All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
June 21, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:56
20230621_piers-morgan-uncensored-titan-sub-timing-out-corne
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
Saving the Titan Explorers 00:15:11
I'm Piers Morgan Uncensored tonight.
Hours turn to minutes.
A massive rescue mission to find the stricken Titan sub enters its desperate final phase.
I'll talk to friends of explorers on board and ask a panel of ocean experts how much hope remains, if any.
Also tonight is an author, an activist, a world-famous intellectual, Dr. Cornell West, who spent a lifetime fighting the status quo.
Now he's fighting for the Oval Office.
He joins me live.
And the Miss England Beauty Pageant plans to bring back the swimwear round after a 20-year ban.
Cube delight and disdain in equal measure.
Is this firebrand feminism or Stone Age sexism?
Or debate?
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Well, good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Taking risks is the fire behind the human spirit.
This ravenous desire to adventure, explore and conquer has taken us, mere human beings, to the planet's tallest peaks and beyond into space.
It drove us to populate and dominate the world and to this day it burst through the boundaries of science and test the limits of human potential.
Without it, frankly, we're just lumps of dull meat.
The five people on board the missing Titan submersible who have gone missing by the side of the wreckage of the Titanic, they took a major risk and they knew what that risk was.
The waiver they signed mentions potential death three times on its front page.
They were under no illusion about what may happen down in the murky depths of that ocean.
The pledge made clear that the experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body.
Any failure could cause severe injury or death.
So they knew that, but they wanted to do it anyway.
They were prepared to plunge almost 4,000 meters into the dark and icy depths in a tin can the size of a car for a glimpse of one of the great historic legends, the Titanic.
I wouldn't do it.
I hate heights and I hate depths.
But my God, I admire those who do this kind of thing.
Last night I interviewed Janique Mickelson, a close friend of billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, who striped on board.
Hamish is larger than life.
He loves exploration.
He's been to space, he's been to the deepest point of the planet, he's been to the South Pole, and he's also mentored me a lot in my career as an explorer.
And this is why I'm living close to the North Pole to train to be a polar explorer and survive in the polar climate.
It's hard not to admire someone who succeeded in life, made all his money, but chooses to spend his time at the frontiers of human existence.
And of course, spend his money in the process.
But not everyone agrees.
We live in spiteful times fueled by vicious social media.
Some people seem to think that because the people on the sub are wealthy, then they're fair game just for mindless abuse, even though they may already be dead.
Hamish Harding tweeted one of these people.
One of the bleep billionaires on that stupid submarine is rich from running a private jet company, said this pathetic individual.
He's literally cooking the planet alive or meant to feel bad.
His stupid head has been squashed by the righteous pressure of the ocean.
Imagine tweeting that to the world.
And that's your thought about people who are either trapped and may never escape or are dead because they went to try to explore.
I can't imagine being that disgusting.
We used to glorify explorers.
We used to revel in their adventure and celebrate them.
And certainly we would mourn them if they failed in their risky challenges.
But now people like to despise them and laugh at them when they're in their most utmost peril.
And there were loads of comments like this on Twitter in the last couple of days.
Maybe we can get rid of the world's billionaires by encouraging them to take pleasure trips on mini submarines to view the wreck of the last mini submarine crammed with billionaires, said this charming lady.
Keep it going, she said, like the old lady who swallowed a fly until they're all gone.
And a friend of this show, Ash Saka, an otherwise intelligent political commentator, said this, if the super rich can spend £250,000 on vanity jaunts 2.4 miles beneath the ocean, then they're not being taxed enough.
Again, what would prompt you to say that when we don't know what's happened to these people?
When they might be dead or dying or desperate, terrified, in total darkness, freezing cold, the bottom of the ocean.
Why would your mind turn to being envious of money they've made or thinking this is about taxation?
It's nothing to do with tax and nothing to do with your pathetic jealousies.
There's a frantic search now to rescue five innocent lives.
Now is not the time for puerile abuse on Twitter or pathetic student politics.
If these keyboard warriors had the reins, we'd never discover most of the world we live in or make it to space or to the depths of the ocean.
We'd still be using leeches to cure the plague.
Adventurers are the people who strive to go bigger, harder, faster and stronger than the rest of us.
They take risks we wouldn't want to do all the time.
Tonight, with just hours of oxygen remaining on board that tiny vessel, I just want to say, and I hope most right-minded people would agree with me, that I hope these five adventurers somehow survive to tell their stories and then plan their next adventure, because they are the type of people that really makes this world go round.
