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May 30, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:17
20220530_piers-morgan-uncensored-arthur-edwards-katie-nicho
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Gender Nonsense and Police Cowardice 00:03:48
Good evening on Piers Morgan uncensored tonight.
Cop cowardice in the Texas school shooting.
Could and should law enforcement have prevented the tragedy.
And are Harry and Megan plotting to steal the Jubilee limelight with a raw exclusive?
The first is my brain dub.
There's a test for you.
Try reading this headline out loud without feeling like you've landed on another planet.
Stella Creasy, J.K. Rowling is wrong.
Women can have a penis.
Then there's this one from Stella Creasy's Labour MP colleague, Annalise Dodds.
Stella Creasy is wrong.
A woman can't have a penis.
And finally, this one.
Labour MPs at war over whether a woman can be born with a penis.
Well, my apologies for repeatedly using the P-word, but it's rather significant here when you're talking about women, because I wasn't aware that they had one.
We've got to this ridiculously absurd stage of a gender debate, a civil war erupting between two British female MPs from the same Labour Party, over something that we already all know the answer to.
But who can blame them for their confusion when their own leader, Sakir Starmer, can't even answer the question at all?
A woman can have a penis.
Look, I'm not.
I don't think we can conduct this debate with, you know.
Sorry, I'll get this into June.
No, no, no, it's just.
Who's not asking you for Pythagoras' theorem?
It's just saying, what's a woman?
Can a woman have a penis?
This is all so insane.
A woman is an adult female who does not have a penis.
I can't even believe I have to say that on air.
This is not something that should be debated.
It's a biological fact.
You can't refute basic scientific sexual physiology.
I mean, you can scream and you can bully and try to cancel people, but ultimately, facts are facts.
Science is science.
Now, gender is a different matter.
In a free society, you can identify, frankly, as whatever you please.
That doesn't mean the rest of us have to buy into it or that society has to change all the rules to suit your latest identity, whim and fancy.
Like the debate over what a woman is, gender self-identity is also going completely bonkers.
British police forces are now allowing suspects to choose from 67 genders.
I mean, imagine being the guy, sorry, woman, sorry, person, who has to make the bar charts for crime statistics.
Meanwhile, prison officers are told to use whatever personal pronouns inmates decide they want to be called.
And not to be outwoked, the British Civil Service is ordering workers to recognise 100 genders while also paying them to attend gender-neutral book clubs and celebrate non-binary awareness week.
By the way, of those hundred genders, they include the following.
Omni-gender, pangender, to spirit, demi-gender, grey gender, gender void, and my favourite, gender outlaw.
For the love of God, the only void is between the ears of the people who come up with this nonsense.
And the only thing that needs to be outlawed is this time-wasting, absurdist nonsense at the heart of our government.
I support, respect and protect trans rights, always have done.
But women MPs insisting that women have penises and authorities officially recognising gender outlaws as a gender does nothing but damage those rights by making a cruel mockery of trans people who actually go through the long difficult process of transitioning and it's got to stop.
Outlawing Street Parties in Ivalde 00:02:50
Well almost a week on from the horrific Texas school massacre and there's no sign of any consensus in the embittered debate over gun rights but as more grim details emerge there's a rare agreement developing about one thing the gutless Evalde police failed these children.
We now know that 19 armed police officers were inside Robb Elementary School during the 78 minutes that the shooter Salvador Ramos unleashed his hellish murderous rampage.
That's one officer for each of the children who were killed.
Eight desperate calls, eight were made to 911 by kids inside the classroom on their cell phones before the police finally went in.
It's better that I read it than you listen to it.
She identified herself and whispered she's in room 112.
At 1210 she called back and room 12 advised there are multiple dead.
At approximately 1243 and 1247 she asked 911 to please send the police now.
At 1246 she said she could not, that she could hear the police next door.
At 1250 shots are fired.
They can be heard with a 9-1 call and at 12.51 is very loud and sounds like the officers are moving children out of the room.
Isn't this unbelievable?
Kids in the classroom who'd seen some of their fellow students being murdered were calling 911 to tell the police who were standing outside with guns what was going on.
And for minute after minute after minute those police did nothing until it was all too late.
We've been told that they were waiting for keys for tactical equipment for orders from their boss.
We're also told in their apparent defense that apparently they could have been shot at and killed.
Well yes they could but that's actually their duty.
It's literally what they signed up for to protect the public.
