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Oct. 19, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:55
20221019_piers-morgan-uncensored-ye-exclusive
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Chaos and Confusion in Britain 00:14:49
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored from New York, a jaw-dropping world exclusive on the day he's sued by the family of George Floyd.
I'll talk to Ye, formerly Kanye West.
Chaos and confusion turned a crisis for Liz Truss again.
Now a Home Secretary is out.
Who's next?
And who the hell is running Britain?
Plus, he's a legendary chess grandmaster and a thorn in Vladimir Putin's side.
Gary Kasparov joins me on the war in Ukraine.
From New York, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well, good evening from New York City and welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Prime Minister Liz Truss faced an historic questions today in Parliament, probably the first PMQs ever held by a Prime Minister who's not really in charge of the country or even her own party.
Sadly, after all the questions, there are no answers, only more questions.
The Chancellor says that pensions might not rise with inflation.
Liz Truss says they will.
So which is it?
Who should we actually be asking?
Tonight, the Home Secretary, Suelle Braverman, has quit or been sacked by Liz Truss or maybe the Chancellor.
Who the hell knows?
It's all complete chaos.
But the only thing we did learn for sure tonight is that for reasons best known only to her, Liz Truss remains very, very pleased with herself.
I have been in office for just under two months and I have delivered the energy price guarantee, making sure that people aren't paying £6,000 bills this winter.
I've reversed the national insurance increase and I've also taken steps and we will be taking steps to crack down on the militant unions.
As the late Queen once put it, recollections may vary.
What Truss could have said is, I've been in office for just under two months.
I've crashed the pound.
I've wiped 300 billion off the markets.
I've burned a 20 billion black hole in the budget.
I've sacked my best mate, lost control of my party, just had to fire or maybe lose my home secretary and dragged the Tories to our lowest poll rating in history.
I guess there just wasn't time for everything, right?
Truss also seemed very eager to make sure we know exactly who's in charge.
I had to take the decision because of the economic situation to adjust our policies.
But she didn't take the decision, did she?
It was the Chancellor and he didn't adjust her policies.
He nuked them with a ballistic missile, reversing every single thing she wanted to do.
As Labour's Kia Starmer said, it's all gone.
They're all gone.
So why is she still here?
Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am a fighter and not a quitter.
Note the slamming of the folder on the dispatch box with an audible thud, the Prime Minister's equivalent of spinning out of a dummy.
I agree, though, you are a fighter, Ms. Truss.
You're fighting your own backbenches, you're fighting your own cabinet, you're fighting the markets, and you're fighting for what remains of your political career.
On behalf of the country, I now say this.
It's time you stopped fighting and became a quitter.
Well, joining me now is the former director of White House Communications under Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci.
You thought things were bad there, Anthony.
Welcome to British Politics.
Editor-at-large at the US Financial Times, Gillian Tett, the Times political sketchwriter Quentin Letz and Talk TV political editor Kate McCann.
So an awful lot going on.
Kate McCann, let me start with you.
I've seen some political basket cases in my time.
This just about takes the proverbial biscuit.
This looks like a government completely in chaos.
Ministers resigning left, right, and centre.
No one sure who's in charge.
A rudderless country with a lame duck Prime Minister.
Am I wrong?
Well, there are certainly lots of Conservative MPs, Piers, who would agree with you tonight.
And it's probably going to get worse still because in the next couple of hours, there will be a vote here in the House of Commons, which there are a number of MPs now publicly saying they will defy the government on.
Now, the government has made that a confidence vote in the Prime Minister.
It sounds complicated, but if any MP defies a vote that is a confidence vote in the Prime Minister, then they are effectively sacked.
Sacking your MPs at a time when you're already under increasing pressure is not the place that you want to be, particularly after you have been forced essentially to sack your Home Secretary.
Although the letters between the pair say that Suella Breverman has resigned, it's clear from the tone of her letter at least that that was certainly not something that she wanted to do or feels that she ought to have done.
In fact, she talks about the transgression, essentially sending confidential information, information that was cabinet-level to an MP in parliament using her personal email address as something that while she recognises is wrong, is something that has happened before and that that information wasn't particularly sensitive.
I mean, one of the most telling lines in that letter from Suella Breverman is where she writes, pretending we haven't made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can't see that we've made them and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics.
I mean, I think it's pretty clear from that how she feels about what's happened here this afternoon.
The big question now is will it prompt a further rebellion against the Prime Minister, which could ultimately be the end of her?
I mean, Kate, I honestly can't remember a situation where a Prime Minister of only 40 odd days is now so weakened, so under attack from, never mind anybody else, her own party, her own cabinet, her own backbenchers.
How could she possibly survive?
What's the point of Liz Truss anymore?
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the problem she now has because the person that she's appointed in replacement for Suella Breverman is Grant Schapps, an MP who everybody here knows has been openly plotting with backbench Conservatives against Liz Truss over the last couple of weeks.
