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June 7, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
45:50
20220607_piers-morgan-uncensored-don-mclean
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How Long Could Boris Survive 00:14:38
I'm Piers Morgan, uncensored, coming up on tonight's programme, shaken and stirred, but Blonde lives to lie another day.
Because how much longer could the League of Boris Johnson survive?
LGBTQ the virtue signalling.
Big brands go bonkers for gay pride, but how much do they really care?
Juvenile tension, the top cop is publicly shaming offenders as young as 10.
And a really moving interview with the genius behind American Pie that turns 50.
Music maestro Don McClain on the timeless hit that became an alternative national anthem.
America's getting more crazy and less sane.
It had to be a massive song for this massive country full of contradictions.
I wish that I could have known my father better.
Tyson Fury loves to sing American Pie when he wins.
I loved our rendition of American Pie.
It was absolutely fantastic.
Well, good evening.
First up, Boris Johnson staggers on, but his numbers are grim.
148 of his own MPs no longer have confidence in his ability to be Prime Minister.
So are his days numbered?
Well, joining me now, Talk TV contributor, Adam Bolt, political pundit Marina Perkis, and Conservative writer Esther Kraker.
Well, welcome.
A stellar panel, if ever I've seen one.
Adam Bolton, as the big beast in the political jungle in our firmament tonight, is he going to survive this Boris Johnson?
I've written a very interesting piece by Danny Finkelstein in The Times.
Basically, he's like, he shouldn't survive.
I don't want him to survive, but he might survive.
And that was the counter to William Haig writing this morning that he thought he would definitely go.
I mean, my own feeling is, and I talked to a number of politicians today, the big divide is whether you think he'll make it to the next election or not as Tory leader.
And I have to say, the consensus, not everybody, the consensus is that he won't because he's become a liability to his own party and has lost his charisma.
Although, as Danny Finkelstein points out in the article, the closer you get to the election, the more traumatic it is for the party to get rid of him.
So will he see Christmas, I think, is probably the question.
And my suspicion is he probably won't.
There was a clip this morning when he addressed his cabinet, which I was struck by their faces, not his.
His looked like he hadn't had any sleep, but this is what happened.
Thank you, by the way, everybody, for all your good work yesterday, which was a very important day, because we're able now to draw a line under the issues that our opponents want to talk about.
It wasn't exactly a sea of ecstatic visages.
But it's the extraordinary thing, isn't it, to say we can draw a line under the issues our opponents want to talk about, i.e. my law breaking and my bad behaviour.
I mean, it's not just his opponents, is it?
It's the country.
And I think that's the problem he's got, is that it still resonates with people.
And also, it's not just a clique group of rebels about one part of him.
It's right across the board these rebels are coming from.
And that would unsettle me if I was a leader when there are all sorts of different reasons why people want him out.
Yeah, I think that's the case.
Although working for him is the fact that there isn't therefore an obvious challenge in which they can come round, although Jeremy Hunt's put himself out there.
But it just is this distaste, you know, the fact that the jokes don't really work anymore, that people have laughed themselves at the jokes to the point that they're exhausted with them.
And that, I think, is his problem.
But, you know, well, he might thank his cabinet because I think if one cabinet minister yesterday said, I can't put up.
I was waiting for one of them today to maybe grow a bear in the middle of the day.
Well, yesterday was the time to do it.
And it would have gone, I think, I think, by general agreement.
Biggest hurdle for him.
These by-elections can't predict what's going to happen in by-elections.
Two losses will upset Tories, although people say that sometimes happens.
But this Privilege and Standards Committee report, I mean, if the House of Commons votes to suspend the Prime Minister for lying, surely even then, he would have to go, right?
Rena, let's come to you.
I want to play Jacob Rees-Mogg reacting to what went on.
I also accept this result, but the Prime Minister must realise that under unconstitutional norms, she ought to go and see the Queen urgently and resign.
Now, that actually wasn't about Boris Johnson.
That was what he said about Theresa May when she actually did better in her vote of no confidence.
This is what Jacob Reese Mogg said after Boris Johnson.
Shouldn't the Prime Minister resign?
Of course he shouldn't.
He's a great deal.
Other countries lucky to have him.
And there, right there, you have the double standard of people like Mr. Reese Mogg, who had a completely different opinion when it was Theresa May.
What do you make of what's going on here?
Should Boris survive?
No, he should not survive.
Although I'm quite enjoying watching him just tear his party to shreds.
Rhys Mogg is one of these people who is, he's a government minister who, let's be honest, like Doris, like Patel, like Truss, wouldn't get anywhere near a sniff of a government position, a cabinet position, without Boris Johnson.
Let's not forget, Theresa May's majority was 50, sorry, it was 63% when she had her vote of no confidence.
