All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
March 22, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:03
20230322_piers-morgan-uncensored-boris-johnson-inquiry-trum
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Trump And Johnson Fight 00:01:57
Tonight on Pearsmorgen Uncensored, two blonde bombshells bunkered down to fight for their political lives.
Boris Johnson insists he didn't lie to MPs over lockdown parties that broke his own laws.
But as his own loyalists skew him on live TV, is Teflon Boris finally done?
We'll debate.
Meanwhile in America, former President Donald Trump sensationally faces criminal indictment over hush money he paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels.
So is Teflon Don also toast?
I'll ask his top advisor, Kellyanne Conway.
And the other favourite of his show, Prince Harry's US visa, is under scrutiny after he boasted about drug use in America in his memoir and TV interviews.
But Britain doesn't want him back, so where will he go?
We'll discuss that.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well, good evening.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
I'm back.
Flew in this morning from America.
More of that later in the programme.
Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have a lot in common.
They're both populist leaders with shocking blonde hairdos who are big on bravado and famously economical with the truth.
They both command cult-like devotion from their loyalists and blame shadowy elitist plots for self-inflicted chaos.
And tonight they're both fighting for their political lives.
Donald Trump faces criminal charges over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels.
Next week America is braced for chaos amid the unprecedented spectacle of a former president hauled in for fingerprinting and yes, a mugshot.
Well today in the UK be the unprecedented spectacle of a former British Prime Minister defending the indefensible in a televised showdown with the Privileges Committee.
I'm going to read out the terms of the oath.
Yes, I swear by almighty God that the evidence I shall give for this committee should be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help me God.
Chaos Looms For America 00:15:15
Well that will certainly make a change, won't it, Boris?
But it was an extraordinary spectacle today and let's be honest, he's finally come clean about misleading MPs over Downing Street parties which broke the lockdown laws he imposed on the country he led.
But it shamefully took him six months to do that and in vintage Boris style.
Any traces of contrition were eclipsed by a volley of feeble excuses which laid the blame squarely of course on everybody other than him.
I want to dispute the idea that it was not an essential gathering or not a gathering that was reasonably necessary for work purposes.
People who say that we were partying in lockdown simply do not know what they are talking about.
People who say that that event was a purely social gathering are quite wrong.
My purpose there was to thank staff to motivate them in what had been a very difficult time.
Really?
Really, Boris, you want us to swallow that one?
Attending boozy parties, dozens of you on occasions, while the rest of the country was abiding by the strict rules you'd all made?
That people couldn't even go and see dying relatives in hospital while you lot were all toasting each other and having farewell parties?
Even Boris's own most strident supporters aren't buying it anymore.
You can't expect human beings in an environment like number 10 to have, as it were, an invisible electrified fence around them.
They will occasionally drift into each other's orbit.
That I knew from my direct personal experience that we were doing a huge amount to stop the spread of COVID within the building.
I'm bound to say that if you'd said all that at the time to the House of Commons, we probably wouldn't be sitting here.
But you did.
Well, quite.
Boris blustered through several hours of evidence today following the release of a 52-page dodgy dossier, trademark dithering and deception, which is heavy on excuses, light on plausible explanation.
He whines that he was photographed toasting colleagues at a birthday party, but that nobody sang happy birthday or served him a cake.
He blames his advisor, Dominic Cummings, for smearing him.
He blames the small size of his home and office at Downing Street for forcing people to work in close proximity.
No word on why they needed to be in close proximity to suitcases of wine.
He blames the police for not clarifying which rules he broke, even though he literally set the rules for everybody else to follow.
There's 15,000 words in this supposedly name-clearing dossier, but the two words, I'm sorry, weren't among them, despite being the only ones that British people, frankly, want to hear.
And the only person Boris hasn't blamed is the one person who's really responsible for all this, and that's the boss, which was him.
Well, joining me now, let's talk to you of his political editor, Kate McCann.
Kate, I watched a lot of this today.
I didn't really want to, because I'm just hearing his voice, frankly, it's like they're hearing the ghost of Christmas past braying away, but I did.
And what was really striking to me was that he seemed to be living, I felt, in a completely delusional world where he wanted people to believe that there was no partying and certainly nothing he was party to, despite the fact that over 80 members of the staff in Downing Street got fined by the police for illicit partying.
Yeah, and I think, look, Boris Johnson, it was really clear from that evidence session today, Piers, as you say, that he has convinced himself that no rules were broken.
In fact, he said, you know, till my dying day, I will believe it was the right thing to do to go to those leaving parties or those leaving events of colleagues during COVID.
And he justified that by saying that morale was very low, that people were, you know, in the building, they were starting to struggle to do their jobs.
And I think the problem is the strength of feeling among those in different careers, among nurses, among doctors, among people who worked in care homes who will have been shouting at the television today if they were watching to say, well, we felt like that too.
And we were not allowed to have drinks.
We were not allowed to encourage each other to keep going.
I think what was really clear from that hearing today was that the Prime Minister, the former Prime Minister, believes that he did nothing wrong.
He believes that he can justify every decision that he made.
But crucially, the committee did not push him on why alcohol was present at some of those events.