He's been maintaining a spreadsheet, running around Parliament laughing about it.
To then appoint him to one of the most senior positions in your government is an indication for many that Liz Truss is not the person now in charge and that in fact Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor is, and that this is an appointment that he has designed in an aim, as we've been talking about over the last couple of days, to show MPs in the Conservative Party that it is him and the cabinet who are powerful in this situation and not the Prime Minister as one would expect.
I mean there are increasing tussles now between all of those ministers at the top level and it has to be said that both Suella Breverman and Liz Truss had had a row over immigration over the last couple of weeks.
I mean Breverman had been very clear.
The numbers need to come down.
She had a very determined message on immigration whereas Liz Truss, it's understood, had wanted to increase the number of skilled workers coming to the UK in order to help boost growth.
We know one of the biggest problems she now has to solve.
So there was tension there.
Those inside number 10 and around this decision say that wasn't the reason for this sacking, but that's certainly how it's seen by some on the right wing of the party.
And as I said, that's just going to inflame tensions further in a situation where she's already under a huge amount of pressure.
Right, Kate McCann, thank you very much.
Quentin Letts.
I mean a Prime Minister in power, but not actually with any power, it seems.
Yes, and in a way, this is worse than Theresa May, because with Theresa May, you had a sense that at least she herself was a serious proposition.
And with Liz Truss, I'm afraid today the laughter in the House of Commons was pretty shaming for her.
Sometimes politics, Piers, is dramatic, sometimes it's melodramatic, sometimes it's just plain nuts.
And we're in that last category today.
That place, that old Victorian building behind me today, is like one of those Wild West taverns where there's been an enormous shootout and there's only the brothel pianist left.
And today's events suggest that the end is going to come quicker for mistrust than maybe I would have said even three hours ago.
It's moving that fast.
And she would be the shortest serving prime minister ever, would she?
She would.
And who knows if the next one will last any longer.
But I suspect that there will be a realization at some point in the Tory Party that this frenzy, this fever, the fever is running very, very high at the moment, cannot continue.
They don't want a general election on the Conservative beds because they'd be wiped out.
So I suspect that at some point the laws of common sense must apply themselves.
But you keep on saying that, and it keeps on not happening.
Yeah, I mean, we are into completely unprecedented territory.
As things stand with the polls, if that was to be with an election, say, next week, you'd have a complete wipeout of the Conservatives.
Yeah, well, you're not going to have an election next week because elections take a month to organise.
So there may be a chance for a little bit of improvement in the opinion polls.
But I just don't think, I mean, there's a Conservative majority at the moment of 80.
It may be a bit lower by the end of this evening.
But even so, the parliamentary arithmetic is okay for a bit of stability at the moment.
So let's see that in government.
And the madness at the moment is to do with partly with the markets, but also to do with bad feeling that stretches back to most recently to the toppling of Boris Johnson.
Remember, Boris Johnson was about five points behind in the opinion polls.
They must be wondering, why did we get rid of him?
Well, that is a question many Conservatives are asking.
Quentin Lett, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
I appreciate it.
Well, let me turn to my stellar pack here.
Anthony Scaramucci, the mooch.
I mean, famously, you were at the White House for 11 days.
11 days, yeah, don't say 10.
Right?
I mean, by British feelings, if you're not.
By British political standards, this is quite a long-running position.
Yeah.
Well, I've got her at under three Scaramucci's now.
I sort of think that she'll be out of there by the end of the month.
What do you make of it?
Well, it's a death by a thousand cuts now, and so it's unsustainable to stay in her position.
And so if she is a fighter, and I'll take her at her word, she's a fighter, then she should fight for the cause of the Conservatives, and she should step down to help them coalesce and rebuild their support.
If she stays in the position that she's in, she's too mortally wounded.
And sometimes you go into denial as a politician, and I hope she's not going to do that in this case.
But Julian, the problem is, what does she fight for?
Because her entire leadership campaign built up to this mini budget where she was going to do all the things she promised to do.
She then did them despite warnings from Rishi Sunak, who opposed her in that leadership race, that it would all be a disaster.
It was an instant disaster.
So everything she stands for actually has gone up in smoke.
How can she fight for smoke?
At this point, what she's standing for is showing that she can tough it out.
Maybe we should call it truss it out.
No.
I think that's going to be the new meme.
And I think she's literally trying to show that she can survive and she's a proper leader and that she has the ability to withstand all of these attacks and come through.
And this trussing it out has become an end in itself, not a means to an end, unfortunately.
It really is about her personal promise.
The crazy thing is that Jeremy Hunt, the new Chancellor, basically disagrees with her about everything to do with economics.
You now have a new Home Secretary, Grant Shaps, who, as Kate McGowan was saying, has been one of the plotters trying to get rid of her for the last week.