Well, joining me is oceanographer Dr. David Galloway, a close personal friend of one of the men on board, Paul Henri Nagiole, by Fred Hagen, who's taken the trip to visit the Titanic wreckage twice, including with Paul Henry, and sub-owner Stockton Rush, and by submersible expert William Conan, who says he warned Stockton Rush that the Titan sub could be catastrophically unsuitable.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Let me start with you, Dr. Gallow, if I may.
We've talked before when I was at CNN about different kinds of situations like this, but it seems a particular crisis where you have this tiny submersible that's gone down to this historic site of the Titanic, and we don't know what's happened.
Today, there was this glimmer of hope about whether a sound that was resonating every 30 minutes may be an SOS signal.
Let me start with that.
What did you make of that?
Should we read too much into it?
What else could that noise be?
Yeah, thanks, Pierce.
Well, yesterday was a gloomy day for me because I saw the end coming.
The end was near.
And I had been paying attention to this notion that there was an explosion heard by a seismic device about the same time the sub was last heard from.
But then last night we had this news about this rapping sound, banging sounds.
And at first I thought, well, here's another rumor.
Let me see who the source is.
And it's a really credible source.
And it happened multiple times and reported by multiple different platforms, aircrafts.
So it's really boosted my morale quite a bit.
And I'm hoping and praying that we have a happy ending to this.
And you know this wonderful character, Paul Henry, who's done, I think, 30 trips down to the Titanic.
He's amassed a huge collection of stuff that he's found there, including chandeliers and so on.
So it's obviously something he's incredibly experienced at doing.
We're seeing a picture of the two of you together now, in fact.
Tell me about Paul Henry and tell me also someone of his experience on board.
Is that exactly who you need when you get a crisis like this, if they are indeed still alive?
Absolutely.
Let me clarify something.
When you mentioned he amassed this collection, not personally, at the time he was working for RMS Titanic Inc. and those are now in an artifact exhibit, so he doesn't have them personally.
Yeah, he's incredibly wise, battle-hardened, and calm, as you can imagine, and pleasant as much on the deck of a rolling ship in a hurricane as he is sitting in a Parisian cafe.
He is the kind of guy that can coolly and calmly think his way through big problems.
And just amazing.
He was the person that really put everything together for us to find Air France 447, which many thought would never be found.
So what's sad is that normally he'd be on this side of the camera with me, commenting on a situation like this, but now he's on the other side of the camera.
So it's a bit different for me, very different for him.
Let me bring in Fred Hagen.
You've been a passenger on board the Titan twice, in fact, with Paul Henry.
So you know him better than most.
You also know this vessel extremely well.
What are your thoughts right now?
Do you believe there's hope or are we really at the end game?
Do you fear?
As long as there is hope, we have to make every effort to rescue them.
And I have to tell you, Piers, thank you so much for your eloquent introduction.
It articulated exactly what I've been telling people, that this human beings are differentiated from animals by that divine spark that wants us to achieve, wants us to go further and deeper and faster.
And that's what distinguishes those gentlemen.
And I'm really tired of the negativity, people trying to tear Stockton.
Here's a man who's like trying to democratize the depths.
He's trying to come up with a new technology.
He's pushing the envelope.
And he's using the wealth of businessmen to fund what should have been funded by the U.S. government and by governments to research the depths of the ocean because the depths of the ocean are fundamental to our future.
That's where we're going to find the elements to power the green economy.
And I've seen the same remarks you're talking about, even on my social media feed, people talking about how could we spend this money to rescue these billionaire businessmen.
Well, I'm going to tell you why we do that.
We would do it even if they were homeless children sitting in a cave because the world arises to that challenge.
And the poor we will have with us only.
Jesus said that.
And you can't go to a better source than that.
And I would also say that this is an opportunity for the government to pay tribute to the private enterprise that is driving the technology that will be required to explore inner space, much as private technology is exploring outer space.
So kudos to Stockton for taking that risk, for moving forward.
And, you know, it's like the Wright brothers.
When they took that first flight and they released from the bonds of Earth, they had no backup.
They had no safety plan.
If they'd have crashed and gotten killed, they still would have been the first to fly.
He is the first person who's trying to democratize the depths.
And my hat's off to him.
Let me ask you, you've been on Titan.
So what are the conditions likely to be like if they're still alive?
And this sound, this banging sound is indeed them expressing an SOS call for help.
What would those conditions be like inside there right now if they are right down near the Titanic?
Well, it's horrifying for me to think of.