63%, and those were the words of Jacob Reese Mogg, damning.
And yet, yesterday, Boris Johnson had 59%, and all of a sudden, he's given this third mandate, apparently.
This is a third mandate.
This is a convincing win.
This is good for the country, apparently.
Absolute nonsense.
And they're just making themselves about absolute idiots.
Essie, I mean, you're a conservative.
There's a battle going on for the heart and soul of the party right now.
Because if it's not Boris Johnson, who should it be?
And what kind of party and what kind of manifesto should they be pursuing?
Because a lot of people say to me, who are Tories, I don't really recognise anything very conservative about this government.
Well, I mean, that started in 2019, was a purge of the main faces and the typical talent within the Tory party.
But I think Jesse Newman said in his letter of no confidence, he stated it perfectly.
It's not just about the party gate, which was his reaction to it, has been completely shameless, right?
I call Boris the powerhouse of shamelessness.
But the Tory Party doesn't have a vision.
The Tory Party is not a conservative party.
It's not pro-business.
It's not for low taxation.
They show no fiscal discipline whatsoever.
All these PPE contracts that went to all these sort of friends of the Tory party.
It's very unconservative.
And that's the main problem.
It's not just the fact that Boris has effectively shamed the party with his behaviour.
It's the fact that the Tory Party doesn't have a vision and it's not a party anymore.
And that's what should scare conservatives.
You may go into the next election and people don't even know what you are.
Let's just pivot, if I may, Adam, to something that's happening in America right now.
Very interesting, actually.
We had this appalling school shooting in Ovari in Texas.
And Matthew McConaughey, the actor, actually comes from Uvari and he's gone to the White House and he's addressed the White House press call, which I can never remember a Hollywood star doing.
And it's a very powerful speech he's made, really like an address to the American people that they cannot go on having this volume of atrocities.
What do you make of...
Well, I mean, the first thing to say, you don't get to speak in the White House unless the president invites you.
So you can clearly see this as a White House initiative.
And, you know, we are seeing Joe Biden in responding to Uvalde actually saying, is there anything that we can agree on?
And of course, McConnell, as you say, being a Texan, being someone who's a bit of a cowboy himself, can possibly talk about something short of the sort of bans on weapons that you or I might think are sensible, but certainly stopping assault rifles or just getting to a position where politicians actually react to the horror of...
And you were saying that when Dunblaine happened, you were out with John Major abroad at the time.
And I was the editor of the Daily Mirror when it all this went down.
It was different here.
I mean, we did get rid of civilian usage of most guns, but we didn't have a gun ownership culture in this country, anything like America's.
Tiny percentage of Britons had guns at the time.
And those people who did have guns had to have them locked up.
Right, whereas in America, you've got 400 million guns in circulation.
45% of the population have guns in their houses.
This is what McConough Hay has just been saying in the wires.
Got a clip from a few seconds ago.
Uvalde, Texas is where I was born.
I swear my mom taught kindergarten less than a mile from Robb Elementary.
Uvalde is where I learned to master a daisy BB gun.
That took two years before I graduated to a 410 shotgun.
Uvalde is where I was taught to revere the power and the capability of the tool that we call a gun.
Well, he goes on to say: we need to invest in mental health care, we need to save for schools, we need to restrain sensationalize media courage, we need to restore our family values, we need to restore our American values, and we need responsible gun ownership.
It's powerful stuff coming from someone who's from that town, isn't it?
But you've covered many stories in America over the years, as I've five, including many mass shootings.
Nothing ever seems to really change.
Do you think it will this time?
No, to be honest.
I mean, we saw it after Sandy Hook.
And what we've already seen, as you know, the system, the balance of power between the states and the White House, that even when the White House wants to do something, the states go out of their way to obstruct it, as indeed Governor Abbott has in Texas with proposed gun reform laws there.
I mean, it is, you know, it's a sort of deadly sin in America, isn't it?
You know, they've got guns and they've got race and they just don't know how to get over the two of them.
Esther, I want to also pivot to something else that's bubbled up in the last few minutes.
This is Johnny Depp, who's come out on TikTok.
He's just joined TikTok, apparently, literally today.
And he's made his first address on TikTok.
And in it, he basically thanks his fans.
And Amber Heard's people, so this is Johnny Depp's statement.
It's a nice statement thanking his fans and so on.
What's more interesting is Amber Heard's response immediately.
She's come up from a spokesperson and said, as Johnny Depp says he's moving forward, what he says in his little comment there, women's rights are moving backwards.
The verdict's message to victims of domestic violence is be afraid to stand up and speak out.
So Amber Heard's still playing the downtrodden victim, even though she lost almost all of that case.
What do you make of this?
Have women's rights been served by anybody in this case?
Well, absolutely.