He's now got one of the great officers of state.
This, to me, you know, I've been around the political game in England for a long time.
This looks to me completely out of control.
Well, I think what the mooch can certainly say is that when you're in that situation, that febrile environment where everything is spinning hour to hour, you know, moment to moment, you don't know who your friends are, your enemies are, it's very hard to actually stop and make a rational, calm decision.
You need a serious mentor.
You need a serious friend to basically put their arms around your shoulder and say, hey, stop trying to tough it out, truss it out.
Try and actually get a real sense of what you're fighting for, as the Mooch says.
And the Mooch actually had the courage to actually quit and say, I made it.
I agree.
I mean, two things.
One, you did, and I thought that was very principled at the time that you did that.
But you also worked for somebody who, in a way, there's no greater fighter or scrapper probably in world political history than Donald Trump.
He might be able to get through this kind of thing because he had the strength of character to.
But it's a totally different government.
But I'm talking about strength of character to barrel your way through chaos and disaster.
I just don't think Liz Truss has it in her.
Well, I love both of you, but I actually got fired.
Okay, just so everybody knows.
Okay, John Kelly fired me.
That's true.
I didn't quit.
Okay.
And so, by the way, I probably should have quit at that moment, but I got fired.
But this case is a little different in my mind.
And I'm not obviously a UK citizen, but I'm looking at this.
She's in trouble.
She should quit.
But there's something else going on in the body politic that you have to pay close attention to.
The British are unhappy.
They're unhappy with all of these politicians.
They want to throw everybody out.
And so who's ever going to take charge better figure out a way to calm down the British public and come up with some sensible policies so that people are not sitting in those pubs saying, let's throw all these bums in.
And it's not just...
I don't want to be told what I want to hear, right?
You know, when I go back to the UK in a week or so, I want to be given some proper home truths.
This is the state of the country and its finances.
This is what is likely to happen in the next six to nine months based on all our predictions.
This is what we need to do to get through this.
I would rather that, a bit of tough love, than the current load of nonsense we've been spewed.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it's not just about the British public.
I mean, it's primarily about the British public, but the reality is the financial markets want some of that tough love too.
And clarity, we need to get real here and recognize that were it not for the fact that Bank of England has actually handled the last few days pretty cleverly.
The run-up to this wasn't so great.
For the last few days, the Bank of England has done a good job in calming things down for the moment, but by the skin of its teeth, we could be looking at real chaos right now in the markets.
And, you know, the reality is it's never good to lose a Prime Minister in a hurry and a whole series of ministers.
Right now is really, really bad because the markets are on edge.
It reminds me of a sports team, right?
Is that you can get really invested in we can't possibly make another change because all hell will break loose.
And it's like, actually, hell is breaking loose.
And sometimes you just change the leader in a sports team and it transforms the atmosphere.
It's totally helped.
Now, as an investor, I thought my Bitcoin position was bad until I looked at the British guilt.
I mean, they're moving like Bitcoin.
They have the volatility of Bitcoin.
That is enough for a responsible public servant to say, this is not the right time for me.
This is not my moment in history.
It's a tough thing to do because they worked their whole life to get into that position.
Addressing Painful Comments 00:17:25
But if she steps down, I think she'll serve her party well and her country well.
What does it say, though, about the state of our country?
We're now up to, is it four or five chancellors in a few months?
You know, another prime minister.
We've had five, I think, in the last six years.
I mean, this is really embarrassing now.
Well, two things to say.
Firstly, I keep making this joke about, you know, the UK looking like Italy, but without the good food and the wine and the style.
Definitely a better way.
Exactly, yeah.
But I guess the key question, the key point to think about is this.
What the last contest was between Sunak and Truss was between a technocrat and a populist.
The last few years of politics in the UK have been increasingly driven by populist tendencies, as in America.
What I think we're seeing now is that the populist leader doesn't always work.
I suspect we're heading now for a period of technocrats.
I would potentially, hypothetically, be heading for another referendum about Europe.
I mean, if Sakir Starmer was to win an election, most polls now suggest the British people would vote the other way.
There's been no tangible benefits of Brexit to shout about at all.
In fact, the opposite.
I mean, could we have another referendum?
I think nothing can be ruled out in the future.
And let's not lose the fact that Jeremy Hunt is somebody who has hardly been antagonistic towards Europe in the past.
So I wouldn't be at all surprised if one consequence of this is technocrats come back.
Hunt is a technocrat.
You start to see all kinds of things begin to be reconsidered.
And I think most people would just like to wipe away the last few years as some kind of bad dream.
You can't do that.
But with Lisztrus stepping down, that would be one way to start.
Just quickly, the British economy was nine-tenths of the German economy before the Brexit.
It's now seven-tenths.
That's all I would say.