They did not push him about what happened after he left.
Repeatedly, Boris Johnson said, when I was there, there were only 10 people.
When I was there, we were outside.
But actually, what we know now is that after he left some of those events, things happened that were not within the rules or the guidance that could not be easily justified.
And I think the most tense moments for Boris Johnson today were when he was pressed on what advisors had told him, whether or not they had reassured him that guidance was followed at all times.
And crucially, when he was asked, well, what mitigating factors did you put in place if you couldn't follow social distancing rules?
And he came up with, well, we didn't touch each other's pens.
And I think you could tell from Harriet Harmon, who was leading that committee today, when she said, well, you did pour drinks for each other, didn't you?
Because we could see it in the photos.
You could really feel that the anger and the tension in that room.
Boris Johnson believes he did everything that he could to keep those things within the guidance.
While he was there, I'm not sure that he could say the same when he wasn't.
No, it's complete hogwash.
And to use a phrase like, I will take it till I die, this belief, when people were literally dying in their droves and he ordered families not to be at deathbeds, made it a criminal offence.
You know, I know lots of people who lost people, or people like Kate Garrow, I work with a Good Morning Britain, whose husband remains in a virtual coma.
You know, I know other people say goodbye to their mothers on FaceTime in care homes.
And I'm just trying to think, what must they all be thinking listening to this?
Because it wasn't just a one-off.
This was party after party after party.
And it's his house.
It's where he was living.
And the idea that someone as smart as Boris Johnson didn't know what was going on is utter hogwash.
Where does it go this?
Okay, what's the ultimate sanction that's available to Parliament?
What's the best and worst case scenario for Johnson?
Well, where it goes from here, the committee can recall Boris Johnson if they feel like they have more questions.
I think that's probably unlikely given that they didn't use all the time they had allocated to them today.
They could ask for more information from some of the advisors that were said to be giving him advice on whether all of the rules and regulations had been stuck to.
They may well try and do that.
They are going to publish some of the advice that they had from Sue Gray, some of the evidence they took from her, because Boris Johnson said at the start of the committee that he felt it was unfair that the public can't see everything that he is relying on to justify his own position.
So that's likely to be published.
But Piers, the committee has to give Boris Johnson two weeks' notice of their final report, which means that we will at least be two to three weeks away.
And I think in reality, probably more like four, five or six weeks until we see a formal decision.
You could hear from Harriet Harmon today who said that Boris Johnson's evidence was flimsy from others.
You played a clip there of Sir Bernard Jenkin who was saying if Boris Johnson had given the evidence he gave today in the beginning, then maybe nobody would have been here.
I think the tone from around the table was that they will probably find that he did mislead the House of Commons.
But whether the punishment will go to the full 10 days, if it's under 10 days, remember that doesn't meet the threshold for a recall petition in his own seat.
He could essentially get a wrap on the knuckles and continue.
Is this the end of his political career?
Well, running concurrently today was that vote on the Stormont break.
Boris Johnson, Pretty Patel, Liz Truss all voted against, but they couldn't really muster the numbers to challenge Rishi Sunak.
I think there is a feeling in Westminster that Boris Johnson, whatever happened today, is now spent as a political force.
Those who'd already made their mind up will still feel the same after that committee hearing.
But Piers, as you say, you know, for many people listening today, they don't care about rules, they don't care about guidance.
What they care about is that feeling that it just wasn't fair.
And I don't think they will have had their mind changed today.
Well, I think he's lying through his back teeth and it's the further kick and batiste to all the people that he ordered to do one thing while he did another.
Kate McCann, thank you very much indeed.
Well joining me now is former advisor to Boris Johnson Alex Crowley, former Conservative MP Louise Mensch, and by Dr. Cathy Gardner, who took the UK government to court over its decision to discharge hospital patients into care homes at the start of the pandemic.
Her father Michael died in a care home in April 2020.
Let me start with you, Dr. Cathy.
What did you make of Boris Johnson's performance today?
I wasn't surprised by his continual ability to just deny and pretend it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
It's impossible for him to show contrition.
He really doesn't care about how it looked to the rest of us.
All he's interested in is saving his own skin.
Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I think.
I think this is all about his career and saving himself.
But when he tries to make us believe that all these parties, party after party after party, that he had no understanding or even an inkling that any of it broke any rules, when 82 people, I think it was, got fined by police for breaking the rules that he set.
It's just, I just think it's so ridiculous to expect us to believe this.
It's completely incredible, absolutely impossible to believe it.
And the fact that he thinks that we should is just insulting.
It's insulting to the intelligence of the majority of the population.
Yeah, I agree.
Louise Mensch over in New York, I mean, you defend the indefensible Boris time and again.
Is this testing even your patience?
I think he's very lucky, Piers, that you weren't sitting on that committee because I don't think they really landed a glove on him.
What we've heard from your various guests so far is that it's clear that Boris Johnson himself believed that he wasn't breaking the rules.
Now, you can say, well, he should have known better, and maybe that's true, but the question before them isn't party yet.
He admits that the rules were broken, and he has said sorry for that.
The point is, did he deliberately mislead the House of Commons?