And I think Amber Heard arguing that women's rights have been taken backwards.
Actually, it's been done by her because of all her false allegations.
She's completely delusional, clearly, because she's still pivoting herself as this victim, as you know, the face of violence against women, when that's not the case at all.
What is incredible to me is there are still people in her camp that are saying, actually, no, she's a victim.
And when no one is speaking on the Johnny Depp side of things and the kind of thing that's going to be a lot of fun.
Come on, I think she is a victim.
She's still a victim.
It's entirely appropriate of him to thank his fans because the pressure of celebrity culture, the organization, the way the trial was handled was actually what resulted in what I think most people would regard in this country as a perverse verdict.
Really?
Oh, absolutely.
Oh, absolutely.
I do.
Absolutely.
I think it is clear that his star power and his male power, if I can put it that way, she is no angel.
I certainly would accept that.
But I think it's absolutely clear that she did come under pressure.
And I think what she said in the New York Times, which didn't specify him, was perfectly legitimate.
I'm sorry.
No, that was completely embarrassing.
She was not in the middle of the day.
Remember, the British courts.
The British courts had a lower standard.
Oh, well, really?
The British courts have a lower standard?
Exactly, the British have to prove that the British courts upheld that he had been guilty of spousal abuse.
Well, one judge.
This was, no, I'm sorry.
Isn't it fascinating, though, that we've now had two court cases with these two.
One Johnny Depp lost, one he won almost in an entirety.
And even now, people are really split about this.
Yes, but you see, this is the argument which her defense barrister put out, that if you go into any domestic abuse situation and you reduce it to he said, she said, she always loses.
And that's exactly what's happening.
I actually don't think it should have been on television.
I don't think you should televise domestic violence cases, either criminal or civil.
I think that it turns it into it.
Monica Lewinsky said it turns it into kind of courtroom porn.
And I think that is a problem.
Got to leave it there.
Thank you all very much.
Really appreciate you pivoting around various stories breaking in the last few minutes.
Well, after the break, football's governing body, FIFA, flies a rainbow pride flag, but holds a World Cup in Qatar where it's illegal to be gay.
Does obligatory virtue signaling have any place amid such rampant hypocrisy and sport?
I sound censor next.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Census.
Pride Month used to be about celebrating gay rights and campaigns for equality.
It's now more about ad campaigns celebrating righteous brands in places where equality often already exists, from burgers to banks, machines to marines.
Yes, bullets apparently are now gay.
Everybody wants to know it's okay to be gay, which of course it is, except of course where it's not.
Big brands love to signal their virtue in English-speaking countries where gay rights have been hard fought and hard earned, but not so keen to do it in the Middle East, for example, where it's often illegal and punishable by death.
They don't really care about LGBTQ or you.
The only pride a lot of these corporations seem to have is in their quarterly earnings report.
World football's governing body, FIFA, for example, is flying the rainbow flag at its headquarters a few months before it flies the game Superstars to the World Cup in Qatar, where gay people are flogged or killed.
And it seems nobody's more keen to show you they're along for the pride than professional sports teams, whether the players like it or not.
Paris Saint-Germain footballer, Idrissa Guy, sat at a recent game because the rest of his team were wearing rainbow emblazoned jerseys.
He's a Muslim from Senegal, where being gay can land you in jail.
And five Tampa Bay Rays players in America this week refused to wear uniforms with LGBT rainbow logos for Pride Month, citing their right to make a personal choice.
Forcing Pride on Unwilling Players 00:07:03
I would argue they have that right.
It should be a personal choice, as should all social or political gestures.
We shouldn't be shaming or abusing any sports people, frankly, who don't want to participate in this kind of thing.
But that's just my view.
Joining me to discuss all this is bisexual activist and writer Lewis Oakley, along with restorative opportunist contributor Tyrus.
Welcome to you both.
So let me start with you, Lewis.
Here's my issue about this.
I don't think anybody should be forced to signal their virtue if they don't wish to.
And yet we're seeing more and more pressure now being applied, both by sporting teams and associations.
We're seeing it applied by social media, the court of public opinion, to say, if you don't do this, then you are a bigot and you should be shamed.
What's your view?
Well, yeah, I totally agree.
We shouldn't force people to wear things and support things publicly that they don't support.
It's fine.
Obviously, that comes down to, well, if you're not going to take the knee, if you're not going to wear these laces, what does this say about you?
And I think that's where we need to have a lot of things.
Why should it say anything about you?
For example, there are currently, there are black footballers who don't want to take the knee anymore.
They think it's sort of lost its steam and impact.
If they should be allowed to say, I'm not going to do it, why shouldn't a white player, without you making the insinuation, well, it says something about you if you don't?
Well, this is the thing.