Listen, I voted to remain, but I've always said to my Brexit friends, I hope it works.
Now we've done this.
I respect those who voted the other way.
The country was split in half.
But at some stage, as the years go by, you've got to start seeing a win for Brexit.
It's got to be, it's not something that shows me the country is improving because of it.
All I'm seeing at the moment is the opposite.
Great to have you both.
What a brilliant team to have on a day like this with all this breaking chaos and news.
Well, coming next, a bit of a gear change.
I go head to head with Ye, formerly Kanye West.
A remarkable interview.
I spent two hours with him this morning with one of the most controversial men on the planet right now.
And he makes what he makes a pretty extraordinary admission.
Plus, reaction to that admission with Gene Simmons of KISS.
That's coming up.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Uncensored from New York.
Now to my extraordinary exclusive interview with Ye, previously known, of course, as Kanye West, one of the most famous and influential artists in the world.
He's been causing global outrage over the past two weeks with anti-Semitic tirades, which led to him being cancelled by social media platforms.
I wanted to give him the opportunity to set the record straight and explain if he meant what he said.
Well, eventually, eventually, he apologised for what he said was hurtful comments about the Jewish people.
But it took a while to get there.
It was a fiery conversation, passionate.
It's funny at times.
It was explosive.
It's unmissable television.
The full interview will air later this week.
But here's the moment I think we'll get most people talking.
You don't hold accountability to my pain.
You're being a Karen.
I'm talking about Karen, and I'm not going to cancel you, and I'm not going to uncensor you.
I'm simply going to challenge you on what you're saying.
I think you don't understand the pain that you've been causing with some of these comments.
And I think that one in particular, I can understand.
Oh my God.
God forbid.
God forbid one comment could cause people to feel any of the pain that my people have went through for years.
Even like the blacks being ushered to the left during the civil rights movement.
No one has cared.
Why does Zeek black people?
Why does Zeek black?
No one has.
Can I say I agree that the racism against black people has been utterly deplorable, shameful, unacceptable.
And thank God the world is beginning to move to a better place about the way it has treated black people like you.
However, however, one form of racism, Ye doesn't justify another.
I'm not cutting you off.
I'm finishing my sentence.
You can respond.
One form of racism.
One form of racism.
It is racism when you say I'm going down to the Jewish people.
I was in a position where I've been hurt and this is the way I had the right to express myself.
The point of this interview is for you to question me and then for me to answer and say, okay, even though the same rules are not applied to my people, if a person with a gun or drugs is pulled over and has four, three other people in the car, they're all going to jail.
I'm not going to apply that to Jewish people for the sake of this conversation.
Isn't that what you wanted?
But you know what you did?
You tried to civil rights me.
You tried to pull me back to a week ago, but we're here today.
There's been plenty of conversations and commentary since that.
But you want me to go back to 1960?
No, no, here's what you're saying.
You want me to go back to seven days ago?
All right, let me jump in.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to reflect on that.
Okay, so have we grown?
Have we grown?
Here's how we grow.
Here's how we grow.
I want you to reflect.
But have we grown?
How do we grow?
You're not in charge of my growth.
You're not in charge of my growth.
Let me phrase it like this.
I'm about to suggest to you how you may grow if you choose to grow this way.
And you can ignore me.
You can ignore me.
Pierce.
Pierce, how much money are you worth?
Not as much as you, sadly.
Exactly.
So take my advice.
Maybe you'll get richer.
I would love to take your business advice.
Why would I listen to you?
Well, why don't you hear what my advice is and then work out if I'm wrong?
Can we do that deal?
Well, the thing is, you haven't given me any credit or a moment of reflection for the comparison that I made, the brilliant, if I do say so myself, comparison that I made to the cops pulling over one black person and locking up my tweet having issues.
Wait, I wasn't done with the sentence.
La la la.
My tweet referring to all Jewish people, I said, for the sake of this conversation, I will refer to the business people who have destroyed me and my people and my fellow creatives.
But you didn't even accept that I gave you that.
You tried to push me back into 1960.
You tried to push me back into last week.
No, I didn't.
Okay, you accept that example that I gave you.
I understand completely the example you gave me.
I think all racism is wrong.
It's just feel that we've grown.
I would like you to reflect if you...
I feel we've grown.
If you feel we've grown.
If you've now changed what you wanted to say originally, my question for you is, do you now regret saying on Jewish people?
Are you sorry you said that?
I think it matters.
You should be.
Absolutely not.
You know, I will say I'm sorry for the people that I hurt with the DEF CON, the confusion that I call.
I feel like I cause hurt and confusion.
And I'm sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I had been through and that I use my platform where you say hurt people, hurt people.
And I was hurt.
It's an uncensored interview.
You said something which you've now wished you hadn't said and you've apologized.
I actually think that says a lot about you, right?