After the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 where 13 people were shot dead as police waited outside for an hour cops were ordered after that to prioritize the safety of people under threat not themselves.
Police in Ivalde were briefed on this as recently as March.
They were specifically told officers' first priority is to move in and confront the attacker.
But they didn't.
Not one of those armed police chose to confront the shooter before it was too late.
And as a result of their shocking collective cowardice, 19 children and two teachers are now dead.
Shame on them.
Collective Cowardice at the School Shooting 00:02:17
We'll bring it up the bunting.
Ready to Victoria Sponge.
Cover everything in the union flag.
It's almost platinum jubilee street party season.
But no, not if the Thumb Police have their way.
15 million Brits are preparing to celebrate 70 years of the Queen's reign this weekend with a mammoth four-day traditional best of British street party.
But Killjoy Councils are reportedly warning that six weeks' notice is required for a road closure.
So the multitude of neighbourhoods you've missed or didn't even know about the deadline will be holding street parties which are now going to be deemed illegal.
They're quite literally replacing our bunting with red tape.
When did the land of hope and glory become a land of nope and boring?
Come on.
We've had dismal summers of life under COVID lockdowns, unable to hug our loved ones, and where finger food was frankly unthinkable.
This is the perfect time for a massive party.
A rare moment of national unity in respect of our greatest and longest serving monarch.
Once again, I turn to my late, great friend, cricket legend Shane Warne, for the best response to party pooping claptrap.
And in this politically correct day and age, we've just got to be a little bit careful, but sometimes just say get stuff to the fun police.
Exactly.
My message to the British people is ignore these pen-pushing jobs worth.
Get out there and celebrate our queen like you've never done before.
I regret to say I have a trigger warning.
Well, the following clip contains scenes of unbridled masculinity.
I know what.
Anything happens to them.
You'll never forgive yourself.
No turning back now.
Haven't any friend yet?
I know, wokies, I know.
Royal Family Footage and Social Media 00:16:37
All that raging testosterone, it's all so toxic, isn't it?
Problematic, primitive, arrestable even.
Well, it's also turned out to be staggeringly popular.
Yes, the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun has racked up box office sales of more than $248 million in this opening weekend, smashing post-pandemic records and easily becoming the biggest hit of Tom Cruise's already stellar Hollywood career.
How can this have happened?
After all, it's a jet-fueled balls out supersonic rampage in which cockshaw guys drink, fight, disobey orders, ride motorbikes without helmets, bond over fixing engines, bottle up their feelings, bail out their mates, play macho topless beach volleyball, get the hot girls and kill all the bad guys.
And even bravely sticks two fingers up at China by refusing to remove the Taiwan flag from Maverick's jacket.
This is a movie for people like me who regularly moan, they don't make movies like that anymore when I watch the great man-celebrating films of the 70s and the 80s.
And we're loving it.
I took two of my sons to see Top Gun Maverick on Friday.
It was the best escapist fun I've had at the movies since 1986 when I was 21 and I went to see the first Top Gun movie at the cinema 10 times in three weeks.
The main reason I loved it, because I came out feeling better than I went in.
When was that the last time that happened at a cinema?
And I also felt proud to be a man and of masculinity, rather than ashamed of it, as the feminazis constantly want us to feel.
Don't get me wrong, some men are awful, but spoiler alert, so are some women.
And some forms of masculinity are toxic, undeniably.
But Maverick reminds us, as the box office sales prove, that sometimes good old-fashioned, non-toxic, chest-beating masculinity is just what everybody wants and needs.
Well, talking of epic comebacks, I don't come much bigger or more redemptive than that of the Queen's favourite jockey, Lester Piggott, who died yesterday at the age of 86.
The undisputed king of horse racing, spent a year behind bars for tax fraud in 1987, before getting back in the saddle in 1990 and winning the Breeders' Cup in America days later, age 55.
Over a career that spanned 46 years, he rode 4,493 winners, was a champion jockey 11 times, and he won a record 30 classics, including nine derbies.
He was, quite simply, the greatest flat race jockey there's ever been.
And if I were a belly man, I'd say we'd never see the likes of Leicester Piggott again.
Says the next have abandoned royal duties, but will Harry and Megan try and steal the royal limelight from the Queen at the Platinum Jubilee.
We'll be discussing that with royal photographer Arthur Edwards.
He's written them an open letter.
Welcome back to Pearsmorgan Uncensored with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, just days away now.