I don't think if you're not going to take the name, if you're not going to wear the lace, it means you're a bad person.
I just think it means, okay, well, there's a conversation to be had.
There are many reasons why someone would not want to wear rainbow laces or wear the pride thing.
But we have to ask why.
Like, what is it?
Is it that you hate the gays, you don't want to see them around?
Or is it that you think it's woke gone mad?
Whatever it is.
But that's where the issue is, because we still have to come back to the reason this is being done, right?
The reason this is being done is because we still don't have any out Premier League footballers.
It's still got that stigma of homophobia in it.
And we're just kind of saying, look, how can we kind of make up for this?
This has historically been somewhere where gays were not wanted or bisexuals were not wanted.
I think it's a perfectly valid point.
Taras, I mean, I think that I, you know, would be completely supportive of a lot of these issues, but I don't like the pressure that's now being applied, for example, to these Tampa Bay race players, this sort of outrage over their disinclination to signal their virtue for pride.
They should be allowed not to if they don't want to, shouldn't they?
Well, they should.
And to what you need to, we need to get back to having two thoughts on one subject.
I think you can be completely supportive of Gay Pride Month and not necessarily have to wear a banner and flag for it.
During Black History Month in the United States, I don't expect my white friends to acknowledge my blackness every day.
But at the same time, it's about equality.
When you receive equality, you can also say, well, I respect you, I difference your opinion, or I just choose for no other reason than I don't want to celebrate it.
It doesn't mean you can't acknowledge it.
It can't mean you can't appreciate it.
I think the problem is whenever somebody doesn't acknowledge it, we allow the mainstream media to think that there can only be one way.
You're either pro-gay or you're not.
And that's not true.
You can support it.
And I think what the Tampa Bay baseball player eloquently said was, although he supports and he has no issues with them, his religious beliefs are what they are.
And we have to respect that.
Just like if someone says, listen, I don't think of mixing of the races as something I want to do in my household, but I don't have anything against black people as a whole.
This is my personal choice.
I don't have to like it.
And I'm probably not going to have lunch with that guy.
But I can respect it.
It's about respect.
Yeah, I mean, I remember that.
I actually had a long debate actually with my sons, all in their 20s, when it was the Black Square Day on Instagram, where post-George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests.
It was a day when everyone was supposed to have a black square as their Instagram post, and that was all they would post all day.
And I didn't go along with it because I didn't really think it would be that effective.
And I just thought it was a bit of a sort of pointless virtue signaling.
My sons got quite annoyed about it with me.
And they were under pressure from their friends who'd seen I hadn't done it.
And that just showed me really how insidious a lot of this pressure can be.
Peer pressure, social media pressure, and corporate pressure to do these kind of things.
I don't think it's a balance, right?
Like it's about, yeah, you should not feel pressured to do anything.
Don't support things you don't support.
Actually, why would you want to say you support something if you don't, right?
But at the same time, you're feeling a little bit of pressure there.
Like, oh, I feel a bit of a pressure.
Actually, I wasn't.
No, I wasn't feeling it.
They were feeling it.
And the point I was going to make with Tyrus was, you know, for example, FIFA, who are putting on the World Cup, the soccer World Cup, their statement actually said this on Twitter last week to celebrate Pride Month.
The FIFA World Cup, Qatar 2022, will be a celebration of unity and diversity.
A joining of people from all walks of life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender, identity, and expression.
Everyone will be welcome.
And they followed up with another statement about Pride.
But the problem with all this is they've sold the World Cup rights to the country of Qatar, where it is illegal to be gay.
Well, and that's the same problem that every group that's recognized has.
Nobody is more important or more powerful than that mighty dollar.
And that dollar makes a lot of corporations turn the other way, and they try to set up fights in other places for us.
Let me tell you a perfect example, and I'm going to take race and sexuality out of a minute, just people's perceptions.
Mr. Morgan, I saw you this weekend on TV and you were there with the great Sharon Osborne, and I was so happy to see her back on TV again.
The perception of her is horrible, right?
But I know from personal experience, when I was a bodyguard for Snoop, we shared the same apartment building as her daughter.
And me and four of the largest brothers you've ever seen had to sit outside in the sun literally every day in the June because there wasn't enough room in Snoop's apartment.
Do you know who came up literally every other day bringing us water and food to the point where, no, Mrs. Osborne, no more.
Thank you.
No more.
No more.
It was nighttime.
Sometimes it'd be 12 o'clock at night and she'd be walking asking if we wanted or needed anything.
There was no cameras on, but the perception was one thing.
And she didn't have to broadcast her support.
And she didn't care what color we were.
She just saw four big, hungry, hot men who just happened to be black that she took care of.
You know what, Tara?
One word has shot out to me.
The word hot has shone out to me there.
