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July 20, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:54
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Corporate Wokery and Nigel Farage 00:03:58
Good evening, I'm Piers Morgan uncensored tonight.
The rapacious rise of corporate wokery.
A major bank says sorry for terminating Nigel Farage's account over his opinions.
Do we really want to live in a world where banks, brands and businesses are hooked on force-feeding us their politics?
We'll debate that.
As four-star general David Petraeus, led US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, then took charge of the CIA.
Who better to talk about the future of the Ukraine war?
How will it end?
What does it all mean for Putin?
He joins me live.
Thus, national treasurer Delia Smith becomes a latest celebrity to denounce vegans as the market for plant-based gruel implodes.
I think veganism is as dead as the stake I'm having after tonight's show.
Notorious activist Vegan Booty will be in the studio to try and prove me wrong.
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Just put my earpiece in.
That's one thing we forgot why I couldn't hear the director earlier.
It's actually a blessed relief for both of us.
Good evening and welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Capitalism is a colourful riot of banks, brands and businesses competing for our cash.
We give them money.
They give us the things we need or desire to make our lives easier and less miserable.
That's the deal.
But there's a problem.
They hate you.
And they don't seem to care if you know it.
At some unidentified point in recent history, companies lost interest in simply selling things and decided it was their duty to change the way that you and I think.
Someone somewhere said corporate board members of the world unite.
And suddenly the people who sell you fizzy drinks and credit cards were also telling you that Black Lives Matter, that Pride Month is more important than Christmas, you're personally to blame for climate change because of your filthy carbon footprint and so on and so on.
This week, Coots Bank, my own bank, was exposed for terminating Nigel Farage's account because of his divisive opinion, supposedly, and his stance on Brexit.
Here's Dame Alisa Rose, the CEO of NatWest, which owns Coots.
The climate emergency is the biggest challenge that we're going to face.
And as a bank and the leading bank in the UK, we have a real role to play.
Clearly, not enough money is going to female entrepreneurs and there are too many barriers in their way to helping them succeed.
We have targets at our CEO minus full level right the way through the organisation to encourage all elements of diversity and inclusivity.
Well apart from including it seems Nigel Farage, so her politics were pretty clear.
I actually happen to agree with some of her causes and views.
But I also wonder what's that got to do with my bank?
I disagree with Nigel Farage's opinions about many things, including Brexit, but I don't think he should be denied access to banking because of them.
Does anybody?
Well, Coots has tonight grovellingly apologised to Nigel Farage and said Nat West will offer to find him alternative arrangements, but haven't offered him his account back at Coots.
The Treasury says it'll toughen up its rules to make sure this never happens again.
But the reputational damage once again is done.
It seems Orwellian that it ever happened in the first place.
And when it comes to corporate wokery, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ben ⁇ Jerry's, which sells ice cream in America, blamed the United States for the war in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, it called for indigenous lands to be returned to Indigenous people.
Before it emerged, its own HQ was built on land owned by, you guessed it, Indigenous people.
What's the lesson there other than all this wokery tends to be based on hypocrisy?
Well, maybe it's just stick to selling ice cream.
Huh?
Try that old trick.
Bud Light, I'll be wishing they'd stuck to selling beer, the drink of choice for millions of sports-loving working-class Americans, teamed up with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who was a man until last year and now spends most of her time mocking women.
America's favourite beer company decided that she would be the perfect person to sell their beer and absolutely tanked their business because most of their consumers went, what are you doing?
Hypocrisy in Banking Inclusivity 00:14:22
Well, that debacle has cost them $27 billion so far.
The same thing you might remember happened to Gillette.
We suddenly told all its male customers, including myself, that we were a bunch of Harvey Weinsteins until we could prove otherwise.
They took an $8 billion write-down in value.
It's corporate suicide.
Or maybe it's Maybelline.
The popular lipstick merchant last week decided to tell women they should aspire to be big bald men with beards when they buy their lipstick.
Really?
Why?
Why would you think that would work?
Why is no one in your offices like me going, what are you doing, you idiots?
We'll see how it goes.
I can tell you how it's going to go.
Probably not very well.
Because most women don't buy lipstick because a big bald bearded bloke tells them to.
