Piers Morgan Uncensored tackles Boris Johnson's £800,000 loan scandal and Nadeem Zahawi's tax settlement while debating Ukraine aid exhaustion versus Zelensky's tank requests. The show examines Amelia Strickler's arguments for separate transgender sports categories and concludes by rejecting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from King Charles III's coronation due to unsubstantiated racism claims and the risk of turning the ceremony into a media spectacle, asserting that objective truth must supersede subjective narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
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Sleaze Rocks British Politics00:05:39
Tonight on Piers Morgan uncensored, sleaze and scandal rocks British politics again.
How can we trust our leaders to fix a world in crisis when we can't even trust them to follow their own laws?
And while Germany dithers, Britain and America send tanks to Ukraine and say more help is on its way but as a war nears its blood-soaked anniversary, could arm in Ukraine now be escalating it?
I'll debate that with a man dubbed Putin's number one enemy.
Blossom Authentic says trans women can continue to compete against women.
I'll talk exclusively to the British champion who says women's sport is under attack.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Millions of people are understandably worried about the amount of money in their bank accounts right now.
Our leaders should be worrying about that too.
Instead, we're yet again preoccupied with the amount of money in their bank accounts and how it got there.
Boris Johnson secured an £800,000 loan guarantee with the help of Richard Sharp, a man he then made chairman of the BBC just weeks later.
The Conservative Party chairman Nadeem Zahawi paid £5 million to settle a tax dispute including a £1 million fine for carelessness.
This while he was the Chancellor in charge of the entire country's finances.
We don't need formal investigations to tell us what this all smells of.
It smells of more of the scandal and sleaze that has beset the Conservative government in the last few years and yet we were promised so much different.
After three years of disorder and deceit under Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak said we get a clean break.
This is what he said in his first speech as Prime Minister.
I will work day in and day out to deliver for you.
This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.
Trust is earned and I will earn yours.
Right, well it's not going very well is it Rishi?
He's now asked his new ethics advisor, actually needing one of those if you're running the country, to formally investigate Mr. Zahawi.
But frankly, I think he's got enough on his plate already in Zahawi's case doesn't need any formal inquiries.
This is all very straightforward.
The Prime Minister decided to sit down with him and say, did you lie to me?
Yes or no?
If you did, you're out.
And Mr. Zahawi needs to tell us exactly what's going on here with his finances.
He's a very wealthy man who appears to be rather unkeen on paying his full tax.
Let's see if he wants to question what I just said.
Let's see the evidence.
Hi, one of my New Year's promises to you was to grow the economy.
And today we're announcing the second round of allocations from our levelling up fund.
Now that might seem trivial, Rishi Sunak caught not wearing a seatbelt.
It is trivial by comparison to the other stuff I've mentioned.
It's trivial of course to the cost of living crisis and of course to the raging war in Ukraine and many other things.
But it is a fact that our Prime Minister has now been fined twice, once as Chancellor, once as PM.
Britain went 300 years without a Prime Minister breaking a law in office.
Now we've had two in a year.
Meanwhile across the pond in America, former President Trump faces a criminal investigation into classified documents at his Florida estate, which sent Democrats into spasms of condemnation until guess what?
Classified documents turned up in President Biden's office, home and garage.
And tonight we've got breaking news that Vice President Pence, Trump's number two, has also discovered classified documents in his home.
Is there any American senior politician, president or vice president who has not been taking illegally classified documents back home to their garage?
So everywhere you look, from Britain to America, across the vast Atlantic swathe of the special relationship, there's sleas and scandal and people at the top who just don't think the rules need to apply to them.
What I want politicians to be focusing on right now is the devastating war in Ukraine.
and the worst cost of living crisis in a generation.
Today, I would say ominously, the doomsday clock moved 10 seconds closer to midnight.
That means the world's smartest people now think we are 90 seconds away from the literal end of the world from Armageddon.
That sounds quite serious, because it is quite serious.
So it's probably our time that our politicians also got very serious.
But how can we trust them to fix a world in crisis when we can't even trust them to follow the laws that they make?
Well, joining me now is former Conservative Minister Anne Whitticomb, reform UK leader and talk-to-view presenter Richard Tice, lawyer and talk-to-view contributor Paula Roan-Adrian, and from America, talk-to-view presenter Steve Hilton, who was of course chief of strategy to former Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Cameron.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Steve, great to have you making your debut on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
What do you make of all this?
Sitting over there in the leafy confines of warm, balmy California.
When you look back at your old motherland here, what do you make of this absolutely relentless tidal wave of sleas and scandal that has really engulfed us?
From Boris Johnson to Liz Truss, now Rishi Sunat's government.
What do you make of it all?
Well, it's embarrassment all around.
Blaming Zahawi for Dithering00:08:06
And I completely agree with where you ended, which is these people need to get serious.
That is what politics and serving in government is supposed to be about.
But actually, you know, some of the clichés that people use when they talk about politicians and they say, oh, they're all the same.
They're all in it for themselves.
Increasingly, that turns out to be the case when you look at this generation.
They seem to be this arrogant, out-of-touch, ruling elite that aren't focused on the practical things people want to get done.
And it's such a contrast with an earlier generation.
