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March 29, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:30
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Another Victory For Common Sense 00:04:01
Tonight on Piers Morgan uncensored.
Probably had a better ski outfit though, I bet.
I still have the same one.
I can't do it.
No.
Star Strike lawyers, courtroom theatrics and an Oscar-winning A-list are accused of skiing recklessly.
Is the trial of Gwynedd Paltrow the most bizarre and pointless celebrity showdown in history?
I'll ask that queen of common sense, Sharon Osborne, and will pay tribute to the late great Paul O'Grady.
World Athletics bans transgender athletes from elite competition.
Should all other sports now follow?
We'll debate that.
Plus, as harrowing details emerge on a Nashville school shooting, which left three nine-year-olds dead, I'm going to ask two Americans, is this now the new normal for your country?
More children get killed by guns every year in America than anything else now.
Live from London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
There's a common assumption that the world is never to be going nuts.
The list of books, brands, movies, songs, ideas, products, people and words deemed offensive grows ever longer.
Those of us huddled together on the tiny island of common sense will be gradually submerged by the rising tide of lunacy until the two-spirit penguins are in charge of the zoo.
But recently, I've been feeling the little green shoots of optimism.
There's a recovery from woklahoma.
There's a growing dossier of evidence that actually most people don't think like these idiots and have had enough of all the woke nonsense.
At the end of last week, Sebastian Coe, the president of the World Athletics Council, one of Britain's greatest athletes, made this announcement.
The council has agreed to exclude male to female transgender athletes who have been through male puberty from female world ranking competitions from March the 31st.
Well, hallelujah.
How has it taken this long?
Athletes born male with their bigger, stronger male bodies and superior muscle mass cannot compete against women fairly.
It's just not equal.
That's a victory for common sense.
Last month, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak startled me by saying this.
The world's most controversial question bizarrely has become, what is a woman?
Yeah, of course I know a woman, an adult human female.
Incredible.
That was a question that stumped Sir Keyr Starmer, leader of the opposition.
It stumped Supreme Court justices in America.
It stumped poor old Nicola Sturgeon, who's now lost her job because she just couldn't work out what a woman is.
A politician finally having the guts to actually say the obvious and not worry about being condemned immediately as a vicious bigot because he's not.
Another victory for common sense.
The shocking case of Isla Bryson, the double rapist who transitioned to become a woman after, after reaching trial and then demanded a place in a female prison where he would have been surrounded by people he could then attack as he had done before, united the country in disbelief.
Only Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, didn't get that memo.
Trans women are women, but in the prison context, there is no automatic right for a trans woman.
There are contexts where a trans woman is not a woman.
No, there is circumstances in which a trans woman will be housed in the male prison estate.
Excruciating to watch one of the most successful women in modern politics literally end her career by not being able to stand up for women's rights.
And that complete failure of basic common sense led to her departure.
When days later, one of the titans of British politics was on the political scrap heap.
Isn't that a lesson for everybody else?
If you go against common sense, eventually there will be a day of reckoning.
Fighting Against Wokeness 00:02:06
This week's student at a US University have been protesting the decision to invite the state's governor Glenn Yunkin, potentially one of the presidential candidates for next year, to make a speech.
His crime is being a Republican.
He's actually a reasonably moderate Republican.
6,000 of the Snowflake students have signed the petition to stop him.
But remarkably, instead of bowing to this juvenile mob who just want to... sit in their little tank talking to each other about the same things that they all agree on, as we've become accustomed to, they've gone ahead and invited him anyway.
Another victory for common sense.
And when reporters discovered that so-called sensitivity readers were purging classic novels by Roald Darley and Fleming, Agatha Christie and so on, cleansing them, even Eden Blython got brought into this, cleansing them of apparently upsetting content.
The public said, no, shut up, stop this madness.
We couldn't find anybody to come on the show to defend it.
Finally, the penny's dropping.
And then we had The Guardian, the global home of history-bashing, logic-defying, virtue-signalling wokery, who've now had to issue a grovelling, massive front-page apology for itself for being a bunch of racists founded by somebody who employed slaves.
Which even the most humorless, hard-nosed signalers of virtue have been forced to admit is actually very unentertaining and amusing for the rest of us.
And even Hollywood seems to be finally stirring too.
Today, Jennifer Anniston lamented the fact publicly that many young people say friends was offensive.
The number of people saying, I can't believe it, but I actually agree with Piers Morgan, is reaching historic levels.
It's getting very busy on Common Sense Island.
I think we're going to need a bigger boat.
Well, I'm joined now by the perfect person, actually.
Talk to me presenter, superstar, great friend of mine, Sharon Osborne.
Sharon.
Love you, Piers.
Freezing Trailblazers In Place 00:02:46
You know what?
We've had to fight this fight.
And it's felt a lonely battle, hasn't it?
I mean, just for basic common sense.
And I always say to people, I think 90% of the public have always agreed with me and you about this kind of stuff.
