INTERVIEW: Piers Morgan On Royal Family 'Racism', Trump's Trajectory, Biden's Disintegration, Israel + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that answer up in the morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is DJ Envy, Charlomagne the guy.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest
joining us this morning. We got Peers Morgan. Welcome, Thank you.
How are you doing this morning.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
It's good to be here. I'm a little bit apprehensive
because I messaged my sons to tell me the big
news I was coming on, and well, my middle boy
is a big fan of the show, and he said
that you gotta be carefully. He said, Charlemagne is a
bit of a menace. And I went and then I
didn't reply, and he then paused and then replied again,
actually so used so she could be fining. You shouldn't reply.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
You got to be friends, should reply back.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
Do you know who your father is? You know what
I wanted to always ask you know, and reference to
that I heard you say once you were hired to
be controversial when you got the gig at ITV. So
is my question is Peers Morgan actually controversial or is
it just performative?

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Well, I don't wake up in the morning and start
screaming at my family about the state of my my
marmte on toast, but I am, by nature very opinionated.
I've encouraged my four kids, who range from twelve to thirty,
to have opinions about everything. I'ither if you don't have opinions,
you have a lazy mind. I always believe the things

(01:15):
I say at the time I say them. I'm happy
to change my view if somebody gives me a compelling
argument for why I'm wrong. I have no problem saying,
you know what, you have a point, I'm changing my perspective.
But yeah, look, am I controversial? I often take issue
with that because I don't actually think my views of
that controversial. I actually think that they're controversial if you

(01:38):
only judge my opinions by what Twitter now x says.
But then eighty percent of the public are not on
twitter x. Eighty percent of the public aren't on social
media at all. And when I walk around the streets,
whether it's in New York or LA or it's London
or wherever it may be, Sidney, Australia, I get a

(01:59):
very different reaction to the one that I get on
on the social media platforms where people go everything you
say is outrageous. Well, actually it's not. I think I
have reasonably popular views which a lot of people subscribe to.
I don't I think a bit like you. I don't
know your politics, but I think like you. I don't
identify as as left or right. I think I'd like

(02:21):
to go after everybody, examine their opinions, challenge them, and
I think that's the way you should be if you're
in our game. So I don't like to be identified
into a box about anything so that I look am
I controversial? I say things forcefully. I expressed my opinions forcefully.
I don't think that's controversial.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
People.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
For people that don't know who Peers Morgan is and
how you got into this is there anybody.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
And then you know, don't.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Know how you got into this entertainment world? Break down,
how you got into this world, how you started off
at the sun, and what made you follow this path?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Well, I was from the very early age, like six
or seven. My mum remembers me reading newspapers avidly, and
in Britain, the national newspaper culture is very big. We
have about thirteen national newspapers, very unusual. Obviously we're a
very small island by comparison to the United States, but
it means that the national papers have a very large

(03:17):
influence over the thinking of the people, and we have
a wide range of papers, left wing, right wing, centrist
is something for everybody. But I used to read the
papers avidly when I was six or seven and read
out stories to it, so I had this thing in
my blood. Had a few journalists in the family. I
just wanted to be a journalist, and I ended up
going to journalism college, ended up going on local newspapers

(03:39):
doing all the flower shows, the weddings, you know, all
the boring stuff but important because it teaches you the
craft of reporting. And then I got onto The Sun,
which was at the time the biggest selling tabloid newspaper
in Britain. In fact, I think it was in the
world at the time, and I very quickly became the
show business editor, doing a column called Bizarre, which basically

(04:03):
did what it said on the tin. It covered the
bizarre world of entertainment. It was a great gig. It
was a time when newspapers sold huge amounts. My son
sold over four million copies a day and was read
by about eleven to twelve million, so huge audience. And
my job was to go around the world in very
nice conditions and interview the world's most famous people and

(04:25):
to cover what they got up to. And I really
enjoyed it. Did it for five years, and then Rupert Murdoch,
who owned The Sun, he flew me to a beach
in Miami. I walked along the beach with him for
three hours. I had no idea what I was doing there.
I was twenty seven years old. And the consequence of
that long walk along the beach was he made me
editor of the News of the World, which was his

(04:46):
biggest selling newspaper in the world. It was the biggest
sitting newspaper berl It's closed.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Now And.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
I took on this extraordinary job at a ridiculously young
age and we year with it. It was nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
That was the way before FI.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my whole trajectory from my youth
on was was to become a national newspaper journalist. And
I became an editor of the biggest setting papers in
the country at a very I was the youngest editor
ever of a paper there. I then moved to the
Daily Mirror, which was a slightly left to center newspaper

(05:21):
News of the World with slightly writer's center. So going
back to what I said earlier, I can. I never
park myself into either box really politically, and I did
that for nearly ten years competing against Rupert Murdock. So
I had the benefit of working for a man I
considered to be a genius when it comes to the media,
and then competing against him. And I have to say

(05:42):
it was more fun competing against him because we were
the underdogs. We had less money, less staff, less resource.
I found that a brilliant challenge and then I got fired.
It was a huge scandal in the UK. The Iraq
War was raging. I had taken the papers position as
anti war very aggressively. Tony Blair was the Prime Minister

(06:05):
in the UK and we were the labor supporting newspaper historically,
but I went against him on the war, and I
think I've been vindicated by subsequent events. I felt was
an illegal conflict. What complicated it more for me was
my own brother, who was an army officer in the
Royal Regiment of Wales, actually went on the front line
in Basra in Iraq at the same time that I

(06:26):
was opposing the war. So for my family it was
a very complex situation. As you can imagine, but I
got fired because we got some pictures. You may remember
the Abu Grabe pictures which came out of American troops
abusing Iraqi civilians. They were horrific and we were passed
some pictures not as bad, but they were pretty awful,

(06:47):
and we published them and it was said they were faked.
I've never been fully i think, confident of exactly what
they were. The story that they depicted was never denied,
is accepted as being true. It was British troops abusing
Iraqis civilians.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
And they retracted it all right.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
The paper fired me and then said sorry, but I
didn't say sorry, and I haven't attracted it. And I
the more I've gleaned over the next twenty years twenty
years incredible. Since it happened, I've been told by many
people in the army that actually they might well have depicted,
not just depicted, a genuine incident, but the pictures themselves
may not have been what people were led to believe.

(07:28):
So I was thrown into the wilderness. My dream was
over of being a newspaper journalist. I was thirty eight.
I became the youngest editor to be appointed and the
youngest to be fired. It was a nice little win
win at both ends of that career. And then I
had lunch with a guy called Simon cow Wow, who's
been an old friend of mine back when no one

(07:49):
knew who he was. He was a record plugger. He
used to plug some terrible records and I used to
help him promote them.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Some of the plugger is like a record promoter here and.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
Record promotes, and you know, he was an R guy
basically for a record company. His job was to get
publicity and stuff behind the records of the company, and
I would help him do that with my column. So
we'd established a little relationship which worked for me. He'd
give me interviews with his guys and so on. And
Simon Carr took me for lunch and he went, what
are you gonna do? I said, I have absolutely no idea.

(08:18):
We were at the Belvedere in Kensington and London, lovely restaurant.
He went, we said, He said, look, I'm thinking about
bringing back a talent show. I went, okay, I said,
what do you mean. He said, well, you remember the
old Gong show in America. He said, there's nothing like
it on TV anymore. There's Idol, which is a singing show,
and he was the biggest TV star in the world
at the time. On Idol, he said, but there's nothing

(08:42):
that's like all round entertainment. Any talent will do. And
he said, I'm going to I'm going to try and
do this, so long story short, he mapped out on
a little handkerchief in the restaurant. He mapped out what
you'd have. You'd have like a mother hen judge, you'd
have a controversial judge, you'd have a straight down middle charge,
you'd have a good host and they could do any talent.

(09:03):
And we then was interesting story behind it because we
then did a pilot for that which was called paul
O'Grady's Got Talent. You probably don't know who he was.
He died sadly recently, but he was a huge TV
star in the UK, very popular, and the pilot was
brilliant and ITV the network loved it. It was just
going to be my big comeback. I was frilled primetime television.

(09:27):
It's amazing as a talent show judge. And then Paula
Grady fell out with ITV hurled abuse out them, defected
to the Rivals and the show got put on the
back burner, and I was completely disconsolate. Theyka, what am
I gonna do now? And then I'll never forget. I
got a text from Cowl about two months later, maybe
even earlier, saying I've sold the rights to Got Talent

(09:47):
to NBC in America and they want to repackage it
as America's Got Talent and I can't be on it
because of Idol. And I was trying to think, who
do I know who's as annoying, egotistical, a in jectionable
and judgmental as me? And your name has immediately sprung
to my and I was flown to It was a
crazy period in my life. I was flown to La

(10:10):
Simon picked me up and he's Bentley at the airport.
The next day, I met with two NBC executives who'd
never heard of me. I had to sell myself, it said,
just bullshit them like you normally would, which I did
obviously quite as successfully, because the next thing is two
weeks later, I'm on the Paramount movie lot with the
famous Melrose Gates in La in a trailer next to
David Hasselhoff with Regis Philbin down the alley, and I'm

(10:33):
in this show America's got talent now. He said to me,
cal don't get too excited because most shows open and bomb, right,
So you got a kind of three and thirty chance,
all right, that's it. The rest just get tanked. So
just enjoy it, have fun. And he said, and be
right with your judgments eighty percent of a time. If

(10:55):
you do that, it can be as mean as you want.
But if you're wrong and the public at home don't
agree with you, the mean act doesn't play cudge right.
But if you if you're tough but right, and the
audience agrees with you, the app will fly. And we
recorded all the audition shows and the first night it
went on air, I was in the UK. He was

(11:16):
in La and he rang me and and he did
the full cow on me. He said, Peers, it's Simon.
It's it's not good news. And I went, oh no,
he said, it's really it's bad news, really bad. I went, oh,
how bad? You went it's well for me personally. He said,
it's as bad as it could possibly be. Wow, how

(11:38):
bad was the rate? I was like, this is okay,
I'm done. He went yeah, Unfortunately, it's number one in
the racings, which means you just became a massive star
of America and I feel like doctor frankenstar. And that
was that, and that was the start of my TV world.
So I did America's Got Talent for six years. Then
I did Celebrity Apprentice with a certain Donald Trump as host.