And I think he made a decent point when he said, if I knew the rules were being broken, would I have sent the number 10 photographer in to photograph it and then given it to the press in a briefing?
That just doesn't make sense.
And I think the fact is he lost his temper.
He's going to be upset about that.
And you're right, basically.
Is he finished?
At the moment, he is.
But a week is a long time in politics.
And if the Conservatives do really badly in the May local elections coming up, that could change again.
Boris Johnson is one of the great survivors, and I don't think this is the last that we're going to hear of him.
He is, but you know, in a way, you can almost feel the way the wind's blowing on this.
And it's blowing, I think, much more favourably for Rishi Sunak.
I think the budget went down very well.
I think the Northern Ireland situation that he seems to have fixed massive vote win today.
Boris, just a few straddlers left, Boris, Liz Truss.
I mean, if you're against them, you're not really caring.
I think the style also of leadership that Sunak is bringing, and Jeremy Hunt, actually, where it's a bit more serious.
It feels like there are grown-ups in the room.
There's no blatherer, there's no bluster, there's no sleazy-like behavior in the background.
You put it all together and you think, is there really going to be an appetite for Boris with all the baggage?
And it's the same situation in America with Trump.
You know, are they actually, and it's a different set of circumstances, but similar kind of vibe.
Do we want to go back to more of that or are we wanting to move on to something a little bit more serious?
Well, everything you say is true, Piers, but to that I would add the very simple point.
All of that may be true, but Rishi Sunak is losing.
He is still losing.
He is still massively down in the polls.
And one thing about the Conservatives is that they are very self-interested.
They believe they're the right people to run the country.
If, after all this sensible thing, and it's good progress, and I agree with you about Northern Ireland, all of that's absolutely true.
But if he continues to lose, you may very well see Boris Johnson come back as much as you hate that prospect.
Let me give you a little statistic.
I can't remember the exact numbers, but I think it's something like that.
Keir Starmer's now been ahead of the Tories with his Labour Party for 400-odd days.
Neil Kinnock, back in 1992, had actually been ahead for over 500 days, I think, a lot longer, and was about the same rate ahead in the polls, 20 odd percent.
And Kinnock thought he had it in the bag, and then old John Major came along, and boom, he nicked it by being steady, John, serious, decent guy.
And actually, they won.
And they were in a worse position, the Tories, at this stage before that 92 election.
I simply don't know.
That's very true.
But those of us who are old enough to remember that, naming no names, remember that Kinnock ran a really terrible election campaign.
And I don't think with the jeans, and he tried to portray himself as down with the kids and all the rest of it, it really wasn't very good.
He had a disastrous rally that was covered everywhere and made him look frankly stupid.
I don't think Keir Starmer is going to make those same kind of mistakes.
All right.
Let me bring in Alex Craig.
You're telling patiently, Alex.
You worked with Boris Johnson for nearly 10 years.
Yeah, and you worked at Downing Street with him.
My question for you specifically about that.
When you watched him today, is it plausible that he can kind of paint a picture of a busy prime minister running around and just being completely oblivious to all this?
Is that actually plausible, given the way Downing Street operates?
I recognise some of that.
I absolutely take the point that there are certain things that he must have known about and he must have looked at and thought this isn't a good look if nothing else.
But if you think about the daily schedule of a prime minister, right, they have the same number of hours in the day that you and I have, but they have to do about a hundred more things.
They don't do as many hours as, you know, probably the nurses and doctors in the middle of the pandemic.
No, but it's a different schedule in the sense that as a prime minister, you are literally shunted from thing to thing.
You're in one meeting, then you leave that meeting and you go off and do something else.
And in the middle of two other things, someone will say to you, right, could you just go in there, thank that person, then leave again.
But here's the problem with this.
And I don't dispute that.
I've been in Downing Street many times and I've seen how it works.
But I also know that if you're setting draconian rules for the country, you're literally stopping more than a handful of people attending funerals for loved ones who've died.
You're stopping people doing all sorts of things.
You're certainly stopping people in workplaces having leaving parties.
And then you try and have a position, well, we're the special ones.
We were working to do all this stuff for the country.
So we're entitled to have a drink, entitled to have a leaving do, and not worry too much about social distancing, which was kind of what his position was today.
Breaking The Fundamental Rule 00:02:39
I don't think the public are going to buy this because they're going to be thinking, well, hang on.
Why is it all right for you?
Did the virus know that you're the special people?
Did it give you a special pass?
Yeah, no, look, and clearly he has paid the price for that.
He lost office.
In fact, he didn't even need to be at this committee.
He could have resigned as an MP after he was removed from Downing Street, and none of this would have needed to happen.
He's chosen to stay, and he obviously believes that, A, he feels he should defend his position, and B, he obviously feels he has some political future, because otherwise he wouldn't have stuck around in the House.
Do you believe Boris Johnson?
I mean, he was sacked twice for lying, once as a journalist, once as a politician.
His record on truth is not good.
Do you believe him?
I mean, there'll be lots of people out there, both personally and professionally, who would say, I wouldn't trust Boris Johnson as far as I could throw his mob.
Yeah, and the record shows that there is some justification to that, right?