Some have warned Harry and Megan, the Duke and Duchess of Netflix, to put their own agenda aside for a moment and let Her Majesty have her big moment.
Royal photographer Arthur Edwards, who's been photographing the Queen for nearly 40 years, has written an open letter in tonight's Sun newspaper urging the couple not to steal the limelight.
And last night, a new documentary showed previously unseen footage from the royal family's home videos giving insight into why the Queen is, in my view, the greatest monarch in our history.
I remember my own lifelong commitment made in 1947 at the age of 21.
I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
I know that your support will be unfailingly given.
God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.
Although that vow was made in my salad days when I was green in judgment, I do not regret nor attract one word of it.
Well, I'm joined now by the Sun's royal photographer Arthur Edwards and royal editor of Vanity Fair, Katie Nichol, along with playwright and novelist Bonnie Greer.
Well welcome to all of you.
Arthur, great to have you here.
I feel like in Platinum Jubilee week, this is like having almost like having the Queen pay me a visit.
So welcome.
Thanks.
You've written a piece about Megan Harry.
I'm going to come to it in a moment.
I want to start though by talking about this remarkable BBC documentary last night because I honestly think it was the best royal documentary I've ever watched.
And me too.
I thought it was fantastic.
And the king, I mean, the way he was playing with his grandchildren.
I mean, that man was always considered to be a stutterer and very, you know, didn't want the job.
But my God, he came across as a fantastic.
And of course, the Duke of Edinburgh, you know, absolutely the slide on the royal yacht with his kids.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
And the Queen shot a lot of that footage herself.
Well, that was the great thing, wasn't it, Katie?
Was that this footage was raw footage taken by the royals of themselves.
These were family home videos, which we've never really seen.
And you got to really see them as a family.
I think it dispelled so many of the myths about the Queen, actually.
She's so often seen, certainly in those early days of a mother who was quite aloof.
Well, she was full of love for her children.
There was nothing staged for the cameras.
It was wonderful to see her and the young Princess Margaret interacting and playing.
And obviously they had to be.
I love Margaret and the Queen together interacting, even when they were very young and then teenagers and then a bit later.
They obviously had a very close, sort of quite mischievous relationship with each other, right?
Yeah, and I think you got to see that dynamic of what they called We Four.
The Queen Mother and the King and these two young daughters enjoying the most wonderful life.
But I think you're right about it being the best royal documentary.
I mean, people might remember Elizabeth R and the royal family, probably not.
I know some of this being...
The power of this was the simplicity of the home footage and then the Queen now erasing back over her own life.
And then the pictures of Charles and Anne as tots and amazing.
And I mean, I work a lot with Prince Charles.
And I think about him like that, you know, and it was just brilliant.
And there was a great moment when they played a clip about her view of the platinum jubilee.
Listen to this.
I don't know that anyone had invented the term platinum for a 70th anniversary when I was born.
You won't expect it to be around that long.
Typically dry weather.
Now, Bonnie Greer, before we get into probably slightly more incendiary territory with the royals, let's talk about the Queen for a moment, because I don't really care whether you're pro-monarchy, anti-monarchy in the world.
You cannot but have respect for this woman who for 70 years has been on the throne, barely put a foot wrong in that entire time, and does exemplify the very things she talked about when she was 21, duty and service.
Well, you know, believe it or not, and good evening, everybody, believe it or not, my family was royalists.
My mother certainly was.
So I grew up with enormous respect for her.
And what you may not have noticed, no one said it, the Queen's changed her accent.
Just talked the way she did as a child.
She's got less.
She's changed it.
Exactly.
That's my point.
But my next point is that times have changed and we need to change too because she certainly has.
Well, I think that's a very good point.
And Arthur, I think the whole future of the monarchy when the Queen, sadly, the day comes when she's eventually not with us, is going to be a very, very crucial one.
It's very difficult.
Not just for Britain, but for the world, isn't it?
It is indeed.
And Prince Charles has got a tough job, in fact, to keep it on, keep it online and going.
And of course, you know, many of the countries where the Queen is head of state will pull out.
I think certainly Australia will, maybe New Zealand, perhaps Canada, but it's going to be a change.
But the Prince of Wales will cope with that.
He said when we left Barbados last year when they gave up the Queen, he said, well, it's what they want.
And that's fair enough.
So there will be changes.
And the Prince of Wales is already thinking about that.