(12:01):
It was the first season of the celebrity version. I
won it.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Did he really smell? People say he have smelled?

Speaker 4 (12:07):
No, he was always immaculate, And actually I always yeah,
he smelled fine. He was he was. I tell you
what was interesting. Someone asked the other day about this.
He was much more empathetic in the boardrooms for hours
on end than he's ever been as president. It was
interesting to watch he stopped that empathy val which I
saw a lot of in the Apprentice. I don't know
why it would help him. It's almost like he feels

(12:28):
you have to be this big, tough guy. If I
were advising him, I'd say, if you do win again,
bring a bit of empathy, right. People goes a long way.
But I ended up winning. That went back on town
and then as a result of all this, really what
I wanted to do was to do a big interview
show and then Larry King stepped down from CNN the
greatest bit of interview real estate in world television. Yeah,

(12:52):
and my late great manager, John Ferreta somehow got me
the gig and we celebrated the Beverly Wolf should Cut
restaurant with a bottle of nineteen sixty one Chatela Tour.
I think I paid about ten thousand dollars for it,
and we drank it very slow slip by very slow sip,
and I signed the contract which was brought to me

(13:14):
by the front desk from CNN at about midnight. And
that was one of the great moments of my life
and my manager's life, and that took the whole thing
full circle. Did nearly four years at CNN interviewing amazing
array of people, and then I came back to the
UK did the Breakfast Show. Just to be clear, we
had the most dangerous morning show in the water. Not

(13:36):
you guys, you guys, you kind of date. We were
properly dangerous. And then, as you may may recall the
Megan and Harry interview ed on Oprah Winfrey, I took
a view. I didn't believe a word they were saying
about the more serious allegations, which I think has stood
the test of time pretty well actually, given no evidence
as ever emerged and I got fired again. We'll put

(13:58):
in the position where either I should apology or I
lost my job. Now, at the time, we were killing
it in the rating. We had just beaten the BBC
for the first time in our show's history. We trebled
the ratings in five years. We were on fire. We
were dangerous and narcic, like anything happened. I never used
to look at scripts. It was just like off we
went every day and so it was a real shame

(14:19):
and I didn't want to leave it, but I left it,
and then I went back to work for my old boss,
Rupert Murdoch. He was watching a new network in the UK,
Talk TV, and my show Appeers Morgan uncensored, which was
what I needed to be without people making me apologize
to people I thought were lying for saying I don't

(14:39):
believe them. And that's where I've I've ended up and
I love it. It's you know we've been on are
It'll be two years in April. I think we found
ourselves a voice of being genuinely uncensored, platforming everybody, challenging everybody.
I love it. It airs in three Continents Australia the
US on Fox Nation. Here talk to you v in

(15:00):
the UK, and that leads me to my career high,
which is appearing on your show.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
You had me on on Sents the two.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
I appreciate that a few conversations, a few questions came
out of everything you just said. Number one, did Rupe
of Murdoch ever try to hire you at Fox News?

Speaker 4 (15:16):
Uh? No, it is always about Fox Nation. Fox Nation
is the kind of subscription platform that Fox has which
runs side by side with Fox News. I do a
lot of Fox News stuff, like I'm doing The Five
this week for two days, I'll go on Sean Hannity Show.
And but the interesting thing for me is whatever people

(15:36):
think of Fox News, I'm never put under any pressure
to tow any line, to have any view about an issue. Nothing.
Nobody even talks to me. I'm allowed to just be
me and have my opinions. And I have strong opinions
about a lot of culture as she's in America, which
do not sit well with Fox viewers, for example, about
guns and things like that. Nobody ever tries to censor

(15:58):
me when I appear on Fox News, which is interesting
because I would say it's more difficult now to have
that kind of freedom of someone like CNN, where I
used to work, because their solo, for example, hostile towards
Donald Trump. If you try to go on there and
say anything positive about him, that would probably someone wouldn't
like it. I don't get any of that at Fox,

(16:19):
and I find that a really just an interesting observation
for me personally, that I'm allowed to just be me
and do my thing there.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
I'll let you be pro Trump on Fox, of course,
no no.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
But I could be critical of Trump too. Is my
point where I think it would be harder to be
pro Trump on CNN and get invited back too many times.

Speaker 5 (16:35):
I think I think it's changed now.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
I think it has done a bit. It's good they
need to because CNN should really be in the middle. Otherwise,
where do American viewers go to for genuinely impartial news coverage.
You've got MSNBC very you know, to the left, you've
got a Fox obviously very conservative. You need to have
CNN to be impartial. I felt they lost their minds
over Trump.

Speaker 5 (16:56):
I mean, the reality is all of them should be impartial.
That would be the booty. It would beautiful if all
of them were objective.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
I actually have no problem in a country like America,
a bit like the UK with the newspapers. When we
had left wing papers, right paper, I used to read
them all. I still do. I still when I'm back
in another four or five papers, I read them all
when I get a flavor for what everyone's thinking. I
don't have a problem with left wing networks or conservative networks,
but you've got to have some place that Americans can
go to for genuinely impartial coverage. And I think in

(17:25):
the in the UK we're quite blessed with We have
the BBC, we have Sky News, we have other networks
which are very, in my estimation comparative to hear, very impartial,
and I like that.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
You know who used to be that for America. John's
do it in the Daily Show?

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Yeah, well I miss him. I felt he gave up
that show unfortunately too early. I think John Stuart would
have been a really important voice through the whole Trump era.
You know, you needed people's strong personalities through that era
to put things in perspective. I don't think he would
have gone the whole way in constant Trump bashing, because
of course that I've known Trump a long time since
I did his show. The thing about the Trump bashing

(18:02):
is it only helps him anyway, right. I mean, I
had a great conversation with Chris Rock when Trump won
in twenty sixteen, and I went to the New York
Knicks with my eldest son. Spency was over with me
and we were just sitting in one of the VIPA is.
Chris Rock is at the next table in design. So
we got talking. I said, what are you making? Was
just happened? The election happened the day before and New
York was like a mortuary. He walked around. It was

(18:24):
like this terrible silence everywhere. They were low did this happen?
And I've been predicting Trump was going to win because
I've been doing crime documentaries down in rural America, down
in Alabama, down in Florida, rural Florida, rural Texas. I
can feel it. I can feel the Trump trained steaming.
And no one on the coast seemed to have picked
up on this, and the media hadn't picked up on it.

(18:45):
They were just like, oh, Hiary, he's going to slaughter him.
She's the most qualified candidate ever. And I thought, you
don't understand Middle America and what's happening here. And I
think and I think the same thing is happening again now,
by the way, which is why the Iowa result has
shocked everyone on the coast. But you know, I remember
talking to Chris Rock and he said, you know, to
several things. He said, One, fame, do not underestimate the

(19:08):
power of a television fame in America, he said, Now,
he said. And secondly, he said, if someone's killed nine
or eight people, I think he said, don't go around
saying he's killed nine. I thought that was such an
astute thing to say. Don't, as we would say in England,
don't overreg the soufle right, don't exaggerate how bad Trump

(19:29):
is to score your point or get some clicks on
social media or whatever. Just give it straight. Examine what
he's saying, examine what he's doing. Often, what he says
and what he does are two different things, right, But
don't over exaggerate, don't over demonize him, he said, you know,
don't go around calling him the new Hitler when we
know Hitler killed twelve million people. So I thought that

(19:51):
was a really smart take then, and I think it's
a really good bit of advice now for the Democrats,
which is, if you continue to over demonize Trump, all
these legal cases against him and so on, it just
allows him to play the martyr, the victim. It fuels
his popularity. Even Republicans who don't like Trump are rallying

(20:11):
behind him because they think he's part of a Democrat
led liberal media witch hunt. And if you allow him
to play that card, he's going to win. So if
you're a Democrat, this is a bad strategy, but you
have to.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Hold people accountable or nobody's above the los, no.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Question, absolutely, but you have to hold both sides accountable, right,
and Trump needs to be held accountable. But you cannot
deny that. What's happened in Iowa I thought was fascinating.
He won across the board, right, I know, But if
it had been if it had been a Democrat with
those numbers, trust me, all the people saying yeah, would
have said very different things.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
More enjoy yesterday. And he said otherwise. He had a
differ perspective which I didn't think about. He was like
fifty percent of Republicans also aboarded against Trump, which makes
it it doesn't make it a slam dune.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
For I love Morning Joe, and I think Joe scarb
was brilliant, by the way, one of my favorite people
to watch on television over here. But would he have
said the same thing if Joe Biden got those numbers right?
And the truth is no, because of course they were
tremendous numbers, or we'll.