Last year when I was down with pH, you know, the titanium nose, it seats in the icy cold because the water down there is at a freezing level and it condenses.
And there would be sitting on the mats in the back of the submersible, but it's a very small space.
So the five of them must be laying side by side.
And, you know, if pH is sending these messages on a regular basis, he's doing so because, and he's doing it every 30 minutes to establish that this is a man-made pattern.
And he's doing it in because it's also giving those five people something to occupy their thoughts.
And the rest of the time, he would be having all of them sleeping because they would consume the least amount of oxygen.
So they're resting, they're sleeping, and then they're every hour they're getting up and they're knocking on the shell of that submersible.
That's what I hope is happening, and that's what pH would.
And in terms of the amount of oxygen they have, we're told that by about 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, UK time, the amount of oxygen runs out.
Is that your understanding?
That is my understanding.
And it would be heartbreaking to consider that a man as warm and wonderful and dynamic as pH could be lost to the world.
You know, I will personally feel impoverished.
And I got to tell you, if I could make a personal comment, and I've said this before, you know, I feel convicted because last year, PH, when we got down to the Titanic, he actually sat in that titanium nose.
It's freezing cold.
It's full of condensation.
And he had slippers on, which everyone works at me.
I took these soft-shooted UGGs with sauce-sold UGGS with sheepskin lining.
I meant to buy him a pair before he went.
And I keep thinking of him down there in this cramped, claustrophobic quarters with his feet frozen.
And I just, you know, I can't forgive myself for the simple act of not sending him the boots that I intended.
I know that sounds absolutely ludicrous.
No, it doesn't, actually.
It sounds very human and very caring and exactly how I would feel in that situation.
And the whole thing is a heartbreaking situation.
These are people who love what they do and are part of history when they go down and find stuff and bring it back up to the world to see.
But there is another side to this.
Pierce, if I could interject, just one thing I'd like to say, because you have referenced the people that are talking about how outrageous it is for us to spend this time and money.
I want to remind those people that 93% of the taxes paid in this country are paid by businesses through tax and remittances.
And we are now returning that favor by seeking them out.
And we would do that even if they were impoverished.
But we do that because in the Western world, we put no price on human life.
No, I totally agree.
I totally agree.
Listen, I find that politics of envy stuff just ridiculous in a situation like this.
But let me bring in William because William Conan, you actually, in 2018, you were one of 40 submersible experts who wrote a letter to the Ocean Gate CEO, Stockton Rush, warning that the experimental Titan sub did not meet industry standards.
And I understand that you stand by every word of that letter today.
The 2018 Safety Certification 00:04:17
Obviously, you don't want to be vindicated as such, but is this what you feared may one day happen?
Yeah, Pierce, it is a difficult situation we have over here.
It's right now what's going on in the field.
You know, the ocean has the ability to humble us puny humans out here.
It is very unforgiving.
And from the perspective of the industry that makes these vehicles, we are humbled by the complexity of what it takes to go down there.
What we have learned over 50 years is humanity has learned how to safely explore the bottom.
There are submarines that go down 6,000 meters and more every week.
I mean, we have been doing that for decades.
We have found out how to do this safely.
It takes time.
It is expensive.
Going deep is difficult.
And so as an industry, we have a North Star that we follow.
You might say, look, it's parametric.
You're just following old routines.
But it is working.
It has allowed us to operate for 50 years without a single event.
And that is to follow a framework of certification that we have built up.
It's an international framework.
We know it works.
And that has stood us by.
This is possible and this is safe.
And my understanding, if I may just jump in there, William, my understanding is that the Titan sub was only certified to reach depths of up to 1,300 meters underwater.
But of course, the Titanic is nearly 4,000 meters, which is considerably further.
So do you believe, if you're being honest, that it was irresponsible to try and go this far down with the Titan?
It is not possible to say what the actual parameters are, Piers.
And that's part of the issue of not going through certification.
And I just want to add to that.
The process of certification sounds like red tape, but what it really is, is teamwork.
It involves international organizations that have rules and regulations and inspectors and engineers that scrub the design, that verify how it's built, that witness the testing.
And what that does is it does give a whole team of seasoned engineers and professionals that add to ensure nothing is missed, that everything is in order.
Because when you're out there under these conditions, Father Neptune here does not give a lot of second thought.
But your concerns in that letter in 2018, they were that the Titan did not meet the requirements to do this kind of voyage, right?
So the origin, I wrote the letter.
I talked to Stockton about it, and it did came about because we do organize the only conference on submersibles.
We invite experts from around the world once a year.