Last month, Adidas chose a biologically male model complete with visible bulge to advertise a female swimming costume.
Again, why would you do that?
This week we discovered that Disney has abolished its seven dwarves in a live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
The dwarves have been replaced by seven magical creatures of varying shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and genders.
Actually, what that means is one dwarf actor is still in that film about seven dwarves and the rest are average height people.
So six dwarf actors lost work in a Hollywood blockbuster because of wokery.
Disney also abolished its famous princes and princesses because they're gender stereotypes.
Really?
Can't we just have princes and princesses anymore?
But it does now feature gay kisses and lots of diversity.
Here's a Disney executive explaining why.
Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to like my like not at all secret gay.
Like I was just wherever I could just basically adding queerness to like if you see anything queer the show.
But like I just was like no one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me.
Why didn't like someone stop you with you adding your queerness everywhere?
I've got no problem with people being gay or trans or anything.
Frankly, black, white, I don't care.
I treat everyone the same.
I expect them to treat me the same.
But this stuff is utterly ridiculous.
Why does Disney, which makes fairy tale cartoons and adventure stories for kids, why does it need a queerness agenda?
I don't get it.
And nor do the consumers.
Disney's taken a huge hit as well recently.
I'm not even right wing.
You wouldn't believe it from the way I get treated on Twitter.
People call me a right-wing headbanger.
I'm not right-wing at all.
I used to edit the Daily Mirror newspaper.
It's a left-wing newspaper.
I think I'm sort of around the center somewhere, really.
Maybe slightly to the left.
Over the years, the left have got so nuts, I find myself sliding maybe slightly to the right.
Maybe.
Because the left has lost its mind.
This woke stuff is insane.
And everyone's getting sick and tired of it.
Not least sick and tired of woke companies telling us every day that we're evil until we can prove otherwise.
I just want to buy an ice cream.
I love ice cream.
Without dismantling the patriarchy, whatever that is.
Well, joining me now at Talk TV Trio, Isabel Oakeshott, Richard Tyson, Paul LaRone-Adrian.
Richard, how has it come to this that companies now feel a desperate urge to impinge on the rest of us their own supposed values and beliefs?
And if we veer from them, we're somehow evil.
Well, I think we're absolutely seeing that if you go woke as a company, you will go broke.
And you've read out lots of companies there who financially have suffered.
And actually, NatWest and Coots will financially suffer from this.
No question at all.
Hopefully, the lesson to be learned out of this is we are possibly at peak wokeness.
But the reason we've come to it, Piers, I think is because of weak leadership on the boards of directors of these companies who have fallen for this stuff that has come from younger people underneath, and they haven't had the courage to say, don't be daft, where's the common sense, stick to doing a good, you know, producing a good product and selling it to the production of the production.
Yeah, Paula, it's a problem.
I've seen this myself.
I saw it at ITV when I went through my exit from Good Morning Britain.
A lot of the aggro was driven internally by young wokeys at ITV.
I know you don't like the term, but let me explain what it means.
People do like the term.
I like the term woke.
I support the term woke because I know what it means.
What do you think it means?
Well, it's not what I think it means.
It's what I know it means.
I know what it used to mean.
I wrote a book about it.
I wrote a whole book about the number one bestseller, right?
It still used to be the same thing.
It's the same thing.
I know what woke used to mean.
Raising awareness for social and racial injustice.
I get it, right?
That is not what today's woke means.
Well, today's woke is the new fashion.
That may be your misunderstanding, but I understand.
Today's woke is what Coots have just done to Nigel Farage.
No.
By the way, let me ask you a question.
I'm a Coots customer, too.
I'm not happy about this.
I rang them yesterday to have a chat with them about it.
They wouldn't even talk to me about it because they couldn't confirm that Nigel Farage is a customer, right?
Because apparently it breaches his privilege.
Data protection is it?
Right, except they're briefing left, right, and center to the media about Nigel Farage.
The Data Protection Act is always a good idea.
But here's my point.
The point I made yesterday, I'm going to make it again.
I have a lot of what people think are controversial opinions.
I don't think they're very controversial.