Speaker 5 (21:12):
Never know because the Democrats don't want to do a primary.
Right is also not Demira.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
But the truth is Trump. You know, Trump winning by
thirty thirty points of his nearest rival, Trump having the
biggest win of any Republican and Iowa caucus ever. Right,
these are undeniable numbers. And if Democrats want to look
at these numbers and pretend they're not what they are,
they are once again deluding themselves about Trump and they

(21:37):
will be sleepwalking, which sadly, and I know you've been
quite critical of Joe Biden about his just general lack
of energy, in general, lack of fire. If you look
at Trump, you know he's only three years younger than Biden.
He looks twenty years younger than Biden. This is remember
that Trump's never had a drink, never had a cigarette,
never had a drug. I've had long conversations with him
about his brother who died about alcoholism in his forties

(22:00):
and made him swear off all that stuff. Right, he
has an unusual health for a guy who doesn't look
like an athlete. He's pretty fit, and he's got a
lot of energy. He can get up there, he can
rally crowds. He's a very very effective performer as a politician,
regardless of what you think of his policies. And I
also think he's shown qualities which are many Americans admire,

(22:23):
not least resilience. This comeback is making Nobody thought he
could do this after the stolen election bullshit, after the
January sixth riots, all that stuff, after the ninety one
criminal charges. Did anyone really think We've been in a
position where Trump had a landslide win in Iowa and
is now in most polls I'm looking at likely to

(22:44):
beat Biden if he does end up as candidate. I mean,
it's an incredible comeback.

Speaker 5 (22:49):
Well, it's something we say all the time, right, we
know that America systemically, structurally is a racist country, and
I think things like that prove it. I wanted to
ask you about in Trump twenty sixteen. After you win,
I can understand the case for optimism. Right, nobody wants
to see this country far. But it's twenty twenty four now.
Based on everything we've seen Trump do, all of the
things you just you know, said, the attempted call the

(23:12):
country to not anyone criminal charges, you still think he
should be president?

Speaker 4 (23:15):
Well, it's on a question of whether I think he
should be. It's whether I think he might be. No,
I don't As a non American citizen, it's not for
me to say whether Trump should be your President's down
to Americans, right. What I do know is you remember
that last time, after four years of Trump, nearly ten
million more Americans voted for him second time round the first.
It was the biggest vote for both sides. Now, Biden

(23:36):
got a huge vote, the biggest ever. But don't forget
Trump got ten million more than first time. Right. So
he is hugely popular with the constituent of American people,
with many tens of millions of American people, and the
enthusiasm levels for him with his own base are massively
higher than they are for Joe bidegre Right. I think
the Democrats, if they insist on allowing Biden to progress

(23:58):
as their nominee, are going to hand Trump the best
chance he has have being re elected. They would say
the opposite. They would say, well, we beat him last time.
Joe Biden beat him last time because it was the
anti Trump vote.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Not just the anti Trump vote.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
It was like some of the most tragic situations had happened.
I mean, you had COVID, you had George Floyd. People
were in the streets protesting like it was a series
of unfortunate circumstances.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think that helped Joe Biden list.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
If it hadn't been for the pandemic, I think Trump
would have won that last election very comfortably.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
But what do you think about people now who are
very critical of Joe Biden, which is probably going to
influence people not to vote for Joe Biden, which is
pretty much as far as all the Democrats have. So
it's like even with Charlamagne, he they're very critical of him,
talking bad about Joe Biden and saying no, you're right.
It might push people to sit on the couch instead
of go out and vote.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Well, I know you endorsed them both last time, right,
Biden and actually.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Endorsed Paris, Right, I didn't. I couldn't endorse Biden.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
What do you think about a lot of people that
are very critical of Joe Biden, but kind of that's
that's all we have.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
I think it's a bad state of affairs for the Democrats,
and it's sleepwalking into potential defeat potentially to Donald Trump.
I think Trump is ninety five percent certain to be
the Republican nominee. And I think if you have a young,
dynamic candidate on the Democrat side, then you can draw
a real difference now between you and Trump. If you
go for someone like Gavin Newsom, by the governor of California.

(25:25):
All right, he's not universally beloved for a lot of
his policy stuff, but I watched him go on Sean
Hannity Show on Fox News for the hour really interesting.
The fact that he did it shows he's got balls, right,
the fact that they had a pretty courteous debate. It
was very interesting. He's slick, he is, he goold operate,
He's been governor of one of the biggest states in
the country. You know, you look at that and you think,
why wouldn't you want to parachute someone like him in

(25:47):
to take on Trump with more energy, with more dynamism,
with more of maybe you choose a path of the
country you think will resonate with enough people to beat Trump.
I just think Biden sadly, I don't know him personally.
I had an amazing conversation with him once on the
phone when his son Bo died, because Bo used to
be on my CNN show a lot, and I had

(26:09):
no doubt from that conversation. He just rang me to
thank me for a column I'd written about his son,
and we had a very moving conversation about loss and
grief and all that kind of thing. And there's no
doubt he has incredible empathy Joe Biden. But if you
want to know the problem with Joe Biden, go back
and look at YouTube clips of him as a senator

(26:30):
when he was in his forties. There's one in particular
where he's railing against apartheid South Africa. Is you're watching
a firebrand guy, absolute firebrand. You'd vote for that guy
every time. He would get the vote out against Trump
in a heartbeat. He's not that guy anymore. And it's
not because he's eighty one. Actually, I've met some incredibly

(26:51):
rupert murdocks in his nineties. He still has vim and
vigor and as sharp as attack Dame Joan Collins at
the Emmys is a very good friend of mine. Right,
Look how fan fantastic she looks. She's ninety. Right, she's
nine years older than Biden but has ten times the energy.
It's not about his age. Trump's seventy seventy eight. It's
not about him being eighty. Mick Jagger, I met Mick

(27:12):
Jagger at the cricket in your big cricket fans, you guys,
I met Mick Dagger at a big England cricket match
in the summer and he just turned eighty and I went,
you know, look at you. Compare it to Joe Biden,
who were laughing. I think you should be president of
the United States if you're American. Because it's not about age.
Jagger is only a few months younger than Biden. It's

(27:32):
about unfortunately, it's about senility. It's about probably a slow dementia.
It's about his inability to stay on two feet, his
constant vocal gas and so on, and so it's sad.
I don't think anyone feels good about watching Joe Biden
kind of physically disintegrating in front of our eyes. But
he's still nine months away from a general election and

(27:53):
then expects us to think he can lead this amazing,
huge superpower for another four years. He can't, aren't and
you can't go to karma Harris. She's been a total disaster.
So the Democrats, if they're not.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
I think she's scared people more than I think if
he had and you know this DESI for racism and
sexism comes into play. I think if he has a
white male vice president, I think I don't think people
are as afraid of all for Biden.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
You know what, I honestly don't think he has anything
to do with Carmela's race or gender. I think it's
because she's turned out to be useless. And sometimes you
just have to call what you see. I don't.

Speaker 5 (28:30):
I mean most vice presidents are useless, well some of
them are, and yeah, the job some of them it's
it's not a great job.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
You don't really have any power. You just take all
the flight. She's been especially ineffective. Let's put it like that, right.
I met her actually once. I thought she was very
charming to me, and I was expecting more. She's obviously
a bright woman. She's just been incredibly ineffective for him.
Her pole numbers are just as bad as his, so
the paraly I.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
Think she's been ineffective because of to go back to
the fact her race and her gender.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
I think that allow allows her to say and.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Do things that other vps probably couldn't or even somebody
like Joe couldn't.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
But she's choosing that.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
I agree, and I don't think she's done nearly enough
for your community. By the way, I mean, a lot
of promise came in with Karmala Harris. Where's the delivery?
I don't see it, So I don't think she's been
effective at all. The interesting thing about Gavin Newsom, if
he was to become the nominee, it solves the problem
of how do you fire Karmala Harris if you're a
Democrat leader. Because they both come from California, she wouldn't

(29:29):
be allowed to be his VP anyway as a rule
apparently in the Constitution about that or the election rules.
So automatically you solve two problems at once. You get
rid of this decaying old guy as your nominee with
a guy half his age and twice the energy. And
you also don't have to have Karma as VP anymore,
and he doesn't have to be seen to be firing it.

(29:51):
So it's an interesting little twist on that.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
What puts you so much into American politics?

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Right?

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Because I love it.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
I don't think it's anything like America.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
I don't think like what like what what made you
want to jump into American politics and to learn American
politic because it's a it's a lot of bullshit too.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
When I came to see and then I came in
sort of that in January twenty eleven, and of course
we had the election in twenty twelve, and I just
was covering this night after night to night. You got
to understand the difference in the American process and ours
in Britain. The election in Britain, the general election is
lasts about six weeks. That's it. Prime Minister calls an

(30:25):
election and within six weeks it's all over. But here
it basically starts the moment on's ended, and then it
really starts at the start of election year for eleven
or ten months. I find the whole process a apart
from anything else. You really get to understand what these
candidates are about. There's no escape. In Britain, you could

(30:45):
actually become a leader of a country. Like Britain, without
the public really knowing that much about you because there's
not enough time to scrutinize them properly. Plus the American media,
when it really gets together and goes after people, is
it a for mid scrutinizing beast. So I love I
love America. It's for me. It's been absolutely the land

(31:07):
of opportunity. I've had an amazing successes here and a
few lows. And I love the fact that Americans, whether
you're you know, I've been all around America doing America's
got talent. You went to almost every major city quite regularly,
and I just love the difference between the states the cities.
But I love the concerted view that America is still
the place if you want to come and be someone.

(31:29):
America is still the number one place to make a
success of herself. You know, when I was doing one
on TV here, I was very conscious. So few British
people have done that, really, just a handful To hold
down a nightly talk show like Larry King's old job
on CNN for nearly four years, it was pretty much unprecedented.
So I love it, don't David Frost back in the seventies,

(31:50):
you'd have to go back to. So I love I
love everything about America and the can do mentality and
the competition that you had because you got three hundred
and thirty forty million people competing for you know, these
prize jobs, and the work ethic. You know, you have
like three weeks vacation a year maximum. In most European

(32:11):
countries it's at least double that, right, So you have
less vacation time, you work harder, you're more competitive, You're
more successful as a nation than anyone in history. I
love all that that plays to all my I'd like
to think of a strong work ethic, very competitive. I
like to win in the biggest possible marketplace. That's America.