And in 2018, at the end of the conference, a number of people said, you know, this is very, very risky.
4,000 meters for five people doing it experimental without following our accepted rules of design and safety is so risky.
What should we do?
Remaining silent didn't seem an option.
We are all a bunch of nerds and engineers in some way.
We have a very strong feeling and passion for, as engineers in general, a duty of care.
And there are certain things that we must take care of because it is not reasonable for normal citizens.
And let me ask you, William.
Sorry to jump on.
We're running out of time.
But William, just do you believe that there is any hope that they will survive this?
Bikini Wars and Feminism 00:12:41
Yes.
Yes, there is.
I agree.
We have to make all the efforts as long as we are.
It is an issue, the fact that we have completely lost communication early on and we don't know where it is.
And right now, searching a small submersible like that in a white field is so difficult.
But if we can find them, we can hook up to them and bring them to surface.
Let's leave it there on that positive note and hope that that is positivity, which is met and borne out by events in the next few hours.
We'll know, sadly, by tomorrow morning, the oxygen runs out.
So there's a horrible ticking clock on this.
And we can only hope and pray that they do come forward and there is a miracle.
Thank you both, all three of you, very much indeed for joining me.
I appreciate it.
Well, I says the next a lightning of the low, Miss England is to bring back the swimwear round.
Supporters say it's empowering.
Critics say it's sexist.
One of those critics will debate that with a former Miss USA next.
Welcome back to Piers.
Welcome to our Censor.
The Miss England contest has revealed it could restore its bikini competition after 20 years of self-censorship.
The pageant used to feature a swimwear round, the budding beauties, to showcase their physical fitness, but it was banned in 2002 amid claims of sexism.
Well, earlier this year, Miss Northern Ireland ditched its bikini round over concerns it was distracting from the true meaning of the contest, which suggests to me they didn't understand the true meaning of the contest.
But Angie Beasley, the director of Miss England, says she's refusing to bow down to the woke brigade as she mulls the big decision, adding, it's great to be empowering women to feel confident in their own skin.
So is this firebrand feminism or just Stone Age sexism?
And what frankly is so offensive about bikinis?
Well, I'm joined by the former Miss USA, Sarah Rose Summers, and Nirvana Noll, the former Miss Croatia, and the feminist campaigner and current Miss North London.
I've given her that title, Julia Bindle.
All right, Julie, let me start with you, Miss North London, which I'm sure you would have won if you'd ever entered.
What's your problem with this?
I never understood why they took it away.
I thought the whole point of beauty pageants was the name on the tin suggests it was about physical beauty, and we got to celebrate the beautiful female form.
Who cares?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating beauty.
There's nothing wrong with women's own definition of beauty.
The problem is pitting women against each other competitively and men deciding who is conventionally attractive in the sense of the very sexist stereotypes that girls grow up under the kosh of.
And women used to watch them and still do.
Of course, but there's no point putting...
Because there's little point using women as a smokescreen to suggest that, because of course I agree that women have the right to do what they wish with their own bodies.
There's no point suggesting that this is about women and women's empowerment and agency when this comes from men.
This comes from the directive that women's worth should be measured with conventional beauty.
Like I say, I have no issue with women's.
Okay, let me challenge you on this.
What is wrong with celebrating conventional beauty?
I used to love watching Miss World and those things.
Absolutely.
Look, the competitiveness of these beauty competitions is sexism on steroids.
They're competitions to see who's the most beautiful.
They're watching each other and saying.
It's the whole point of it.
Women lose and women win.
And this is exactly how women are socialised.
To feel worth less compared to the people.
Oh, come off it, Julie.
You don't believe this.
There's a beauty standard that is set by men.
Without sexism, we wouldn't have Miss English.
Last time I checked.
And also, if you think about what happens in these competitions, there are so many women.
Last time I checked, millions of women watch these competitions on TV too.
They love them.
It's irrelevant.
Is that irrelevant?
What I'm talking about is the because it's about the message that it sends to girls, to women in society, that this is something that you have to wear loads of clothes.
Otherwise, you otherwise.
So you can only be in a beauty pageant if you wear head-to-toe clothing that covers all your flesh.
This sounds like something out of North Korea or Saudi Arabia.
No, no, no.
Beauty pageants in and of themselves are a symbol of sexism.
I'm not suggesting banning them.
I'm not suggesting locking up those that organize them or profit from them, such as Donald Trump, of course, that well-known pro-feminist man who owned Miss Universe.