I think he'll be a much better king than some people seem to be.
Oh, I think so too.
He's a lovely man.
And, of course, he'd never, he's tireless.
And if you think very much, Piers, he's a visionary.
You know, when he was 25 years ago talking about organic food and people calling crazy, and every store you're going to now has got organic food and complimentary medicine and everybody takes some sort of complimentary medicine.
And so, you know, he's a visionary.
I've followed him.
And when I started doing this job, I didn't care less about what I was doing, just get pictures of anything.
But slowly listening to him, the way he's presented his speeches and way asked the people in Brazil and Malaysia not to rip up the rainforests.
And, you know, the plastic in the Sea fights for that.
Yeah, he does.
And he's been ahead of his time on a number of these things.
Katie, we're going to see on the balcony on Thursday morning, the Trooping of the Colour, a streamlined royal lineup.
You're not going to have Ari and Megan or Andrew or the others who've been into dodgy territory in the last few years.
You're going to have the main players.
The Queen, and you're going to have Charles and Camilla, and then you'll have Kate and William.
And that is the, that's the line of succession right there.
But don't forget you're going to have the Duke of Kent, the Gloucesters, the Wessexes, Princess Anne.
It's really about the main event.
It is, but it's interesting, Piers, because when you think back to the diamond, and you'll remember this as well, it was very much about the streamlined royal family.
It was just the Queen, the Cambridges, Charles and Camilla.
So I think this is very important to the Queen that she is having an opportunity to thank those, those that she calls my substitutes, the people who have stood in.
Well, the ones who've actually done the hard work.
The ones that the workers, if you count the number of duties, these are the ones who put the yards in.
Two who won't be on the balcony but are coming in are Megan and Harry.
You've written a pretty robust and direct letter to them in Tonight's Sun, in which you basically plead with them not to try and steal the limelight from the Queen.
Yeah, because if they publish a picture when the Queen meets Lily Bear, that will wipe everything else out.
You know, that's what I'm thinking.
You know, I've talked to the editor tonight and saying that that picture will just scream in and everything the Queen's trying to achieve with this, you know, doing her very best to make appearances and it would just go to pieces.
And I just hope she doesn't turn up with a photographer to do that and put it out.
And I don't think the Queen would allow it anyway.
How damaging have they been, those two with their antics?
I mean, I have a view that people know, but what do you think?
Well, the Opera Winfrey interview was the thing that turned me off them immediately because some of the lies in that that were told, some of the untruths and misleading statements, certainly about Archie's colour of Archie's skin, you know.
I mean, when that remark was made, it wasn't even engaged, it wasn't even talking about him in a child.
But the way it came across in the interview, it looked like it had been discussed while she was pregnant.
But of course it wasn't.
And talking to people of mixed race, they say to me, they discuss if they were having a baby, if they a Chinese couple, I know, a lady married to a Chinese lady, they discuss it without my eyes.
I think it all depends on the context.
We've never been told the context.
Bonnie, I know that you're a supporter of Megan and Harry.
My views are well known.
Arthur shares those views about this.
I felt from that interview onwards, they've been on a very strange journey where for a couple that left the country for privacy, they've never stopped doing media stuff.
For a couple who trash the monarchy and the institution, they keep using their royal titles to commercially benefit themselves to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
So I'm pretty cynical about what they've done.
You think I'm wrong?
Well, you know, no, you're not wrong if you want to be cynical, but I think what we're forgetting here is that this family is probably one of the most resilient PR exercises of at least the 20th century.
Remember, they pulled off one of the biggest brand coups of the 20th century by changing their name from a German name to the name of their residence.
They also pulled off another coup around the funeral of the Princes of Wales.
I mean, they've been changing all the time while giving people the illusion that they haven't.
I mean, they're absolutely brilliant, and this will be handled too.
I mean, I don't know why people are freaking out so much about this.
This family exists and survives because it can adapt.
And it's too bad that the people who support them don't know how to do that themselves.
Yeah, I mean, I think, Arthur, if you go back over your time covering the rules, four decades, there have been a lot of big royal scandals.
I mean, we feel like, because of social media, the Megan and Harry antics and Prince Andrew and so on have been really big.
But there have been, as we know from that documentary last night, the abdication of a king over a love affair.
I know.
Probably dwarfed any of his stuff.
That's right.
And they went on to live in America, but they never dumped on the royal family, not once.
They never did quite.