That's probably why Sharon was hovering around her.
Hot in the sense of temperature.
I mean, I don't think, you know, she's into artists, so I don't think we fit.
But the point is, it goes back to the same thing.
You can have the same support.
And like I said, I have no issue.
Whether best friend, neighbor, whatever, I have no issue.
I care more about how you pay your bills and how you treat your neighbors than what you do in your bedroom or what color you are.
You don't necessarily have to shout it to the moon.
I agree.
I think you've hit the nail on the head about its actions speak a lot louder to me than Virtue Signal.
The Craziness of America's Size 00:04:55
Final point with you, Lewis.
Like BMW, for example, did their gay pride social media posts last week, but they didn't do it on their Middle Eastern Twitter account.
And nor did Sephora, Cisco, Mercedes.
So they were supportive of gay pride here, but they weren't going to be supportive of it publicly in countries where it's illegal to be gay.
That is what gets my goat about a lot of this stuff.
Well, it's too hypocrisy.
And, you know, it's easy to throw a rainbow flag on something in this country, isn't it?
Where they really need to be putting their effort is those countries.
So it would actually have been brave of them to have done it there.
But yeah, and you know what?
LGBT people see through that stuff.
I think so too.
Yeah.
It's ridiculous.
Lewis, great to see you.
Thank you very much.
Taurus, always great to talk to you.
Please come back soon.
Thank you.
Love having you on the show.
Thank you very much.
It's an honor.
Well, I says the next.
Surprisingly, one of my biggest fans.
I loved your TV show.
I still remember many interviews that you did.
You were a very, very good interviewer.
And I always made a point of watching it.
And I still know about all the trouble you cause on morning television.
Well, I'm a massive fan of Don McClain as well.
And we got him a surprise tribute from one of his biggest fans too.
So by Miss American Pie.
Well, simple words.
Bye-bye, Miss American Piedmont.
Possibly the most iconic lyrics in American music history.
Junius behind them, singer Don McClain.
Join me to discuss the legacy of that classic song, which turns 50.
And why you said bye-bye to the NRA in the wake of the recent Texas school shooting.
He began writing American Pie in his early 20s.
So I began the interview by asking whether he already knew that he had a mega hit on his hands.
I felt that I was a special songwriter.
I was quite egotistical in that sense.
I felt I had certain gifts and I wanted to...
I never had anybody tell me what to do on a record.
I would write what I wanted or I wouldn't sign the contract.
So I was in complete control.
And that album, American Pie, I had all the songs except the one that I wanted, which was the big one.
And I spent 10 years really thinking about Buddy Holly before I finally came up with that first part because I wanted a big song about America.
And when I came up with that, I said, you know, I'll tie that up with the ideas that I have for this song.
And then I knew I was really on my way.
And I don't write songs like most other people do.
And therefore, I'm not nearly as successful because I don't have a formula of any sort.
I do something once and then that's it.
There'll never be an American Pie 2 or anything like that.
This will be a staggeringly impertinent question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
I've been trying to work out how much money you must have made from American Pie, given I assume it is playing somewhere in the world at any given moment.
Well, it's...
See, I'm an album artist, and I was just on Good Morning America, and they presented me with a plaque that surprised me that I have been certified as having sold over 50 million albums worldwide.
Wow.
People buy my albums.
That's why they come to the shows.
Of course, everybody knows American Pie, but if everybody that knows that song came to my shows, I'd be selling out stadiums.
So you see, they know the song, but it's my fans who know the albums.
And those songs like, you know, Crossroads and Empty Chairs and Babylon and Vincent and Castles in the Air and End I Love You So.
These songs are known to millions and millions of people.
But the big boy, you know, the big tree in the forest, of course, is always American Pie.
When you wrote American Pie, obviously we started with the Buddy Holly bit.
We all know that.
But in many ways, it was an anthem for the state of America and how you felt about it at the time.
How do you feel America has changed in the last 50 years?
Well, I tried to get the craziness of America as well as the hugeness of it into the song, the size of it.
It had to be a massive song for this massive country full of contradictions, full of love and anger and hatred and creative genius all at once.
Why I Quit the Six Gun Shootout 00:02:26
And that was all in the back of my crazy mind.
I was writing this for myself, but I must say that I think America is getting more crazy and less sane.
I wanted to talk to you about the events of last week in America in particular, because there was another horrendous mass shooting at a school, and you were due to perform at the NRA conference two days later.
And you pulled out of that performance.
Why did you pull out and what did you think about the shooting?
And what can America do about this ongoing epidemic of gun violence?
Well, I pulled out because it would be a horrendously bad taste to be there.
The only reason I did the show was because I kind of like Western things, you know, Western guns, Western rifles, Indian things.
I thought maybe I'd go and see some cool six guns or something.
