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April 26, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
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Suing Prince Harry Over Privacy 00:04:33
I'm Piers Morgan, I'm censored tonight.
Shocking new polls show that young people are abandoning the monarchy in droves.
So how do the royals win them back?
Could them suing Prince Harry for invading their privacy be a good place to start or debate.
The damning Boris Johnson biography by one of Britain's eminent historians lays bare the shambles of his premiership.
Was he Britain's worst ever leader?
And as the oldest president in US history gears up for another White House run, we'll debate aging politicians with the man who thinks he could become the youngest president in American history.
From the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored.
Good evening, London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Next week's coronation of King Charles will be a global spectacle.
Tens of millions will be watching as Charles is crowned in a ceremony steeped in a thousand years of regal history.
But judging by the headlines this week, the monarchy's problems lie not in the past, but the future.
A shocking new poll says 78% of Britain's young people don't care about the monarchy.
Almost 40% of them would even prefer an elected head of state.
And actually, who can blame them for having a dim view of the royal family or the monarchy, given that two of our most famous young royals have waged a three-year war on the institution?
They've weaponised the culture of validation for victimhood and convinced a generation of young people the monarchy is an antiquated evil institution.
And less than a fortnight before the biggest day in the monarchy's recent history, they're again out in force, making sure the headlines are all about them.
Our next speaker has an unmatched eye for a good photograph.
I've experienced his talent firsthand as he has captured many meaningful milestones for me and my family.
There's Cheyenne retiring Megan, ostensibly introducing a photographer friend at a talk this week, but of course unsubtly debuting a new look that apparently we're told is more paltrow than princess.
Either way, we haven't seen her since Harry's acidic memoir pumped 416 pages of poison into the royal debate.
So why now?
Well I think we can guess, right?
Well earlier this week we were treated to, well, I don't know what you call these pictures, but we're supposed to believe these are a surprise.
They're Duke and Duchess at a basketball game in LA.
It's the Lakers.
I was there myself two weeks ago.
And trust me, you don't get caught unawares if you're a famous person at the Lakers.
They tell you in advance, the cameras will be on you.
Do you mind if they use you?
Yeah, they knew.
Now about the same time here, 5am in Britain, Prince William was laying flowers at Nanzac Day dawn service.
So the message from California is clear.
You can dress up in your dusty robes and pout through ancient rituals for antique politicians, but we're the real royals.
We're young.
We're spontaneous.
We're free.
And of course, Prince Harry has launched another privacy-shattering projectile at his family.
Newspaper front pages are plastered with details of a private settlement.
Let's emphasise that again.
A private settlement by Prince William, his brother.
The details of which have only become public because Harry has chosen to invade his brother's privacy and tell everybody.
Even on the eve of the coronation, he's chosen to cause deep embarrassment and potential harm to his family.
Harry's book and a six-hour Netflix documentary unleashed unprecedented volumes of private, secret, intimate details about royal conversations into the public domain for breathtaking pots of cash.
The reality is that the biggest and most ruthless invader of royal privacy, however, in the monarchy's history is Harry.
Maybe it's time the royal family sued Harry for invading their privacy.
Because the damage that these two are doing is becoming very clear.
Protesters chanting Not My King tried to disrupt a visit by the King and Queen to Liverpool today.
Not my king!
But, and it's a really good butt, this, there's some hope.
Look at what these school children did who were there, had other ideas.
Hope Amidst Royal Embarrassment 00:15:38
I love it.
That's the future, surely.
Joining me now is the host of the Big Fish podcast, Spencer Matthews, Alex O'Connor, who is the host of the Within Reason podcast, and is an anti-monarchist, plus writer and commentator Larissa Kennedy.
Well, welcome to all of you.
So, Spencer, you, I mean, you're related to the royal family.
Your brother's married to Pippa Middleton, who's obviously Kate says, so let's get out of the way.
So, you're not a completely impartial observer, but you're a monarchist like me.
You believe in the royal family.
This poll about young people, what do you make of it?
Well, I suppose it's a high number of people who are claiming not to care.
It's not a high number of people who are claiming they would want something else.
What is the number, do you know, of people who would prefer the alternative?
About 40% indicated they may not be opposed to having some form of republic, a president, whatever.
Yeah, I mean, which is exactly, I mean, the alternative would be to have an elected head of state, which is, that's what you would prefer, is it?
Yeah, you describe, you mentioned earlier that the poll was shocking and said that some people would even prefer an elected head of state, as if this is some kind of radical idea.
Well, it is for this country.
I don't think it's a surprise that young people in this country are quite mystified by this bizarre relic of our constitution that still relies on the notion that hereditary political office is legitimate, is a legitimate institution.
Do you think they've looked at, for example, the premiership of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss over here or Donald Trump in America thought, you know what we need?
Get rid of the stable royal family at the head of our country.
Let's go for a Boris and a Don.
You think people have done that in this country?
Well, unfortunately.