And Anne will remember this as well.
I mean, in my time, when I was working in number 10, I thought about this just the other week when we got the news that Lord Young died in December.
Great man, Lord Young.
And I worked very closely with him in number 10 on a bunch of policy issues to do with advancing enterprise and helping small business and so on.
And there's a few others like that.
People like Lord Hesseltine, like Kenneth Baker, that I worked with very closely on a range of policy things.
Now, whatever you think of those people, their politics or their personalities, what was really interesting to me was that they just wanted to get things done on the issues that they cared about.
They didn't want any glory.
They didn't want endless meetings with David Cameron.
They were just interested in making things happen in a practical way.
And that sense of real public service, it just seems to be disappearing.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely spot on.
And Whitticomb, you've been grimacing, you've been gesticulating, off you go.
I don't think I was gesticulating, but I was certainly grimacing when you said that Nadim was unkeen to pay his taxes.
Well, you didn't pay it.
That doesn't mean that he paid it.
You didn't pay millions.
And there I finished.
You can't correct a fact.
Can you?
I didn't say that.
I said he may not necessarily have been unkeen.
Now, you know, there is a lot of people.
Well, if you're keen to pay your taxes, you pay them, don't you?
Yes, if you know that you owe them.
You know he knew he owed $5 million.
He says, first of all, the figure of $5 million is uncertain.
But secondly, he says that it was carelessness.
Now, there will be an inquiry.
But what you can't do, Piers, which is one of the reasons why I was grunting here, you can't blame Rishi Schunak either for what Boris did, you know, who was two prime ministers ago, or if he's been misled by Sahawi.
You can't blame him.
You can blame him for what was done.
For what some Tories are saying now, you can blame him for dithering if, as it turns out, he's been misled already by Nadeem Zahawi.
But that's an if.
And there are processes to be gone through.
But why have they changed their position from what he said in the House of Commons, which is this matter is basically all fine and done and dusted.
Next thing is all reopened again.
We've got an investigation.
Why would that be necessary?
Well, first of all, when Rishi Shunak said that it was all done and dusted, what he was saying was that this had been settled with HMRC.
Now, if there was actual fraud involved, if there was deliberate non-disclosure, for example, HMRC would have Zahawi in the courts.
But if you've got a Chancellor of the Exchequer who is at the same time negotiating with people who work for him, right, over how much he should be fined for non-payment of millions in tax, I like Nadeem Zahawi as a person, right?
But I'm sorry, he's stinking rich, and he was caught not paying millions in tax, and he was fined because of it.
But it may not have been deliberate.
That is the point that I'm making.
And no, no, just a minute, Richard.
How would somebody get to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and not know they owe $5 million in tax?
That worries me.
Maybe because they're concentrating too hard on the exchequer.
Is it the biggest thing?
Maybe that's because very often we're only having this concentrating on their job.
But we're concentrating on their job and letting things go.
Please give leave to the Right Honourable Lady to yourself.
And I'm so grateful.
And we're only having this discussion because of the tenacity and the indomitable spirit of the journalists who have absolutely honesty.
This is about avoidance.
Avoidance potentially of tax and avoidance of the truth.
He could have come out and answered the questions of the journalists.
He chose not to.
What he chose to do was to send a letter threatening libel action.
I think it's more simple than that.
You can't be appointed to be in charge of the HMRC when you know, which he must have known, that he was in a significant debate, discussion, dispute with HMRC.
It shows a complete lack of integrity, proprietary, and decency.
He should have said to Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister at the time, Prime Minister, I can't accept this job because I've still got some complications with my affairs.
The fact that he accepted that job in that knowledge for me, I think.
If he misled Rishi Sunak, and it looks to me like he hasn't given him the full picture, hence the changing position of...
I'm couching it as if.
But what we do know now is he got fined at least a million, we think, for non-payment, for careless, whatever you want to dress it up as.
But if it turns out he didn't give the full story to his boss, how can he stay as party chairman?
He can't.
Well, he can't.
He can't.
He can't.
If.
But actually, but if Sunak was a strong leader with real principles, he should have fired him by now.
He's brought the government into disrepute.
And Sunak should have said, that's it.
I'm sorry.
You know, you've got to go.
You're bringing the government into discussion.
I mean, can you be a party chairman and be fined a seven-figure sum for non-payment of tax when you've also recently been chancellor and really legitimately continue running the party?
I admit that if I were in Zahawi's position now, even if I thought I had done no wrong at all, I would be saying to Rishi Sunak, look, you know, for the time being, I've just got to step aside.
Okay, let's bring up Steve.
I want to bring back Steve Hilton on this because Steve, if you were advising David Cameron, and this was the party chairman of the day in Nadeem Zahawi's position, would he still be there or would David Cameron have forced him out by now on your advice?
I think he would have done and he wouldn't have needed my advice to do it because he was very aware that actually when you're in a leadership position, particularly in a role like that where you're trying to represent all of the interests of the party on all policy matters, you've got to be someone who doesn't himself or herself cause the problems that you're trying to clean up.
And so I think he would have got rid of him because of the fact that this is still going on, the fact that all the answers haven't been given.