And so have asked me to sing, all right, I'll sing.
Then this thing happened, and I said, oh, I can't do this.
This is, because I'm an independent.
You know, I'm always doing something that's making somebody on one side or the other scratch their head.
You know, I have my conservative friend says, why have you written the ballad of George Floyd, which will be on my next record.
And then I have my liberal friends, why would you go play for them?
You know, well, because I like Western guns, you know, that was, but I didn't think about it that way.
Then I said, no, I can't do this.
And I think that I heard, again, now I'm listening and hearing things, that there are people objecting to background checks.
Well, that's again the insanity that I'm talking about.
And there are people allowing these assault rifles.
That's insanity.
That is not for hunting or for protecting yourself.
But if I may just digress for a moment, the idea of this Second Amendment was really to have be able to fight off the army back 200 years ago.
200 years ago, the army had a musket and a saber and a horse.
And the average guy had a musket and a saber and a horse.
Now there are elements in this particular area who want to have everything the army has.
You know, surface-to-air missiles, you know, bazookas.
So we've reached a point where, and again, you're in the area of madness.
And I would ban assault rifles, and I would absolutely insist on background checks.
That's where you got to start somewhere, you know.
Right.
When Civilians Want Army Weapons 00:05:58
You had a great quote, Don, which I wanted to replay to you.
You said there was very little left on your bucket list.
I've seen everything, I've been everywhere, I've done it all.
I love that.
Well, it's the truth.
And one thing I'll say is that, you know, I've done things right and I've done things wrong, but it's all down on me.
I don't blame anybody else.
We all make mistakes in life, but I don't say I've done it all either.
I did it.
If I did it right, it's because I did it right.
If I did it wrong, it's because I did it wrong.
And one thing I would say is that I like to know things, you know, and I like to learn about things.
And one thing I want to tell you is I followed your career and I loved your TV show when you took over for Larry King.
Oh, thank you.
I loved your TV show.
I still remember many interviews that you did.
You were a very, very good interviewer, and I always made a point of watching it.
And I still know about all the trouble you cause on morning television with your wonderful opinions, which I most of the time agree with completely.
That makes me very happy, Don.
This man who runs Anthems of My Life says that.
Makes me happy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I just wanted to play you a message, actually, because you've become extra famous in the UK because our champion world heavyweight boxing hero, Tyson Fury, loves to sing American Pie when he wins.
And we have a message for you from the great man.
Hey, Tyson Fury here.
This is a special message to Don McLean.
I hear you on the Pez Morgan show tonight, Don.
Absolutely smash it, brother.
I loved our rendition of American Pie.
It was absolutely fantastic.
Hi, Paz.
Hope you're having a good time, guys.
Don't do anything I wouldn't.
And smash it.
Good luck, guys, all of us.
God bless you.
How cool is that?
Well, you know, I was going to tell Tyson, I'd love to meet him someday.
I love him.
He is what boxing has needed.
He is a lovable champion, and he's a great champion.
And I wanted to tell him that whenever I get in trouble now, I'm going to say that I have him as my best friend, and I'm going to warn anybody who's trying to mess with me that I'm going to have him on speed dial.
You know what I mean?
And I wanted to say back to him that if he has any trouble from like Paul Simon or someone like that, that I'll handle that.
I can take Paul Simon.
Yeah, final question for you, Don.
If you could look back over your entire life and career, if I had the power to let you relive one moment again, what would you choose?
Oh my word.
That's a hard question.
I've had so many, many, many wonderful.
I've lived such a wonderful life with people, you know, applauding me and so much stuff that I've done.
I think I wish that I could have known my father better.
Right.
Yeah, it's taken a moment to know him, but he was Scottish and he was 56 when he died and he was pretty burned out anyway.
But I'm sorry about that.
I would like to have known him better.
It was an interesting time in your life because I think you were 15, weren't you, when he died?
And he never really supported you in your dream of becoming an entertainer.
Well, I knew he was going to die.
I kept telling everybody in the family.
I said, I think he's going to die.
And my grandmother would say, what are you talking about?
I said, well, I can see it.
They couldn't see it.
And he did, right in front of me.
It happened.
I have this ability sometimes to know what is going to happen before it does.
It's served me very well, keeping me out of trouble.
And also, I've always known a lot of times what was coming around the corner.
Not every time, but I would have a nagging feeling about something.
And it takes over.
And it's the same antenna, I think, that sends the songs to me.
You know, I'm really not terribly smart.
I don't read music.
I don't write music, but I have these visions sometimes.
I can see the song, and then I write what I see.
And the words come to me because only certain words will do.
I love the English language.
That's another reason why I love the British.
I love the attention to detail and I love the civility for the most part and the English language.
And it's so important to me.
