This paper will explore the media event as a site of contestation in the context of the mass mobilizations which took place in Lebanon in October of 2019. We examine specifically the controversial panel which took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 23, 2020 called, “The Return of Arab Unrest.” In it, CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble, spoke with leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Former Minister of Energy and Water, and Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants in Lebanon, Gebran Bassil, Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Sigrid Kaag, and Damac Properties Chairman Hussain Sajwani. During the panel-turned-trial, the focus shifted to Bassil’s role in the recent economic decline in Lebanon, turning the tables from his usual control of the narrative in traditional Lebanese media. The panel was dominated by Gamble, who reprimanded Bassil, and Kaag, who engaged in pedagogical discourses. Both converged in their moralizing stances. We are particularly interested in the ambivalent responses by Lebanese nationals and diaspora who reported conflicting feelings, sometimes simultaneously, about the interview. To explore this ambivalence, we analyze a petition launched to prevent Bassil from attending the forum, the interview itself, traditional media discourse, and the surrounding discourse on social media following the interview. In these spaces, we turn to the dynamics of shame and pleasure within the interview, as well as the articulation of embarrassment and fun in the memes and posts following the interview. We explore these political affects, whereby viewers indicated a desire to see Bassil finally taken to task and shamed for his role in the demise of the economy and his lack of credibility and effectiveness as minister. At the same time, reactions also pointed to the stakes of this representation in the “international” arena, indicating an uneasiness with the directionality, power dynamics, and performance involved in the shaming of a Western humanitarian gaze. In this way, we situate this discussion within the broader political economy of local and international media coverage of the protests and the vicious cycle and unholy trinity of debt, adjustments, and financial aid which have served the further entrench Lebanon’s ruling order and license moralizing discourses like the ones which took place in Davos. This spectacle ultimately highlights the kinds of nationalisms that are mobilized in times of heightened public discourse, revealing the stakes of representation which are inextricably tied to political contestation.