I'm not following it as closely as you all are, but I think that's exactly right.
And even in the few years since David Cameron was prime minister, there seems to be a real change in this sense that people just cling on, whatever the situation, to the bitter end rather than doing the decent thing.
And not often if you do the decent thing, you can come back because people respect you.
It's just a kind of persistent ability.
Right, it's the persistent nature of these things, right?
So only in the last week, we've got the Zahawi tax scandal, for want of a better phrase.
You've got the Prime Minister being caught not wearing a seatbelt.
All right, it's pretty.
I know, it's pretty low level, but he actually did get held to account for it.
And so that's another ticket on his record following the one he got for breaking COVID laws, right?
These things do matter to some people.
And then you have the situation with the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, who gets that job as a government appointee after facilitating Boris Johnson getting this 800 grand loan from his distant cousin.
I mean, you put it all together, and we don't know the full facts about the two bigger things here, but you put it all together, and it's just this constant sense of loads of money being slushed around, jobs for the boys, blah, blah, blah.
And it just feels sleazy.
The perception for the public, who are all really on the breadline right now, millions of them, is that they're all in it for their own gain and it's all sleazy.
What's Boris to do with Rishi Schumacher?
Well, Rishi was Boris's chancellor for two years.
No, but he wouldn't have known about the loan, would it?
Is that what you're saying?
How do you know?
Is that what you're saying?
George: The Serial Liar00:03:17
No, I'm not saying that at all.
I don't know.
I don't know.
All I know are the facts.
We know that Richard Sharp, who's the chairman of the BBC, we know that he went to the cabinet secretary and he facilitated a meeting with this distant cousin of Boris to loan Boris Johnson 800,000 quid because he was...
But you can't blame Rishi for that.
I'm not blaming Rishi.
I'm just saying this has happened as well.
Well, you're aligning things.
Well, I'm aligning them all to one party.
No, you're already.
And who should be looking at?
You actually showed Rishi to the public.
And how can I integrity and then go back to the city?
No, I'm not blaming Rishi for that, but how can the chairman of the Conservative Party lead any high moral ground investigation or make any comment about Boris Johnson and the chairman of the BBC and Ms. 800 grand when he himself is bedeviled by scandal over not paying millions in taxes?
I'll tell you what I would do if I were in Zahawi's position.
I've already told you that.
Yeah.
Do you agree with me?
Not entirely, because I think you're assuming guilt.
I don't know.
I'm not assuming guilt.
But what I'm basically saying is that purely on the facts that we know.
His position is difficult.
Pure decency and integrity would show the man should resign.
And as Steve says, he's just clinging on by every fingertip that he can to the role of chairman.
And to the ordinary person on the street, it stinks.
Talking of people who, I will come back to you, Paul in a sec.
Just bring in Steve on this.
This character, George Santos, who's a Republican congressman, one of my favourite stories in the world right now.
So he's an absolute serial liar where literally he doesn't even, even his name isn't right.
He uses pseudonyms all over the place.
So I listed last week in a New York Post column about 20 different things he'd been caught lying about, including that his mother died on 9-11 in the Twin Tower.
She wasn't in the country at the time and so on.
I mean, despicable things.
He pretends to be Jewish.
You know, pretends his parents struggled in the, or relatives struggled in the Holocaust.
None of it is true.
Anyway, the classic happened.
I wrote this column.
The very next day, there's a new allegation that he was a drag queen in Brazil at Carnival.
And he gave an absolutely emphatic denial.
Absolutely untrue.
And guess what?
The very next day, out came the pictures of my friend George Santos.
There he is.
He's the big guy in the drag dress.
There's George, the serial liar.
And the latest clip has him telling Rachel Maddow of MSNBC that he survived an assassination attempt.
I would say there are two hopes of that being true.
No hope and Bob Hope.
What do you make of him, Steve?
I mean, how is he still in Congress, this guy?
Every single thing he ever says about himself, from every school he went to to university records to sporting records to his parentage to everything to his ethnicity is all complete bullcrap.
Yeah.
Everything.
It is absolutely, it's literally unbelievable.
Each fact is literally unbelievable that he puts out there all turns out to be a lie.
And then they just keep getting worse and he keeps accumulating them.
There's another, the reason that he's clinging on, which is the theme of all of these, and not taking responsibility, is that he is desperate to stay and his party is so weak because they have a small majority in the House of Representatives of five.
If he goes, that's down to four.
Americans Hesitate on War00:12:58
That's barely anything.
It's tough enough for Kevin McCarthy, who's the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, to get anything done with that tiny majority.
So it's raw politics.
That's why he's still there.
But again, it's just causing this massive embarrassment to the Republicans.
And they won't make the tough call and say, look, sorry, this guy is ridiculous.
He's just completely embarrassing all of us.
He's got to go.
But they won't because they don't want to lose that seat because they fear that if he goes, the seat that he actually won from the Democrats would return to the Democrats and they have a slightly smaller majority.
I mean, it's terrible.
Well, the trouble is that political expediency on both sides of the pond is now replacing political probity and personal probity.
People just don't care.
Shamelessness is now the order of the day.
It doesn't matter if you tell the truth.
It doesn't matter what you get up to.
You just brazen it out.