And Don, what do you think your father would have made of your incredible success?
I think he would have died again.
You know, I mean, I think he would have just rolled over dead.
I mean, I don't think he'd ever believe it.
You know, he thought I was destined to be lost, really.
You've had an amazing career, Don, and I'm sad that your father didn't get to see what you made with it because, you know, it would have been a wonderful thing, I think, for him to realize that you were right to have that dream because the dream came true.
And you've lived an amazing life, and it's a real pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Well, Don has a new children's book out, and it's partway through a US tour, and he heads to the UK in the autumn.
Deadly Force in Schools Today 00:06:00
Well, next, one American Sheriff's Crusade against School Shootings.
Sheriff Carmine Marcino of Lee County, Florida, believes that shaming offenders, however young, is a powerful deterrent.
His detectives pert walked a 10-year-old who'd sent a text message joking he was planning to attack his school.
He's also published among shots of at least eight other minors arrested for serious offenses.
Well, I'm joined now by Sheriff Carmine Marcino.
Sheriff, thank you very much for joining me.
Some people will say this is great.
Others will say this seems ludicrously tough love for kids of this age.
How do you justify what you've been doing?
You know, for me, it's really safe to say that, look, safe kids, safe school is my top priority.
And I have to do what's right at the end of the day.
And people want transparency.
So I have countless parents and countless other guardians that text and call me and email me to say thank you.
You know, Pierce, I know that you have a young loved one.
Obviously, you have a daughter.
So it hits home with you as well.
I mean, I ask you, how do you feel when you drop your child off today?
You've got to be worried as a parent or a guardian.
And you want someone that's going to take a zero tolerance stance.
And let me ask you this, Pierce.
Your child is, I believe, 10 years old, give or take.
You have a daughter.
Okay.
That's your most precious gift in life.
If someone in that child's classroom was written or writing a threat or committing or wanted to commit mass shooting, would you want to know who that is?
Listen, I actually agree with what you're doing.
I know it's hard.
I know it's tough.
But I also think it's completely outrageous if kids of 10, you know, they're old enough at 10 to know they shouldn't be doing what this kid in particular was doing.
And following a school shooting, threatening to shoot up a school is just completely outrageous.
And actually, I do think a bit of a short, sharp shock can be effective, is my honest response to it.
So, you know, also, I want the parents and guardians to help me, help me be successful, sit your children down and talk about things.
And also, I mean, the last thing we want to do, the last thing is put a 10-year-old in handcuffs.
I don't want to talk about school shootings.
This is not a political issue for me.
It's a safety and security issue.
And I have to do what's right every time.
If I don't, okay, I have to sleep at night.
And God forbid, we leave no stone unturned.
And every threat is real.
And I got to make sure that one of those 100,000 kids that go to school, if there's a threat that nothing waits one second, we are going to engage that threat immediately.
And that's the only way.
Matthew McConaughey's been at the White House today.
He comes from Avalde in Texas where this school shooting happened.
Been very passionate about the need for America to do something that it can't just respond the way it did after Sandy Hook by having a lot of arguments and then nothing being done.
What do you think is the solution to what has been going on with these mass shootings?
So there's a few things.
First and foremost, America has to wake up.
Okay, don't ignore red flags.
You really want to focus on stopping these shootings.
Okay, guns are not the issue.
What's the issue is people ignoring red flags.
When you talk about Texas, there's a shooter, okay, who writes online, children be in fear of your lives for real.
Okay, he tells people about things and those people don't come forward.
You know what?
Charge those people.
That's on them.
When someone, as a good human being, you need to come forward and let people know when you know that something's going down or if there's a threat of violence, come forward.
Okay.
It's your constitutional right to have arms.
I think there are lots of issues here.
I think mental health is a big problem.
The red flags are a huge problem, as you said it.
I think violent video games shouldn't be disregarded.
This lady shooter was obsessed with Call of Duty.
I think if you play that kind of game for too long and you are disturbed, it can make real life seem blurry to you.
But when you say it's not about the guns, what we would say here in the UK, and I accept we're not American citizens, this is for you to work out as a country.
But obviously guns play a part too, because if these deranged young kids don't have ready access to semi-automatic rifles, they can't do what this person did.
And the argument I hear all the time is, well, if you take any guns away, the criminals will still get them.
But you could apply that logic, as you know, as a sheriff, to any law, frankly.
So I agree with you.
First of all, many different things.
Mental health is a huge, huge part of this.
Secondly, okay, I do agree that bad people will always have guns.
So the more good people you arm, okay, the only thing you can do with lethal force and stopping it is to create lethal force or deadly force against it.
And you can't kill evil enough.
Let's look at the gun, the gun states that don't want guns, like my hometown in New York, Chicago.