You know, he spent his entire career getting away with things up until this point when he couldn't get away with it any longer because he broke the fundamental rule in public life, which is that if you are a lawmaker, you cannot be a law breaker.
What he should have done right at the beginning of this is he should have said, okay, this was a mistake.
I'm putting a stop to this now.
It should not have happened.
It's wrong.
If he'd have just done that, I think he probably still has to be able to do it.
I don't understand why he didn't do that.
I mean, if you're going to be running the country in a pandemic, standing at a podium every day and lecturing the public and giving them criminal fines for the most tiny breach of your own rules, and then you're just doing all this with total impunity.
Why don't they need alcohol in Downing Street?
It must be saving the country from a pandemic.
What were they doing having regular Friday night booze-ups?
I mean, what were they doing?
I mean, two parties on the night before Prince Philip's funeral.
And all this stuff to me, the poor queen, I always come back to that image of the poor queen sitting on her own in that mask with none of the family around her at Philip's funeral because she thought it was the right thing to do.
Where was that conscience in the Prime Minister?
The answer is it wasn't there.
It should have been there.
Actually, those parties you referred to, he wasn't even at.
But you're right, he should have known.
No, they're going on in Downing Street.
Of course, of course.
And his name's on the door, right?
So he has to carry the can, not disputing that at all.
But I do also think that we need to look at what the officials were doing as well, because there were a lot of people working in...
Some of them were warning him about the optics and what was going on.
And he wants us to gloss over that.
But he was specifically warned, the optics of this aren't good.
But what about the rest of the officials who knew that that particular party on the night of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral was going on?
What were they doing?
I'm not saying that Boris is blameless, but there are a lot more people who are.
Well, that's true, but he was the prime minister.
Poll Numbers Shift Rapidly 00:12:48
The buck stops with him.
The question really is whether he should be allowed back into any form of high office in this country.
And I just don't think he should.
Anyway, thank you for coming in.
Appreciate it.
Thank you to Louise and thank you to Dr. Kathy Gardner.
Appreciate all of you joining the show tonight.
Coming next, find out what President Trump said about me today after I sat down for an effusive interview with the man tipped to replace him, big rival, the Florida governor, rising star of American politics, Ron DeSantis.
Spoiler alert, President Trump wasn't very complimentary about it.
Talking about two, Piers Morgan, I say that Donald Trump is fighting for his political life as he faces criminal indictment over hushed money he paid to the porn star Stormy Daniels.
Well, that's the allegation anyway.
But that doesn't seem to be the only thing ruffling the former president's feathers.
He wasn't overly impressed that I sat down with his current most formidable presidential rival, the wildly successful governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
It's a whole show that will air tomorrow night and it'll make riveting viewing, but not if it's Donald Trump.
Well, Make America Great Again, a group formed of his allies released a statement earlier saying Ron DeSantis is lashing out against President Trump in my interview because his poll numbers keep falling.
Unfortunately for DeSantis, sitting down for an interview to bash President Trump with gun grabber Piers Morgan won't solve his issues with Republican voters.
Well, to be clear, I don't like grabbing guns.
I don't actually like guns at all.
It didn't stop there.
Shortly later, to my lack of surprise, President Trump himself took to his social media platform to say, while I am fighting against radical left lunatics, persecutors and unfair prosecutors who want to destroy us all, Ron DeSanctimonius is not working for the people of Florida as he should be.
He's too busy chatting with a Rapings Challenge TV host from England, desperately trying to rescue his failing campaign.
But it's my fault.
I put him there.
I don't know if he's talking about Ron DeSanctimonius or me there at the end.
But in view of sitting down with me, President Trump, you seem to be suffering from some amnesia because you've sat down with me yourself about 40 times, including three times when you were president of the United States.
So it couldn't have been that bad.
Anyway, joining me now as a former senior counselor to President Trump from 2017 to 2020.
Kelly Ann Coleman.
Kellyanne, lovely to see you.
Hi, Pierce.
Thanks for having me.
I always think it's the high point of flattery if Donald Trump takes time from his busy day annihilating everybody else to launch a personal savage attack on me and thoroughly enjoyed it today and it wasn't unexpected.
But behind it, I'm curious what you think of what's going on here in terms of how he views Ron DeSantis and how damaging, if at all, this whole legal thing in New York is going to be to him.
Because it seems the more that people talk about it, the more his poll numbers seem to be improving.
So first things first, on the DeSantis Trump question, I got to congratulate you for getting the governor to sit down and give a major interview.
And back to back, then you had a former president, perhaps future president, elevate you on social media.
So you're having a really good week, Piers Morgan.
In terms of DeSantis, I mean, I think President Trump has made very clear he feels that Ron DeSantis should be more grateful to him for giving him his endorsement in the primaries when DeSantis was famously at 3%, showing pictures of his infant and toddler children building walls and having a MAGA onesie on and everything, and then, of course, campaigning for him.
And Ron DeSantis won the first time with less than 50% of the vote, very small margin.
But what DeSantis has done in Florida since is pretty remarkable.
He's been an excellent governor on many accounts.
And I think Trump has DeSantis where he wants him right now.
Trump's poll numbers are going up.
DeSantis is not a declared candidate.