(32:33):
And I love my own country too, of course, but
I love that about America, and you lose that at
your peril, you know. And it's this whole issue about
democracy in America. Incredibly important to preserve the safeguards of
your democratic process. When I watched that, generally.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well Trump back in well, it's interesting.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
Interesting. The one thing I thought was interesting was at
the end of his acceptance speech at Iowa, he suddenly
sounded very conciliatory and inclusive for the first time, and
I go back to the guy I saw across the
boardroom on The Apprentice. It may sound trite to do that,
but you remember, for most nights, for three hours, I
watched this guy interacting with people. He was a very

(33:13):
different person, very different, much more charming, much more towards
them female contestants, towards people who'd had a hard time,
much more empathetic. We didn't get this brash, often quite
boorish guy that you see a lot of when he
was president. I think if you want to understand why

(33:34):
Trump became like that when he became president, go and
read his book The Art of the Deal, which I
read several times before competing in his shirt. It's probably
why I won it because I used to talk to
him like it was him. But you know he's he
says in there, somebody punches, you punched them ten times back.
That's his natural default thing. He has the thinnest skin
of anyone in the world, but he has the thickest too,

(33:55):
so he reacts to everything, but he can soak up
pressure that would destroy any other politicians. The fascinating double
skin quality he has. But his natural thing is to
be a New York real estate magnate, pugilist right, and
if you take him on, as everybody did immediately and
tried to kill him off, he will fight back with
everything he's got. That's just.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
I agree with you when you say the Democrats need
to move away from Joe Biden. But I also feel
like Republicans are doing themselves a disservice by not moving
away from Trump, because it's hard to say you're not
the party of white supremacy when you're supporting a guy
who you know didn't attempt to cool his country, a
guy who says he wants to be a dictator for
a day, a guy who's talking about, you know, killing

(34:36):
his political right. More importantly, a guy who said you
should eliminate the Constitution in order to overturn the results
of an election. I don't care if you're a Democrat Republican.
You can't have somebody, you know, a leader of the
free world who doesn't believe in the Constitution.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
I agree, and I think the other thing you've always
got to be mindful about with Trump is not to
take everything he says to you. Now you have to
are you done? Have to give you a present you shouldn't.

Speaker 5 (35:01):
Take us too, literally, because we're does media presonality.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Definitely take us No, I think if you look at
look at for example, the other day in Iowa. Right,
he comes out with his crack on the either of
the vote, and he said, look, I don't care if
you're sick at home, just tell your wife, darling, I've
got to go and vote. And he said, and if
it does, if you end up passing away, at least
your vote wasn't wasted. Right. And why I watch people
on CNN, my employers trying to be po faced about it. Right,

(35:26):
he's basically risking the lives of people in Iowa. No,
he wasn't. He was cracking a Trump gag, right. And
one of his Trump cards literally is humor. Right. People
in Middle America find him mailarious. Right. People in New
York pretend not to but probably laugh quietly. A lot
of the stuff, A lot of the other characters candidate
seem very double by confimence A.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
Free world, tap three funny if people on.

Speaker 4 (35:49):
The plane, yes, I agree, so so, but also you
know you're gonna remember becomes from a business real estate
in New York, where bullshitting is an artful right. That's
what they do, right, They just try pers way people
something's worth well, it's not. So. His entire life has
been spent exaggerating, going over the top, all that kind
of stuff. And I always say, if you actually an
interesting question for you guys, if you took away all

(36:12):
Trump's rhetoric, which you can't do, but his rhetoric and
his tweeting when he's present, take all that away, right,
so you never actually hear him speak. You just judge
him on what he did. What did he actually do
that was so outrageous?

Speaker 5 (36:25):
He implemented, uh, put three conservative judges on the Supreme
Court perfectly?

Speaker 4 (36:29):
He is right?

Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yes, sure, but they look how.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
Conservatives would say that's an amazing success.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
You will look how far right they are.

Speaker 5 (36:36):
They got rid of real vieweight right, they got rid
of affirmative action in colleges. They're getting the Vaughton rates
that want to get rid of the Alton Rasack altogether.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
Hang On, I would say, and I'm not a conservative
by definition, I would say that they pursued a conservative agenda.
I think secretive about that. They did what conservatives would
want conservative appointed, Republican appointed judges on the Supreme Court
to do. Trump just got lucky that he was able
to do it three times in one tenure. You just
got lucky. Right. You could argue with the tactics of

(37:06):
the Democrats allowing some of those Democrat appointed judges to
go on too long. Yeah, but they're allowing them to
die on his watch.

Speaker 5 (37:14):
But the thing that they got rid of directly impact
you know, people directly impact people that look like me
and you know, people that I love.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I got four daughters. You know. Rov Wade is a
big deal.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
And I agree, I agree with you personally, but that
is that is democracy, right, what you're challenging. There is
actually a constitutional right of an American president to nominate
Supreme Court justices. He just happened to do it three
times in one tenure. That happened to ask you the
court conservative, would you have me?

Speaker 1 (37:40):
What did you do it?

Speaker 4 (37:41):
Or you can't blame Trump for appointing conservative judges on
the Supreme Court. Any Democrat would do the same the
other way.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Sure, but he takes credit for rov Wade being gone.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yeah, and personally he doesn't agree with you, and I
I'm making assumption here about your view. He doesn't agree.
I believe in a woman's right to have an abortion, Okay.
I think it's awful that there are states in America
which are going to make it incredibly difficult, if not impossible.
I would counter that by saying, there are many countries
around the world where it's completely illegal to have an abortion.

(38:12):
You can't go to Poland and have an abortion legally,
for example, Malta, I think is another one. Right, The
UK has some of the loosest abortion laws in the world.
The current legal term is twenty four weeks or something.

Speaker 5 (38:24):
Right, So any led an attempted call of this country
to a would turn the results of an election.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
I agree, and I wrote a column at the time
saying I thought it was a despicable assault on democracy, right,
and that all plays to Trump is hates losing. He
got into his head. I think he genuinely believes the
election was stolen. I think get a lot of people
around him, Giuliani and other people who were telling him
twenty four to seven, it was stolen wrongly from you.

(38:52):
And because of the number of votes involved is like
forty thousand votes, the tiny number of votes right, which
he had to in his head to compute into a loss,
he couldn't do it. And that's a failing of Trump
and his failure to honor the result of that election
was a disgrace. And I've told him to his face,
and he lost his ship in an interview and gave
it to me. You know, then you're a fool and

(39:13):
you're this. I said, well, maybe I am the fool.
But I just think if you're an American president and
you lose, you accept defeat. I said, there's no doubt
the American political system is one of the most secure
in the world. The voting system is one of the
most secure in the world. So I don't agree with
him about that. But but it's an interesting but I
come back to you take away all the rhetoric, actually

(39:34):
judge him on what he did. He didn't take America
into any wars. That's a big plus to me, big plus. Right.
He had interesting relations with traditional American enemies North Korea, China, Russia. Right,
did that help or hinder American interest? Would Vladimir Putin

(39:54):
have invaded Ukraine if Trump had still been president. I
don't know the answer, But he hadn't interesting way of
going about relationships with these people, which America has traditionally
been very hostile towards and this. You know, if you
look at him purely on his foreign policy, I thought
he was right about NATO, not in getting rid of it,
but he making other countries pay their dues. They're now

(40:15):
all paying their dues. Big ticking the box for Trump.
He was right, Why should America be paying for everything?
If you're signed up member of NATO and you want
the American military to come and support you, you pay
your two percent or whatever. It was right, and now
they all have to. So Trump did a lot of
effective things with his barrel like things. He was right,
for example, to take take on the Germans about their

(40:38):
over alliance on Russian energy, because when it came to it,
Russia turned the tap off and Germany was screwed. So
Trump has these sort of you know, he has these
instincts if trumpet sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. Right,
But I don't think he's as straightforward as he's Hitler,
or he's an angel. He's somewhere in hell.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Didn't start off Hitler either. I'm sure you've read.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
T He's never going to kill twelve million people. I
can guarantee he's not going to do that. About Hitley, well, yeah,
he showed a lot more sign of it than Trump.
But I think the idea of equating someone like Trump
to Hitler is stupid. Again, it comes back to that
Chris Rock thing. Don't over demonize the guy. You may
have to have him as president here for another four years, Right,
I would urge Donald Trump to change, right, He's got

(41:22):
to stop being in defense mode the whole time. Right,
have a more That's why I come back to his
speech in Iowa. He suddenly started sounding much more inclusive.
I want to bring independence and Democrats with me this time. Right?
Has he learned lessons? Has he does he regret quietly
what went on with Janeral I bet he does. Right,
knowing Trump, I bet he does. I'll never admit it,

(41:43):
but I bet he does. Would he pivot to a
more inclusive president second time round? Has he learned lessons?
I don't know the answers those questions. I know that
his style enrages a lot of people, but it also
delights a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Then that's a guy.

Speaker 5 (41:57):
But I don't believe none of the bullshit that's coming out.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Of his mouth.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
What what if I said is wrong?

Speaker 1 (42:03):
As far as what's frust Trump? My reading of it, well,
even if you.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Talk about, you know, what he would do in regards
to Russian and Ukraine. I personally think if Russia gets back,
I mean Trump gets back into the White House of
two thousand and four, he would turn his back and
let Russia do whatever they.

Speaker 4 (42:16):
Want, maybe to Ukraine. But if you judge him on
what he actually think, if actually judges foreign policy and
what he did as president, there's none of that to me.