Do you think that's what British people actually think about elected officials?
In other words, be careful what you wish for.
We have, they're not elected, no.
They have no real executive power.
But what they do provide, in my estimation, they provide us with something unique.
When King Charles gets crowned at the coronation in a week and a half's time, the whole world will watch and they will see our country at its best doing what very few places can do.
The pomp, the pageantry, the military procession.
And it's something to make us all feel proud.
What's wrong with that?
Well, nothing, but don't do it on my dime.
I don't see why.
It's not on your dime.
It is.
This is being funded.
Why is it on your dime?
It's being funded by the taxpayer, though.
Tourism pays for it.
Tourism, look, if it were true that this money is essentially going to pay for itself, then why is it that the government and the king felt it necessary to say that this would be a service that had value for the taxpayer?
Why are the taxpayers even involved at all?
Why can't the royalty government get pay themselves to the payment?
I mean, the taxpayer gets some money back from tourism.
That's the point.
The net cost of the royal family is a positive.
They don't cost us anything.
So that argument never washes with me because they actually bring more than they cost.
So then you're down to, I don't like the fact these people are privileged and live in palaces and so on.
But they perform hundreds of duties a year.
I mean, you know this better than anyone about the amount of matter.
Let's bring Spencer back in.
You know better than anybody the amount of work they all do, right?
They work hard.
Well just to be clear, I'm not, you know, I can't speak from, you know, for them.
But you're aware of the work they do.
As an observer, they're a very hard-working family that symbolise patriotism in this country.
And the majority of them have dedicated their entire lives to service to help Britain.
That's all they really try to do.
We're often told that we don't really have a good alternative to monarchy in this country, but I feel like we're already living it.
I'm told, on the one hand, when I complain about the illegitimate influence that the monarchy has over the politics of this country, that they don't really have any power at all.
They don't really do anything.
They cut a few ribbons here and there, except for the legal and tax exemptions that they have, the influence over the Prime Minister.
Perhaps this is true.
Maybe they really don't have the power.
You're missing that.
No, you're missing the same token.
But somehow, if I therefore suggest that we should get rid of them altogether, they're somehow integral to the upkeep of the political system.
No, they're not.
Royalists seem to want to have their own.
I don't argue that.
All that is ceremonial.
All that stuff is ceremonial to me.
They don't have any executive power.
They don't make the laws that we abide and live by.
What they provide, and we saw this clearly in the COVID pandemic when the Queen went on national television and acted like a national comfort blanket.
They are there as a constant above all the political fray and turmoil.
And when we have the big royal events, there are millions and tens of millions around the world who look at our country in a favourable light.
And you cannot calculate to me that value just in what you think it costs to put them in palaces and things, because the value, in my view, if you take it in totality, outweighs that.
And that's where their value lies to me.
Let me bring in Larissa, who's been listening patiently.
Larissa, you're a young woman.
What do you think of the royal family?
Are you violently opposed to them?
I think it's not necessarily important to dwell on my personal opinion, but looking at the statistic that you've shared there, I think it's interesting that, you know, in the video prior, there's bringing in Harry Megan into this, is bringing all sorts into this, when really young people not caring about the royal family is because young people have so much to care about right now.
We care about the intergenerational economic gap between those who have come before us and being a generation that may not do better than those prior.
We care about climate breakdown and the fact that we may not even have a planet to have royals on.
We care about the housing crisis.
We care about the cost of living crisis.
There is not space within the Overton window to then discuss the fact that, you know, are these pompous explays of excess, displays of excess rather, an insult to the widening gap between rich and poor and the poorest in our society?
To even question this is seen as hating Britain when really it's about wanting the best for everyone in Britain.
So I do struggle with this idea that, oh, there are certain things that have happened recently that have caused young people to move away from liking the royal family, when really it's that we're not steeped in all of the nostalgia that I think laws are.
Well, yeah, except that I would argue this, right?
We've become a far more multicultural society than we were, say, 30, 40 years ago.
And there's no doubt that in the polling, for example, on Meghan and Harry, young people tend to feel sympathy and believe what they're saying about the royal family.
Older people over 40 don't.
I mean, the polls are very clear and very split.
But my argument would be that their allegations, in particular, about racism in the royal family and callous disregard for mental health and so on, which were pushed very hard and now seem to be in massive retreat, that those allegations caused enormous damage with young people, particularly perhaps young non-white people in Britain, who believe the royal family, because Meghan Markle said they were, are a bunch of racists.
I was going to ask you if that was a dog whistle, but you actually just explicitly said that yourself.
So you are, let me say this correctly.
You believe that because there are black and brown young people in the country, they hate the way that the UK functions.
Is that what?
Is that your argument?
They hate what?
They hate the way that the UK functions with the royal family.
Is that is that the miss you've obviously misheard me before you throw phrases like dog whistle before you throw phrases like dog whistle around maybe listen to what I actually say what I said what I said was what I said was young people in the polling tend to be a lot more sympathetic and a lot more believing of the allegations of racism by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry against the royal family and that may be one of the explanations why they are in favor of perhaps getting rid of the monarchy altogether.