And even you sitting down for an interview about Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida is forcing him to respond to Donald Trump.
So I think all of these candidates are going to be asked the most popular common question is going to be Trump.
I think so far, Senator Tim Scott handled the question the best.
I watched him in an interview when he was asked the legitimate question, Piers.
So how are you different from Donald Trump on policy?
Where do you differ that way?
We would think that you're also for an America First Agenda.
And Senator Scott said, we probably differ very little.
That's really the right answer.
Well, it's interesting because I do think, yeah, just on that point, I mean, I did ask DeSantis that question.
Let's see what he said.
Let's play the clip.
People have been quite kind of scathing.
They've said your house trained Donald, your diet coke to his full coke, right?
You've heard all this stuff.
What are the differences between you?
Well, I know him very well.
Having now spent time with you, I could immediately identify a few differences.
But what do you think are the differences?
Well, I mean, I think there's a few things.
I mean, obviously, you know, the approach to COVID was different.
I mean, you know, I would have fired somebody like Fauci.
I think that he got way too big for his britches, and I think he did a lot of damage.
I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, you know, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda.
If you bring your own agenda in, you're gone.
We're just not going to have that.
So the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board.
And I think that that's something that's very important.
I thought that was an interesting response.
It wasn't particularly about policy, although obviously COVID, he would argue that by being much more free in the way he responded to it in Florida, it turned out to be a smart move.
But on this question of how he runs government, there's no doubt, is there?
If Trump gets back into the White House, you were there last time, you were probably one of the lone voices of calm sanity.
But all around you was daily drama and chaos.
I mean, there was.
It's indisputable.
And I'm sure that would be the same again.
Donald Trump thrives off that kind of stuff.
So there you have a clear point of difference in style.
DeSantis struck me as somebody pretty serious-minded.
He doesn't go out with all the lobby gang.
He's not a Washington guy.
He just wants to do his job and, as he puts it, rack up the score.
And he's been very successful in Florida.
I mean, he turned a 30,000 majority first time he ran for governor, tiny majority to 1.5 million, arguably the standout Republican star of the midterm.
So he's positioning himself as a different kind of leader, albeit they pursue a lot of similar policies.
Yes.
I don't believe that the Republican nomination is going to be won or lost, Piers, on gender, on age, on race, on style, and not substance.
People are drowning economically.
They're searching for pockets of air.
Many of them do want the guy back who they felt made them more prosperous and safer.
Now, there are plenty of other people who want an alternative to President Trump, even though his poll numbers have been increasing this year.
And he's really put a bit of distance, according to the Political Morning Consult poll just this week, really put a bit of distance between he and Ron DeSantis and the Republican primary electorate.
But I think for DeSantis, he should talk more about policy, taxes, regulation, any of his national security and foreign policy bona fides, because I'll tell you, the world feels like it's on fire right now in so many places.
You have Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin with this budding romance.
You have Iran salivating at Israel.
You have them also talking to China, it seems like, through Saudi Arabia, so many hotspots, Ukraine and Putin.
I think these governors who have a great story to tell, including DeSantis, are going to need to show that they have what it takes to be commander-in-chief and national security as well.
Let me just make very clear.
It won't matter who the Republican nominee is for president.
that person will become unrecognizable to the rest of us.
They will do to Ron DeSantis or anyone else what they did to Donald Trump.
And that's a given.
I also was very surprised he didn't just say, damn straight, I can.
When you asked DeSantis the question, can you beat Joe Biden?
He said, I think so.
Well, and it's interesting.
It's interesting.
It's interesting because when you read that, it sounds like he was in some self-doubt.
When you watch it, and I'll play the clip now, it comes over slightly differently.
Watch this.
You think you can beat Biden?
I think so.
So you're running them?
No, I didn't say that.
I just said I think I could.
I mean, I think that that's, I mean, if you look at Florida.
It would be harder to beat Biden or Donald Trump.
I don't know.
Those are two different.
Well, they are two different people, that's for sure.
But I think it was a more emphatic, I think so, than people have construed it to be.
I don't think he was expressing doubt.
He was like, yeah, I think so.
Yeah, I can beat him.
But it's interesting that.
It's far less than that's right.
Doesn't say in his eyes, I think he just wanted to make it clear that if he runs, he's running to beat Biden to the White House.
He doesn't just see this as running against Donald Trump.
That was one of the smartest things he said recently electorally.
He should transport people into the general election and say, I'm going to run against Joe Biden.
And there there's a significant contrast between, there's many contrasts between Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis.
But that road runs through Donald Trump, of course, the nomination.
But that was smart.
I guess he's less emphatic and more hesitant than his donors and his supporters and those who insist that he can beat Biden.
Let me tell you something.
Electability is a fiction.
I cannot guarantee who can and cannot win years before voters exercise their choice and voice.
The way you win the presidency, Piers, is not through electability, it's through electoral college.
And you have to go and win those key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, a whole bunch of them.
And you got to start with Florida.
Look, DeSantis in Florida, Kim Reynolds in Iowa, Mike DeWine in Ohio.
These are three states, peers, that Barack Obama carried twice that are now ruby red.