There were a fair few cashing ins of the royal family.
I hate to say this with Bonnie here, but we are with American women now, two for two.
Listen, listen.
Come here.
Hang out with me.
Let me say something.
No, they didn't come.
They got married into the royal family.
And it's true, that family, Edward, I mean, sorry, the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor cashed in.
It is not even a comparison to what Megan and Harry are doing.
The point we were making was not about cash in the middle of the year.
Listen, They were paid to go to nightclubs.
They had all kinds of things.
You know, what they never did, Arthur said, which is true, they never attacked the royal family in public.
I would have no problem.
I've got no problem with Meghan and Harry.
If Meghan and Harry gave up their titles and just lived off being Meghan and Harry celebrities, stopped attacking the institution.
You're forgetting one thing.
This guy gave up the crown.
Yeah.
He didn't have, that was the coup de coup de theatre right there.
So he already attacked the royal family.
That was done and probably done for all time.
So he didn't have to do anything.
Listen, Bonnie, you're making it down from the bottom of the city.
You're making good points.
And I don't dispute that.
Thank you.
Katie, I mean, this goes back to my point to Arthur.
We have gone through centuries of royal scandal.
Imagine if social media had been around with Henry VIII beheading his wives.
I mean, it's all relative.
It's all relative, but I think it's the way the Queen has weathered these storms.
I mean, look at the death of Diana and the way that almost saw the tide really nearly turn against the Queen.
She reigned that back in.
I spoke to someone for my new book who said to me, and he's a good boy.
Excellent book, by the way.
The New Royals.
Very good read.
This was so important.
He said to me, the Queen has the most remarkable capacity for forgiveness.
And I think that's what you're going to see with Assassin's.
She wants this to be a little bit different.
Yes, Bonnie, come in.
She's a new family.
Bonnie, come in.
I've met the Queen a couple of times.
And I'll tell you one occasion I met her, which I thought was extraordinary.
This was the reopening of Windsor Castle.
Okay, this place had burned down.
There were people in there smoking.
Now, if that was my house, I would have said, hold it, cut it out.
My place has already burned down.
You people are lighting up cigarettes.
That was when we were allowed, you know, people were allowed to do that.
She walks in, she walks around.
You know, you can't talk to her.
You have to be taken over to her.
And then she deigns to speak.
Walking through people, smoke, everything, cool as a cucumber.
I wouldn't worry about her at all.
But nothing flusters the Queen, certainly not in public.
Arthur, I want to just show you a picture.
This is Stonehenge, which they lit up with eight pictures, images beamed onto Stonehenge of the Queen through the years.
I thought this was a wonderful idea, didn't you?
Yeah, I do, I do, too.
I've had a print made today, one of my favourite pictures of the Queen.
I've got to put up in my window at my house tonight.
You know, I'm so excited about it.
Yeah.
Everywhere, you know, it's...
What's your favourite memory of the Queen personally?
Mental Health and Gun Control Debate 00:15:40
Oh, personally.
Well, when she gave me my MBE, she said, I can't believe I'm giving you this.
She said, she gave it to me.
And then she said, how long have you been coming down here to photograph me?
I said, then it was 20 years ago.
I said, 27 years, ma'am.
She said, oh, well, let's have our picture taken together.
Oh, that was really amazing.
And that really was moving.
I've never forgotten that.
And funny, as I walked away, Prince Andrew came up to me.
He said, oh, what did you get?
I said, MBE.
He said, what does that stand for?
I said, much bigger expenses.
Arthur, it's a privilege to have you.
You're one of the all-time great royal photographers and you still do it.
And I won't ask you how old you are, but I know, and it's amazing the energy and drive you still have for your craft.
And thank God you do.
It's a nice job.
Nice people.
I work with lovely people.
Royal tours are always the most fun with Arthur.
Of course.
It's brilliant.
Everything's more fun with Arthur.
Katie, thank you very much.
The New Royals is out now.
Queen Desmond's Legacy.
In November, I'm sorry.
You got it first.
In November.
First early copy.
Okay, cool.
And Bonnie Greer, thank you very much indeed.
That was quite civilized for us, I thought.
No comment from Bonnie.
She's not agreeing her otherwise.
I did not.
No, no, it was civilised because at the end of the day, they're going to come anyway.
So that's that.
You know, I mean, that's that.
And it'll all be over.
Bonnie, great to see you.
Come back soon.
Thank you, Piers.