So in my view, it's been damaging what Meghan and Harry have said and now they're backtracking from what they said.
So they're never meant to say there's any racism.
But actually we all heard what they said and it caused damage.
That's not a dog whistle.
I'm just revealing facts.
It's not a dog whistle.
It's an explicit statement.
What do you think I'm saying?
The implication that black and brown young people are the reason that 80% of young people don't care about monarchy.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that.
I said one of the reasons why young people may not have a good feeling about the monarchy is because of the allegations, not just about racism, but also about mental health.
So you've got to listen to what I'm saying before throwing around phrases like dog whistle.
Otherwise you can jump to rather extraordinary conclusions and make rather bizarre allegations.
I'm listening to what you're saying and I also know the links that you are hoping that listeners will create.
So I'm just being real about it as you like.
Well you're not though are you?
I'm afraid Larissa, what you're not being is real.
Because dealers can actually hear what we're saying.
You're here, which is that young people are not only, I think separately from talking about Meghan Harry, I don't think it has anything to do with that.
I think they're looking at countries like Barbados perhaps who are distancing themselves from the monarchy.
And it gives us a fresh opportunity to actually discuss the history of monarchy, not with a lens that is riddled with nostalgia, but critically.
And that is to say that yes, much has been achieved, but at what expense?
And there are lots of young people and students who support campaigns around reparations, around decolonization.
And so to do that and at the same time to not have a critical lens towards monarchy is incongruent.
It doesn't make any sense.
So I think it's really important that we're seeing that young people's opinions and particularly young people who are criticizing monarchy isn't about recent events.
It's about a historical analysis.
All right, well, I don't agree with you about it not being connected, but I'm sure it's partly both.
Spencer, you do a great podcast.
I've been on it.
You talk a lot about mental health on that.
You talked about all that yourself.
Do young people just look at all this stuff through a different lens to people of my age?
Am I young people?
You're sort of in the middle.
I'm 34 years old.
You're nearly middle age.
So, you know, but what's your general sense about how generations, I mean, is this a generational thing?
Do older people have a different view of the royal family and monarchy to young people, partly because of things like that?
I suppose so.
I mean, most of my guests on Big Fish are slightly older.
And, you know, typically they've had very interesting stories of how they rose to be successful.
And lots of that has come through hardship and failure.
And it's how they've navigated treacherous and difficult times to become who they've become.
You know, I can't really speak to the mental health of the younger generation, but I certainly feel things might be a bit softer nowadays.
That's my actually, yes.
In a way, I think that is what I'm getting at, really.
And, you know, I don't want to always bring these royal debates back to Megan and Harry, but part of my problem with what they did is they weaponized things like racism and mental health.
And it caused a lot of damage to the reputation of the royals, not just here, but abroad.
And I think, I mean, just to bring you back in, Alex, there's no doubt in my mind that has contributed to young people, and particularly, I suspect, younger people of colour in this country, who have bought in perhaps to, by believing what they've been hearing, that the royal family has a group of racists amongst them.
And that's not going to make you like an institution.
It's going to make you want to get rid of it.
Sure, well, I wouldn't know.
There are a few things I find less interesting in this world than the sort of private affairs of Harry and Megan, or indeed public affairs of them either.
But the problems of the monarchy predate these two individuals.
I mean, there are plenty of ways to respond to what you were saying earlier, to engender national spirit and betress the economy that don't involve subscription to a hereditary, a controversial hereditary dynasty whose right to rule is still, if I might be allowed to remind you, officially legitimized by the authority of an Anglican God that doesn't exist.
I'm sorry, I just can't take this seriously.
I understand why.
You're an atheist, anti-monarchy.
I understand why they have to keep up with the crowns and the caves, because without these, who are these people?
Nothing more than 100%.
Well, I might say the same thing about you.
I mean, who are you, an atheist, anti-monarchist, to tell me how this country should be running?
Why do you have more rights?
Why the qualification a person needs to criticise the head of state is citizenry within that state.
I'd be quite concerned if you disagreed with that.
I think that, look, if...
With what?
If you thought that you require more of a reason to criticise your head of state than just being supposedly a subject to that head of state?
I mean, the moment somebody claims the right to rule over me by birth rate, I think I sort of automatically adopt the right to criticise them too.
I'm not the one who requires...
Just to be clear, you'd rather be ruled by Boris Johnson.
I'm the one who requires...
Would you rather be ruled by Boris Johnson?
I'd rather have an elected head of state, yes.
Like Boris Johnson, or lose trust.
I'd much rather.
You see the problem with elected heads of state.
They're often confirmed.
Do you not see stability in the royal family in the sense that they have always been there and kind of, you know, if they do continue, will always be there, whereas politicians kind of come and go.
And politicians, you know, are in in one minute and then somebody does something and all of a sudden they're ousted.