But there's this sort of huge megaphone on social media, which skews what people believe is the mass thinking.
Yeah, and also that people, you know, goes against wokeness.
You get barraged with assaults, you know, on your social media, your life.
You just get, you know, a barrage by, you know, crazes.
Death threats.
We both had them.
Yeah.
We both had death threats for expressing honestly held opinions that weren't remotely racist, transphobic, sexist, homophobic.
Not at all.
We aren't those things.
But you've got to be able to challenge stuff in a democracy.
Otherwise, if you don't, what are we?
We're not a democracy anymore, are we?
Nope.
Not at all.
And, you know, as far as women go, I think it was Alice Cooper who wrote, only women bleed.
Right.
I mean, this whole thing where politicians like Nicola Sturgeon, who was an amazing trailblazer for women's politics and became a massively successful First Minister of Scotland, but got frozen into this trap.
But hold on, hold on.
Is it just me?
But when I first read about this criminal who'd gone back dressed in pink and had the worst wig I'd ever seen, anyway, it looked like his mum had dressed him up as a...
So he was scamming everybody.
He was scamming the wood.
His ex-wife, his ex-wife came out of the woodwork and said the guy's just trying it on.
Of course.
He's not transgender.
He just doesn't want to be put in a male prison as a racist.
He's like a custler and a thief and everything else.
But the thing is, it's like, who could see that?
Everybody, but 60% of all the trans prisoners in Scotland, apparently, something like 60%.
Yeah, but they're not.
Well, no, they only transitioned after their conviction.
Yes.
Of course they did.
Because they want to get out of a male prison and get into the easier female prison.
It's the get-out-jail-free card, isn't it?
And that's always been my point about it, is you've got to start from a position of protecting women's rights and women.
And you don't do that by allowing rapists and sex offenders to put their hands up and say, actually, I'm a woman, and then get put with women who they can attack.
That's the opposite of protecting them.
It's insanity.
And who couldn't see that this guy is taking the piss out of the system?
Look at him.
I know.
It turned out Nicola Sturgeon couldn't.
Yeah.
Because she tried in a torturous way to defend it.
And actually, in the end, she lost the support of the people of Scotland.
Because most of them just...
I mean, I've been to Scotland a lot.
I love Scotland.
I love the people.
And they're like, what the hell are you talking about?
Missing A Great Talent 00:07:42
Look at him.
Look at him.
He's winding you up.
He's a scam artist.
Like, look.
And it's the same with sport.
You know, this big thing by Seb Cohen.
Don't.
Finally, they're going to get to grips with this because it's not about not wanting transgender athletes to have a chance to compete.
They should be able to.
But they should either compete against their own biological sex.
So if you were born a male biologically, you can't, you know, you can't dispute science.
If you're born a male and you transition, compete against men.
The testosterone alone.
Right.
Without having shoulders this big, feet this big, and you're going in to swim against somebody that's five foot two.
We saw that Leah Thomas, the one who's six foot three, very muscular, very well built.
I couldn't look at her.
Towering over her rivals at the podium.
I couldn't look at the body.
She won one race by 56 seconds.
Yeah.
It was insanity.
And it's like, how can you not look at that?
Look at this podium picture.
And you see, I don't blame Leah Thomas.
Leah Thomas has transitioned.
Fair enough.
I respect that.
I don't mind calling Leah Thomas Leah, she.
That's fine.
But I do object to these women trying to catch her who've got no chance just because of their biology.
I mean, she's looking down on everybody.
It's like, look, yeah, I don't blame her for doing what she did, but you're absolutely right.
Put her with the men.
Well, we're going to debate that later.
I want to talk about one woman who made me almost indefensible at this stage, which is Gwyneth Baltr.
This case, this is all over $300,000.
I'm like, what are you doing?
Why would she let this go to court and not settle?
Let's have a little look at some of the highlights or low lights.
May I ask how tall you are?
I'm just under 5'10.
Okay.
I am so jealous.
I think I'm shrinking, though.
You and me both.
I have to wear four-inch heels just to make it to 5'5.
They're very nice.
Well, thank you.
I was yelling at him.
Pretty loud.
Pretty forceful.
I was pretty upset, right?
You're small but mighty.
Actually, you're not that small.
And you're not trained in accident reconstruction.
Me?
Yeah.
No.
Neither am I. You were wearing goggles, a helmet.
Yes.
Okay, kind of looked like everybody else on the slope.
That's always my intention.
Okay.
Probably had a better ski outfit, though, I bet.
I still have the same one.
What am I watching?
This is a court of law.
Where's the bucket?
And my favorite moment was when she was asked about what she lost from this terrible incident.
She went, well, half a day's skiing.
It's like, what?
I know.
I know.
Let's watch this.
Here we are.
And he has deterred you from enjoying the rest of what was a very expensive vacation.
Well, I lost half a day of skiing.
Nice.