And if it suits the party to keep you in the job, that's good enough.
And it's just, it's pathetic, frankly.
Steve, great to have you on the programme.
Please come back.
Really enjoyed having you.
Good to see you, Piers.
Of course, anytime.
Thank you very much.
Good to see you.
Pat, you're staying, so you'll be pleased to know that.
Cheer up, give me a smile, God.
You know you want to.
We'll be back after the break.
Talking serious matters, Ukraine.
Boris Johnson says, what the hell are we waiting for?
Not talking about more details on his secret loans from his distant cousins via the BBC chairman's help.
He's talking about sending tanks to Ukraine.
We'll debate whether the West sending help will escalate the war, perhaps bring it to an end.
What's not a company, the British shopping champion speaking out about transgender athletes competing in female categories.
She's not happy with good reason.
But first, the US is reportedly about to send a significant number of tanks to Ukraine.
President Zelensky is asking for 300 modern battle tanks to continue the defense of its territory.
There aren't many things I agree with Boris Johnson about, but his stance on the war in Ukraine is one of them.
After visiting at the weekend, the former Prime Minister wrote, look at these brave Ukrainians and answered me this question.
Just what the hell are we waiting for?
Sooner we can help the Ukrainians to their inevitable victory, the sooner their suffering will be over and the sooner the whole world, including Russia, can begin to recover from Putin's catastrophe.
Well, what the hell are we waiting for?
It's aimed chiefly at Germany.
There are 2,000 German-manufactured leopard tanks across Europe, many of them unused.
Tonight there are reports they may send tanks, but the government's not yet confirmed this.
Johnny Now is author and activist Bill Browder, also known as Putin's number one enemy, a badge I think he should wear with honor, and Fox Nation host Tommy Lehran.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Bill, we're at sort of, it seems to me, a pivotal moment in this war.
A lot of British military writing in the last few days that we should really ramp up our support for Ukraine and try and get them to a victory.
Others worry that if we do that, what does defeat look like if you're Vladimir Putin?
And what would you do if you feel like you're losing?
Well, first of all, we need to understand that there are only two outcomes to this war.
Either Russia wins, which would be a total and terrible disaster because they'd be at Estonia next and then we'd be fighting Russia directly, or Ukraine wins.
There is not going to be a negotiated settlement in the middle.
Are we passed that stage of negotiations?
There never was a stage of negotiation.
Because Ukraine won't give up an inch of territory and they want the territory back that's been taken.
And you should understand that Putin, if he were to show any sign of weakness to the Russian people, any conciliation, any compromise, he would lose power.
And if Putin loses power, he goes to jail, he loses his money, and he dies.
What about the risk that some people have, and some very smart people have, that if cornered, and if he really believes he's going to lose and be humiliated, probably lose his job and his life, that he might start playing around with tactical nuclear weapons.
Well, first of all, I should point out that there's no chance that he'll play around with nuclear weapons, sending them to London or Germany or Washington.
He understands full well that if he does that, there will be mutually assured destruction.
That's the reason why nobody has done nuclear wars.
What if he used a tactical weapon on the battlefield against Ukraine?
So what does that do for him?
Does he win the war with that?
No.
Does he, all the Indians and Chinese and South Africans and all these people who are supporting him will abandon him?
NATO is not going to sit back and say, okay, you can just do nuclear weapons.
They'll probably sink the Black Sea fleet, turn off the electricity grid via whatever in Russia.
And so Putin will have set off a nuclear weapon, alienated himself, become more isolated than North Korea and still not won the war.
That would probably be the end of Putin.
He understands that.
Okay, Tommy Lehran, I don't understand why any rational human being would not want to see Putin lose this war and Ukraine win it, just basically, because if we let Russia win, where does this murderous barbarian stop?
Yeah, no, and I understand that, and I think that the world would agree with you on that point.
However, as an American, I will say this.
We have our own border to protect, and there are a lot of Americans, myself included, who are really sick and tired of sending billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine to prop up their war effort.
We don't see an end in sight.
Now, I understand your previous guess, and you discuss how, yes, there's only two outcomes here.
Well, I think a lot of Americans are hopeful that there is a third outcome, that there is some kind of a process, a diplomatic process that can take place.
But I'll tell you this.
Well, we've got 5 million plus illegal immigrants surging our southern border.
We're really sick and tired of fronting the Ukrainian war.
You say that, Tommy.
You're not ready to put Putin.
Okay, but 57% of Americans support the war in Ukraine.
64% in a new YouGov CBS poll said they wanted their representatives to support USAID to Ukraine.
It looks to me like the majority of Americans don't agree with you, actually.
They want to continue this because, and I'm actually, I've got to be honest with you, I am staggered to hear Republican voices in America who look at Vladimir Putin, the old enemy, doing barbaric things in Europe and don't think that the right thing to do is to help Ukraine win this war.
I don't understand why Republicans have suddenly got soft on dictators.
What's the matter with you?
Well, I'll tell you this.
A lot of Republicans have been hembridging millions and billions of dollars.
There are a lot of Republicans that do want to fund this war effort, but there's a lot of average Americans who are struggling in this country who are sick and tired of seeing our tax dollars go to front that effort.