And also, it's typically, you'll always have kind of 50% of the country that dislikes any particular kind of head of state.
And so aren't the figures just on paper for the royal family better than any politician in history?
Perhaps, but aren't you troubled by the incessant referral to these people as highness and majesty?
Highness is a relative.
Well, I'll tell you what I'm more offended by.
Highness is a right.
Tell me what I'm more offended by.
More than what, Piers.
I'm more offended by what?
And on what grounds?
Let me tell you, I'm more offended by calling Boris Johnson the right honourable gentleman.
We can probably do with getting rid of that.
So when it comes to titles, that gives me more of a problem than calling Charles King.
Anyway, got to leave it there.
We're going to debate the Right Honourable Boris Johnson in the next segment.
Thank you both very much indeed for coming in.
And you, Larissa, thank you with your dog whistles.
I appreciate that.
Uncensored next is Boris Johnson, the worst leader in modern history.
Discussing that next with Sir Anthony Seldon, the historian and author of a bombshell book about Johnson's pretty awful time in number 10.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan on Sensitive.
Just over six months as Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister and tried to restore some order after the disastrous reigns of wet letters to Liz Truss and Boris Calamity Johnson.
Well, Johnson's three tumultuous years in Downing Street have now been serialized in a new book which includes having no plan, surprise, surprise, when the UK voted for Brexit and describing himself to a number 10 advisor, again, no surprise, as the Fuhrer.
So is Boris Johnson one of the worst, if not the worst leaders, not just this country, but the modern world has ever seen?
Well, joining me now is the author of the book, Johnson at number 10, The Inside Story, Sir Anthony Selden, also joined by talk-to-view contributor Esther Krakow and Daily Mirrors Associate Editor Kevin Maguire.
Well, Sir Anthony, great to see you.
How you manage to churn out these weighty tomes on our leaders is beyond me given the extra work you do in your day jobs.
But you do, and history is the beneficiary of this.
Johnson's Lack of Prime Ministerial Attributes 00:08:03
So a straight, a simple question.
In the pantheon of prime ministers, has there ever been a worse one than Boris Johnson?
Well, it's difficult, Piers, to say because prime ministers like footballers, they're in different eras with different worlds of operation.
But I think we can say that in the last 100 years, no prime minister has so underperformed as Boris Johnson, and it's such a weighty time.
He made Brexit happen.
It's highly debatable whether Britain would have voted in favour of Brexit at the referendum, for better or worse.
They voted with a majority to come out.
He made it happen and he got Brexit through Parliament, but he didn't have a plan.
This is the extraordinary bit.
If I can't, I just want to read an extract from the book.
I mean, this is unbelievable.
John Simmons, this is the night of the Brexit vote.
Johnson was finding it hard to think straight.
He'd been up all night watching the television as Islington home.
Only towards dawn did he realize vote leave would actually win.
Oh, bleep, he said, we've got no plan.
We haven't thought about it.
I didn't think it would happen.
Holy crap, what will we do?
This is unbelievable.
This is the guy who drove Brexit, admitting he didn't think it would happen, and he had no plan.
And guess what?
It turned out he didn't have a plan.
Well, he didn't have a plan, and neither did Dominic Cummings, who was the other key person who made it happen.
Look, there are a lot of very good reasons for doing Brexit, and I think that Brexiteers and non-Brexiteers have a right to feel aggrieved that there wasn't something really worked out so that the benefits, and there are real benefits of coming out of the EU, that they weren't really quickly seized upon.
And we've lost a lot of time.
And part of the reason why there is a cost of living crisis at the moment and business is finding it hard to secure alternative markets outside the EU is because not enough work was put in.
And frankly, blaming other people, which is what ministers tend to do, isn't good enough.
I mean, they were there on the bridge at the time, particularly the captain Boris Johnson and first mate Dominic Cummings, and they needed to have done better.
But it wasn't just Piers no plan for Brexit.
There wasn't a plan for running the country either.
Well, no, what's extraordinary is the delusion of Boris Johnson.
There's another extract here when he talks about, where he's quoted as saying, I'm meant to be in control, he says, after being increasingly troubled by being bypassed by AIDS.
I am the Führer, he says.
I'm the king who takes the decisions.
I mean, these are extraordinary comments by somebody who's a British prime minister, likening himself in language to Adolf Hitler.
Well, I think it's extraordinary, and I think that it was something he always wanted.
And he had some of the real attributes that you need to be a great prime minister.
I mean, he was hugely captivating when he was speaking.
When he was in a room, everyone wanted to be with him.
He had a great gift of optimism.
We did see good things from him.
He was, I think, very good communicating with the nation during COVID at his best.
He did well during the Ukraine crisis, leading the fight against Russia, showing great courage.
He had it within him.
But look, every great prime minister, Piers, has to have a great team around them.
And he disparaged his cabinet, didn't appoint the best people, appointed people, some who were transparently not up to it.