The stories about the sexual harassment, sexual assault, and terrible treatment of women in these pageants have been circulating for decades.
Okay, look, I won't.
Let's forget all of the reports from women about what happens to them during these pageants.
Let me go to someone who won Miss USA and Miss Universe, Sarah Rose Summers.
Sarah, you've been laughing away listening to this because apparently you're a tormented victim and this is demeaning and sexist and male things like.
Well, you basically implied that it's only men like me who are, you know, being sexist pigs for watching it.
Well okay, you implied it was a male issue, that because men are objectifying women like Sarah.
So Sarah, did you feel, did you feel objectified and a victim?
Did you miss 23 year old partner?
I did not.
I think it's just so important in this feminist female empowerment movement that we support each other's dreams and goals and aspirations, and no one ever forced me to compete in Miss Nebraska Usa, Miss Usa, Miss Universe.
That was something I chose to do and I started competing in pageants without a swimsuit competition.
Um, back when I was just 10 years old, I was super shy.
It brought me public speaking skills, interview skills, taught me confidence, how to hold myself on a stage and in a swimsuit and, long term, I believe the swimsuit competition is a positive for miss Contestants, specifically because it really did teach me a healthy lifestyle.
It taught me to long term sustain.
You know, I never neglected my sweet tooth.
Um, I love my sweets, but I found ways I enjoyed moving my body, and that's not something that came natural to me either.
I think that's so important.
When people hear that i'm pro-swimsuit competition, they instantly think, oh well, you know, look at you.
You clearly you don't have to work for it by any means.
Well, that is completely false.
Genetics have definitely been against me.
I've watched my mom yo, yo diet and diet her whole life, and so I knew firsthand that I wanted to be proactive and stay fit.
So I enjoy workout classes and things of that nature.
So for myself and most everyone, it's a very close-knit group of women.
You know.
We're all very like-minded.
We have big, lofty goals and are very philanthropic focused.
So some of my best friends i've met through pageantry and I would say that all of us would unanimously agree that the competitions that are in Miss Usa, Miss Universe, have only strengthened our confidence.
Okay, I like that and I.
I think that's exactly what my feedback has been.
I've i've actually judged one of these things, Miss Uk.
I think it was um absolutely yeah, I did interesting.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I thought it was a wonderful.
My judges panel yeah, I thought it was a wonderful judges panel was fully made of women as well.
Right, I mean, I just thought it was a celebration of of feminist empowerment.
Frankly uh Ivana, you are not exactly shy.
Uh, we see a lot of you on your instagram um, and you're wearing, I think, your swimsuit as we speak.
Uh, what do you make of this?
I mean, do you think there's any any merit to the argument that perhaps it is a bit demeaning for women to, in a beauty pageant, have to wear swimsuits?
Dear Pierce, I cannot even think, I cannot believe in 2023 we'll discuss about this.
I'm a bikini owner of SUC.
And first of all, bikini is part of life.
Even every grandma, grandpa has a bikini, guys wearing bikini.
Why guys are not sexual as I to wearing men's shorts.
It's totally different.
Men can be hormonal crazy about women wearing completely legends and cover.
It doesn't need to be bikini for sexualism, you know?
He can say, oh, this girl is hot, even full dress.
It's how we behave and how we allow guys to behave with us.
If I say, hey, I don't care about your hormones, I'm wearing bikini and I want to be respected.
I'm respected.
And girl who is coming to our competition for Miss Ward, she needs to be confident and she don't care about guy who is thinking with hormones.
I don't think this girl should even be in the competition because if she's shy and she's afraid to be sexualized, then this poor girl should be in a living room and watch on TV screen.
I completely agree.
Let me bring Julie back.
Julie, isn't this the point?
You don't have to enter these things.
They are a competition.
I used to judge Britain's got talent and America's got talent.
We'd have all sorts of people on with all sorts of talents.
No one was forcing them to be there.
There's no gun to these young ladies' heads.
They're on it because they want to show off their beauty.
And last time I checked, we are allowed to celebrate the beautiful female form, as indeed we are to celebrate the beautiful male form.
I mean, you're looking at it.
Had your producer told me that I would be debating with two women about this, I would have chosen not to come on the program because I will not argue with women about the choices they make.
My argument is against the men that set these conventional beauty standards, that impose these standards on girls and women growing up, most of whom feel that they are being judged and that they are being demeaned.
They literally just said the complete opposite.
More or less than their own competitiveness between women is the worst thing possible when actually we need to stick together.
So I wouldn't have chosen to come on the programme had I known I was debating with these two women because my argument isn't with them.