And I'll also tell you this: there are a lot of Americans, myself included, who do not trust Zelensky.
We believe in the Ukrainian cause.
We believe in the Ukrainian people.
We do not trust Zelensky.
So there's a lot of issues that a lot of Americans have.
We would like to see Ukraine win this war, but at what cost and at what end?
And are we ready to get involved?
I can tell you this.
A lot of Americans are not, especially when we have the issues we have at home, especially when we have the commander-in-chief, the man in the White House that we do.
This might be a different story if we had Donald Trump still in office.
I don't think we'd be in this situation if Donald Trump was still in office because Russia respected Donald Trump.
Did you not respect Joe Biden?
Let me ask you.
Did you support the first Gulf War?
Well, listen, I'm 30 years old, so I was very young when that happened.
So I don't know if I could give you an answer that you'd be looking for on that, but I'll tell you this.
But ideologically, did you think that was that right?
American forces went to the aid of a country that was not a member of NATO and they kicked out Saddam Hussein in that first Gulf War.
Because Republicans, almost to a man and woman, supported that and thought that was great desert storm.
And yet I don't see the difference other than Putin is exceptionally more dangerous than Saddam Hussein ever was and represents a much bigger threat to the world that I would argue than Saddam Hussein did.
And yet Republicans back in 91, they were like, yeah, let's get in there and kick him out.
Now it's like a few Republicans are going, why are we spending all this money on taking on a dictator?
And I'm like, what's the matter with you?
Well, hey, listen, I'll tell you this.
There's a lot of Americans out there that have learned our lesson from fronting endless wars and we're sick and tired of it.
If you look at our history, there have been many mistakes that we have made.
Iraq, Afghanistan, this nation-building effort.
There's a lot here at home we need to work on.
Like I said, we would like to see the Ukrainian people pull this out.
We are, however, not entirely confident that they're able to do it without endless support, endless money, endless help from nations like the United States.
And I'll tell you, a lot of Americans are not in the position to be sending billions more to Zelensky.
We don't trust Zelensky.
We have a lot of questions.
And this is not about supporting Putin over Ukraine, make no mistake.
We also, Republicans, did not support trading a Russian arms dealer back to Russia for a weed-smoking basketball player.
But then again, a lot of Democrats cheered for that one.
All right.
I'll just want to play a clip now.
I want to go to Bill's response to this question.
Okay, I hear you.
I want to play a clip.
This is from when I went to see President Zelensky in Kyiv in Ukraine in the summer last year.
And I asked him about this resistance from some Americans.
Here we are.
There are people in America, some on the Republican side in particular, who think that America shouldn't be spending all this money on a war here which has nothing to do with them.
They think there are more important things in America, like inflation and so on, that they should be working on.
What is your message to those Americans who do not think America should be as heavily involved?
We are fighting for absolutely communal values that are universally understood.
Some time ago, I responded that war doesn't have a distance.
And the war in Ukraine is still the war against those values that are professed in the United States and in Europe.
So this war here and now in Ukraine, and forgive me, I'm saying it so cynically, is for the safety of Europe.
As long as we are resisting, the integrity of the United States will continue.
We are giving our lives for your values and the joint security of the world.
You know, Bill, I found him incredibly impressive.
I don't share Tommy's view of Zelensky, which is a view that some Americans have of him.
I think he's an incredibly impressive guy who has single-handedly galvanized his country to at least believe they can withstand the invading hordes of Putin's army.
But to that point, what would you say to Tommy to try and persuade her?
that this is money well spent by America.
Well, it's pretty straightforward.
So, first of all, I'm 58 years old, not 30 years old, so I've known Putin for 22 years.
He's an absolute criminal.
He's a murderous dictator.
And the reason he started this war is to basically, as a war of distraction, wag the dog.
He's trying to, people after 22 years are sick and tired of Putin.
He doesn't want them angry with him, so he creates a foreign enemy.
So he's got to be at this war.
He's doing this war to stay in power.
And the one thing I can tell you is that if he were to win in Ukraine, he would next be at the Estonian border.
Yeah, no question.
And if he's at the Estonian border, then we're faced with the most horrible outcome.
Either we have to go to war directly with Vladimir Putin, which would be a terrible thing, or we would have to abandon our NATO allies.
And we learned, surely, in 1939 with Adolf Hitler, we learned that people like Hitler, people like Putin, they don't stop.
They prey on weakness.
They want to call our bluff.
They want to rattle their saber and hope that we give them what they want.
That's what dictators do.
Putin absolutely enjoys the fact that we're all sort of arguing among ourselves.
But I should also point out that the view that she was expressing is an extreme minority view.
I work with Republicans and Democrats in Washington, and the vast, vast majority of Republicans understand that it's in America's national security interest not to have Putin take over the European Union.
Okay, well, let me, final words to Tommy.
You're an extreme minority.
Yeah, maybe in the DC Beltway and the people that you're talking to in the swamp, but average everyday Americans out there who can't even find eggs and baby formula and worrying about inflation and worrying about crime in our streets, worrying about illegal immigration at our border, I represent those Americans, and those Americans are not an extreme minority.
Those Americans believe in America first.
