In his first interview since the DOJ indictment, Pool, the host of the popular Timcast show, reiterated on “The Ben Shapiro Show” that he had very limited contact with Tenet Media, which is accused by federal prosecutors of secretly taking money from Russians and licensed one of his spin-off shows called the “Culture War” podcast. He also explained that Tenet, which was founded by conservative commentator Lauren Chen, didn’t even have exclusive rights to his show, much less editorial input on it.

“That’s the crazy thing, it’s not even an exclusive show, it’s not exclusive, we published it other places, we own all the rights for it,” Pool said. “And so now we get entrenched in whatever this is, and I’m just like, nah, I don’t have anything to do with this. I don’t know what it is Lauren Chen was doing. I’m quite perturbed by the allegations. I don’t know what will turn out to be true, but I’m pissed.”

Pool said that despite clips circulating on social media this week that show him harshly criticizing Ukraine, he has always hated Russia.