That shows you've got that ability to be self-aware, to understand when you cross the line.
I think someone like you, with all your energy and creativity and your passion, you're going to say stuff.
The way that you talk constantly and in such an extraordinary manner, you're going to trip up.
You're going to say things the wrong way.
I don't think there's anything wrong in when you do that, doing what you just did and saying, look, I'm sorry, I crossed the line.
I apologize.
I want to say that it's wrong to hold an apology hostage.
And I got to let go of that and free, you know, free myself of the trauma and say, look, I'm just going to give it all up to God right now and say to those families that I hurt, you know, I really want to give you guys a big hug.
And I want to, I say, I'm sorry for hurting you with my comments.
And I want to word it And not in like a political way, but in a presidential way, which means what I knew a president to be when I was growing up.
So that was Ye, formerly Kanye West.
It's an extraordinary interview.
We're going to actually air almost the entire thing at the end of the week so people can see everything in real context.
But very obviously, throughout the course of the interview, he began, I think, to understand the impact of his words, which would cause such offense and finally got to a place where he apologized to people who'd been offended, particularly Jewish people.
Well, joining me now is Fox News contributor Tyrus, along with Kiss Frontman Gene Simmons.
Let me start with you, Tyrus.
We just had to quickly get that series of clips together to try and say some of the context of what happened.
Because to start with, he was resolute.
I'm not going to apologize.
And then went on a sort of long clarification of he was talking about business people who had, in his view, had let him down and so on.
But there's no doubt the original comment that he made, that he tweeted, which he was de-platformed from social media, it was talking about the Jewish people in generality and therefore very offensive.
Well, first of all, I wouldn't even know if I would call that an interview.
That was a, you sat him down under the tree of wisdom.
And that reminded me so much of seeing what a father would talk to an angry son.
Like you worked through so many emotions with him to get him to a place to where he was able to overview.
I see that.
And that was a tremendous and your patience, because I'm telling you right now, no one else was going to sit there for two hours.
And I think long after this interview, you're going to help him because what I see when I see Yee, I see a hurt man.
His life has been in public nonstop, horrible divorce, fighting over his children.
Every time he speaks, some group will take advantage of him, use him.
He's a victim of his wealth, but he's not a victim.
And the one thing he said that I thought just was poignant, and you walked right through it, was, I make more money than you.
How can I get from you?
But here's the deal.
You can't buy wisdom with money.
Yes.
And I look at him as a former bodyguard.
If I was his bodyguard, I wouldn't have let him wear the white shirt.
I wouldn't have let him do those things.
Even it would have cost me my job because he's helping other individuals rise.
They get the world famous attention, but he gets all the consequences.
And his stuff gets lost in his anger and his depression because what he was talking about, I get.
In a lot of the record companies, you will always see the same thing.
I think Michael Jackson is probably the biggest case of that where he had a song that were talking about me where he wanted to use the term.
And it came down from, you can't use that word.
You can't depict us in that way from the record people.
But they're just fine with using the N-word and almost pushing that.
So that's where a lot of the anger comes from is be across the board.
You don't want your group disrespected on your record labels, but you're fine with the, and it's on the rappers as well.
But that's where the argument came from.
But when you're an angry, hurt individual who's basically working out his emotions in front of a camera, nothing good is going to happen.
And getting him to apologize, he could not have done that without you.
No, and you should be proud of that.
It took nearly two hours for him to, I think, reach a place of self-awareness about it.
And actually to reach a place of calmness enough to say it.
But Gene Simmons, you know, I think you probably have to see the whole thing in real time to really get to the journey he went on to get to that place of apology.
But A, I mean, do you accept the apology?
Do you think the Jewish people should accept the apology?
Or was what he said such a line crosser that he shouldn't be allowed to even talk about this anymore?
Well, you're certainly putting me in an awkward position.
I'm not here to speak for Jews or the Jewish people or anything, although by birth I happen to be one.
In fact, in Israeli, I had no choice in the matter.
That's just the luck of the draw.
Let me state in the interest of full disclosure, ye slash Kanye and I have never met.
We've never emailed each other.
I have no idea what's in his mind.
All I know is what the media has shown me of him.
And the astute gentleman who was on before me, his comments, I think it sounded true to these ears, which is Ye Kanye sounds.
From everything I've heard, it's erratic behavior from my point of view, respectfully.
He sounds really wounded.
He sounds hurt.
So he's lashing out.
I get it.
Let's be clear about this.
African Americans have been tortured physically, mentally, culturally for decades, centuries.
But you're talking to people who've heard this story and have been tortured mentally, physically for thousands of years.
Goes back to the Bible, which our people wrote and gave to the rest of you guys.
So you have to go back in history and get a sense of what all this means.
You're talking about African Americans and Jews.
Jews have done well.
Let's be clear, because they worked for it.
But don't kid yourself.