Okay.
What are we watching?
Why is she letting this?
I've met Gwyneth a couple of times.
I actually like her personally, but a lot of people have come out and spoke quite disparagingly about her.
Dylan Jones, our friend who ran GQ funny, said he had a nightmare experience with her trying to interview her.
I've interviewed her.
She was very, very, very pleasant.
Yeah, so I just can't understand what part of her has wanted to contest this.
I don't get it.
I just, I've thought to myself, why doesn't she just let her insurance company deal with it?
She's insured against lawsuits.
Yes.
You know, just let them deal with it.
Back down.
Why are you doing it?
Has it been that bad of an experience that you feel that you want to be heard now?
It's crazy.
You just don't understand.
I mean, they're all bonkers in there.
Yeah.
The guy, what's that screeching sound?
We're watching someone.
What size shoot?
What size shoe are you taking?
It's like, who gives up what size shoe you are, madam?
Who are you anyway?
You know, I bet you had an expansive ski song.
I mean, what was she doing?
It's the most bizarre case anyway.
I mean, there's not going to be any winner.
Even if she wins, she loses, right?
And she wants a pound or something and then cost pay.
The whole thing's preposterous.
On a more serious and sad point.
Go ahead.
Paul O'Grady.
Oh, please.
I want to show a little bit.
He died aged 67 overnight, suddenly.
Incredibly sad, actually.
He was really, I mean, there aren't many people, I think, live up to the phrase national treasure in Britain, but he's probably right up there.
Let's take a little clip of Paul.
I'd seen it have Aussie Osborne as Chancellor.
Portuguese Reds from the Alentejo, which is basically the subtle heart of Portugal before you get to the Algarve.
Alentejo can't be here.
You know what?
She said, when you're on... I told you this chair has got mad.
Bosta died on Thursday night.
He was drilled with cancer.
He had cancer in his neck and his face and a tumour in his leg.
And the kindest thing for me to do was to let him go.
But whatever you are, boss, you're gone, but not forgotten.
Kev, give him a big cheer.
Come on.
Well, and that's now the case for Paul himself.
He was a great entertainer, unbelievably funny, completely outrageous, a bit like you.
When you spent time with Paul O'Grady, he would say the most incredible things, but always with a cackle and a laugh.
Warm-hearted, incredibly good broadcaster, but had a unique ability to just make people laugh, both on camera and off.
And adore him.
I'd have never met anyone that doesn't adore, didn't adore Paul.
He's such an unbelievable human being.
Loved his dogs, like you.
He was a good man.
And we've actually got a lot to be grateful to Paul for.
By default, it's a story not many people know, but I finished newspapers rather suddenly.
And Simon Cowell came up with this idea for a talent show.
And he wanted to call it Got Talent.
And he went to ITV here in the UK.
And they came up with putting it around a vehicle around Paul O'Grady and called it Paul O'Grady's Got Talent.
So we all went down to do a pilot.
Huge success.
Me, Simon Cowell, and Fern Britton, who was then doing this morning on ITV.
And the contestants were the audience.
And it was a great hit.
And ITV were going to launch this in prime time.
Massive thing for Paul.
Massive thing for me.
This was my big TV breakthrough.
And at the last minute, Paul fell out spectacularly with ITV.
You and I, of course, would never behave like this.
Never.
Had a massive falling out with them, called them a bunch of petty tyrants and said, I'd rather be sweeping the streets than work for ITV, which brought an abrupt end to my dream and the show.
And then Simon Cowell sold the rights to America to NBC.
They repackaged it as America's Got Talent.
I went on that.
You then joined it after a season.
Number one show in America.
And who knows, that may have never happened if Paul hadn't had a stroke with ITV and walked off.
And he had a great career over at Destin America who's got talent with the Hoff and Harry and various others.
So he was a great talent and will be greatly missed, I think, by this country.
He's irreplaceable.
There's nobody that could walk in his shoes.
He's just an incredible human being.
Well, he's the kind of guy.
I always think there's two types of broadcaster, especially for live television.
There are the type that when something goes wrong, they're paralyzed.
They can't do anything.
They just can't move.
And there are the types like Paul O'Grady who would revel in stuff like falling off his chair or something going wrong.
He'd find it hilarious and he would communicate his hilarity to the audience who would then all fall about laughing.
And that's a real talent.
Real.
Unfair Blanket Bans On Athletes 00:09:08
That's it.
That's the difference between fake and real.
Well, he's authentic.
And I always think you and I have had this discussion before, but authenticity is the key, I think, on television.
If people can see through you eventually, if you try and pretend to be someone you're not, they'll see through it.
And Paul was exactly what you saw on television, was what you saw when you met him.
Exactly.
All heart.
Yeah, great guy.
Loved his dogs, loved his fans, loved his viewers, and he'll be greatly missed.
Sharon, lovely to see you.
Lovely.
He referenced Aussie.