Thank you.
Take care of yourself.
And says the next new testimony has shed light on the police response to the Texas school massacre.
Should they have done more?
Well, there's fresh scrutiny for police in Navale, Texas, as a 911 dispatch call appears to confirm officers were told the gunman was in a room full of victims as they stood outside.
He is in a room full of victims.
Well, Lydia Morales, along with her mother Monica, cared for many of the victims of their daycare center when they were just toddlers.
Then they'll set up a memorial, 21 chairs with each of the names of each of the children and the two teachers who were killed on a white piece of paper.
And Lydia joins me now.
Lydia, thank you so much for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
I can't even imagine what it must be like for all of you connected with this school and these poor children who were murdered.
You had, I think, over 10 of these kids come through your daycare centre.
When you first heard what had happened, what were your feelings?
I was really in shock.
I didn't think this could happen, especially to a small community.
When we actually heard what was going on, we locked down our daycare center just to ensure the safety just because there was a lot of commotion going on, especially because our daycare is actually located by, if I'm not mistaken, it's Dalton Elementary.
So there was just a lot of commotion going on at that time.
And so, you know, just for safety protocol, we locked down our daycare center and hoping that we kept the safety for everybody.
It must have been agonizing for you to discover that so many of the children who'd been at your daycare center had actually been killed.
Yes, it was.
And I also know, Lydia, that you...
It's hard to think that these families are not going to be able to hold these, that they're not going to be able to hold their child ever again.
Yeah, I mean, it's an incomprehensible atrocity.
It's not a tragedy because a tragedy implies somehow this, you know, this was accidental or something.
This is a deliberate annihilation of young children by an 18-year-old who just decided to destroy their lives.
I know that you were also personally close to Mrs. Garcia, one of the two teachers at us.
She actually taught you.
So this is very personal for you, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
She actually did.
She was my third grade teacher here at the school right behind me, Rob Elementary.
I was here probably when I was like 10 as well.
So a good 12 years ago, I walked these same halls that the tragedy took place.
Lydia, what is your feeling?
There's a huge debate raging now about guns, about mental health, about all sorts of issues which may have contributed to this.
What is the feeling, do you think, of the community about what's happened here?
I think a lot of it needs to change.
At least with the gun violence, it needs to change and mental health needs to be taken seriously and not just as a walk-in talk thing.
needs to be where you need to sit down with that person, talk about what's going on with them, talk about their past history, especially even now more so with the tragedy that took place here.
I mean there's always been a debate after all of these massacres in America about gun control, you know, taking some guns away from certain types of people.
It does seem strange to us here in the UK, for example, that an 18-year-old can't buy a beer until they're 21, but they can buy a semi-automatic rifle.
Do you think that something like that ought to change?
That kids, young people, teenagers should not be able to get these kind of guns?
I do believe something does need to change because like you were saying, how your laws are different from here from the United States.
I mean here they could buy a beer at 21, but they could buy legal guns and stuff at 18 years old.
It just doesn't seem right.
Especially even now more so that this tragedy took place that involved guns taking the life of 21 people.
You've done this wonderful little tribute of these chairs.
What was it that made you want to do that in particular?
We just wanted to show our support for the community, especially during this tragic time, especially for the families.
I noticed right now too we have more people putting out bears, they're putting flowers, they're putting the little rocks that have messages and stuff in hopes that with all this stuff we will be able to give it to their families as a, you know, as a reminder that we're all here together in Ubaldi and we're standing strong for one another.
And Lydia, is there anger amongst the local community about the way the police conducted themselves?
There's a big debate now that there were 19 police with guns in the school and they didn't go in for over an hour.
Okay.
Andre, can you repeat that?
I just wondered what your view is of the debate about the failure of the police to go into the classroom given they were in the school for over an hour.
I do believe there is some anger around the community, but at the same time, you know, everybody's trying to hold together, at least to be strong for the families of these lives that were taken.
Yeah, I completely understand.
Lydia, thank you so much for joining me.
It's just unbearable to think what has happened there and the fact that you knew 10 of these children who'd come through your day center, the fact you used to be taught by one of the teachers who died, it must be particularly unbearable for you.
And I'm incredibly grateful to you for taking the time to talk to us tonight.
Thank you.
Beyond comprehension.
But I'm joined now by Chris Grolnick.
He's a retired police officer and active shooter prevention expert and Fox Nation host Tommy Lehron.