He made it clear to cabinet that he had no time for them at all.
And to his team, rather than the people who really know their way around Whitehall and Westminster, who know what the job is, who can support the Prime Minister, he sacked them or failed to stand up to Dominic Cummings when he was secondary.
Well, that's true.
And he also was his best team.
Right, he also comes across as just a serial liar, somebody where you just cannot really believe much that comes out of his mouth.
Well, one person who worked closely with him said this is tough because he lies morning, noon and night.
So Raymond Newell, co-author and I ourselves, what we say is he had a curious relationship with the truth.
He had his own vision of what the truth was.
He himself didn't think that he was a liar, but people around him found it extraordinarily difficult to know what he really thought.
And he kept changing his mind, not the least when the latest person had been in the room with him.
And that happens when you come into being Prime Minister without any clear ideology like Thatcher had or a sense of the party.
He didn't like the Conservative Party.
He didn't like Parliament, didn't like Cabinet, didn't like the EU, didn't like universities, didn't like intellectuals.
It was very clear what he disliked, but very unclear what he liked.
He had, let's remember, been a successful, pretty successful mayor of London at City Hall.
And there he was a much more inclusive figure.
And he also had a really good quality of people around him.
The leader is only as effective as the team.
I think you fit the network.
I think that really came.
Yeah, and also he had Cummings and he had Carrie Johnson, who's now a wife, and they're always at each other's throats with their different camps.
And it was all completely divisive and dysfunctional.
Sir Anthony, thank you very much indeed.
It's a compellingly awful book.
And I mean that as a compliment.
It's compelling and brilliantly written.
It's just awful in terms of confirming all my worst suspicions about Boris Johnson, albeit he's a complex character, but it's a fascinating read, as always.
So thank you very much indeed.
I want to bring in Kevin and Anesta here.
It really, it lives down to every expectation of this book, but just in really gratesque detail, as Sir Anthony always finds with his history, he comes up very badly, Boris from this.
Yeah, I think history will judge him really badly.
Ukraine is the one thing I think he really got right.
But there he gets an 80-seat majority.
He throws it away because he emphasized the Conning Conservative.
He was like a snake, Isle Silsman, he caught a moment.
He didn't really believe in Brexit himself.
It was a form of him getting promotion, which it worked.
He went to number 10.
Is he the worst Prime Minister of the last 100 years?
I noticed Anti Salvador very diplomatically said he underperformed.
And I think, I look back, Eden was poor, 55, 57, Suez crisis.
Liz Truss was terrible, but very short-lived.
I think David Cameron will go down badly because he lost Europe in a referendum he didn't want.
But I think Johnson, you go through it, even on COVID.
Look, he was breaking the law himself.
He was lecturing everybody.
I mean, he may have been communicating well from the voting, but he wasn't practicing what he preached.
I think he will be the worst Johnson for two reasons.
He was never meant to be a leader because he's not an Egyptian.
He doesn't have the integrity to be a leader.
But also because he had no ideological coherence to anything that he did.
Because you would read his pieces that he used to write and you would think he was the bluest Tory.
And then what he actually did, there was no ideological coherence there.
And I think that was probably the biggest downfall because he basically squandered the largest majority the Tories have seen since Thatcher.
And also, he didn't really have any lasting legacy outside of Ukraine.
Moral Courage in Modern Leadership 00:02:48
And if you look at for the first time.
And I thought Ukraine became for him a very expedient cruise.
He seemed to get on that train to Kyiv every time the crap was hitting the fancy.
I think almost anybody else in British politics would have done the same.
Okay.
I can hear people shouting the name of Jeremy Corbyn.
I wouldn't be sure about him at last doing the right thing with Ukraine.
But just where everybody else would have done what they're doing.
Okay, so I say worst ever, British Prime Minister.
I think you agree.
Yeah, the last hundred years, certainly.
All right, it's right up there.
Anyway, you're staying with me, Pat.
Come back a little later.
Thank you very much.
Uncensored next tonight.
From one of the worst modern leaders to one of the oldest, Joe Biden, he's going to run for president again, which will take him to 86 by the end of a second term.
Is he too old and too unpopular to run again?
Debating that with the man who wants to be the youngest ever president-Republican nominee candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy.
That's next.
Welcome back to Fears Morgan's Censor.
We've just been discussing failed leadership in Britain across the pond.
Polls indicated people feel much the same way about their leaders.
Just 5% of Americans want Biden and Trump to run in next year's presidential election again.
But it remains the most likely outcome.
This apparent crisis of leadership brought to mind an interview I did with a legendary singer Harry Belafonte, who's just died at the age of 96.
Well, here's Harry singing, of course, his best-known song.
A great singer and a great performer, and also a great interviewee.
I sat with him at CNN about 10 years ago, and he told me about meeting Dr. Martin Luther King and what a remarkable leader both King was and also Robert F. Kennedy, who of course was the brother of John Kennedy.
And both of them, of course, got assassinated.