DeSantis and Kim Reynolds re-elected with 19%.
Mike DeWine re-elected by 25% of the vote.
So the Republican realignment in some of these states that were previously purple, if not blue, as I say, Obama Biden carried them twice, has been truly remarkable.
Okay, let me ask you a question.
I just have to figure out a way how to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Of course it comes down to that.
Let me ask you about Donald Trump and this case, the Stormy Daniels scandal.
Two questions really about this.
One is, do you think he's going to get indicted?
And secondly, will that help or hinder actually his chances of winning back the White House?
Well, Piers, in true disclosure, I testified twice before that Manhattan grand jury in this case.
And I think I was called there because I was a campaign manager.
And clearly, this was not a matter of the campaign.
It never crossed my desk.
And it certainly wouldn't have broken our stride.
I was thinking of one woman at the time in the fall of 2016.
Her name was Hillary Clinton, not the porn person.
He expects to be indicted.
He expects to be arrested.
And I can tell you, and having sat in the grand jury, I think many of the grand jurors themselves were paying rapt attention, taking notes, asking questions.
But it's a very unfavorable place for Donald Trump.
And the threshold to indict someone is far lower than to prosecute them and convict them.
What I think long term, it helps President Trump in that, electorally speaking, people do circle around him.
They say, you've picked upon him so much, you're picking on me too.
I think he's got other legal matters he needs to still outrun that have nothing to do with that case that this DA passed on earlier, his predecessor passed on.
The FEC in this country said no to it.
The Department of Justice said no.
It's a very odd case to bring now.
It's a very odd case to bring now to try to get a misdemeanor, books and records under New York law to become a felony and indict the president.
But there is a whole bunch of people, goes beyond the Trump base in this country, Piers, who are so tired of just trying to get Donald Trump when they feel like we need to get the economy back in order, get energy independence back, get crime lower, get inflationary prices lower, get the border under control.
People are very upset about that.
It's not just the Trump base, which, by the way, is 74 million people to begin with.
Yeah, listen, there's a lot of truth in that.
And I think making him a martyr over something which is comparatively trivial like this, I think could be a strategic political error.
And I think it is politically motivated.
So I wouldn't disagree about that.
Have you spoken to the president this week?
I have.
Yes, I have.
Well, can you send him a message?
Just say, look, it's the first anniversary of Piers Morgan Uncensored.
The show that he said was catching dead flies, I think, about nearly a year ago.
He was my launch guest interview.
So rather than ranting about Ron DeSantis sitting down with this guy in England, what about we do the reunion, the anniversary interview?
President Trump and me reunite.
Yeah, pass the message on.
Taxing The Wealthy Millions 00:07:39
I like it.
I will recommend that to him.
I certainly came.
I'm his warm-up band, I suppose.
And I'm sure if you went to Tallahassee for the interview, you'd be willing to go to Palm Beach for the interview.
I'd be at Palm Beach in a heartbeat.
So I was there last time.
That's why we did it in Mar-a-Lago.
Happy to get on a plane anytime.
So pass him on my very best.
Kellyanne, great to talk to you.
I will do that, sir.
Thank you, Piers.
All the best.
All the best.
Well, off to the break, Prince Harry's drug confessions in his book could cost him his US visa.
Will they kick him out?
And if they do, where will he go?
You don't want him back.
We'll debate that next.
Welcome back.
With me, I talk TV business correspondent President Lockwood, Talk TV contributor Esther Kraku and Daily Mirror Associate Editor Kevin Grow.
He was to be at Talk TV, but we only let him come in every now and again.
Kevin, two big blondes out there battling away to save their careers.
Boris Johnson, is he done or will he wriggle off the hook again?
No, I think the Greece piglets are for it this time.
Do you?
I think they'll find him guilty of recklessly misleading Parliament.
And what happens to him then?
Then they decide the punishment.
I suspect they won't press the nuclear button and make it 10 days because that would trigger a potential by-election in Uxbridge.
So you either get him to apologise to the House, but you give him a suspension of several days, five days.
Meanwhile, his successor after the one we forget about, trust, Rishi Sunak, squirreled out on a good day to bury bad news, squirreled out his tax returns today.
Now, when I interviewed him at Downing Street several weeks ago, he said they're going to come soon and he did deliver them.
I've got to say, I wasn't massively surprised in the way some people have been that he pays a lot of tax, particularly on capital gains on his investments.
The guy is stinking rich, as I said to him.
I'm going to count to you on that, though.
He doesn't pay that much tax when you consider he only paid around a quarter of his income in tax, around 21%, which is about the same as a nurse in this country.
He made close to 1.9 million over the course of a year and then only around 430,000 of that went out in tax payments.
You're right, he did make a lot of money through capital gains from his investments.
But a lot of his money that he's making is from his US funds overseas.
He's not actually profitable.
Why are we so obsessed with it being a problem we have a prime minister who's wealthy?
I mean, you were telling me earlier, tell me about, is this Singapore?
Yes, Singapore.
So Singapore, the Prime Minister, makes $2.2 million a year.
As a matter of, as a salary plus bonus.
Now, they're very clear about this.
We can't make apples and oranges comparisons because Asian governance models wouldn't work in the UK.