Welcome to both of you.
Let me start with you, Chris, if I may.
You're a specialist in this very kind of scenario.
You know, I wrote a column for the New York Post yesterday, just really just lambasting what happened here as, I'm afraid, cowardice.
I mean, the idea that 19 armed police were in that school for over an hour and didn't go into that classroom is to me unconscionable.
Yeah, thank you for having me, Pearson.
Hello, Tommy.
Great to see you again.
For this tragedy, I wish we weren't speaking about this.
However, what we've seen is we've spent about $10 million since Sandy Hook on training approximately 140,000 police on response tactics of how to respond to an active shooter.
And we see, after a similar pulse, Parkland, Uvalde, and there's several others, they're not responding appropriately.
And there's no excuse for this one.
And I have, you know, I'm not speaking out of a side of my mouth.
I've been in an active shooter in real time as a policeman, where somebody just decides they're going to start shooting at you and they attack you and you have no call.
So you have to react.
This is different.
Domestic soil.
Well, these are children.
And I don't really speak about children, but there's a message to be evangelized here.
And that is we have to change a lot, not just a binary choice of guns or mental health.
We have to evaluate the whole spectrum and decide who we're talking to.
Right.
I mean, I think, Tommy, you know, you and I have talked about guns before.
I don't want to re-legislate that debate.
What strikes me about this particular two-week period?
You've had the mass shooting in Buffalo, where 10 black people were murdered by a white supremacist in a supermarket.
You've now had 19 children annihilated in their classroom, exactly the same as what happened in Sandy Hook 10 years ago.
And we know nothing got changed.
And it's not as simple as saying take all the guns away.
There are too many guns in America to do that.
And also there is a constitutional right, which I know a lot of Americans feel strongly about, about their right to bear arms.
And we just don't have that kind of issue here.
So I'm not going to legislate that with you.
I'm just curious, what can be done here?
The normal response from the pro-gun lobby is, well, you need to have more guns so that good guys with guns can stop it.
But we had 19 supposed good guys with guns in the school hallway doing nothing.
So that can't be the answer.
Well, I think that we have to look at this situation apart from other situations where law enforcement did fail here.
And I am a big advocate and supporter of law enforcement, but we have to take a look at the situation.
There's going to be an investigation.
And the people of that community and the people of the world deserve to know what happened, what lapsing communication occurred there, and what went so wrong.
Going back to the discussion about guns, what we do to address this issue, it is an issue of mental health as well.
And I'll speak to that in a moment.
But I would also say this.
When we're talking about our constitutional rights, making law-abiding citizens helpless and out-gunned does not make evil people any less harmful.
So that is a discussion that needs to be had.
But also mental health.
When you look at individuals like this, there is a common threat and pattern.
These individuals are on social media platforms on different chat rooms, torturing animals, abusing animals, talking about violence, talking about how they want to harm people.
Why is there not a mechanism to report this?
The world is watching these individuals promise to do harm and nothing is done.
I mean, I agree with you.
I would also say...
Yeah, I would say, look, I agree.
There are a number of things at play here.
Mental health is clearly a massive problem.
These are evil, twisted people, and they all seem to be getting younger and younger.
And it's incredibly worrying.
I know that the Sandy Hook shooter, for example, and this shooter both had a weird obsession with Call of Duty, which is a video game where you play a lone shooter.
Is there no connection between that and mental illness and the ready availability of guns?
I'm sure there is a connection.
There are lots of things going on here.
But I think the rest of the world looks at these incidents in America happening time and time again and just wonders whether anything will actually be done about guns themselves.
And what do you think the answer is?
I mean, when I asked the lady earlier, you know, this guy couldn't buy a beer till he was 21.
Americans accept that.
They accept that.
They set regulation when they drive cars, which can be dangerous.
But why was he able to get a semi-automatic rifle?
May I just interject on one thing, Pierce?
Because I do think that's a good question.
Chris wants to jump in as well.
Okay, Chris, yeah.
I apologize.
So we know that 100% of active shooters and mass killers share a common trait out of a number of common traits.
The problem with that benchmark is me and you share at least one of those traits.
Maybe we've been wronged in our whole life.
Maybe we had whatever the problem is.
So if we throw that metric out and we look at one statistic that the FBI has put out in 21 years, 47.3% of active shooters telegraph that they're going to be active shooters, and yet they still legally purchase firearms.
Right.
That's where I tell you.