Racism, anti-Semitism exists right next to each other.
And we're all victims in some way or the other by the ruling establishment, whoever and whatever they are, the consensus of the public.
But look back at Martin Luther King.
Do a little research, Google and Schmugel, who's standing right beside Martin Luther King in a dangerous march in Birmingham, along with Jesse Jackson and everybody else.
He got a rabbi holding a Torah.
He's right there in the front, knowing full well when he goes back up north or on East Coast, he's going to get tortured by people who have different points of views.
So first of all, African Americans should understand that Jews understand the torture and the racism because been there, continue to be there.
Jews are not the most popular people on the face of the planet, but there are many other peoples, races, and other peoples who get racism.
So the only piece of advice that I have as somebody in the peanut gallery, I'm not a doctor, not a physician, I don't know much about Ye or Kanye.
I've heard, I've got friends who are close enough and so on.
If there's medication, I respectfully urge for the gentleman to take the medication.
If he's surrounded by the wrong people, get some nicer people, because the most important thing you have to realize is when you're a billionaire, and God bless him for that, it's the majesty, the miracle of the American capitalist system.
There we go.
In a country full of racism, the capitalist system allowed you to become a billionaire.
As he liked to say, as he reminded me quite regularly, by the way.
Let's take a short break.
I want to continue the discussion after the break because I think it really raises other interesting issues too.
So stay with me.
Well, welcome back to Petersburg and I'll Censored in New York.
I'm with the Fox News contributor Taris, along with KISS frontman Gene Simmons.
Taras, Kanye walked out halfway through our interview, and it was quite a struggle to get him to come and sit back.
And I'm glad I did, because then we ended up getting to where I think In his mind, he wanted to get to, which is, I think, he wanted to atone for what he'd done and the damage he caused, but he was sort of too fired up and too proud to actually go there until we got towards the end.
There was another thing I had a sort of confrontation with him about, and that's his very inflammatory comments about George Floyd, which now led to George Floyd's family suing him for $250 million over how George Floyd died.
Kennedy's been watching, Ye is, to give him his proper name, has been watching videos, films, which has led him to believe that actually he was on fentanyl.
That's what killed him.
The coroner says, yes, there was fentanyl in his blood, but actually it's quite clear, the coroner, that actually what killed George Floyd was the actions of the police officers suppressing his neck.
When you hear that, what do you think?
Well, I think it just goes back to he's a tremendous artist.
The Truth About George Floyd 00:04:59
He's a genius in the music studio.
But outside, he falls for things like this.
Listen, this was not a debated issue in this country.
And it didn't.
And, you know, Mr. Simmons made a great point when he talked about Martin Luther King, and it took a village, and it took a Jewish rabbi, and it took Hispanics, and it took different people.
And we're sitting here today at a table.
We have an Englishman, a Jewish rock star, and a black Republican who wears a gold chain talking about a black billionaire.
So that pretty much shows things are going very well.
I would just like to point that out for the record.
But having said that, there is nobody that is questioning the George Floyd thing except for people who are trying to exploit it.
And this is where Kanye's fame is his worst enemy because he says those things.
And when he says those things, it resonates.
And therefore, his defamation is more dangerous than other people's.
And he says something like that.
And you always have to look about who he's around at the time when he makes these comments.
And it always seems to fit their narrative.
And they benefit from it, but they're not the ones getting sued.
It's him.
And again, everything that came out, his anti-Semitic comments, the things that he said about George Floyd were stupid, unexcusable, and he should apologize for them.
He has no base.
There's no even reason to say those things other than being put in these boxes and lashing out.
And again, I cannot applaud you more because you've done more for him in that interview that he won't recognize it now.
But later on in his life, when he looks back, he'll be like, because most people would have got that first hot take of 10 minutes and him walking out because that's top page news everywhere.
So I applaud you for staying the course because I can't think of anyone else that would.
Yeah, it was, I mean, Gene Simmons, it's an interesting thing, isn't it?
We live in a world dominated by social media.
It's easy to fall down conspiracy theory, you know, rabbit warrens, isn't it?
Because there's so much stuff out there.
A lot of it is not well sourced.
It's just people spewing nonsense.
But people buy into it and then very quickly they believe it.
And that is a problem, I think, in modern society.
I believe strongly, look, I read a lot and so do we all.
And we're fairly well educated about the woke society and cancel culture and all the other stuff that tortures everybody, not just the people on this panel.
But I just want to go back to the people that seem to be away from the mainstream culture, call it what you will, are hurt.
You've got the polarizing political issue, which are people all the way on the far left or the far right, they're really, they don't feel connected to what's going on in the world.
So they resort to all kinds of conspiracies and hoaxes and whatever, just to push their agenda.
But let's not forget the pain, okay?
So it seems to me, as somebody in the peanut gallery, Kanye's is a guy who seems very hurt, who feels, and perhaps rightfully so, being African American in America.