It's with the men that uphold these standards.
Right, but what you're conveniently ignoring is we've had two women who've taken part in these pageants who both say that there's no problem.
The women all enjoy being on it.
They'd like a bit of friendly competition.
They're all supportive of each other.
They don't feel remotely bothered about men objectifying them because as many women watch it as men.
I really don't see what the problem is.
And there are thousands and thousands of testimonies from women all over the world since the 1960s that have been in beauty pageants that talk about hideous misogynistic treatment by men, where they talk about rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, and being thrown away and discarded once they get to the age of 27, which is the age limit, and being told that they're over the hill.
So there are stories that we haven't heard tonight.
And I would tell your viewers, maybe go and do a little bit of Google research and have a look at the picture.
Okay, well, so let me ask you this.
How do you feel then about public beaches, high streets where women march around in bikinis, especially?
My issue isn't with nakedness or nudity.
My issue is with the value placed upon women competing with each other for who has the perfect in the eyes of sexist men that judge women by their calm off it.
Honestly, I've got to say, Julie, it's not with nakedness.
Julie, I think it's such a lame thing to say that it's just sexist men that watch these things.
They don't.
I know loads of women who love watching beauty pageants and admiring the beauty, as they do, by the way, when they buy women's magazines and see beautiful women on the cover.
I don't want to blame any women for anything.
It's all ugly men like me.
It's my fault.
Peace in a War-Torn World 00:09:34
Listen, we've got to end it there, but I make no apology.
Julie, I make no apology for admiring the beautiful female form, including yourself and my two other friends.
And I wouldn't ask you to, Piers.
I know.
I'm just offering my appreciation of Miss North London.
Is that okay?
And Julie, I think it's important to note, like I had said earlier, that my panel of judges was solely women that were successful in their industry.
So I wasn't shredding my stuff up there, answering onstage questions to men, as you keep mentioning.
Thankfully, I do believe that you're not going to be able to do that.
I would say, though, we've got to leave it there, Sarah.
I would say, honestly, Sarah Rose, I would say just because men like watching beauty pageants doesn't make us all a bunch of sexist pigs.
You can appreciate a beautiful woman in the most non-sexist manner.
You never use the possible pig.
You can just say you like beauty.
I admire beauty.
I like it in all guises.
I like a beautiful Arsenal football player as much as I admire a beautiful woman in a billy bag.
Thank you, Julie.
We've reached a point of agreement, I think, or at least acknowledgement.
I'm allowed to like beautiful things.
Lovely to speak to all three of you.
Thank you very much indeed.
Well, unsettled said next.
This is a real host of the real gear change, Dr. Cornell West.
Haven't spoken to him for many years, but was one of my favorite guests when I used to work at CNN.
He spent his life fighting the status quo.
He's now fighting for the Oval Office, and he joins me live next.
Welcome back.
Well, Dr. Cornell West has done it all.
Harvard professor, philosopher, social justice pioneer.
He even appeared in two of the Matrix movies.
If he has his way, his next job will top a lot.
President of the United States, as his Twitter announcement shows, he's ready for a fight.
Do we have what it takes?
We shall see.
But some of us are going to go down fighting.
Go down swinging with style and a smile.
Accenting the best in you and trying to tease out the best in me.
Let's do it together.
Well, that actually makes me want to vote for him immediately.
Dr. Cornell West, the Green Party presidential candidate, joins me from Orange County in California.
Dr. West, what a pleasure to speak to you again.
My dear brother, I appreciate you having me here.
And it's been a long time.
A long time.
Wonderful days with Brother Tavis in the dialogue.
But God bless you and your loved ones.
Well, I've got to say, you've aged better than I have.
And I've got to say, if all else fails, Dr. West, you'll always have a job doing the intro to my show each night with that voice.
We both are blessed that we are still here.
In our right minds, brother, this world is quite a place to be right now.
Let me ask you about that, actually, just off the top.
What do you make of the state of the world?
We've gone through a very disastrous pandemic, a cost of living crisis we haven't seen for many decades.
We've had some appalling racial situations like the George Floyd murder.
We've had, obviously, a war raging in Ukraine now, in Europe again.
Where are we as a planet, do you think?
Well, to tell you the truth, brother, the history of the species is one in which we're so wretched.
It's too many forms of domination, too much hatred, too much greed.
But we always have moments of interruption.
We try to broaden those interruptions with love, justice, deep integrity, and solidarity with foreign working people.