And he went on to say this about what we lacked in the world today.
I think we've got it.
A lot of guys are politically smart.
They can play the chess game, but they've lost moral compass.
And it is the absence of that moral vision and the absence of that moral courage that I think we suffer from.
Well, joining me now is Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
It's a Vivek.
I thought that was a fascinating quote that I found when I look back at my interview with the great Harry Belafonte about the lack of moral courage in modern leaders.
And that really, I felt, resonated with me because there's a lack of moral courage in our leaders.
It resonates with me, Pierce, too.
The Republican Dilemma and Trump 00:12:29
It's part of why I'm in this race is it's not just a case for stylistic differences to say that, hey, that's just the way to be.
I happen to believe that is the way to be, morally courageous.
I want to look my son in the eye and say, I want you to grow up to be like him, whoever's in the White House.
And I can't have said that in good conscience for a very long time, probably since Ronald Reagan.
But I also think it allows you to be more effective.
Because, look, I'm taking our America first agenda further than Donald Trump did.
But I'm going to go the distance by not making it so easy for the other side to come after me.
And I think you can go further when you're doing it from a place of moral conviction, moral authority, and first principles, not just vengeance and grievance.
And as the first millennial ever to run for president as a Republican, I think that'll actually hopefully be able to set an example that the next generation of Americans is actually hungry to follow, even though they may not admit it openly.
I mean, I've had it on the show a few times, and I love your energy, your dynamism, and the different way that you think about stuff.
I think it makes you a very interesting candidate, even if, according to the polls at the moment, you don't have a lot of hope of winning the nomination, but you may well shape the eventual winner.
I don't want to downgrade your chances, but as things stand, it looks that way.
There's plenty of time to go, though.
So we'll see you there.
I'm not writing you off.
I'm just saying it's going to be a tough mountain.
But what's the thing to say?
But my point really is that when I see your youth and dynamism and energy, and I compare it with Joe Biden, for example, who is going to be 82 at the next election, which he wants to contest, and then 86 by the end of it.
And people over here think, my God, really?
Joe Biden's going to run again?
It looks like he can barely string a sentence together.
And that his rival may be, according to the polls at the moment, Donald Trump, who himself is heading towards 80.
And again, people across the pond go, well, there must be better candidates in America than two, you know, one octogenary and one heading that way, one who's just gotten a criminal indictment, and one who looks like he's senile.
Well, I'll say a couple of things.
I mean, first of all, I'm about in the polls where Donald Trump was in 2015 when he came down the escalator.
So I think that there's room for this race to mature, and that's why I'm in it.
Both Trump and Biden are over twice my age, literally 2x and Biden by margin and then some.
But it's not even just an age question, Piers.
I think that you want to see the essence of what's happening with Joe Biden.
It's not that his cognitive deficits are a bug.
They're a sort of feature, actually, because Joe Biden isn't really running for president in this country.
In a technical sense, he is, but he's not actually running.
It's the managerial class that has propped up President Biden as a sort of front man, as a sort of kind of the wizard of Oz, sort of a hollowed out husk, a symbol that they're using to advance their agenda.
So measured against that, it makes a lot of sense.
Him having cognitive deficits is an advantage, much like Senator John Fetterman being able to mentally function effectively in the Senate.
That lends them to be more easily captured by the managerial class, the true people that run the show in government in the managerial bureaucracy.
So it's a little bit more cynical than just saying why.
Yeah, it is.
But I do think the main reason Joe Biden's running again is because he thinks his opponent is going to be Donald Trump, and he's pretty certain he can beat him.
Now, I don't think he'd feel that way about any other Republican candidate.
I mean, you could pretty well put anyone else up against Biden, and they'd have a better chance.
The latest polls, for example, show that governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, in a matchup against Biden, would beat him nationally and is leading him in, I think, five of the six main potential battleground states.
Trump, conversely, in the same poll of polls, is seen to be losing to Biden across the board.
So it looks to me like Trump has this weird stranglehold over the Republican Party that the GOP can't shed.
And that may drive him to win the nomination.
That's why Biden wants him to be the nominee.
And that's why Biden's running again.
How do you stop it as a party?
I don't think that he has that stranglehold, Piers.
That's what the polls say now.
But you got to skate to where the puck is going.
Every time pundits make this mistake, anything before that first debate in August is literally irrelevant, as it was in the last cycle in 2015, as it has been in so many cycles.
And what I see when I travel rooms across the country, I mean, I'm only eight weeks into this race.
I'm already kind of in a fourth position or fifth position in almost all the recent national polls.
As somebody who came in as an outsider, what it shows is people in the Republican base are actually hungry.
They're hungry for America First as an agenda.
But what I tell them is America First does not belong to Donald Trump.
He didn't invent it.
It doesn't belong to me.
It belongs to the people of this country.
So this is a long process for a reason.
Okay, but when you're standing.
Okay, when you're standing on that podium at that first debate next to Trump, you know what he'll do?