Look, I saw it firsthand.
I heard horror stories.
I lived a few years with an iconic African-American female singer.
I don't want to mention your name because I respect her and love her too much.
I lived with her, with her children, and I heard horror stories when she was in the number one vocal group, an all-girl group in America, and went and headlined above the Dave Clark V and went down south to do concerts.
And on the way out, they found bullet holes in the bus.
This didn't happen in the 1800s.
This is in the 1960s.
And she and the girl groups were not allowed to stay in a regular hotel.
They had to stay in what was called a colored hotel.
That was not too far off in the past.
Recognize it.
Don't whitewash it as they say it.
It's a fact.
Racism exists.
I get it.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Yee.
Look, you've got lots of Jews out there and Muslims and Buddhists and all kinds of well-meaning people who actually like you and support African Americans or people who are brown or come from all areas who support you.
By making these comments, you're alienating people who actually support you.
I think that's one, Gene.
I do think a pain is lying behind a lot of these outbursts from Kanye.
I think he's got a lot of pain there that he needs to work through.
And I was cognizant of that.
And that's why I'm glad he, having walked out, he then came back.
And we really got to a much better place, actually, by the end, where he seemed much calmer and more self-aware about the impact of his words.
And that's the key thing.
Got to leave you there.
Gene Simmons, thank you so much.
Honestly, brilliant perspective.
Taris, thank you.
Really enjoyed that conversation.
Putin at War with the West 00:08:37
It's a fascinating interview.
We're going to air it over two hours on Friday from 8 till 10 p.m.
It's me one-on-one with Ye, formerly Kanye West.
And it's an extraordinary interview.
You can make your own mind up after you watch it.
But I do think, in fairness to him, you've got to see in context, really, what he's really thinking and where he's coming from.
And I think you'll get that by the end of that interview.
Well, coming next tonight, legendary chess grandmaster, one of the prickliest thorns in Vladimir Putin's side, Gary Kasparov is here.
Well, welcome back to Pierce Organizers from New York.
Gary Kasparov was once a hero in his Russian homeland at 22.
He became the youngest ever undisputed chess world champion.
He did something few in Russia dare to do.
He questioned the regime of Vladimir Putin.
On stage, even trying to run for president himself in 2013, Kasparov and his family left Russia in fear of persecution.
He's since become one of Putin's most prominent critics.
And today, Putin imposed martial law in the four Ukrainian regions supposedly annexed by bogus referenda by the Kremlin.
Tens of thousands of civilians are being evacuated from the Kherson region ahead of Ukrainian counter-offensive.
So I'm delighted to say Gary Kasparov joins me now.
Thank you very much.
Great to meet you in person.
I grew up a big chess fan and was a huge fan of your play.
And I'm sorry that I'm only interviewing you about such a horrendous situation as the war and not about chess.
But I want to talk to you about, in a way, what is going on there has become a bit of a chess game in the sense of Putin thought he'd take it all very quickly.
He got repelled by resilient Ukrainians.
We're now into all sorts of pieces being moved around.
What's your take on it?
Look, I feel very uncomfortable comparing this massacre is horrible things to the game of chess.
People being killed as we speak.
I'm talking more about tactics, I guess.
But also even we look at tactics and strategy, I would still compare it to more like poker.
Putin kept bluffing for years and years.
And he always knew that, you know, if he was bold enough to raise the stakes, the opposite side, and for him it was always not Ukraine, it was the West, NATO, and the United States.
The opposition would fold the cards.
And that was his plan.
I attack Ukraine.
They will not be able to resist in three, four days.
I take Kyiv and then they come back to the negotiating table.
Now it's a war and Putin does what he knew best.
He keeps killing civilians.
They already did it in Grozny more than 20 years ago.
They did it in Aleppo.
It's not surprising that the Russian general who is in charge of the operation in Ukraine today, he's known as a butcher of Aleppo.
When you see people like Elon Musk proposing that there should be some kind of peace deal, what do you think of that?
Absolute nonsense.
You know, what kind of peace deal?
So Ukraine has to be liberated.
It's the anything short of full liberation of Ukraine is a disaster, not just for Ukraine.
It's not just for Europe, for the world.
Because we are seeing a dictator that has, you know, 80 years ago, trying to take foreign lands by force.
And he's not going to stop there.
Putin made very clear his plans were not just to take a couple of regions.
He wants to restore the Soviet Union, right?
It's probably more.
I think Putin is at war with the collective West.
Again, it's not me saying that.
He has been saying it over years.
And his propaganda machine keeps repeating it every day now, 24-7.
The war is about destroying Ukraine.
It's about eliminating Ukraine as nations and also replaying the Cold War.
He believes that, you know, with a force of will, he can compensate for the deficiency of his troops and to force the collective West, led by the United States, to capitulate.