Speaker 5 (42:23):
To me, none of that, all of that failed in
comparison to how he does not give a damn about
American democracy. When you got a guy literally saying let's
get rid of the constitution to overturn the results of
an election, I'm not like, No.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
I agree, yeah, agreed, America.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
He's the guy who says America first.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
There's a very good argument that someone who does that
should not be allowed to run against However, your constitution
makes it crystal clear that he can run again. And
in fact he's in the Fourtie Amendment.

Speaker 5 (42:51):
The Fourtie Amendment said if you tried to lead the
cool this country, you are.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
A President's going to happen. The states that have tried
to play that card, it'll go to the Supreme cool
and they're going to throw it out. You know why,
because he's got Republican judges.

Speaker 6 (43:04):
Yes, then he put in plate come you know, you
know why he was able to because he was elected
your president of twenty sixteen, right right, So that if
Americans didn't want Trump as president, don't vote for him.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
And the same applies now. Don't vote for the guy
because you know what if he com pact the Supreme
Court with more Republican judges next time, man, that's exactly
what they'll do, as the Democrats will do as well.

Speaker 5 (43:26):
No, Democrats won't do because they don't have the courage
to do that. They could have done things like that.
Even when Barack Obama could have implemented Merritt Garland, he
chose to follow the rules of democracy because Mitch McConnell.
That was that Mitch McConnell told him he's too late
in your presidency to implement.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
That was practical error.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
Yes, because when when Trump got the chance to do it,
he did it.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
But let me ask you, Mitch mcconaed the encourage that
you mentioned Obama. So it's an interesting little question. I
always throw people interest if you guys know the answer.
How many immigrants illegally did Barack Obama deport in his
eight years as president?

Speaker 5 (43:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
I have a guess, no clue, no clue. Interesting, right,
you don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
I mean, I know it was a lot, but I
don't know exactly.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
I have a guess.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
Give me a number.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
I actually have read that as more than Trump.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Give me a number.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I really don't know how.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
Many people did he physically have deported in eight years.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
I have no idea.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
Will give me a number. I don't no.

Speaker 5 (44:25):
I really don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
I really don't know even to begin. I don't know
his tens of thousands, millions. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (44:29):
Millions, but I read I've read is over three million.
He was known as deporter in Chief by Mexicans, and
that was more than Trump. He deported way more than
he deported, way more pro rather than any president in history.
Who dropped the most bombs in a calendar year in American.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
History, President Barack.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
Right, including drone programs and so on. Right, who got
elected in a nine on shutting down Guantanamo Bay because
as a former lawyer, he believed it was an illegal institution.
President Barack Obama, What is still open? Today animal correct right,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I know that
the general thing is Obama angel, Trump devil. But if

(45:12):
you actually apply the scrutiny that we give Trump, put
it this way, if Trump had deported three million people,
you think you guys wouldn't know the answer. Of course
you would, right. Nobody knows that answer because nobody thought
that way about Saint Barack. And I think that he
wasn't Saint Barack, and Trump isn't the devil. Trump has
a more devilish way of talking, and he has to

(45:33):
be held absolutely to account. And it's a very good
argument to say, after what happened on January sixth, he
shouldn't be allowed to run again. But he is allowed
to run again. And in fact, he could be convicted
of a crime before the election and still be allowed
to run as pretend, and he could actually go to
prison and still be President of the United States constitutionally

(45:54):
from a prison cell. So this is not my constitution,
These aren't my rules. This is the reality. So I'm
not sitting here saying you should vote for Trump. I'm
not defending Trump. I don't I think irrationally. I'm simply
presenting a slightly fairer argument about why Trump is now
back in the position he's in and why he could
win again. Then some people want to present because they

(46:16):
think it doesn't suit them politically to.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Say that, how often do you speak Trump?

Speaker 4 (46:19):
I've spoken to him since we fell out over the
last interview, but I'm sure I will do and I'm
sure that I had a chat with him before the
last election. I said after the pandemic star I fell
out with him when when he did some ridiculous announcement
that the best way to solve COVID was to inject
yourself with bleach, remember right, And I read a column saying,

(46:41):
mister President, your batshit crazy ideas are going to get
people killed, right, stop it. And he unfollowed me on Twitter,
which was no big, no small thing, because he only
followed fifty things on Twitter. Half of them were companies,
the other most of the other half for his family.
I was the only non American I think he followed
on Twitter. This became a big story. I didn't speak
to for a few months, and about a week before

(47:02):
the election, maybe two weeks before, I was doing Fox
and Friends and they said, well, you know, you know,
Donald Trump, what advice would you give him? And I said,
I look down the barrel of the camera. I went, well,
if he wants my advice, I said, it's not too late.
Just give me a call with the president. Next morning,
I get a call from Air Force one. I think
it was I'm miss President in United States. So on
he came, but nothing had happened.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
How does that come on your core idea? I'm just curious.
Didn't come on the Air Force one on your call?

Speaker 4 (47:22):
No, it was no cal I never normally asked. I
happened to be at home with my daughter and she
just said a hilarious thing. That morning on the school run.
She was about I can't remember if she was only
about eight or nine. She said. She said, Dad, and
she said, you know, I know you keep saying that
Donald Trump is a unique character. She said, I think
he's too unique. Anyway. Next day, literally like two hours later,

(47:43):
we're sitting there and the phone goes and it's and
it's the White House switchboard putting me through to the President.
And I said, to it last, can I talk to him?
I went, probably not a good idea. Probably in like
a half hour conversation and I said, look, if you
really want some advice, I said, it's this. You've got
to start being more empathyathetic. I said, your behavior through
the whole pandemic has been it's all about you. The

(48:05):
stock market crashing is is you know it's damaging your
election chances. Right, you're airing the stupid theories about COVID
from the presidential podium, which if people listen to them,
they're going to kill themselves. It's madness. Where's I said?
You want? You just want to be commander in chief,
but actually you can be comforter in chief. That's equally important.

(48:25):
Put your arm around America sometimes right as president, be
the comforter in chief. Millions of people are getting COVID.
Many of them are dying right, many of them are
suffering horrendous problems with COVID. Put your arm around the
country and be empathetic. You got it yourself?

Speaker 3 (48:41):
True?

Speaker 5 (48:41):
Is it true you applying to be Trump's chief of
There no.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Made up. I would never work for him, and I
would never tell people to vote to vote for him.
That's not my business. I'm not American. I have a
house here. I love the country, love the people. It's
your country. It's your vote. But all I would say
is that you did vote him in in twenty sixteen.
I didn't, right, And I know Trump very very well. No, No,

(49:07):
but it's on you, right, It's on you. And all
I see now is the Democrats whining about Trump's comeback.
One of the reasons he's soaring back is because there's
such a perceived weakness in Biden. Biden's approval ratings are shocking, shocking, Right,
No incumbent president, I think, has ever been re elected
with these approval numbers. So this is, you know, the country.

(49:29):
Most people in America think the country's going the wrong way,
most of them feeling economic hardships, most of them, you know,
have all sorts of problems with the way the country
has been run. And they think back to Trump, and
I think, for all the garbage that comes out of
his mouth, they look at the way he handled the
economy until the pandemic and they think, actually, we were
better off under Trump. They look at his foreign policy

(49:50):
and they think, actually, we didn't start poking on those
in all over the place with wars here, left, right
and center, and they like that. Most Americans I've spoken to,
you know, they think he took immigration a lot more seriously,
for example, than Biden seems to be doing. The situation
everything on the southern border.

Speaker 5 (50:06):
Is everything you're saying is absolutely right, and the poll
show it what happened, and I always shows it.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
You preachy to the choir.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
When you say to me, Charlamagne, that I went just
to pull you up, when you say to me, I
don't think you believe a word of what you're saying.
All I'm doing is presenting facts. Right, I'm not launching
a campaign, but I'm pushed.

Speaker 5 (50:25):
Back on just be more empathetic. It's like, now he's done.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Only because I've seen him be that and he has
that in his locker.

Speaker 5 (50:32):
When people show you who they are, you gotta believe
that we've seen enough with Trump and.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
I I agree, and Trump, good, bad, and ugly is
who he is. He's not going to change at seventy seven, right,
He's not. So you know what you're getting, you know
what you're voting for this time. But America votes him,
and again it's because they want it. That's a fact, right,
you can't get away from that. That's right. And by
the way, his his popularity Amongst African Americans is rising
as Biden's falls. That's incredible. When Biden came on this

(50:56):
soo right and he studied with you, He's saying, if
you don't vote for me, then you're not black. You're right.
It was a stupid joke, but what a stupid thing
to say, and actually how ironic. Ever since he said it,
he kind of black votes disappeared from him.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Right, is a candidate that could beat him? Do you
think there is a candidate that could be Trump?

Speaker 4 (51:14):
I if I were at the Democrats, I would absolutely
go for somebody like Newsom.

Speaker 5 (51:18):
Right.

Speaker 4 (51:18):
Yes, he's progressive, but he's moved himself to the center
very skillfully. This In the last six months to a year,
he's been to China and met President G. You think
President G was going to meet the governor of California
less he thinks he might actually end up president one day.
He looks like a president, right, He looks like someone
that could run the country. He's articulate, he's intelligent, He's

(51:39):
run one of the biggest states in the country. I
think he has a lot of things going for him.
I don't necessarily agree with the more progressive stuff, but
I think he himself has realized his pathway to running
the Democrats and to potentially becoming president is to move
more to the middle ground right. And if he does that,
and he's given a chance to do that, and that

(51:59):
could be the the options for America between Trump and
someone like Newson, I think he's got a very good chance,
a better chance to Biden.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
I agree.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
Let's say there's a great black philosopher by the name
of Little Busy. Yeah, he makes his statement say I
don't want talk about it no more enough. That's how
I feel about political conversation. Yeah, but I do want
to talk to you. Do you regret what you said
about Meghan Markle in regard to her mental health? Because
you know, I'm a huge mental health advocate. Yeah, and
none of us know what people are truly going through.
Do you believe that you were insensitive to her mental
health or for people that don't know, what did you say?