I am agreeing with that.
I think if I could jump in, Chris, I think the lack of proper red flag spotting.
You know, every single time stuff comes out about these shooters, you think, well, why didn't that get picked up?
Why wasn't that shown on their background check when they go and get these guns legally?
But Tommy, you wanted to answer before Chris stepped in there.
Yes.
When I agree with Chris wholeheartedly, we also need to address some of the cultural issues that we have in the United States of America.
And it's not just gun culture.
It's also a culture of fatherlessness.
It's a culture of young people falling through the cracks.
And I'm glad that Chris is talking about some of these traits because you don't see young women doing this.
You see young men doing this, young men who are incredibly angry, young men who often share that common threat of not having fathers or parents in the household that are raising them correctly.
So we're going to have to address a whole litany of issues.
It's not just the gun.
I know it's easy to go after the weapon, but there are millions of Americans who own firearms and who own what they call assault weapons.
And they don't go out and they don't become mass shooters.
They use them for home defense and protection.
So there's bigger issues to be discussed here besides just the weapon.
Important issues that are a little bit more challenging.
And that's why I feel that so many fail to address them.
I think it is a very complex issue in America.
You know, when Britain got rid of its guns after the Dunblane massacre in the 90s, we were not a gun culture country.
Most people in Britain did not have a gun to start with.
So it was a much easier thing to do and a much easier thing for all sides of the political divide to agree with.
So it's very complicated in America.
I completely accept that.
Listen, got to leave it there.
Chris, Tommy, thank you both very much indeed for joining us.
Thank you both.
Thank you.
Non-Crime Investigations and Activist Pressure 00:03:14
I'm sensitive next.
British police allow criminals to self-identify their gender.
Why?
Discussing that next.
They're able to identify as various different types of gender, and it's very important to allow them to do that, not to assume that they identify as male or female.
The problem with this, the flip side of this, is that the police are increasingly investigating people for what are referred to as non-crime hate incidents, often involving misgendering a trans person or declining to use a trans person's preferred gender pronouns, a thought crime referred to as dead naming.
And the Free Speech Union is increasingly contacted by people who are being investigated by the police for allegedly having committed a non-crime.
Someone has complained about something they've said or done, which doesn't meet the threshold of being a criminal offence, but the police feel obliged to investigate it anyway.
And when they've concluded their investigation, they record it as a non-crime.
And that can show up if you apply for a job working with vulnerable people and someone does an enhanced criminal records check.
That can show up on your criminal record.
The fact that you haven't committed a crime that this can't be going on.
Yeah, and I think Toby, but I think the thing is, I think you can identify as what the hell you like.
What you can't do is question biology, as far as I'm concerned.
You're born a man or woman.
It's just a biological fact.
But secondly, on gender self-identity, there's now a hundred agendas for the British Civil Service, many of which sound utterly ridiculous.
Now, you can call yourself what you like, I don't care.
But the moment that government bodies start to say these terms have to be used, I just think they've lost the plot.
Society doesn't have to change completely to come around to the whims and fancies of people who decide they want to be called, you know, gender whatever.
I don't think that's right in a society.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the real difficulty with the civil service embracing gender ideology to the extent that it has is that it's effectively taking sides in what is a politically contentious, ongoing public debate.
You know, there is an ongoing debate between trans rights activists and gender critical feminists about things like, should women be admitted, should trans women be admitted to women's prisons?
Should they be able to participate in women's sports?
Should we refer to women and mothers, as birthing people?
And this debate has far from been resolved.
But it's as though the civil service has decided they're on the side of the trans rights activists and woe betide any impression.
And if you try and defy it, if you try and defy it, you are somehow the problem.
Toby, I'm going to leave it there.
Great conversation.
Please come back again because this is not going to go away.
If anything, it's going to get worse.
So I look forward to speaking to you about it again as we deteriorate down into a further woke abyss.
Thank you for joining me, Toby Young.
Thanks, Piers.
Well, we started with women's anatomy and we're going to end with it.
Birthing People vs Trans Rights Debate 00:00:28
If we go back, cornflakes, how about some raspberry-flavoured uterus-shaped period crunch?
Feminine care brand Intermina has created a dyed red womb-themed cereal to encourage families to discuss menstruation at the breakfast table.
What a cracking idea.
Nothing I like to do more in the morning with my children than eat some cereal uteruses.
Good night, everybody.
Remember, keep it uncensored.
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