But they're clear on why they pay their ministers millions in salaries.
They say it encourages good performance.
It encourages attraction of the best candidates and it tamps down on corruption, second jobs and lobbying.
Thank you.
I made this point.
I said MP salary needs to be quadrupled and to be in the government you need to be paid five times higher because we need to draw the best talent because I do think the caliber of politicians we have now is so dreadful because no decent person would want to be a politician.
I sort of agree, Kevin.
I know you won't.
But I'm not sure there's a correlation between high earnings and quality.
You can see a bank on minimum wage.
What's happened to you?
But the point is, I'm going to be a good example of a billionaire where you wouldn't think that probity is high on the agenda.
But looking at Sunak's tax return, one, I think it makes the case for reform in capital gains and taxing out at least the same as income.
But secondly...
Secondly, yeah, in a cost-living crisis, the problem for Sunak, and he knows this, is he just seems to be out of touch because he is insulated.
He's building a swimming pool.
But then what do you want in Japan?
He can't get ahead of water.
So you can only be prime minister in a cost-living crisis if you're completely stealing.
He is the richest person.
We've seen what happened.
By the way, we saw with Boris Johnson when he ran short of cash, what happens when a prime minister runs short of cash.
They start doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.
Getting dodgy loads.
You know what's weird?
Back in the day, you would celebrate someone like Rishi Sunak because he's a brown man that's made a huge success of himself in Britain.
But now that he's prime minister, you're saying he's out of touch because he has two millions of people.
And by the way, and his wife told me that when she was very young, they had nothing.
Exactly.
Her father became a self-made billionaire in India.
It wasn't all just handed to him on a plane.
So the heiress has shaken the charity.
No, but the thing is, it's not very penny about it.
It's expensive.
She didn't steal the money.
Do we celebrate people who are self-made?
There is a problem.
Yes, we do.
Isn't that the whole point?
I don't want them running the country.
That's exactly.
You don't want any rich person running the country.
Not somebody who is so rich they're out of touch.
I've got no feeling.
I got no feeling when I interviewed Rishi Sunak that he's out of touch at all.
Do you get any sense then when you interview Trump or DeSantis?
Because US leaders and politicians, they rake in hundreds of millions in donations.
They're self-made and wealthy as well.
Do you think that makes them effective at governing or are they out of touch?
I think that DeSantis has proven in Florida that actually it's got nothing to do with it.
What people want, I think, and they see it in him, certainly, and I was quite impressed by him, I have to say, not in all his policies, some of which I'll take issue with, but in his leadership style, very firm, very data-driven, and very much get the score on the board, get stuff done.
That's what people led to me to do.
And it's popular.
I'm going to say everywhere I went in Florida.
They love DeSantis.
They love it.
In terms of transparency about earnings, the point Kevin's making, I think Britain has an issue with very wealthy people in power.
They want to see transparency of those tax returns.
David Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne, as well as released a summary of his tax.
I haven't seen any Labour leaders required to release those details.
Tia Sama's got a few bobs dashed away.
I mean, don't you think we're far from wrong?
No, look, they're wealthy.
They're comfortable.
So let's move on to someone else who's got a lot of money.
But I definitely don't want running the high office, which is our friend Prince Harry.
Now, he's got himself into a bit of a bind here, and I know why.
This is what he said to Tom Bradby at ITN.
There's a fair amount of drugs, marijuana, magic mushrooms, cocaine.
I mean, that's going to surprise people.
But important to acknowledge.
Well, maybe it is.
But what he didn't factor into his confession, particularly about drug taking in America, is he's not an American citizen.
So in a state like California, a lot of Brits might go there and think, oh, it's legal to be seen smoking splits.
It's not unless you're an American citizen.
The federal law for the whole country, which would apply to non-citizens, is that it's illegal.
So he's admitted breaking the law.
That could trigger a review of his visa status.
Absolutely.
And, you know, the argument is he's not a threat to the country, so that shouldn't affect him too much.
But it just shows he's a very stupid man because there's so many instances.
I mean, one of the things that he's been complaining about.
Hunting magic mushrooms and kind of saying that.
But the thing is, he's been complaining with his legal case with the Home Office is that he doesn't receive enough security because of his status.
Well, you know one thing, you don't help yourself when you talk about your Taliban kill count in your book.
He is his own worst enemy.
And this is another thing that just shows how really short-sighted he is as an individual.
I'm sure other people have written about drug use and autobiography.
They have, but that's historic drug use.
I don't think the stuff he talks about when he's a teenager is a problem.
The problem is this was current in America, taking magic mushrooms.
I remember in California while he's been there in the last year.
I remember Nigela Lawson being taken off a flight in 2014 to the US after she was.
George Michael told me he couldn't go back to America because every time he did, they put him in a room for a while.
DeSantis Faces Ratings Challenge 00:05:42
But she'd just been pictured on the front of the Sunday People it was with Charles Sartio then.
He wasn't taking it seriously.
Pulling her nose.
Now she hadn't admitted to drug taking or anything, but there was a suspicion.
They took her off.
Normally, it's if you then trigger, like you get a driving offense or you get some criminal offence, then it really comes into play and you can literally have your visa ripped up and thrown out.