And I agree with you.
Putin is a horrible person.
We don't want Putin to take over the world, but I tell you this, I don't, I'm not sure that us sending more money, more tanks to upfront this Ukraine war effort is going to stop Putin unless we are ready to directly go to war with Putin.
I think a lot of Americans are going to be in that boat and in that campaign.
All right.
Tommy, you've made your point loud and clear and very well for an extreme minority, I must say.
Fairness in Gender Athletics00:07:11
Good to have you on the program.
Bill Bradley, great to have you here in the studio.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
Well, coming next, I talked to the champion female shot put who said if trans athletes compete in her sport, then she's screwed.
So screwed, in fact, she might have to retire.
Well, welcome back.
You know, my general view that the world's gone completely crackers.
Well, there was a brilliant piece written in today's Daily Telegraph by trans athlete Tina Daniels.
It says she considered entering events in the 2012 London Olympics after undergoing gender realignment surgery from a man to a woman and could have won gold in every category.
But she wrote, this was something I couldn't bring myself to do.
While others have worked tirelessly for the chance to realize that same dream, because of my unfair advantage, I would just be taking a deserved spot away.
It's fairness that my next guest is concerned about today.
World Athletics is looking at increasing restrictions on trans women, but not banning them completely from women's sport.
A British shot put champion, Amelia Strickler, says it could screw women in her sport.
Her words in her own excellent piece about this.
And Amelia, you join me now.
So I'm going to explain to viewers why you sound a little bit American.
You're born in Ohio.
Yes.
You're British American, you compete for Britain.
You've been a British champion and shot pudding twice, and hopefully will be competing for GB in the Olympics.
Yes.
Talk to me about this issue, because I've been talking about this as a man for a long time.
But in the end, I think this is a debate that has to be won by women.
It seems to me just grotesquely unfair that you can reduce testosterone as much as you like, but what you can't reduce, and Caitlin Jenno is very strong about this, you can't reduce physical size, power, body mass, all the things you accumulate in a male body for many years.
Is that really at the heart of this?
Yeah.
Ultimately, you know, the hormones are not going to take away that male advantage, the hormone suppressors.
Yeah, it's just, it's not going to, it's not going to take away that male puberty.
You know, there are physiological things you can't change, skeleton sizes, hip angles, lung capacities, you know, obviously the muscle.
And some people, you know, transition later in life, don't they?
So they may have trained as a man for many, many years, biological male, and then all of a sudden decide to identify.
And the common theme, if you take Leah Thomas, a swimmer in America, or you take some of the sprinters in Connecticut who've been smashing women's records, or Laurel Hubbard, who's a New Zealand weightlifter who transitioned and competes against women.
The common theme is that as male performers, they were pretty mediocre.
But when they start competing against women having transitioned and said, I'm now identifying as female, they start smashing records, which may never be beaten in some cases.
I mean, they're basically rewriting women's sport.
Exactly, and they're taking away a lot of opportunities from other women that have worked so hard to be where they are.
Leah Thomas winning the national title, you know, they were never good enough to do that in the male category.
Nowhere near good enough.
And, you know, it's really about keeping women's sport fair.
Where's it going to go this?
I mean, while athletics are going to be so gutless as they're currently being, where they're just basically sitting on the fence and hoping this all blows over, it's not going to blow over because more and more people are now identifying as a different gender.
This has become a huge phenomenon now around the world, which means more and more athletes are going to be transitioning and saying, okay, now I'm a woman.
Now, what happens if you are a high-performing male athlete in any discipline and you see an opportunity, if you're cynical, we know there are cheats in sport, right?
We saw it from Lance Armstrong to others.
And they go, you know what, here's a way for me to make myself extremely rich and famous.
I'll just put my hand up, say I'm female for three years, win everything, earn hundreds of millions and go back to being a man at the end of it.
Exactly.
What's to stop someone doing that?
It's happening at grassroots level as well already.
You know, that's, even if it's just a park run, surely that means something to someone to place, you know, high enough.
And, you know, they'll never have, they'll never have periods.
They'll never experience that.
You know, it does hinder many, many females, female serene.
It's a real issue.
Even, you know, Dina this summer said, you know, I've had lady issues and she didn't perform well when she didn't perform well that day.
And, you know, it's understandable.
What reaction have you had since you wrote this piece and went public?
It was a brave thing to do.
I've had very good reactions.
I've had a lot of people say, you know, thank you from me, thank you from my daughter.
You know, this means a lot, so much to so many, you know, women and men.
And, you know, everyone seems to have a really positive reaction to it, obviously.
Any negativity?
Of course you're going to have some.
You know, some want to say I'm not even British.
Right, so they start being racist.
Yeah, exactly.
And you've been accused of being transphobic, which is the default position.
For anyone that dares to raise concerns about this issue, you have to be a transphobe.
Even though you're not a transphobe at all, right?
I fully think they should be included, but there's a way to have them be included and not have it harm female sport and biological females competing in sport.
I completely agree.
Swimming, they did an open category and a female category to protect the female sex and to protect them.
I don't know why you can't just have a trans category.
There's more and more trans athletes to have a trans category and just build that up and just have a third, you know, why not?