Everyone references Aussie.
How is Aussie?
He's good.
He's doing so much better.
I think I told you about it the other night, but now it's been announced.
We can talk about it.
He's doing a show October 6th in America.
He's doing it.
And he's there.
And it's going to be a great show, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, ACDT, Aussie.
So the rock is still rocking.
We're going to worry about Aussie stopping it.
No, no, no.
He never stopped.
He's back.
Please send him my best.
It's great to hear and it's lovely to see him.
He wants to talk to you.
Well, let's talk.
I'm available.
My answering machine says, if that's Aussie, I'm here.
All right.
That's right.
I'd love to talk to him.
Great to see you.
Love to see you.
Well, coming next tonight, as we discussed earlier, World Athletics bans trans athletes from elite competitions.
Should every sport now follow to protect the integrity of women's sport?
Welcome back to Piers Morgan on Sense.
The massaga of trans athletes competing in women's sport appears to be nearing what I would say is a common sense conclusion, at least for now.
Images like this of transgender swimmer Leah Thomas that we discussed earlier kind of crystallize the absurdity and unfairness.
Well, certainly that's what I think.
Well, high-profile stories like that of Laurel Hubbard, who made the Tokyo Olympics as a trans weightlifter at the age of 43, nearly double the age of any of the other female contestants, sparked furious debate.
Well, last week, World Athletics announced that trans athletes will no longer be allowed to compete against women from the end of this month.
They did it to protect fairness and integrity of women's sport.
Critics said it's transphobic.
That's their response to anything in this debate, and leaves trans women with nowhere to go, which is a fairer argument, which has to be resolved.
Well, joining me now is British shopboard champion Amelia Strickler and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Amelia, we had you on before about this and you were very passionate about why this needed to happen.
So I'd imagine you've really been pleased to see this development.
100%.
A lot of women, especially in athletics, are really, really excited about this.
It's just about now making it go into grassroots and master's level where there is a lot of trans women competing in the women's category as well.
So now that we've got the elite level, it needs to be all levels, all sports.
St. Peter, it's complex this, because I don't want trans athletes not to be able to compete.
Let me just say that straight away.
But I spent some time with Martina Narvatilova in Florida last week, who's been recovering from double cancer and it was a very moving interview.
But we actually had a chat about this as well, because she's one of the most high-profile LGBTQ campaigners there's ever been.
And yet, when she raised her head over the parapet about this and said, I just think it's a real problem, and you can't allow this to continue, otherwise women's sport will be destroyed, she then got, tried to be cancelled, and people abused her, they shamed her and so on, which I thought was completely ridiculous.
The idea she's not a friend of the transgender community because she's trying to stand up for what she saw as an unfairness for women's rights in sport.
And I just thought that was terrible.
What do you make of this ruling by Sebastian Coe and World Athletics?
And how do we resolve all this?
Well, the first principle is that sport has to be fair.
And it's not fair if people have particular unique advantages.
So you would accept that?
Well, I accept that.
But I would also accept that not all trans athletes are the same.
So some may have an advantage and others may not.
So for example, I know a woman, a trans woman, who competes in a women's football team.
Among the team, she's one of the smallest and weakest of the team.
No one can say that she has an unfair advantage.
And equally, all athletes in elite sports have some kind of advantage.
They may have extra large lungs or hearts, long legs, tall height.
Michael Phelps, that fantastic, brilliant swimmer who won so many gold medals in the pool, had an unfeasibly large wingspan.
When he put his arms out, he was six inches longer than anybody else's reach.
But he also had extra large lung capacity.
Right.
So I've heard of...
Yeah, I think, you know, it's not an invalid argument, Amelia, that there, you know, in all sport, you're going to get some people who are physical freaks, if for what of a better phrase, like Michael Phelps, who literally could do this, and it's normally the same as your height or something, isn't it, the span?
And he had six inches extra and massive hands, right?
Obviously can help him and huge feet, I think, as well.
What's your response to that argument?
But biologically, they're still the sex that they're competing against.
You know, at the end of the day, reducing a testosterone level is not going to cut it because women are so much more than a testosterone level.
You know, physiologically, you know, periods, whole other diseases.
Well, that is certainly not to be.
We're so much more than a testosterone level.
So just reducing a testosterone level at the end of the day, I mean, it's not going to change the physiological difference.
A lot of these people, too, are, you know, they're training as a male athlete for a long period of time before transitioning.
So they're having a lot of fun.
And it's things like lung capacity as well, all these things which you get after, you know, having gone through puberty.
They're real things which give most trans athletes an immediate biological advantage.
That's my problem.
The other half of this is if they don't compete against women born to female bodies, what happens to trans athletes?
Now, I think there's one of two things you can do.
Either they compete against their biological sex, which most of them have done anyway for many years, actually never as successfully as they do when they compete against women, which I think is the argument right there.
Or you create an entirely new category.
There are more and more, as you said, at grassroots level.