Go take a break.
Hold whatever you're about to tell me, Rosanna.
I'm absolutely desperate to hear it.
You sound so pumped up for it.
Come in next.
We'll look to my exclusive interview with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
It's a really interesting reading with a guy who might, who might in 2024 be the new president of the United States.
Talk about that after the break.
Well, welcome back.
Well, to say that interview has already caused a stir is an understatement.
Look at some of the coverage it's been getting already.
Also in the news this morning, Governor Ron DeSantis hinting at what his political future may be.
And they sit down interview with Piers Morgan.
Governor Ron DeSantis says, well, he hasn't made a final decision on running for president.
He says he could beat President Joe Biden.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivered his strongest response yet to Trump's attacks in a new Piers Morgan interview.
Ron DeSantis in a new Fox Nation interview telling Piers Morgan, if I were to run, I'm running against Biden.
Florida governor sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan.
According to the British broadcaster, DeSantis slammed Trump over his character failings, chaotic leadership style, and his handling of the COVID pandemic.
And the New York Post did, well, the whole front page, which certainly rattle cages, that's what's prompted the response from Trump.
So, look, we've got it here.
There we go.
Ron hits Don.
That's not Don of the Pitcher, that's me.
Anyway, it's got a lot of people going.
Rosanna, Donald Trump.
What's incredible is that despite all the legal problems, the porn stars, the this, the that, the other, he is on the verge, according to the polls, of potentially making one of the all-time great comebacks.
Yeah, depending which poll you look at, he already has, at this point in proceedings, he's galvanizing his base at this point using his criminal proceedings, this Manhattan indictment about his Stormy Daniels case, which you've already discussed at length with Kellyanne earlier in the show.
But it just is extraordinary that DeSantis can't grab that mega base from Trump.
Well, it's hard for him, you know, because what he does, Esther, he just, you know, he's a big beast, Trump.
And he comes after people and it's very hard.
Remember what he did to Jeb Bush and all the others, low energy Jeb, little Marco Rubio.
He gives them his tags.
I'm not sure to sanctimonious words.
It's too long.
Yeah, it's too long.
The problem with Trump is he makes all the other candidates rotate in this orbit because he is the gravitational force, effectively.
And when you're running a campaign, well, a primary, that is effectively your kryptonite because you have to have some sort of attention.
And you can't really kind of play nice with Trump and then when you hook up.
No, well, that's why I think DeSantis was smart to finally get on the front foot a bit.
You can't just keep taking it.
He was funny, too, about the DeSanctimonious nickname.
Let's listen to this.
Which is your favorite nickname that Trump's given you so far?
Is it Ron DeSanctimonious or Meatball Rock?
Well, I can't.
I think even he went off meatball wrong.
I can't, I don't know how to spell de sanctimonious.
I don't really know what it means, but I kind of like it's long, it's got a lot of valves.
I mean, so we go with that.
That's fine.
You know, you can call me, you can call me whatever you want.
I mean, just as long as you, you know, also call me a winner, because that's what we've been able to do in Florida is put a lot of points on the board and really take the state to the next level.
I thought that was a smart response.
A, laughing off the nickname, but reminding people that he is a big winner.
I mean, in those midterms, most of Trump's picks lost or did badly.
DeSantis absolutely rocketed.
Now, he's behind in the polls, but he's about the same place that Trump was against Hillary Clinton.
Yeah, he's got to get in the game.
That's what he has to do.
He's got to get in the game.
But you're right.
He turned it round.
He laughed at himself.
People like that.
And he used it to say he's a winner.
And Trump had a terrible midterm.
If I am Joe Biden and the Democrat, you want Trump.
I definitely want Christ.
You think if it was a pre-Trump era, DeSantis would be absolutely the pick.
The ground has shifted under Trump and arguably under Boris under the COVID and under the wars in the last few years.
And the way politics is run and the way people vote is different now.
You know what's powerful?
Esther, charisma.
And whether you like Trump or not, he's got unbelievable charisma.
And I always say the weird thing about him, he's got the thinnest skin imaginable.
So I've had a load of statements from him today calling me ratings challenge and gun grabber and all the rest of it.
Oblivious of the fact he also did loads of interviews with me.
But he also has the thickest skin.
And that's an amazing quality for a presidential candidate when all the heat comes.
He can soak it up like no one I've seen and dish it out.
But there is a possibility in an alternative universe that people could tire of this.
So if inflation keeps going up, if the issues with the economy and with the energy keep hampering on, there is going to be a shifting point where people think you want someone serious handling this.
And I think that's something that could really help Ron DeSantis.
Exactly.
And DeSantis is a serious guy.
I mean, people will see tomorrow night.
I recommend watching it.
It's him as you've never seen him.
And he's also very emotional stuff about his wife who just had breast cancer and survived that last year.
His sister died in London of a pulmonary embolism.
He's just 30.
Wow.
Which was an awful time in his family's life.
So well worth watching.
Thank you, Pack.
Great to see you.
Tomorrow night, Ron DeSantis and Manny will be president one-on-one for the hour.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
Good night.
Export Selection