So, you know, we can read the great Lawrence Stern or we can read Cervantes and see, oh my God, we've always been such a wretched species.
So much, so much ugliness, so much overwhelming suffering, and yet they will not have the last word.
That's where courage comes in.
That's where compassion comes in.
That's where democracy comes in, my brother.
Is there a lack of moral courage in world leaders right now, just generally?
Absolutely.
There's no doubt about it.
No doubt.
Not just leaders, but I think too often you get professionals and educated people who are so obsessed with material success and they give up on moral and spiritual greatness.
You know, and I know that, you know, the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Heschel and Dorothy Day and in your own country, R.H. Taney and Stuart Hall and Jacqueline Rhodes.
I mean, these are truth tellers who cut against the grain.
No one's perfect, but we need exemplars of genuine compassion and courage that goes far beyond just obsession with money, status, spectacle, and image.
But we live in a world in which everything's commodified.
Everybody's for sale.
Everything is for sale.
The superficial and the surface replace the substantive and most importantly, the courageous.
So yes, it's a lot of spiritual decay in the United States.
We've got Trump leading us towards civil war, Biden leading us toward World War III, connected to Ukraine and China.
We need voices.
Get beyond the hatred, get beyond the revenge, but look at the world through the lens of those Franz Fanon called the wretched of the earth.
Poor and working people.
I don't care what color or country or sexual orientation or gender.
I'm talking about their humanity.
And too often, the organized greed at the top is leading us to destruction, my brother.
You've been very powerful, I have to say, you've been very outspoken about Ukraine.
You want to see peace in that war.
But how does peace look like if you're Ukrainian?
You've had Vladimir Putin illegally invade your country, a democratic country, seizing land which belongs to you.
How is there any peace to be achieved if Ukraine, in my opinion, quite rightly, don't want to give an inch of any of this land to the Russians?
Well, one, I think we always begin with solidarity with the suffering, and that is the suffering of our precious brothers and sisters in the Ukraine.
But we have to understand this in the larger backdrop, brother.
You know, and I know that the United States promised Russia they would not move one inch toward Russia by means of NATO.
Now, 13 former countries associated with Soviet Union are part of NATO.
There's missiles targeting Russia right near the borders.
You know, and I know again, if there were missiles in Mexico and Canada who were operated, sponsored by Russia or China, the United States would blow them into smithereens overnight.
That's how empires function in that regard.
So that, yes, that invasion is criminal.
Yes, that invasion is wrong and immoral.
But at the same time, NATO, as an instrument of U.S. global power and imperial policy, pushed them against the wall.
They did have a, they were close to a ceasefire agreement in March of 2022.
And yet the United States did not give the green light.
So we've got to really be able to do that.
And just to pin you down on my question, how do they now do a peace deal that doesn't involve Ukraine giving up land that they are determined not to give up?
Well, no, once you have the ceasefire, my brother, and you got to bring in the Chinese, you got to bring in the African leaders, you got to bring in Ukrainians, you got to bring in the Turks, those who have played a role in trying to promote the ceasefire.
you then move through diplomatic processes so that there's fairness in the diplomatic process.
But you've got to stop the fighting.
You've got to stop the war.
And it becomes more and more a proxy war against America and Russia on the way to nuclear exchange on the way to World War III.
This is madden us.
We've got to be able to have constraints in this regard.
But yes, you're right.
The suffering of our precious Ukrainian brothers and sisters is very real.
And that's one of the reasons why it's got to stop immediately.
$120 billion of U.S. taxpayer money already gone there.
And of course, Martin Luther King used to say that the bombs dropped in Vietnam land in ghettos and reservations and poor working class communities of any color.
So the military expands and we get pullback on social services, social programs for the poor, not just in the United States, but unfortunately, this is more and more true around the world, my brother.
Dr. West, I could talk to you for hours.
And I'm sorry, we've run out of time.
I want to wish you all the best with your campaign because the campaign, the race needs somebody like you with your intellect, with your passion, I think with your moral courage and your honesty and your conviction for things.
I've always enjoyed talking to you.
I have again tonight.
Please come back on again soon.
I appreciate it.
No, you call and I'll definitely be back when you stay strong, my brother.
Good to see you, Dr. West.
All the best.
All right, Doug.
And so next controversial social media superstar Andrew Tate and his brother appear in Cordon, Romania, facing charges of rape and human trafficking.
Musk, Free Speech, and Identity 00:05:10
We'll hear how they responded next.
Welcome back to Pizza More Minister.