You create an entirely new category for trans athletes to compete against other trans athletes.
Well, my starting point is there shouldn't be a blanket ban on all trans athletes.
There should be individual assessment.
So where there are issues really...
That's never going to work, is it?
No, of course it can.
You can't make it one, you know, person by person by person by person.
Well, there are not that many trans athletes overall, and it's quite feasible.
Actually, there are more and more of them.
Well, there are, but there's still a very...
There's already 13 in elite athletics.
DSD athletes.
So 13 elite.
See, what my issue with is they're going to start breaking women's records irrevocably.
Because, I mean, Leah Thomas won one race against females, just for point of the argument, females, by 50 odd seconds.
I mean, it was ridiculous.
And then the podium towers over these, this podium picture, no one can be happy about that.
That is clear advantage for a biological male.
I'm saying where there is a clear demonstrable proven advantage, an unfair advantage, then of course that should not be allowed to take place.
But I do think that individual assessment rather than a blanket ban is the way to go.
Okay, Amelia.
Because then you penalise the ones who do have an unfair advantage, but you don't penalise the ones that don't.
So, Amelia, it's interesting, because in rugby, I think in places like New Zealand now, for example, they do actually, because they recognise that some kids, when they get to 13, are twice the size of other 13-year-old kids, they now separate them in weight classes rather than age.
So they put the ones who are a certain size, and they play rugby against each other, depending, but it's no longer about age.
So is what Peter saying, has he got any merit to do it this way?
I mean, I don't think me or many female athletes would think that was still appropriate because of the biological sex that is there at the end of the day.
There's still so many physiological differences.
And Peter, they're not going to have, you know, they're never going to have a period, right?
Whereas every elite female athlete once a month has, in some cases, quite a crippling condition, which they're going to get every month, which will affect their training, will affect competitions, right?
Which I completely understand when women say that.
That's not going to happen to a trans athlete.
No, it won't.
So they have that advantage regardless of their size.
Yeah.
But again, I say don't have a blanket ban, have individual assessment.
I think it's particularly unfair for intersex athletes like Casa Semenia.
Well, that's another case.
But it's very similar because it's about a mixture of male and female, and it's not something they have chosen.
It's something they're building.
But listen, I do feel, I feel, it's not like the rapist situation in Scotland, where I think they're literally scamming the system.
I do have respect for people who transition.
It's not about being transphobic at all.
Gun Laws And Emotional Problems 00:14:14
It's about...
But Casa didn't transition.
She was born.
No, I know, I know.
I think that's a different case.
But I think that they're very, very unique cases.
I mean, there's hardly any of them, right?
Well, there's the 13.
That's the number.
No, no, in terms of Cassus Martin.
DSD.
Yeah, sorry, that was the number I was referring to.
There were 13 DSD athletes in the women's distance events, and three of them had gold, silver, and bronze in 2016 Olympics.
So, I mean, clearly they have an advantage because they've done really, really well for themselves.
Or they might just be very good athletes.
But, you know, I take that.
But they did go through male puberty.
There's a debate going on here.
And I think we need more science, more investigation.
And I do think, as I said, it has to be fair.
But World Athletics said, we've seen the science.
This is why we made our decision.
We've seen the science.
Peter, I like your attempt to try and win this argument, but I think I don't agree with that.
Even Lord Coe said.
He did.
Even Lord Coe, he said, it's not proven that they don't have an advantage.
So, you know, it's a negative that Lord Coe and the World Athletics Federation are seeking to uphold.
And I think that's a very bad way to go.
Maybe, but I think the best way to do it is to say, stop, pause, continue investigating, but for now, preserve the integrity of women's sport, right?
I mean, that's where...
100%, please.
Please give us a shot.
Yeah, please.
In your case, literally.
Literally.
Yes.
Great to talk to you both.
Thank you both very much.
Well, coming next tonight as more harrowing details emerge about the national school shooting, which left three nine-year-old children dead.
Is this now the new normal in America?
Is this what it's going to be like?
A million new guns are sold in America every month.
A million.
How does this end without endless more shootings?
I'll debate that with two Americans who have very different views after the break.
Well, three nine-year-old children and three adults arrived at the Covenant School, a small private Christian academy in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday for what should have been a normal day.
But by the afternoon, all six of them were dead.
They were killed by Audrey Hale, a transgender shooter who had seven legally held weapons, including assault-style rifles.
Guns are now the leading cause, extraordinary statistic, the leading cause of death for children and teens in America.
Clearly, it can't go on like this.
But how on earth does it not go on like this, given that a million new guns are sold every month in America?
And this situation is getting worse all the time.
Well, it's not for me to tell Americans what to do with their gun laws or their gun culture.
But Americans have to sort it out down that.
They can't just keep letting schools being attacked like this.
So I'm going to bring together two Americans with very different views to see if we can somehow find some common ground which might possibly do something to help this situation.