I mean, what's happening in a moment is just not fair.
It's not fair to women.
Exactly.
And women's rights are being eroded at the altar of political correctness.
That's all that's happening.
And people are terrified of saying, this is wrong.
That's why I really wanted to get you in and I really admire you for what you've done.
It's a really bold thing.
Have you heard from the British athletic bosses or not?
I have not, but a lot of other big names, my peers, you know, people I'm on teams with, big names, people would know these names.
They agree with me.
They strongly support me.
But obviously, I think, you know, people are scared to speak out.
They do not want the label of transphobic.
They do not want their contracts to potentially be in jeopardy, which I can understand.
Athletics is not a wealthy sport.
We're not making football money.
But, you know, it is important to me.
And you must have known when he wrote this piece that this could backfire horribly.
It might be the end of your correctness.
I mean, literally, it could be.
It's like Jake Rowling has done.
Anything could have happened to you.
It did cross my mind.
But I am so grateful for everyone who's reached out positively because it really is touching to hear that, you know, someone's daughter is looking up to me just for speaking up.
I didn't expect that.
It's touching.
Amelia, good for you.
We need more people with your guts to do this.
Then this debate can be had properly and fairly because nobody wants to be unfair to trans athletes, but I don't think they should be allowed to just dominate women's sport, which is incredibly unfair to women born to female bodies.
Period.
It just period.
But it is full stop, as people say in this country.
And why I'm turning all American and then inappropriate there.
Harry and Megan Invited00:09:58
Finally, one question for you.
What makes you wake up one day and think, I know what I'm going to do with myself.
I'm going to run along and chuck an eight-pound weight 18 meters.
This is what you do.
Yes, I was young and got involved in athletics.
And, you know, I loved all the events, but this one I seem to excel at and I just stuck with it.
And it's been quite a journey.
And, you know, it still makes me happy.
It's amazing.
I think it's an amazing thing to watch.
It really is.
It's so hard to actually move and then throw something that far that weighs eight pounds.
It's just, I couldn't do it.
I couldn't throw it out of the pit bit.
Amelia, you're very gutsy.
Keep speaking out.
Others will follow you.
But as always, it takes the first people over the top to call it for what it is.
And you've done that.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I do hope more people speak up because it's very important.
This has to get addressed properly.
And best of luck.
See you at the Olympics.
Yeah.
We need people with your kind of guts at the Olympics.
That's what it takes.
A bit of mental strength, courage, resilience.
Don't take this nonsense.
If you can take down the wokies, you can certainly win Olympic gold.
I'm right behind you, Amelia.
Good to see you.
Thank you.
What coming next?
Will the scandals involving Prince Andrew and Harry and Megan overshadow King Charles' coronation?
Should any of them be invited?
We'll debate that next.
Well, back on my pack.
Now, following our earlier debate about Ukraine, some very sad breaking news.
It's just been confirmed that two British men who were volunteering in Ukraine, Chris Parry and Andrew Bagshaw, have been killed.
They're reported missing in January.
Mr. Parry's family confirmed tonight they were both killed while assisting a humanitarian evacuation.
And if that doesn't toughen our resolve in this country to do whatever we can to help Ukraine win that war, I don't know what would.
Well, coming next, I'm joined now by the Times Royal Correspondent, an author of Portiers, The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, Valentine Lowe, plus our Pakistan here, Amborik, and Richard Tyson, Paul Lerone.
Adrian, so Valentine, you're over in America at the moment promoting your book.
Fascinating piece in the New York Times has just come out.
Headlined, has Prince Harry's confessional tour run its course?
Even in the United States, the New York Times says, which has a high tolerance for redemptive stories about overcoming trauma and family dysfunction.
The tide seems to be turning.
It's one thing to be criticised.
It's another to be openly ridiculed.
That's pretty heavy coming from the New York Times.
It is, because they would be very much on the Harry and Megan's side.
But one does sense that, well, there's still quite a strong bedrock of opinion in favour of them, that they are less popular than they were over here.
And there's only so much moaning that you can put up with, isn't there?
Right.
I completely agree.
I mean, how do you keep doing it?
Where can they go?
They've trashed all their family repeatedly.
There's no one left to trash.
What about Prince Andrew?
What impact is all his scandal having?
Does it really resonate in America in the same way, even though it arguably is a lot more serious?
I don't think it does quite in the same way because it's sort of not really an ongoing soap opera, is it?
The good thing about Harry and Megan is there's such a strong narrative drive there, isn't it, to keep everyone interested?
Whereas Andrew, he's just a mess who messed up and sort of covered himself and the family in shame.
But it doesn't really go anywhere.
Do you think either of them Valentine will be at the coronation, either Prince Andrew or Harry and Megan?
I suspect Prince Andrew will be.
I think the king will invite him and he, if invited, he'll definitely be there.
I think in terms of Harry and Megan, I think they'll certainly be invited because for King Charles not to invite his son would really be seen as sort of petty and vindictive and not in the spirit of reference to the people.
I wouldn't invite one of my sons if they'd done that to the family.
I can tell you.
They'd be absolutely NFI.
That's one of my passion.
That's why you're not king.
That's why you're not king, Piers.
Well, at the moment.