Speaker 4 (52:31):
So? She went on Oprah Winfrey in that infamous interview,
and she made a claim that she had had suicidal
thoughts and she'd gone to a senior member of the
Buckingham Palace staff and asked for help and was told
you can't have any effectively because it would be bad
for the Royal brand. I did not believe that happened.
So what's happened? Since this is over two years ago? Right,

(52:54):
Ever since then, not a single shred of evidence or
a name of that person has ever been produced. Prince
Harry writes a book of over four hundred pages never
mentions this. Didn't mention the racism claims either, it because
like they never happened. He then said later, I didn't
mean to say that the Royal family were racist. We didn't.
It was the media bullshit. You said that members of

(53:17):
the Royal family. It turned out to be King Charles
and Kate had expressed negative concern about the potential skin
color of your baby, which that conversation will have never happened,
and there is no evidence that it happened in the
way they tried to imply what Oprah gasped in horror.
And so for two years the Royal family have had
to deal with being accused of being callous racist who

(53:40):
don't care about a young woman's suicidal thoughts and don't
care that about being brazenly racist about the skin color
of their child. I said, I don't believe those things happened.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
So you weren't dismissing her mental health? And what you mean?

Speaker 4 (53:51):
And me? And in fact I no, and I went
on I went on my morning show the next morning
and spent a minute clarifying my view about mental health. Right,
I think mental health is incredibly important. People should talk
about mental health. But on that specific thing, did I
I repeat it? Is it feasible that somebody at Buckingham Palace,
at a high level said to a young woman who said,
I feel suicidal, you cannot get help? And by the way,

(54:14):
Harry at the time was the figurehead of a major
mental health charity. Why couldn't he get a help? Right?
None of it made sense to me. But in his
book it never gets mentioned. There's not a mention of
her mental health or suicidal thoughts. Right, there's not a
mention of the supposed racism. Again, it's like it never happened.

Speaker 5 (54:31):
That's a good point about what you said about Prince Harry,
so big, mental health a.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Huge Why do you think she's lying?

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Or I think she's a liar and I think he,
unfortunately is a liar too. And we saw it again
this week. They called their daughter Lilli bet Now that
at the time was an incredibly sensitive thing because Prince
Philip was dying and this was his nickname for his wife,
the Queen, and only a very tiny number of people

(54:57):
called her lily Beet, including him mainly, so he would sign,
you know, she would sign letters to him Lilybet. It
was very special. And it emerged that Harry and Meghan
were going to call their daughter Lilibet. Okay, and then
when there was a big furiorri about this, they said, well,
we have the permission of the Queen. Turned out to
be an absolute lie. They did not have the permission

(55:18):
of the Queen. Wow. A book has just come out
written by a very authoritative journeist with full access to
all the royals, including all the Royal household, and they've
made it crystal clear that the Royal household said they'd
never seen the Queen so angry as when she discovered
they were going to call their daughter Lilibet, her private
nickname from her husband who had by now died. Right.

Speaker 5 (55:40):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (55:41):
So I'm afraid I think they speak with forked tongue
and I think it's caused enormous damage to the Royal
family's reputation, not least here and in the Caribbean, where
it coursed many countries, still a part of the Commonwealth.
I think a lot of black people around the world thought, wow,
they're just a bunch of n Steve racist and there's

(56:01):
never been any evidence. And when I found out through this.
You may remember a few weeks ago this guy, oh
mid Scobie, who wrote a book about always supporting the Sussexes,
wrote a new book about the downfall of the monarchy,
as he put it, and a Dutch version of the
book suddenly named Charles and Kate as the people who

(56:22):
supposedly made these racist from arks. Everyone in Britain went, oh,
don't be so ridiculous, right, the last two people on
earth who would ever be racist or say something of
the negative context about a skin color of a baby?
And I would ask you, guys, interesting question asked at
the time. It's a huge ferrari Again, but when you
have a white father Megan's father's wife and a black

(56:45):
mother and you're about to have a baby as the daughter,
is it not a common conversation where someone might sell,
by the way, what color might the baby be? Is
that not a perfectly normal question to ask when you
have white one white parent, one black parent, I would
say it is you.

Speaker 5 (57:04):
Know you should have on your shoulder, had this discussion
a great scholar and American named doctor Umar Johnson.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
Right, but what Jesus, what do you guys? What do
you guys say?

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Honestly, I've never heard that conversation.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
But do you know people in that position?

Speaker 1 (57:17):
No, I've never heard them, because do I do?

Speaker 4 (57:19):
Right? In Britain? Britain is pretty common, right, you have
a lot of a lot of mixed raised parents and
then you have a child and it's and they all
came out and said, well, yeah, we've had that conversation.
So the question then becomes not the question if that
was what was said, we don't we still don't know.
It becomes what was the intonation of the question. Was
there a negative concern element to that question? Was it was, well,

(57:41):
I hope it isn't going to be too dark? Nobody,
nobody believes Charles or Kate would have ever saidthing like that.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
What do you think they're trying to take down?

Speaker 2 (57:48):
It seems like you're saying they're trying to take down
the royal family and make them look bad or make
them look keeping.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
Their royal titles, which I think is sickening hypocrisies.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Wow, why do you think they would want to do that?

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Because I think I have to say I I think
Mega Markle is a very manipulative person who not at all.
I think she's been poisonous to our royal family's reputation,
very damaging to the monarchy. And I'm a huge monarchist
and support I think.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
You know, I have to ask if she was one
hundred percent Caucasian, Oh, I would you would you feel
the same if it was the same rhetoric, Oh my god,
she was doing the same thing. Would you say she's
poisoning the royal head.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
Only she accused him of being a bunch of racists
with no evidence. Well, she couldn't do that, of course,
so obviously it's only because she herself, right, is what
she says. She's black, she's from a mixed race parenting.
She made incredibly serious allegations about the Royal family being

(58:46):
racist and has produced no evidence. And like I say,
why did Harry not mention this in his book? If
it was that serious? He probably loves his family still,
he hates his family. He doesn't talked to any of
his family. She doesn't talk to anyone in her family. Right,
So if somebody from a toxic family herself who only
talks really to her mother at the wedding, she only

(59:08):
had one guest, the mother, right. And you know you
asked me, did Mega Markle's skin color play any part
of my argument about no right to the point she
played the race card with no evidence, which I thought
was disgraceful.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
And there's been no evidence since he was firing her
up until that point.

Speaker 4 (59:26):
I got on very well with Mega Market before she
met Harry. I thought she was perfectly nice, right. I
liked suits. I thought she was good. Yeah, love suits,
I said, love suits. And so it was never if.
I wrote a piece which you can go and find.
On the day they got married, a big piece for
the male Sunday, saluting this wonderful moment for the royal
family of the first biracial marriage we'd had. Everyone in

(59:49):
Britain celebrated this. Britain is he going to understand about
Britain were a very multicultural, tolerant country. By every poll
that comes out, people consider Britain to be one of
the most tolerant multicultural places on Earth. And I would
say that, having lived there, most of my life. Right,
we don't have the kind of incendiary race issues that

(01:00:10):
you have in America. All the history just doesn't exist
in the same way. And that's why what happened on
that Oprah interview was so shocking and so damaging. And
then the question became, well was it true? And I've
got to say, sitting here now two years later, no,
it wasn't true.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
How would she prove that?

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
If it was?

Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
Though, how would she prove She went to somebody and
expressed her mental health concerns, like how would anybody be
able to fact check that?

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
She just has to give us a name who wasn't Oh,
got you?

Speaker 5 (01:00:38):
Got you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:39):
And she could have named the alleged royal racist and
let them defend themselves, but instead by not naming them,
You're gonna remember in the Oprah interview, she said that
the racism and comments were made to Harry when she
was pregnant. He said, is before they got engaged. That's
a year and a half apart. They couldn't even decide
what year this supposed to have happened. So a lot
of it just smelt to me of being wrong, untrue,

(01:01:01):
very damaging. But no, none of my criticism of Mega
markus got anything to do with their skin color or
upbringing or anything. In fact, I would think more of
her because of her background. I think it was, as
I wrote in my piece on the day they got married,
this is a great moment for our monarchy, which is
a very white family obviously historically right. I don't blame them.
It's just like a lot of families in Britain. Like

(01:01:24):
their family, they're very white. It was great to see
someone who was not from the normal background.

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
Is there really the reason you let go?

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Let go by IV?

Speaker 5 (01:01:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
I didn't believe her, and I was told if you
if you don't apologize to disbelieving it. And then what
they didn't tell me on this ultimatum was put to me.
They didn't tell me that the night before she had
written to the female boss of ITV and demanded she
fire me. Wow personally wow. Right, And they didn't tell
me that. If I'd known that, I would never have quit.

(01:01:54):
I'd have had the public debate. I'd have had the
argument I wasn't gonna be held ransom by some laying
princess Pinocchio, as I called it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Did you want to quit or did they like no
force you.

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
No, they said, you apologize, so you have to leave,
so you got fire. Well I could have apologized and gravel,
But why would I do that?

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
You know you won't say it after they make a
market interview that freedom of speech is a hill you're
happy to die on and you're off to spend more
time with your opinions. In this era of everybody having
an opinion and a voice, should people be able to
say whatever they want without consequences?