I'm joined by Fox News host and lawyer Geraldo Rivera and conservative talk show radio star Ben Ferguson.
Well, welcome to both of you.
Araldo, I look at your tweets whenever these things happen and I sort of share your general, I think, dismay that nothing ever seems to get done about this.
And I've seen you arguing with people about it, but there's a real groundhog day feel now to this, where if the number of guns in circulation exponentially rises all the time and there are no new gun laws brought in, then how does anyone expect this to not just get worse?
I just keep wondering, Piers, when too much will be enough to motivate people to change the grim reality.
There are more guns in this country now than there are people.
There's been 130 mass shootings since the first of the year.
It is a horrifying situation.
The gun lobby is so overwhelmingly powerful, it intimidates anyone who speaks out against it, as you yourself experienced during your time here in the States, Piers.
It is powerful.
It is formidable.
It is very difficult to move.
They tend to duck down and stay out of sight for the raw impact of one of these particularly gruesome experiences.
Then they resurface and fight off any changes.
The state of Tennessee, where this latest shooting happened, anyone can have a gun.
Anyone can have a concealed weapon.
There are no laws against it unless you are deranged or have some court order against you, neither of which Audrey Hale had.
So we'll have more and more of these.
It'll happen again and again and again.
We'll be horrified for a day or so and then move on.
It's a situation.
This is the cancer in America and I don't know how you fix it, Piers.
Ben Ferguson, you and I have debated this, I think, for, I don't know, 14 years?
A decade.
14 years probably since I joined CNN.
You know, Sandy Hook, I felt at the time, surely would change everything and nothing changed.
And then we had exactly the same number of kids killed very recently in a mass shooting at a school, very similar to Sandy Hook, 20 again.
And I realized this was really Groundhog Day.
And why should it change when actually nothing gets done?
I simply ask you one question, I think, which is, I understand the Second Amendment.
I understand that you believe, like many Americans, millions of Americans, that you have a right to bear arms.
Okay.
And I understand you can't take away 400 million guns.
There's too many of them out there.
What I don't understand is why the rights of children not to be shot dead, which they're now being done in more numbers than any other cause of death, why those rights are not deemed to be above your right to have an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Let's start number one with the Constitution.
Shall not be infringed means shall not be infringed.
So that's the first thing, and that's in our Constitution.
Second thing is this.
It can never change.
There are only AR-15s.
Well, Ben, Ben, Ben, on that point.
Hold on, let me check.
Ben, Ben, hang on.
Ben, on that point.
On that point, it's a second amendment.
It's all.
Second thing they wrote.
Right, right.
But why can't it be amended?
There have been 27 amendments to your Constitution.
Why can't it be brought up to speed with the reality of modern America?
Because the founding fathers, peers, understood shall not be infringed needed to be used because, and I'm going to explain it.
Yesterday, all of the media and the day before were saying it was an AR-15 that was used.
It was not an AR-15 that was used.
In fact, the only AR-15 peers that was used in this shooting was by the police officer who took down the shooter.
The shooter, she had a carbine.
It was either a nine millimeter or a .40 caliber, which is a handgun that is the same exact caliber.
So the question is, if we're going to have an honest conversation about this, then you have to say and know what you're talking about.
There's also something else that's not true.
People have been saying the number one cause of death in America of young people is gun violence.
That is a lie.
They counted 18 and 19 year olds to get the number to be higher than it was over fentanyl.
If you want to talk about saving kids' lives, then be intellectually honest about it and don't cook the books on the numbers.
The number one killer in America right now of young people is fentanyl overdoses.
It is not gun violence.
They counted 18 year olds as an adult and 19 year olds, which are adults.
So that's the second thing.
So if you want to fix the problem, then we can't start with lies.
The third thing, Piers, is this.
What you just heard a moment ago from Geraldo was also a lie about my home state of Tennessee.
The idea that everyone can have a gun, that is a lie.
I own a gun store in Tennessee.
I train law-abiding citizens to protect and defend themselves.
People bring us cookies and brownies because they're able to save their own lives after.
Would you have sold this woman seven weapons?
Hold it then.
Would you have sold the shooter in Nashville seven weapons?
Would you have in your store when you sell your cookies and your tea?
Would you have allowed this person with emotional problems to purchase seven weapons?
The gun laws are clear here.
She did not break any laws before she broke the laws yesterday that would take away her rights to own a gun.
Now, if we didn't sell her a weapon, then you would have said we're profiling somebody in the LGBTQI plus community.
And how dare you take away their rights?
Seven weapons?
Heraldo.
Seven weapons listening.
At what point does a prudent, normal, ordinary gun seller?
So let me ask you a question.
To the 26-year-old or how many people?
28-year-olds.
Wait, this is the sixth weapon I've told you this week.
This is the seventh weapon I've sold you this week.
What do you think she's going to do with this?
Seven weapons in a week the way you describe it.