He'll come after all of you.
Have you thought about a nickname he's going to give you yet?
Because he hasn't actually come out with one yet.
Well, actually, he's been calling me young Vivek Ramaswamy recently.
So I'll take that.
I am young as a presidential candidate.
There's a lot worse than that coming, but he's going to come for you.
Are you ready for him?
I've got a thick skin.
You might have seen me on with Don Lemon last week.
I go to the left.
I take a lot of arrows.
I don't think those people, I don't think Donald Trump is going to relish being on that debate stage with me.
I actually think, Piers, if Ron DeSantis doesn't enter this race, I think Donald Trump will choose not to be on the debate stage with me.
You know, if I was in his shoes, I understand that argument, but I personally think that we are a better party than the Democrats, where Joe Biden is being protected by the managerial class in the Democratic Party by saying they won't have the debates.
I think the debates are going to be crucial for actually sharpening the iron of the Republican party.
Well, I agree.
And actually, I do think you're going to perform very well at those debates, Vivek, because you debate well with journalists.
And like you said, you went on CNN, debated with Don Lemon, and that was the end of his career at CNN.
We don't hold back.
We don't play with kid gloves.
I appreciate you with the primary either.
Listen, I appreciate you coming on, Piers Morgan.
I sense it.
It's always good to catch up with this.
It's going to be really interesting to see how it all develops.
And you're quite right.
When Donald Trump first said he was running in 2015, he had the same poll numbers as you.
So stranger things have happened.
And I admire your energy, and I wish you good luck.
Thank you, Piers.
Appreciate that.
Well, let's talk more about the race for the White House now, because it's all kicking off.
Outkick Fox Nation host Tommy Lehran and Laura and Fox Nations host Geraldo Rivera.
Join me, a wonderful double act.
Now, Geraldo, you are a lot older than you look.
And I mean that as a compliment, in that you're quite near Joe Biden's age.
But to me, you're Joe Biden's real problem because you are full of 40-year-old vim and energy and dynamism and mental acuity, all the things we would want in a president of the United States.
Joe Biden is only a little bit older than you, but doesn't have any of it.
That's my problem with him.
Well, President Biden is eight months older than I am, Piers.
I'm hearing a little mixed minus, so if I seem senile, it's because I'm hearing myself in an echo.
No, no problem.
We hear you loud and clear.
And Mick Jagger is just three weeks younger than I. You know, I don't feel that his age is in any way compromising him.
I think that because he's, I have hair, I have a narrow waistline.
That's where you get the impression, maybe false impression, that I physically am different than our current president.
But I think that he has demonstrated in the last two and a half years.
I'm not a fan.
I'm not a Democrat.
I'm a Republican.
But I do believe that he is much more with it than his critics give him credit.
And I also believe, Piers, that uniquely this election will be about abortion rights.
The Gen Zers here in the United States, the progressive side of the Democratic Party, they are more motivated by reproductive rights and Roe versus Wade, our Supreme Court decision, that epic decision that voided the constitutional right after 50 years for a woman to have a legal abortion when and where she chooses.
I think that that will be, it'll be an issue like that, that issue.
It'll be, I want to be very specific.
I believe this race will be about abortion.
Biden is for abortion rights.
Trump is against abortion rights.
That's the dilemma the Republicans have.
They are a minority.
We are a minority when it comes to that issue in the country.
And I believe that that more than his stumbling, fumbling frailty will decide the election.
Tommy Loan, I imagine you couldn't disagree more with what you've just heard.
Well, I do agree on the abortion discussion.
I do agree that that is going to be a hurdle for Republicans.
And I have been very open about that.
We need to have a more moderate message on that topic.
But going back to what Geraldo said about we underestimate Biden's cognitive ability, let's cut the BS.
I think we've all listened to this president enough in the last couple of years to know that this man is clearly on a cognitive decline, which is why he didn't announce his reelection in front of people.
He put out a Twitter video at 6 a.m.
This is a basement president, and again, he will be a basement candidate.
The American people deserve more than that.
However, as Republicans, we cannot underestimate Joe Biden because the Democrat machine is so strong and so well oiled that they could put a paper cup up and have a chance at beating our candidate if we're not smart and if we don't get the message out about early voting, ballot harvesting and everything else that's open to the city.
But Tommy, let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this, Tommy.
I've just written a column for the New York Post in which I say there's only one way Biden wins if he genuinely runs again, as he says he's going to next year.
And that's if Donald Trump is his opponent.
That's the only way the Republicans lose that election.
And I recommend that they should go for someone 30 years younger, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, who's a proven winner.
He was the big standout winner of the midterm elections.
Do you think, Tommy, can the Republicans actually win with Donald Trump?
I know Trump thinks he can, but do any Republicans think he can?
Piers, you're not wrong.
And I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Unfortunately, we are at a point now where people are not going to vote for Joe Biden.
They're just going to vote against Donald Trump because people have such a bad taste in their mouth, which I believe is unfairly pointed towards Donald Trump.