At the moment, Valentine.
At the moment.
Stranger things have happened.
Richard, the royals, the coronation, it remains, it is a soap opera, but they're real people.
We're hurtling towards the coronation in a few weeks' time in early May.
What's he going to do, Charles, about his brother now in the headlines again because of the Guillain Maxwell interview with Harry and Megan, his son, you know, trashing all the family?
It's very easy.
He has to retain the moral high ground.
Of course he has to invite all his family.
Whether or not they attend, I suspect that Valentine's right.
I don't think Harry and Megan will attend.
I think backdoor channels will say, please stay in America.
Why invite them?
I mean, I don't care.
Because you've got to retain the moral high ground.
You're king.
You're bringing people together.
You're leading from the front a whole nation.
And just don't stir the pot.
Whereas I suspect Prince Andrew, I suspect he will attend and be sort of stuck on the back row.
Paula, the resident defender of all things, Meghan and Harry, I mean, why if they hate the royal family and the monarchy so much and trash the institutions and cause such damage to it, whatever you want to call it.
Stop saying the word hate.
No one has suggested that hate is relevant in this issue.
Given they've caused so much damage to the institutional reputation of the monarchy, why would they want to be at a coronation of a new monarch?
Given the fact that they have raised difficulties that they have had.
Well, they said the royal races then said we didn't mean celebration.
That's what we're talking about, the problems that they have raised.
Let's be clear about that.
Well, the lie.
And the problems that they have raised are really serious issues.
Mental health issues, issues around domestic abuse, issues around colour and prejudice and people.
Why do you?
But it's not about whether I believe them.
Why?
It's not about...
What it's about is that they think it's true.
And what you need to understand is that the family.
It's got nothing to do with whether they think it's true.
Something's either true or it's not.
Thank you, Anne Whitacom.
True or not.
If that was the case, then I wouldn't be in a job.
The fact is, your truth may not be my truth.
No, there's only another truth.
How you may pain.
Paula, there is no my truth.
I'm not afraid of you.
You and I may interpret things differently, but there is a fact that it's true.
And it will be very different to the two of us.
That doesn't mean that any of us are wrong.
Hello.
I know, and I'm choosing to ignore that.
That's my show.
That's my show, and I'll cut off your mic in a minute.
Here's the bottom line.
There is no my truth, your truth.
There is the truth.
And you know what really got my goat about those two?
Was the two most damaging things they said in that first Oprah win-a-thon were that the royals have been racist to them about the skin colour of their son.
And that secondly, Meghan Markle had gone to a senior palace person who had banned her from getting help for her suicidal thoughts.
Neither of those things appear in his book.
He's already reigned back now on the racism charge, so that's not what he meant when we all know exactly what they meant.
They said it.
We watched them say it.
And secondly, Richard, on the mental health thing, again, a very big weapon to hurl at the palace, that they were callous about her suicidal thoughts.
Not a word has been mentioned since.
Nothing in the Netflix documentary, nothing in the book.
I don't think it happened.
And I had to leave my last job for not believing it.
How can Harry have therapy?
Exactly.
But she not have therapy.
She had a therapist on speed dial.
Unless he didn't think that he didn't think that she deserved it.
I mean, the whole thing's a complete nonsense.
You can't trust anybody.
The Queen summed it up, though, didn't she, when she said that memories may differ or recollect.
It may vary, but still only one thing.
That's the Queen's words.
And so what happens is when you have a situation where somebody is in pain, where you say something that you do not consider to be insulting, where you do not consider to be hurtful or in any way intentional even, but that doesn't mean that the other person doesn't take it that way.
That doesn't mean that the other person doesn't leave that discussion and be pain and that's what's happening.
We're talking about them going on Oprah Winfrey and calling the royal family racists.
And then two years later, after all the damage of that race charge against the royal family, and they never named the racist, Harry now says, we didn't say anyone was racist.
The evil British press, who are responsible for everything in Harry's world, they made it all up.
He's technically right.
They didn't say that.
No, he didn't say that.
They didn't say that.
They didn't say the words.
Oh, come on.
He could have rose back from it following the children.
That's a different topic.
That's the same topic.
Was there a nuance there that people were led to believe?
Have you always defended the indefensible?
Was it a new trait of yours?
And that's a new filibuster technique.
You're going to keep talking.
Yes.
What do we do about the royals?
Well, first of all, I do not think that Harry and Megan should be at the coronation for one very simple reason.
If they're there, if they're there, they then become the story.
And they'll be taping everybody.
And heaven knows, you know, private conversations, the royals will be very uneasy.
So I do not think they should come to the coronation.
I don't think it matters whether Andrew's there or not, because I rather think that he also, you know, he will just be in the background and there'll be a comment.
I agree.
He won't try and take the attention.
He's not going to take all the cameras.
I wouldn't trust.
If I were the royal family, I wouldn't trust the Sussexes as far as I could force it.
But what appears if there's been reconciliation?
It takes a lot of time.
You don't get reconciliation by releasing a 410-page book trashing your family.
He's not the first one to release an autobiography.
Paula, we've run out of time.
You're not the first.
But you know what?
If you continue this, you can come back again because I like the new Paula.