You're being disingenuous and you're full of crap.
If you want to learn something and come to a compromise, then listen and don't just say stuff that you know nothing about in Tennessee.
If you come in to buy a gun, we have the right, if we think you're under the influence, mentally unstable, or you have a problem or you seem like you're depressed or you seem that you're under the influence of anything to say no.
We say no to people all the time.
We only want to say that we're going to be able to say, let me jump in.
She bought seven firearms, guns, of different types in five different stores.
And this happens time and again.
I would ask you this, Ben.
I remember a time, I think it may not be the case now, but certainly for many years, I couldn't buy a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg in America.
They were my favorites.
They were chocolate eggs with little toys inside.
I couldn't buy them because they were banned across the United States.
In fact, I know a former British prime minister who tried to bring some into America and had them confiscated at LAX Airport because he wanted them for his nephews and he couldn't bring them in.
They were banned.
They were banned because there was a risk that a child might choke on the little toy inside the chocolate.
Sure.
And yet at the same time, there are people all over America wandering around arming themselves like Rambo.
I don't get that.
How can a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg have more restrictions than semi-automatic rifles?
Explain.
I would go to the real core of the issue here.
We have a mental health problem right now in this country, and people don't want to talk about that issue.
You have a woman here who we have normalized the mental health issue because we're playing politics.
Did you know the World Health Organization, before all of the pressure came in to get rid of a quote, stigma around transgenderism, used to categorize it as a mental health issue?
I have passion.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
I don't know if you have chocolate chocolate eggs.
We don't have chocolate egg.
Let's go.
You don't think we have mentally ill people in Britain?
You don't think they have it in Spain?
Italy or France?
This is the problem.
If you want to talk about mental health, then let's talk about mental health.
She was obviously dealing with serious mental health issues, and we shouldn't normalize mental health to check boxes by saying that.
And what about the shooter in Uvalde?
What about the shooter in Buffalo?
What about the shooter in Parkland?
Again, mental health issues are mental health issues.
Every week we get one of these mass killings.
Piers, let me just say one thing.
What is clear from what had just, this tragedy that has stricken Nashville and the rest of the United States, the thing that distinguishes it, unlike Uvalde, the officers were brave, courageous, bold, selfless.
They ran to the shooter rather than running away from the shooter.
The Second Amendment is stupid as currently construed by the courts.
We have to live with it, however, because there's no way it's ever going to be rescinded.
But one thing we can do is when people have the sickness, the obscenity to go and perpetrate violence with firearms, let the cops go.
Let's go.
Let's go in guns blazing.
Well, let the people at least be distinguished by that.
Yeah, I thought they were extremely courageous, those police officers.
They were incredible.
Hang on, in direct contrast to what happened at Evalde, where there were hundreds of them.
They were just a bunch of cowards.
Look, I've got to leave it there.
All I would say, Ben, I mean, Geraldo, thank you for saying what you say, because it's not a popular thing to do in America.
But at some point, Ben, Americans have got to do more than they're doing.
I don't know.
I mean, you probably, maybe you don't care about how the rest of the world views this, but you are supposed to be the number one superpower in the world, a place we look up to and respect.
I love America.
I love Americans.
I just can't get my head around this gun violence country.
That's what I'm saying.
I will say this.
Let me make the point I'm making, Ben.
You can't just have this going on and on and on and do nothing.
You can't.
Piers, last year, in September, there was a bill before the Senate to add armed security to every public school.
Not a single Democrat voted for it because they cared more about playing politics with the gun control laws than they did about protecting children.
If you want to protect these children, we do more to protect money in our banks in America.
We do more to protect our money in our banks than we do children in our schools.
All right, I've got to move on.
Thank you both very much indeed.
Geraldo, thank you.
Ben, thank you very much.
You can see, you know, how passionate this is in America and how intransigent it is.
There's not an inch given on this debate and nothing has changed in the 14 years I've been covering mass shootings in America.
Sandy Hook was 2012.
AI Threat To Humanity 00:03:32
It's incredible.
But it's just going on and on and nothing happens.
Well, next tonight, should we pause our development of artificial intelligence until we're sure the robots aren't going to basically take us over and maybe kill us all?
I'll discuss that with people currently identifying as humans.
Next.
Well, I'm joined by my pat.
Tonight, talk to me contributor to Esther Krakow and the Daily Mirrors Associate Editor, Kevin Maguire.
I want to start with AI.
I want to play a clip from an interview I did with Professor Stephen Hawking.
This was the last television interview he gave, it turned out.
I asked him, how would the world end?
What was the biggest threat?
Here's what he said.
Is artificial intelligence going to be the end of us?
And if it's not, how do we best work with it?
Ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution, there have been fears of mass unemployment as machines replaced humans.
Instead, the demand for goods and services has risen in line with the increased capabilities.
Whether this can continue indefinitely is an open question.
But there is a greater danger from artificial intelligence.