But there's too many people in this country, Republicans and Democrats, who just don't like Trump.
So as much as I love Donald Trump, I wish he was our president, but I don't want him to be our nominee because I don't want Joe Biden to be my president again.
And even worse, I don't want Kamala or Gavin Newsom.
And I truly think before 2024, I do believe that they will throw Biden under the bus and they will usher in Gavin Newsome.
I'm going to hold firm to that.
Well, they might.
But Geraldo, just to come to you on that point, they might, unless Trump is the nominee, because they may think, you know what, Joe Biden beat him once and he can beat him again.
And Trump has proven really since that amazing win in 2016 that the next midterms in 2018, the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms, everything Trump has touched has pretty well turned to the opposite of gold.
So to me, it would be political suicide for the Republicans, but they do seem to be heading that way.
They might be.
I think that Biden is the only person that can beat Trump and that Trump will beat everyone else in the Republican primary.
I think that it will be Trump versus Biden.
And I do believe that the bigger issue, and you referenced it a bit there, Piers, is the number two on the Democratic ticket.
Kamala Harris, God bless her, a senator, attorney general, a wonderful record, has been a woeful vice president in terms of the public's reaction to her.
I've got nothing personally against her, but she was named, for instance, the border czar, our southern border.
She's been utterly serious with that.
And she barely showed up at the border.
I went and went on to something else.
I think that she is uniquely disliked right now.
I mean, I don't know.
Maybe she can turn it around.
But I think that if the Republicans focus on the vice presidential candidate on Kamala Harris, maybe they may get some traction out of that.
Well, I'll make a prediction now.
I'll not be it.
Predicting the 2028 Election Outcome 00:02:44
You got a face.
Here's my prediction.
You can play this clip back in two years' time.
But if the nominee is Trump, I say Biden will beat him.
And if the nominee is DeSantis, I say the Republicans have a big win.
Now you can take that to the bank.
About half of my political predictions come true.
I agree.
Harado, Tommy, great to talk to you both.
Thank you both very much indeed.
Okay, please.
Well, coming next on Uncensored, transgender swimmer Leah Thomas calls out women for speaking up for women.
We'll debate that.
Well, that's okay, Kevack.
My great pack, I want to play a little clip from Leah Thomas.
She's the person, the transgender athlete, at the center of this huge row about trans athletes in women's sport.
And she's gone on the attack about those that criticize the fact that she is a former biological male who's now decimating female swimmers in the pool.
She thinks it's transphobic to even suggest that.
Take a listen.
You can't really have that sort of half support where you're like, oh, I respect her as a woman here, but not here.
They're using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs.
And I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don't want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out.
And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half support.
Esther.
This is infuriating.
It made my blood.
Honestly, if you criticize Leah Thomas, Ubuntu is a six foot four inch biological male now identifying as female, but with no surgery to change anything, if you criticize, you apparently are transphobic.
And I don't, listen, I don't think the surgery makes much of a difference, although I would say there's a much more pool, probably.
But no actual reduction in your physical size.
Well, I would say that if you go the distance to actually chop off your penis, I can assume you're serious about this.
So that's one thing.
But it's the audacity to say that you're a fake feminist because you don't want a biological male to effectively disintegrate women's sports.
And anything to do with women's sports.
See, Kevin, for me, this whole debate would be so much less incendiary if people like Leah Thomas didn't say things like that just to enrage women.
Yeah, there are people on both sides who just really speak rather derogatory about the other side.
And we saw that there.
Look, biological sex matters in sport.
It's why we have men's sports and women's sport.
It's why they're not trying to be a female.
Yeah, I'm happy to say her, she, treat with respect in every way, but in sport, there is an unfair teacher.
Keep Tea Uncensored, Don't Dunk Cakes 00:00:58
Let's move to an issue which is even more incendiary, which is a new survey has come out that says Jaffa cakes, these things, are the best things to dunk into a cup of tea.
I've got you all cups of tea here.
Now, this is not even a biscuit.
This is a cake, right?
Yeah.
You don't dunk cakes in tea.
The one you do dunk is one I asked for, and they managed to buy five different biscuits here without buying the one I actually asked for, which is McVitie's rich tea biscuits.
Oh, yeah.
The only ones you should ever dunk in tea.
Oh, we agree.
Yeah, and custard creams.
No, they're fantastic.
They're not putting renunciation.
Rich tea for dunk is a bad thing.
Rich tea.
Richardson is followed only by the very thin digestive.
That's it.
That's it.
Really?
Nothing chocolate should ever go into tea.
But you're right.
Jaffa cakes are cakes.
These aren't biscuits.
The manufacturer argues what I can't do.
If I had a McVitie's rich tea, I'd be dunking it.
But unfortunately, they failed me.
Thank you, Pax.
Good to see you.
That's it from me.
Whatever you're up to.
Keep it uncensored and don't dunk your Jaffa cakes.
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