But why are my controversial opinions allowed by Coots and why are Nigel Farage is not?
And why, if you believe in free speech, if you're a genuine liberal, would anyone be happy?
Anyone be happy with someone like Farage, regardless of his politics, having his bank account taken away?
Because I don't get it.
So Nigel Farage knows better than anybody that we live and work in a capitalist society.
As a private bank, they have decided, as a bank, they have decided that their customer is undesirable.
Did you read why?
I did.
Isabel, come back in a moment.
I know.
You can respond to what she said.
Has decided that he's undesirable and therefore no longer want to publicize.
So did you read the reasons why?
I did read the reasons why.
All of the reasons why.
I did the same thing.
Because it was actually shocking.
And do you know what's happening?
A lot of it was sound to his...
He likes Novak Djokovic.
I mean, it has to be a bit of a double-blind.
But on that basis, most of the people on Twitter last week have to be banned.
The first irony of this is, there's two.
The first is, as I understand it, and you'll correct me, Richard, if we were still in the EU, that wouldn't have been allowed to happen.
No, absolutely not.
The second thing is, why are we concerned about one millionaire when there are over a million people?
Paul Paula income status who cannot get access to bank accounts and who cannot and who cannot suffer because of that.
I mean, you say that's all right, but we're talking about one million people.
Here's the truth.
There are over a million people who are suffering who are suffering now.
Paula, this was Kier Starmer that had happened to you, just said the complete opposite.
Oh, my goodness.
You know perfectly well that it isn't just one millionaire.
You know that this is the absolute tip of it and that loads of organisations and individuals are being debanked for their political suddenly decided to low income when your status is not the same or considered to be the same as Nigel Farage.
It's completely the opposite page of 10,000 NatWest customers.
Can I ask Piers how strongly do you feel about this issue?
Pretty strongly actually, because I think it doesn't matter whether you're on the left or the right, the idea that a bank is taking a form of view about people based on their opinions, because there's no criminality attached to Farage that has been on earth.
They couldn't point to any.
A lot of it was, he gets on with Donald Trump.
He likes Novak Djokovic.
I thought it was ridiculous.
Completely ridiculous.
So, my question to you is, and this maybe you think it's a bit of a cheeky question.
It's only just occurred to me.
Why don't you shut your account with me?
Well, I want to talk to them, actually.
I do want to talk to them.
It is only by people like you doing that that organisations will realise.
I've been with Coots a very long time.
They've always been very good to me.
But I've got to say, I find this episode deeply concerning.
And for the boss of NatWest to say, you know, we should never have done this, but a lot of your executives were involved in this.
But yeah, I've had accounts closed by Metrobank, by Tide.
It wouldn't give me anything.
They're spending.
But with cash-in, for no reason, they wouldn't tell me why.
With the Metro Bank, it was with the Reform Party account.
I gave a press conference at the time.
They wouldn't give any reason whatsoever.
I've submitted subject access requests.
It'll be very interesting to see what they're saying.
So tell me something.
It's got nothing to do with Nigel.
It's also a small business.
I agree with you.
I've had their bank accounts.
This is actually a story about Nigel Farage, and that is quite frustrating.
That it has turned into a story about one man whose feelings have been hurt.
That is the best.
No, no, no, no.
This is about.
They lied.
As I said, there are a million people who have been in the middle of the story.
They lied.
Paula, they lied.
Hang on, hang on.
They briefed Simon Jack.
They briefed Simon Jack at the BBC deliberately, and it turned out he was sitting next to this woman, the boss of NatWest the night before at a dinner, by coincidence, we don't know.
But they briefed him, and he put out that it was actually the real reason was financial.
He didn't have enough money in his account.
It turns out that is not true.
When you read the full account in the Telegraph about this, it turns out a major part of their thinking actually were about his political views, which on the quate of Brexit, that's half the country.
So this idea that because he likes Trump and likes Djokovic and, you know, and may or may not have known some Russian people, whatever, none of this is a good enough reason to kick off his account.
A huge percentage of Coots' own customers will agree with Nigel on many, many of these issues.
So are they going to fire all of them?
I mean, but I would feel the same way if it was someone on the left, right?
So I don't take a partisan position.