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Well, there are even under the First Amendment, which is
the most brilliant protection of free speech probably anywhere in
the world, there are limitations, right, child pornography and so on.
There are things that you can't say because they have repercussions.
There are laws that govern these things, right. I had
an argument with Elon Musk about this, about bringing Alex

(01:02:47):
Jones back to x for example.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Alex Jones a free speech hero. You called him a
heat speech.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
Must which is And the truth is that Elon originally
didn't bring him back and said, I don't think any
one who's exploited the deaths of children like that, and
he talked about himself losing a child, No one like
that should be allowed back on this platform when he
first bought it, and when he did a U turn right,
I haven't done a utah. I thought he was right
the first time. You know, Alex Jones is over a

(01:03:15):
billion dollars to those Sandy Hook families for deliberately, over
many years, systematically spreading lies about them to make himself
very rich. He made hundreds of millions of dollars by
deliberately promoting lies about Sandy Hook families grieving their children
being blown to pieces at school. And I was on
air when that happened. And I come from a country

(01:03:37):
where very few people ever get shot dead. I mean
literally we have. We've had one mass shooting and god
knows how long. You know, you have one every two days. Right,
it's a totally different culture. We don't have a gun
ownership culture. But I remember the pain of those families
and the fact that this guy was sitting there in
his Texas studio deliberately saying they were actors making it

(01:03:58):
all up blah blah blah blah blah blah for money,
And there was a direct correlation. He would say his
stuff and you'd see a huge spike in his revenues.
And we're talking tens of millions pouring into the coffers.
By making these people even more miserable than they were already,
I think it's unconscionable, but it's also covered by the

(01:04:19):
First Amendment. Defamation exclusion right defamation is not covered by
the First Amendment. He's been found guilty of one of
the biggest defamations in American history, but that alone, I
don't think he should be allowed back on X. And
Elon Musk has banned a lot of people from X,
by the way, so there's nothing unusual about banning people
from X, even in his free speech world. And I

(01:04:39):
think he does a lot of good for free speech,
Elon Musk. But there are limits, of course there are.
But generally speaking, if you're not spewing hateful stuff, which
is good. Remember somebody listened to Alex Jones and went
to the grave of one of the Sandy victims and
urinated on it. That's crazy because they believed it was
all stage. Imagine him being the family.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Of that child, and then you end up hurting that guy.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
That was the consequence. Others were chased down the street
with people screaming abuse at them for being actors right
acting that their child had been obliterated by an AR
fifteen at school. And you know, one of them said
to me, I won't say which one, but one of
the parents did me. You know, they'd seen some pictures
and that the AR fifteen that this monster had used

(01:05:29):
Lanza created holes the size of golf balls in their child,
multiple all over their body. Golf balls, right, And this
person decided Alex Jones to exploit that to make himself
very rich. And I think that's I would think most Americans, actually,
when you hear me spell it out like that, would
think that crosses a line.

Speaker 5 (01:05:50):
Okay, So when it comes to just to go back
real quick, Trump got taken off platform.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
I thought that was wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
But the same reason though.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
He shouldn't have been because and this is a different friends,
I think world leaders, everything they say is a matter
of historical record.

Speaker 5 (01:06:05):
Now, when Trump's pushing conspiracy theories.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
They took off They took off Trump, and they kept
on the leader of the Taliban, they kept on the
I toler in Iran, they kept Vladimir Putin's account. Right,
So are you comfortable that Trump is the one that's removed.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
But is telling people like you said, they inject themselves
to kill COVID pushing, pushing YouTube conspiracy.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
Is spewing conspiracy bullshit about Ukraine being a bunch of
Nazis and the nazifying them. That's true all the time.
But Tanaban is spewing their bullshit on Twitter, the I
toler is talking about eradicating Israel.

Speaker 1 (01:06:45):
So how do you regularly this?

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
I think I draw a distinction between ordinary members of
the public and world leaders.

Speaker 5 (01:06:51):
What the world leaders worse, because I think we're going
to have some Aweson world war the.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
World world leaders. I think everything they say and do
is a matter of historical record. You can't hide it away. Trump,
I would argue, has got more popular by being taken
off Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
But how is pizzagate historical record?

Speaker 4 (01:07:07):
It's not so people, So I think what Elstone is great,
He's brought in the community notes right. So now you
can see in real time under these tweets that people
put up which our conspiracy theory nonsense, you can see
the true story immediately that was lacking before. So these
things would fly around without anyone, you know, being able

(01:07:27):
to look at it and see the real story underneath it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Nothing that's gonna work.

Speaker 5 (01:07:30):
It's like we were talking this morning about the line,
though I don't know because he hears the thing we
were talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
Take every world leader of acts.

Speaker 5 (01:07:38):
It depends if we keep on if what they're doing
that much power, and what they're doing is inciting violence
in any way, shape or form, because the truth of
the matter appears people are stupid and like even with
the water marks and the things that are saying this
isn't true, people will say they're just saying this isn't
true because they don't want it to believe.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
I hear, I hear, But it's very different once you
go down that line, the line I've drawn for better
or worse, and your listeners can make their own minds up.
I think world leaders of any kind it's historical record,
and if you take one down, you've got to take
them all off, because a lot of them say bad things.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
I want to ask you too about the two thousand
and four pictures. You couldn't fact check them.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Then, well we tried.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
It is way worse now, So how do you fact checks?

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
I mean, I think the fake news thing, the way
artificial intelligence can now have someone like me. I've seen
a clip played at a Ted talk actually of me
promoting guns. I looked it was me and it sounded
like this is what I was saying, but it was
fake and saying the complete opposite to what I was thinking.

(01:08:46):
And that's going to happen more and more and more.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
And it's very easy to do now.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
It's incredibly easy to do. You see it all the time.
It's very very scary, and I don't think anyone's quite
worked out what you do about this. It's so it's
it's a bit like artificial intelligence generally. I interview Professor
Stephen Hawking in the last interview before he died up
at his office at Cambridge University, and I said, what's
the biggest threat to mankind? You went, When artificial intelligence

(01:09:10):
learns how to self design, it's all over, because they'll
decide pretty quickly humans are ridiculous and should just be killed.
And you can tell that a lot of the experts,
like Elon mask Andals think we're getting quite close to
that point. It's what they called for the six month
pause recently, and a letter signed by a thousand of them.
They know that AI is incredibly exciting and groundbreaking and

(01:09:31):
brilliant and can probably save a lot of lives and
all the rest of it. They also know that in
the wrong hands, AI can be a lethal weapon, and
this is going to be the dilemma for this generation.
What do we do about this? And then go back
to what you said the internet. I remember the Internet,
but this is far more dangerous.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
They go back to what you said. I don't think
any world leader should be allowed to be on social media.

Speaker 5 (01:09:52):
I think as soon as you become a world leader,
you have to give it because it's too dangerous.

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
Well, that is a very interesting fake tweet the AI.
I think you're all in or all out. Yes, so
I'm with you. I would personally still argue they should
be on, but I think that's a that's a good
argument to say you take them all off. The world
leaders can't tweet. They can make official statements, and the
media can determine how they report those, and if they're

(01:10:17):
spewing untruths and deliberate lies which are going to lead
to potential violence, the media can say that in real
time because I don't see.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
That's a difficult thing because you always say go where
people are right, and a lot of people are not
looking at the news for the press conference.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
It's horrible. We could say it's bad, but people are not.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
People will follow Barack Obama, Donald Trump Biden faster than
they'll watch a news clip.

Speaker 5 (01:10:42):
On but those official statements will get pressed, get seen
that through social media. You know, I just think it's
too dangerous because if I know world leaders are on
social media, how do I know this tweet isn't real
if it's a fake tot? How do I notice ai
video that's posted on them?

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
People? People hear this nuts. It's like like every world
leader of freedom of speech. But I get your argument.
I get your argument, and that that to me makes
more sense than piecemeal taking some off and leaving others
on where there's a rank hypocrisy. I think you've got
to have the same rule for all world leaders, right

(01:11:15):
because you could. You could, I could, as like I
did with Obama earlier. You can create an argument for
and against almost anybody, particularly if they're a president of
a big country. So I think you've got to be
all in or all out.

Speaker 5 (01:11:27):
And I had just a few more questions you You
you talked earlier about Tony Blair and you said you
were anti war.

Speaker 4 (01:11:32):
What was it? The ir War?

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Yeah? Why aren't you anti war now? In regard to
the well I felt.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
What I felt with the Iraq war was I felt
that it was America and Britain going after the wrong
country for nine to eleven and they hadn't produced evidence
to me that Saddam Hussein o mass destruction and they
never found those weapons of mass destructions. So the war
was fought on a false pretext and therefore, in my view,
actually was illegal. Tony Blair also didn't get a second
UN resolution mandating warfare, which he thought he was going

(01:12:03):
to get, and when he didn't get, he went along
with America anyway, and I think it was a catastrophic
mistake that led to twenty years of hell in the
Middle East, not least the rise of Isis, who sprang
out of what happened. So I felt there was no
justification for the war, no moral justification, no actual justification
presented that was true turned out to be to be false.

Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
So you're that anti war, you were just no.

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
What is the moral justification. So the case in the
latest stage of the Israel Gaza situation is that on
October the seventh, Israel was subjected to one of the
worst terror attacks of modern times. Medieval barbarism involving the
most horrendous assaults on women, children and so on. And

(01:12:51):
they had not just a moral justification to defend themselves
against that attack and to go after those who perpetrated it,
but actually have a duty to their citizens to do that,
not least because her Mass, through their official spokesman, said,
our intention afterwards is to do this again and again
and again. Right. So there's a clear and present justification

(01:13:11):
morally for Israel to respond to her Mass. Now here's
where it gets very complicated. A mass have thirty five
thousand terrorists, as I call them. You can call them
wherever you want, but to me, they're terrorists, and they
live immersed amongst a population which is just over two
million people, of which half are under eighteen and just

(01:13:32):
under a third are under ten. So you have an
extraordinary number of innocent children as part of the mass population,
but living amongst them, embedded in their schools, the mosques,
the hospitals and sold We know this from the tunnel
system that her Mass deliberately created. You have a mass terrorists.