Putin was not at war with Ukraine.
Every day they keep saying, we are at war with NATO, with America, we must win.
Can Ukraine win?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's another Putin's narrative that is being trumpeted by some of his agents of influence.
Oh, Ukraine needs our support, but they cannot win.
Why not?
Ukraine received less than they needed to win the war, but more than Putin expected.
And they're doing great.
They already endured great difficulty, sacrifices.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in this conflict.
One third of the country has been decimated.
And look, they are pushing back.
Ukraine is doing today what NATO was built for in 1949, saving Europe from Russian invasion.
And look, they dismantled the myth about the strengths of Putin's army, having, by the way, very little from NATO arsenals that could have helped them to win the war quicker.
I think 93% of Ukrainian people don't want to give an inch, but 7% of Ukrainians apparently do have some sympathy with territory being given back as they see it to Russia.
What do you say to those people?
Look, I think it's this 7%, whatever the number is.
I think they want to end this nightmare.
Right, I think it's a lot of people.
Exactly, because look, if you are just being harassed day and night, as we speak, Kyiv is being attacked.
And you want somehow to get out of that.
And if you live somewhere in Western Ukraine or just in even Kharkiv, you say maybe we should give up something.
But the fact is, look at this 93%.
Living in this hell, they still don't want to.
When I was there, Gary, I was in Ukraine in July interviewing President Zelensky and the First Lady.
And I was really struck that everybody I met, old, young, didn't matter, to a man and woman, to a boy and girl, don't give.
They didn't want Zelensky to give an inch to Putin.
No deals.
But that's the message we have to communicate to Americans, to Brits, to Germans, French.
This is our war.
Ukraine is defending our ideals.
Ukraine today is the front line of the battle between freedom and tyranny.
And the outcome of this war will define our future, not just Ukrainian territory or Eastern Europe.
It will affect the whole world, from Taiwan to Venezuela.
God forbid, Ukraine loses.
Taiwan is in great danger.
Ukraine wins.
Look what's happening in Iran now.
I think the wind of freedom is blowing around the world.
And Iranian mullahs, even just being in great danger because of all these demonstrations, they understand it.
They're sending everything they have to Putin because they know Putin's survival is the only chance to stay in power.
And that's why we see dictators gathering together.
Why not we can do the same?
Why not America and NATO could be far more aggressive in pursuing this, our common goal?
Ukraine must win.
There are Americans, a lot of them Republicans, surprisingly, it seems to me, who don't want America to commit any more money to this war.
They say it's not America's war.
What are we doing there?
What do you say to them?
Look, you know, back in 1939, 1940, so there was the, ironically also Republicans.
Many of them talked about, you know, making a deal with Hitler.
So it's America first.
It's not original.
It comes from 1939.
Don't send weapons to Britain.
It's not our war.
No, it is our war.
And I think many of them are short-minded.
Because again, the consequences of Putin winning, they could be felt everywhere.
And the fact is, let's say, okay, Ukraine is war caused food problems.
Taiwanese war could cause a major disruption with semiconductors.
And also, America's businesses and America's well-being is very much based on the rule of law and the normal international trade and communications.
Everything will be in jeopardy if you let the most dangerous dictator on the planet, a war criminal, to have it his way.
People say, Vladimir Putin, is he mad or bad?
What do you think?
Or both?
It's probably both.
And again, I don't want to speculate because whatever we hear from Putin's bunker should be treated with great suspicion.
I don't know.
And I don't want to waste our time analyzing whether he's mad or bad, whether he'll do this or that.
We should look at the facts.
We should look at the battlefield.
We should do at what we can do to help Ukraine and also stop speculations about him pushing the button because that's a big argument.
Do you think he ever would?
I'm not asking you to speculate.
Inspiration for Ukraine 00:01:02
I'm aware.
Yeah, look, the answer is he might.
He might.
But this is not for him to decide alone.
And the key is that we have to demonstrate our resolve to his generals and admirals that they will pay the consequences because they will be on the front line.
If they know that the cost of pushing the button is their personal life, they will never do that.
That's what I think.
Are you worried for yourself?
You're so outspoken about Putin.
You've been fearlessly so for many years.
We know what happens to people in Russia who are outspoken about him.
Are you worried about your own security?
Okay, I don't live in London.
I live in New York.
But the answer is yes, but would it help?
I mean, I can't stop doing what I've been doing.
So that's why I grew up.
I learned from Soviet dissidents.
Do what you must and so be it.
Well, you're an inspiration to me as a chess grandmaster and your inspiration for what you do now.
Thank you very much for what you do, Gary.
Thank you for having me.
Nice to see you.
Well, that's it from me.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncentered.
We'll be back tomorrow night from New York.
Good night.
Good more from my yay interview.
And a full interview on Friday.
Good night.
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