If we allow it to become self-designing, then it can improve itself rapidly and we may lose control.
Well, very prescient because today, a thousand eminent people, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, of course, the Apple genius for Steve Jobs, other tech leaders call for a pause, a six-month pause in the out-of-control artificial intelligence race.
Warning it's a profound risk to society and humanity.
Kevin, this is serious stuff.
These guys know what they're talking about, and they can see the rapid rate of progress with AI could lead to exactly where Professor Hawking was warning.
Yeah, and with any technology, it is who controls and benefits from it.
And if you want a few corporations to be taking over your life, well, that's going to happen.
And that's why I see the arguing for the pause with Elon Musk.
I say, hang on, you've been resisting regulation and not giving up details of, for instance, Tesla systems.
So he's resisted regulation in the past, but he wants it here.
But I do think it's right because otherwise it's going to have a huge impact on us all.
And it's going to be a few big corporations in control.
I mean, I've got to say, Esther, on one level, people have been worried about AI in relation to human jobs.
And that's a completely understandable thing where technology takes over human manpower.
This is a bit more serious.
What they're getting at is what Professor Hawking was warning me about at that time, which is actually it could just take us over.
Yeah, they've become so sophisticated that they effectively just become, they become too sophisticated to control.
I think it's a little bit too late for this.
And I think that the incentive to actually push for AI is that the commercial incentive is too strong to actually stop it now.
I mean, it's quite rich that's coming from someone like Elon Musk and all of these people who have basically pushed for this.
But on the other hand, who else is better equipped to warn us than people like Elon Musk, who get under the bonnet in these things and know how dangerous it is?
Yeah, I suppose they're concerned about arrival, aren't they?
Or they're concerned about rivals.
But I think we should be concerned.
Now we can question their motives, but I think we should be concerned about who controls and who benefits.
Absolutely.
And, you know, you don't want to stop human ingenuity, but when they're genuine threats to humanity, I think that's where you have to draw the line.
We're talking about a genuine threat to humanity.
Too Late To Stop AI 00:02:58
The Guardian newspaper, which is a genuine threat to humanity, they've had to issue this extraordinary front page, grovelling lead story apology.
I mean, quite extraordinary, apologising for the fact their founder was up to his neck in racism and slavery.
The UN's responded and said that they wanted the UK government and the royal family now to start grovelling as well.
Esther, I don't really get all this.
I mean, are we really saying now that in the modern day, we have to spend our entire time atoning for the sins of generations and generations ago?
I mean, the only people concerned with this are the ones that can never atone enough.
I'm just hoping that I get a cut of the lovely check that The Guardian is going to cut black people for their work in slavery.
Because I never seem to benefit from it.
Me and my friends never get money from it, which is very weird.
But at the end of the day, you can never atone enough for something like this.
The reality is no slavers or slaves are alive today to properly pay reparations to.
And it's just kind of a self-defeating argument, but they just keep going on about it.
Kevin, it is quite funny watching The Guardian self-flagellate like this, but there is a wider point.
In San Francisco, they're talking about giving $5 million to every black person who lives in San Francisco as reparations for slavery.
I just, I don't understand how this could do anything other than create new problems.
Yeah, but I don't think we should be afraid of discussing it and discuss it.
And probing into why want all the apologies?
What do they do?
Any institution like the royal family or company that dates back to the 19th century, the Guardian, will have profited from exploitation.
And it won't just be slaves.
It will be people.
There'll be people in the country.
You're going to have relatives and I'm going to have relatives and you'll probably get relatives, right?
Everyone's going to have relatives who at some point will have employed slaves.
Right?
And then there'll be the question of...
I doubt I have.
I think I was on the push.
I don't want you to get a tiny violin or something when I was on the generous side.
I was on the poor side of the track.
I think we were just going to...
Yeah, but you don't know, do you?
No, well, if it's found out, I'll say, oof, they weren't very nice and they were bad.
You've owe me 50 quid.
No, but you can.
You do.
You owe me money.
I'll make sure you get some dosh.
But you can see an institution like The Guardian, right, which takes principal stands, I think has to face up to its history.
And because the Scott Trust has a lot of cash, it can begin to make some amends.
I'd like to see the Guardian.
I'd like to see The Guardian then handing out a lot of money to people like Aston.
I need to see my bank account very, very juicy by Monday morning.
Or there will be words.
I would love to have been in the Guardian News because they're so sanctimonious.
They're all a bunch of woke virtue singlers.
And by the way, most of them are stinking rich, right?
They've all got about eight properties and millions of blood.
I would love to have been there when they were told your whole front page tomorrow is a grovelling apology because your founder was a racist slave owner.
In the American Civil War, The Guardian backed the South, the Confederacy of slave owners.
So it shouldn't be a great surprise to those like The Guardian now.
Guys, deliver it.
Thank you both very much indeed.
What are you up to?
Keep it uncensored.
Very important.
Tonight.
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