Too many people I see responding to the Farage story take a partisan position.
Where I always believe in swapping names, right?
When you do a Biden story, imagine if it was Donald Trump and so on.
And the other way around and see how you'd feel.
And if you feel the same way, that's your belief, right?
Whereas it's not a partisan position.
And I can totally agree with you on that, which is why I say this is not a Nigel Farage story.
It isn't, but it has been played out as if it's a bank.
You know, the most stupid thing about it, Paul, you say that, but actually, at the end of their assessment as to why they were going to remove his account, they say, we are aware this will be a PR problem.
I know, right?
And then they still do it, and then the boss of Nat West, the over-boss of Coots, has to issue a grovelling apology to Nigel Farrell.
This playing right into his hands, of course, because he's a broadcaster and a politician.
Of course, it empowers and helps him.
But that's frankly the price you pay when you do this kind of thing.
And in a country like this.
I agree with you.
Where I agree with you is it really sticks in the throat to hear Coots talking about inclusivity when they're one of the most exclusive banking houses there are.
I mean, again, I just found that laugh.
Anyway, I will be talking to Coots, and it'll be an interesting conversation because I think they only think, I want to talk about Farage.
Actually, I want to talk about myself.
Thank you.
Am I going to read one of these reports about my views?
And if not, actually, why not?
I mean, either be consistent or don't.
Get him on the program.
I will ask the boss of Coots to come on.
I'd love that.
And I think they should.
We'll have a proper conversation about what makes a reasonable person.
People, actually, you should submit a subject access request from Coots about you.
It'd be an interesting reading.
It would be an interesting reading.
It would be interesting reading.
I mean, I'll be too hasty here, Ty.
You've prompted this.
Let's turn to weaponized incompetence.
Women are starting to call out their men for lack of responsibility over household chores.
With videos mentioning the term weaponized incompetence receiving one and a half or 148 million views on TikTok.
Let's take a look.
I'm going to show you guys what weaponized incompetence is.
It's something my baby daddy loves to use against me very, very well.
Last night, I went to bed at like 10.
I asked him, Hey, can you please clean the bottles, right?
If I were to ask him, Hey, I thought I asked you to pick up the kitchen last night.
Oh, well, you only told me to clean the bottles, and I did clean the bottles.
You didn't tell me to put the food away, and you didn't tell me to clean up the rest of it.
That's weaponized incompetence.
He's playing stupid to basically win an argument.
No, don't call me Nostradamus here, but I suspect obviously you two are a couple.
And I would imagine Richard is one of those that's probably quite guilty of weaponized incompetence.
He is tremendously competent in many respects.
Household chools.
But I have to, he's not bad on that.
But I have to say, when it comes to looking for things, the most cursory glance around a room for a lost item results in nowhere to be found.
Sorry, can't find it anywhere.
And Paula, you'll relate to this.
I do.
You find it in about two seconds precisely where you told them it was.
Yes.
Anything to say, Paul?
Have you experienced weaponized incompetence?
I have experienced it.
Maybe not in the last 14 years of a very, very blissful marriage, but I have experienced it.
But remember, we don't only see that type of behavior at home, we also see it in the workplace.
And that unfortunately causes significant issues in the workplace, as well as.
So if I leave my, like, I take my suit off after the show tonight and just leave it lying around for Kerry, my brilliant assistant, if I leave it for her to pick up, is that weaponized incompetence?
Absolutely.
Or if you, for example, just forget that you were supposed to have researched X, Y, and Z and you expect one of the fantastic runners who work for you to compile a report for you.
You could have done that yourself.
I mean, is there a grading here?
Like, if you're the hunter and provider of the household, which I am, I'm the hunter.
You bring in the big bucks, you work the long hours.
Are you entitled to down tools on households?
That's a big if.
Are you entitled to basically be incompetent when it comes to that?
I actually think that I'm going to adopt, I'm going to pick the fish.
I'm going to be American.
Because I could get in serious trouble.
May the record show Richard Seis finally was shut up at the idea of dipping his head over the parapet of weaponized incompetence, which says it all, you big doormat.
Biden's Age vs Trump's Divisions 00:12:27
Good to see you back.
