hate Crime

Shapiro stresses that Chauvin wasn’t accused of targeting Floyd because of his race, nor was he charged with a hate crime. He brings this up to counter the broader narrative that Floyd’s death was a clear-cut case of racial injustice. If it wasn’t about race—at least legally—Shapiro sees the conviction as less about justice and more about satisfying a public outcry.

5. The Bigger Picture: Woke Politics and Chaos

Shapiro frames Chauvin’s conviction as “the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics,” a symbol of what he calls a “dark, divisive, and racist era.” He ties it to the BLM riots—$2 billion in property damage, he says, and the worst race relations in his lifetime. To him, the media and political left spun Floyd’s death into a rallying cry for the 2020 election, sacrificing Chauvin to appease a narrative. Pardoning him, Shapiro argues, would “right this terrible wrong” and help the country move past that chapter.

6. Chauvin’s Rotting in Prison

He paints a vivid picture: Chauvin’s rotting in prison not because he’s guilty, but because the media and public decided his fate in 2020. Shapiro calls it a “tragic law enforcement stop” gone wrong—not murder—and says the evidence doesn’t justify the punishment. He’s not denying Floyd died; he’s denying Chauvin’s culpability rises to the level of a 21-year federal sentence (on top of the 22.5-year state one).

Why Federal Charges Specifically?

Shapiro knows Trump can’t touch the state conviction—only Minnesota’s governor could—but a federal pardon would still be symbolic. Chauvin’s serving concurrent sentences, so it wouldn’t free him, but it could shift him from federal to state custody and, in Shapiro’s view, signal a rejection of the “woke” overreach he blames for the case. He’s launched PardonDerek.com to push this, urging Trump to act fast.

The Gist of It

Shapiro’s case boils down to this: Floyd’s death was a mess of drugs and health issues, not a murder; Chauvin was judged by a biased trial; and the whole thing fueled a destructive political movement. He’s not saying Chauvin’s a saint—just that the feds got it wrong, and Trump should fix it. Whether you buy that depends on how you weigh the evidence, the trial, and the chaos that followed. Shapiro’s betting his audience sees it his way—he’s promised weeks of coverage to hammer it home.