We have record shootings and murders.
And those are the ones where you can't have guns the same way you can in our great state of Florida.
So when you look at places like Chicago and New York, okay, 20 shootings in a weekend.
Well, I mean, what does that mean?
Does it mean that, well, you have strict gun laws, but yet we have 20 shootings?
That's unacceptable.
And people have to defend.
You know, in your household, you are the first responder.
Okay.
We respond as law enforcement, but you are the first responder.
And you have to make certain that you and your family are protected.
And when someone presents deadly force in one of my schools, 118, 100,000 kids, if a suspect makes a decision on that person to bring deadly force to my school, they're going to be met with deadly force in not one second and we are going to kill them.
No questions asked.
Sheriff, it's an interesting debate because I've had this for many years.
And the reality is when we gave up a lot of civilian gun ownership in the UK, we didn't have a big culture of gun ownership to start with.
That's the reality.
In America, there are 400 million guns in circulation.
45% of homes have guns in the homes.
It is much more complicated.
And I understand that.
But I appreciate you joining me and keep up the good work.
Piers, thank you so much.
Johnny Depp's Fifty Grand Curry 00:04:45
And since the next, no expense spared as Johnny Depp goes for a curry.
And I mean no expense.
50 grand.
He apparently spent on his celebration curry.
We'll speak to the presumably delighted owner of that restaurant next.
Doesn't look that delightful.
Come, here.
In Pakistan, you know, the vote of no confidence against me, the going rate to buy my parliamentarians was a million dollars.
A prime minister having drinks thereafter work would not even have made news here.
The reason why British parliamentary system works, because of the very high level of moral standards you expect from your leadership.
Unless we raise our level of morality to what you have in Britain, parliamentary democracy is a lot worse.
Really fascinating interview with Imran Khan, recently deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan.
That'll be airing tomorrow night on Piers Morgan Icent.
You won't want to miss that.
It's a really intriguing and revelatory interview.
Well, Johnny Depp won $10 million in his defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard.
He spent a large chunk of it celebrating with a curry in Birmingham, reportedly racking up an incredible bill of £50,000.
I'm joined now by the owner of Valanasi restaurant, Mohamed Hussein.
Well, good evening to you.
You must be, you don't look that cheerful, but if Johnny Depp had dropped 50 grand in my restaurant, I'd be thrilled.
Hi, good evening, Piers Morgan.
Yeah, we were very excited to have Johnny Depp in our restaurant.
But there are a lot of rumors going around at the moment in respect to how much he actually spent in the restaurant.
And it's an unconfirmed amount because we haven't actually disclosed anything as of yet.
But you, I understand, had quite a long chat with Johnny Depp, but mainly about his movie career, is that right?
We were just discussing his day-to-day life at the moment and how he's enjoying Birmingham, what he likes to eat.
And we were just delighted to have him in our restaurant in Birmingham city centre.
It's quite unheard of to have an A-lista being around, especially on Broad Street in Birmingham.
And I understand you've got three daughters who are massive fans of Johnny Depp, and he did some one-liners for them.
Is that right?
From his Pirates of the Caribbean and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
So yes, I had the privilege of inviting my daughters to be present while he was here.
And one of the things that they really requested from him was to do some one-liners from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a movie that he did.
And he did that for them.
And they were over the moon about it.
I mean, I'd imagine he was in celebratory mood.
I know he didn't discuss the case with him.
But what kind of guy is Johnny Depp?
I've never met him.
You've had the chance to spend this extraordinary night with him in your restaurant.
What was he like?
He's a very chilled-out guy.
He spoke to everybody here.
I had friends, I had families who were in the restaurant, and he made an effort to speak to every one of them.
He hugged them, he kissed them, and he was very accommodating to everybody's requests.
He spent a lot of time with me personally in my office.
And he just sat in there and he just spoke to me one-to-one.
And it was a really nice experience in itself.
When you got the call from Depp's security team to make the booking for the whole place, presumably you then had to let down some other customers.
How did you do that?
We had our ways of ensuring that we didn't upset any of our guests and we could accommodate his requests.
The restaurant is very large, so even when he did come in here, there might have been a few people here.
But by the time he started eating, everybody had left.
Well, Mohamed, and it's not often, is it, that you get a Hollywood superstar comes in and books the whole place out.
I understand you did more business from that one night than you normally do with 400 diners.
So I'd imagine you would like to say a heartfelt thank you to Mr. Depp and his team.
Yes, of course.
Any restaurant that can generate that sort of income on any given night is a large amount of money to be spent while somebody is dining with you.
Well congratulations.
It was a great bit of fun.
We really appreciate it, Mohammed Hussain.
Thank you very much.
That's that's for tonight.
Whatever you do, make sure it's uncensored.
Good night.
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