Uncensored next: Donald Trump faces legal turmoil.
What about the state of President Biden?
Some say he's brought leadership and economic stability to stormy waters.
Others say he's quite literally asleep at the wheel.
We'll debate the leader of the free world next.
Welcome back to Piers Morgan Arts Center.
Most Americans seem to view the seemingly unavoidable rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump with a sense of impending doom.
The president's age is a major concern.
He's now using shorter steps to board Air Force One after a string of embarrassing stumbles.
Democrats hope that his political success will spur him to re-election, and we'll debate that in a moment.
It's a relentless volley of verbal blunders that look increasingly likely to define the 80-year-old president's legacy.
All right.
God save the Queen, man.
Vladimir and I, we shouldn't be so familiar.
Mr. Zelensky and I.
Well, Mr. President, Mr. President.
Has Vladimir Putin been weakened by recent events?
It's hard to tell, but he was clearly losing the war in Iraq.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear Valve.
It doesn't make edifying viewing, really.
Joining me now is best-selling author of new book, The Biden Malaise, Kimberly Strassel, and the Fox News host Jessica Tarloff.
Well, welcome to both of you.
All right, Kimberly, you've written a book about the Biden Malaise.
Many people feel that Joe Biden is looking like a man really feeling his age now, and that that is beginning to be an embarrassment for him, for the U.S. on the world stage, and for the Democrats.
What do they do about this?
Well, I think what's remarkable is just how rapid that change has been, Piers.
I mean, things were a little shaky even as he campaigned, but three years on, no one can avoid it anymore.
I'm very much struck by the number of times now the media feels that they can talk about it.
It's such a central subject, whereas not so long ago it was taboo.
And I think it's really up to Democrats to deal with this.
The president seems intent on running, even though many in his party, at least quietly, have a lot of concerns about that.
And what's remarkable to me is that you aren't having a repeat of the Carter years, where somebody other than Robert Kennedy stands up and challenges the presidency, because I think they'd have a far better shot of winning that primary against Biden than what happened against Carter back in the 70s.
Jessica Tarlov, do you feel comfortable, if you're completely honest, that Joe Biden was still, what, 18 months away from the next election?
And if he was to win another four years, so that would be nearly six years more, when you look at him now, do you see somebody physically and mentally competent enough to do a six-year stretch as president?
The most difficult job in the world, arguably.
Not arguably, I think pretty indisputably.
Yes, I see someone who can do it, but I do see someone, as Kimberly said, who has slowed down from even when he was campaigning in 2015.
Sorry, well, he was thinking about running then in 2020.
And that's something that Democrats are definitely taking note of.
There have been a lot of whisper campaigns.
You see it all over the pages of the New York Times.
People that clearly are not ready to attach their names to it, but are concerned about the future of this.
But I do understand why he's running again.
He has a huge record to be proud of and to be able to talk to the American people about.
And you're seeing that actually reflected now.
There's a new Monmouth poll out today where Biden is beating Trump in the hypothetical matchup that looks like it will become reality by seven points.
It feels like the tide is shifting a little bit in terms of how people feel about the economy.
I think a lot of that is due to the success of Bidenomics, as he calls it.
So yes, would I rather it was the 55-year-old version of Joe Biden?
Sure.
But this is what we have now.
And what he has been able to accomplish, I think, is what's really overriding concerns about that for the Democrats.
I mean, what's interesting, I think, Kimberly, is that the Republicans have their own problem, which is that Trump has now been indicted twice.
We have a third set of indictments coming, we believe, imminently.
There may be indeed a fourth set coming after that.
Completely unprecedented territory.
And there's a belief, I think, in Washington that Trump may well barrel his way through all this to be the Republican nominee, but hasn't got a chance of winning a general election.
Certainly not with independents who've been completely put off by this barrage of criminal indictments.
So the Republicans have their own issues here.
If it was Donald Trump, Joe Biden might think, you know what, I may not be the man I was, as Jessica rightly said, but I can still beat Donald Trump.
But he may be right.
Well, I think he may be right too.
I mean, this is one of the main arguments against Donald Trump is that he has not won in recent elections, and we can see that record of it.