(01:13:53):
How do you eradicate a mass thirty five thousand terrorists
who have done that with out a lot of civilians
getting killed, and so I've continually been asking and saying
to people, I have a moral qundary about this. I
don't know what is proportionate. I do know you cannot
allow her mass to continue running Gaza after what they did.

(01:14:15):
They are a terror group who will commit more and
more acts of terror. But is Israel's response now, as
many people claim it's self an act of terror, is
it disproportionate to what happened to them in October the seventh.
They've killed many more people, including many more children. As
a father, it just absolutely destroys me to see these
scenes coming out of Gaza. But you know, I understand

(01:14:38):
why Israel feels this visceral need to eradicate her Mass.
I do what I don't accept with it from Israel
is any desire by them out of this to continue
having an occupation of the Palestinian people. And when you
go back to the history the displacement of hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians back in ninety forty eight, you can

(01:15:00):
you see that people were oppressed and have been occupied
and the constant flare ups in this conflict throughout the
next seventy years or as a consequence of a large
number of people being very badly treated. But that doesn't
justify anything that happened October the seventh. So yes, I
understand the history. But I think the difference between Iraq

(01:15:21):
and this is that there's a clear moral justification for
going after the people that perpetrated it. The problem is
how do you minimize civilian casualties, which happened in any conflict.
And I would say the argument that Israel put forward,
which is, you know, a reasonable argument. Nobody had these
debates about what happened when we went after Isis in

(01:15:42):
Syria or Iraq and many civilians could be many children
were killed.

Speaker 5 (01:15:46):
Then well we didn't see it. Social media change.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Exactly exactly, so we see it in real time. I
have enormous sympathy for Palestinian people. I think for a
long time they've been oppressed. There's been an obvious occupation.
I think Israelis who try and deny that themselves. We
saw that when they were able to turn off the Israelis.
The energy supply like that, the water supply like that,
the food supply like that. Imagine how Americans would feel

(01:16:10):
if one of your neighboring countries had that power, you
would consider yourselves to be oppressed and occupied. Nobody outside
of America should have the power to do that to you.
That's how Palestinians feel. And I completely understand that is
there a war crome. Well, the United Nations has found
against Israel many times, you know, but to what consequence.

(01:16:32):
I'm a lot of sympathy for Israelis You've had to
live under a hail of rockets since a mass took
charge in two thousand and five, and living in daily
fear of that this is an awful conflict. I would
simply tell people that where they think there's no hope,
I remember Norman Ireland and the IRA and the Loyalists
being at war, and the terrorism went on from IRA

(01:16:54):
towards the British and so on, and eventually they did
find peace and in fact, the people engaged in hating
and fighting each other ended up working together. You can
do this. I just think that a mass to me
on now, behaving like isis a nihilistic terror group who
don't care how many innocent people they kill, and they

(01:17:15):
just want to see the eradication of Israel. You can't
have that if you're Israel. But it's a horribly complicated situation,
and I don't have easy answers other than out of it.
You've got to try and get everybody in that region
together to forge a two state solution where they can
live side by side in peace. And it was achieved

(01:17:37):
in Northern Ireland after many decades of war, so it
can be done, but you need strong leaders. I don't
think that either side has good leaders.

Speaker 5 (01:17:46):
What you gave is a very nuanced answer, and I
think most of these topics and issues that we try
to discuss there is nuanced, but everybody picks aside. You
said some earlier about social media, which I think is true.
I don't think people think for themselves more. I think
people go on social media to see how they should
feel the issues.

Speaker 4 (01:18:05):
And they exist in echo chambers where they only follow
their own tribe, right. So they go in and they
want to have a view, and they want to read
their view reinforced all day long, and anyone who deviates
from that view on either side any of these things,
whether it's Trump, whether it's Israel, Hamas, whether it's Brexit
in England, you know, whatever the issue is, whether it's

(01:18:25):
COVID vaccines. This nuance is crucial, crucial, and I'm not
saying I'm blameless. I remember getting very angry about people
who didn't have vaccines, for example, when it was believed
because the scientist told us that you couldn't transmit the
virus if you had the vaccine, because then it wasn't
just about you, it was about you infecting some person

(01:18:46):
and killing them. But when they changed their minds and said, actually,
it looks like you can transmit it even if you
have the vaccine, I completely reversed my position. People went
disgusting you turn, well, yeah, because is that you turned
the advice?

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
No information now?

Speaker 4 (01:19:02):
But I was two centsorious about people who hadn't had
a bag. It should be personal choice. What you put
in your body should be personal choice. I accept that,
and I got irrationally angry about that because everyone was
a bit irrational through the pandemic. But on Twitter, there's
no room for nuance, and there has to be. If
everyone could have conversations that we're having about all complicated issues,

(01:19:23):
we get a lot further than we do having them
on social media, where nobody gives an inch side.

Speaker 5 (01:19:30):
We're not trying to be right, We're just putting out
there on the conversation. Yeah, you have two more questions.
What were your thoughts when you got called to replace
Larry King in twenty eleven and were you shocked when
it didn't work?

Speaker 4 (01:19:39):
Uh? Well, I would argue about whether it worked or not.
I mean I did it for nearly four years. I
could have carried on working at Seeing It, and they
offered me a new gig to do just big interviews
in several series a year, which I ended up not accepting.
So it wasn't like Seeing then fired me. They offered
me a new gig, but it wouldn't be the daily thing.
The problem with the daily thing for me was I
wasn't American and there were so many issues, not least

(01:20:03):
guns which kept coming back. Or I just had an
implacable different view to what most of the viewers would
be thinking. You know, even most C and M viewers
probably have a pretty relaxed view about guns, whereas I
looked at it as a Britain when you have more
people murdered by guns a day and I think the
next twenty civilized countries of the world combined. You know,

(01:20:26):
we in Britain have an average of about two gun
desks a year. America has eighty thousand or something a year,
of which I think half a suicide. Whatever it is,
these are crazy numbers. But ultimately I realized that it's
a matter for Americans. It's your country, it's your culture.
I understand why people believe in gun ownership here. I

(01:20:47):
understand why there are four hundred million guns in circulation.
Then you probably want to need to defend yourself with
your own I get it. I get it, Okay, So
it's not it's not my debate to have. So there
was a cultural problem there that actually I went to
CNN to do big interviews, and I did more big
interviews in nearly four years. And I think probably anyone
outside Larry has ever done for them heard about you.

(01:21:09):
And the interviews were amazing. I'm an interview you know,
Bill Clinton twice, President Carter three times, Oprah Winfrey, the
Dalai Lama, the president of Iran, almost every celebrity you
care to mention. And so when I look back at them,
I had an amazing I mean, I did twelve hundred
shows and I had a great time. But I felt
and CNN felt, we had a long chat, we just

(01:21:31):
felt a kind of I'd done my time, it was
I missed home. I'm very British really. I like pubs,
are kind of pubs. I like cricket, I like proper
football with a round ball. I'm an Arsenal fanatic. I
love going to watch that. It would be like an Arsenal.
You know Arsenal.

Speaker 5 (01:21:50):
I said, I'm like, you can do that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:58):
I definitely miss you. Misheard me, Arsenal. Although we do
say we're going up the arts on Saturday, which can
be a bit misleading. But no, I loved all those things,
and it would be a bit like I would I
would acqudit to if you suddenly went to London and
you did this show from London for nearly four years,

(01:22:19):
and you'd already lived in America, pretty much like America's
Got Talent for six years, so for ten years, I
pretty much lived a lot of my time in the US,
and when I was at CNN, probably for forty eight
weeks of the year. If you did that, I reckon
after four years, you'd be gagging to get back to
New York, right, to get back to your friends, your
old friends, your family, but also your culture. It's simple

(01:22:41):
thing like I would going to a cafe in New
York or LA and they'd all be talking about American
cultural stuff politics. I loved it, but American sport not
so much, right. So they'd be talking about the big
football match, or the big baseball game, or the basketball.
But basketball is my favorite American sports. I could have
a little bit of a chat about that, but not
any expert view or any history right, of any history

(01:23:03):
at all. When I go to my local cafe in London,
there's all the guys in there, the same people, male, female, old, young,
and we're all talking about the big arsehole game of
night before the big cricket match. That our sport, our culture, right,
And I miss that so much and I love that
so much. Now I have the best of all words
where I do It show, which is filmed mainly in London,

(01:23:24):
but for about three months of the year I come
to America. I love that I come in and I
stay each time just long enough for neither of us
to get fed up with each other, and then I
get on a plane and go off again. And that's fine,
And I prefer.

Speaker 5 (01:23:36):
That last question, probably the biggest thing we talked about
in this whole hour and a half. Is it true
that you play boy the homeless bird Lady in Home
Alone too.

Speaker 4 (01:23:47):
No, it is not true it You've got to prove it.
Why don't you ask the actress who plays the bird
lady Brenda exists. It's a woman. What's her name, Brenda Friker.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
You must have got that before.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
Sounds like you made it up before.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
I had to do my Christmas card based on miss
two years ago because I've got so many people going
on about it. It is not me, and every time
that bloody movie airs, which is every Christmas, I get
bombarded on Twitter with Ahamehame. It's not me. I have
been in nine other movies playing myself, which have grossed
over two billion dollars. So you're actually you won't realize it,

(01:24:30):
but I'm one of the biggest movie stars you've ever had.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
Morgan, Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate you for joining us
this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
It's to say thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
And it's the Breakfast Club Good morning, wake that airs
up in the morning.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Breakfast Club