Welcome back to my PAC, talk-to-view contributor, Esther Kraken, Associate Editor of Delhi Mirror, Kevin Maguire.
So, Kevin, do you identify as a cis man?
No, I don't.
Do you even know what it means?
Yes, and if I was called it, I wouldn't be offended, although I know it can occasionally be a term of abuse, can occasionally.
Well, it's quite interesting.
So this guy on Twitter objects to being called cis and cisgender.
So a bunch of trans activists then bombard him with calling him sissy and cisgender, right?
And using it as an attacking thing.
And Elon Musk got involved.
And he said, but actually the words cis and cisgender are deemed slurs on Twitter if they used in a harassing way.
And it was interesting.
So J.K. Rowling then responded to this.
Cis is ideological language signifying belief in the unfalsifiable concept of gender identity.
You have a perfect right to believe in unprovable essences that may or may not match the sex body.
But the rest of us have a right to disagree and to refuse to adopt your jargon.
That to me is crucial.
Why should I have to go along with being called something I don't even understand or recognize?
I'm a man.
I'm not a cisgender bloke or whatever.
No, you don't.
But also, if you're Elon Musk and you say you believe in free speech, why do you ban that when you don't, for instance, lots of cases of racism and he allows far-right groups to run him off?
Well, he is trying to ban all that as well, to be fair to you.
No, no, he took over Twitter and he relaxed the controls and the regulations.
He allowed certain people back on who were conservative commentators who had no doubt either been banned or shadow banned, which is even more kind of weird and sinister, by a bunch of wokies at Twitter.
And they're not all racist headbangers at all.
I don't think cis is enough of a slur to ban it.
I think this was a bit of a mistake on Elon's part.
But I do think the word cisgender or cis signifies ideological derogatory way.
You say, you can be sissy, right?
He's like, no.
Well, sissy is a word.
We're not having the trans activists deciding what language can or can't be used in a derogatory way.
Why has he gone off on this and he turns a blind eye or permits it?
Because of his child.
Politically, he's not actually right-wing.
He's a Bernie Sanders guy, historically, right?
I mean, he's not that right-handed.
Look, he's all over the place for his own commercial interests.
I think he's trying to find a balance of where free speech lies.
I really do think he's well into the future.
I think he's treating Twitter like his own sort of personal toy.
Which, you know, if you buy it, you can play with it, but I don't think this is enough of an offensive word.
We've just seen Hunter Biden, the son of the president, has now been charged on several offenses about his taxes.
That all came from the laptop, which was suppressed by Twitter, if you remember.
New York Post's story exposing the laptop was actually banned by Twitter from being seen by anybody.
Yeah.
And that's the kind of thing that was going on before Elon Musk bought it.
He's saying that's wrong.
Yeah, but look, we can condemn that, and it should have been allowed.
You know, New York Times, very reputable.
It should have been allowed to be there.
I mean, I think we can criticize that.
That could sway the election.
And we can also criticise Musk again here on saying, right, sis is bad.
I think he's right.
He just needs to distance himself.
I want to get an interview with Elon Musk.
He knows I do.
We DM each other quite a lot.
Come on, Elon.
You know it's time.
Andrew Tate, obviously, I've interviewed him several times.
He's now been charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women.
His brother Tristan and two associates also have faced charges.
They all deny the allegations.
This is what Andrew Tate said outside court today.
I would like to say that the movie clip in Lunch Marketing Thank you to all the supporters we have around the world, regardless of what the mainstream media keeps saying and the lies they try and report.
We get tens of thousands of messages from people every single day supporting us and they understand that we're not the first affluent wealthy men who have been unfairly attacked in our situation.
Unfortunately, it happens quite often.
So an emphatic denial, emphatic defenses, expect nothing else from him.
But what do we make of this case?
Can he get a fair trial in Romania?
Well, we'll see.
It should be dealt with on the facts.
But I don't think I'll be joining any vigils outside the Romanian embassy or suggesting Amnesty International make him a prisoner of conscience.
So you've convicted him before he's actually faced a trial.
He's a deeply unsympathetic character because he's probably guilty.
That's what I was saying.
Doesn't make him innocent, but I don't make him guilty.
I know this is controversial.
I actually think he is innocent, and I think this is more about reputation damage than anything because I think they've taken so long to even charge him.
And he's always proclaimed his innocence.
And I think if he was guilty of all of these things, he wouldn't be the world's most important.
I will be very interested to see this trial, actually.
See what actually comes out and let justice take its course.
Thank you, Pat.
Appreciate it.
That's it from me.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
Good night.
Export Selection