I think the problem that the Republicans have at the moment is that this is turning into a repeat of 2016.
When you go look at Donald Trump and his poll numbers, I don't know how accurate those are, they seem to match pretty much about what he had in the 2016 primary, at 35%, maybe 40% support among certain Republican primary voters.
That means that the majority of the Republican Party doesn't want him to be the nominee.
And yet, there are so many competitors in the field that they are dividing the votes.
So there's going to have to be a fisher-cut bait moment for the rest of these candidates as they get closer to those Iowa caucuses.
If they are not polling beyond the low single digits, they get out and allow somebody who's got a better chance to consolidate some support.
Right.
Jessica, Joe Biden's public approval rating is about 41%, close to the lowest level of his presidency.
54% disapprove of him as president and his performance.
His rating is almost identical to where Trump's was at the same point in his presidency.
Obama's, by contrast, was 46% at this stage in his first term.
So he's got a lot of work to do here.
And the problem I see is that every time he has one of these gaffes or stumbles, verbal or physical, it gets put on recycle in the 24-hour news cycle.
Boom, We just run a whole sort of highlights reel just now and flashes around.
And that becomes the constant stick to beating with.
Is he able to communicate the message of the record that he has in the context of all this other stuff, which is clearly, from the optics, really bad for him?
Yeah, obviously, it's hard to go into an election if people, what they're seeing is you're tripping over sandbags, which that was the advanced person's fault that shouldn't have been there.
But it's not good for anyone.
In terms of the approval rating, yes, he's below Obama, but Obama did have points that were much lower than that.
It didn't happen right when he was heading into the 2012 reelection cycle.
But all of these presidents do have their moments.
And when Trump was at approval ratings around there or below, he also had the fact that he was so polarizing.
And that's the thing about Joe Biden.
He just isn't as polarizing as a Donald Trump or even as some other Democrats.
People know Joe Biden.
They're familiar with him over decades of service.
And he just doesn't turn moderate voters off and independents off in the same way that a further left Democrat might.
And to Kimberly's point about what's going on in the Republican side of all of this, I thought initially when DeSantis was getting in that he was going to be the person that everyone could coalesce around as the alternative to Trump.
I feel that he has not run a great campaign so far, that he has been disappointing in a lot of ways, shown that he's not ready for the proverbial prime time of this moment.
And there's a lot of time to go.
But you can't look to the Republican side now and say, that's the guy or that's the gal that they should be banding together that'll stand up the best against Joe Biden.
And that makes it the Trump-Biden rematch that we all expected.
And Biden is still the guy who doesn't turn people off as much as the other guy.
Yeah, I do think that's a really valid point that even a sort of two-thirds strength Biden could still defeat Trump because Trump is so divisive and has all these criminal indictments swirling around him, which it cannot be good.
I mean, it can be good to win a Republican nomination, but it can't be good to win a general election.
I just don't think most Americans who sit in the middle are going to be anything other than put off by that.
Don't you think, Kimberly?
Well, yes, I think that that's a very valid point.
I'm also really struck by the degree that Democrats continue to bank on Joe Biden's win on the basis of a rematch with Donald Trump.
I would like to consider what this race would actually look like, by contrast, if you suddenly had a very dynamic 50-year-old Republican nominee that was not Donald Trump, who had a record, for instance, like DeSantis does down in Florida.
I mean, if you dig in to Joe Biden's poll numbers, really dig in, you know, you might think Americans tend to look back at the 1970s and think, oh, the terrible, bad 70s, the Jimmy Carter presidency.
You know, Joe Biden, when it comes to the handling of the economy, doesn't even poll as well as Jimmy Carter.
And those are the issues that people go to vote on.
So right now, the party is, again, banking that they're going to get someone that's even less popular than Joe Biden.
They sure better hope that turns out because they've got a really big problem otherwise.
Well, you know what I would do if I were the Democrats, and I'm not the Democrats, I can't even vote in your glorious election.
But if I was, I would be working out a way to get someone like Gavin Newsom to be the nominee, come what may.
And actually, I think I could actually imagine a scenario here where in the end you end up with Newsome via DeSantis or Junkin, actually.
I mean, I might be losing my marbles, but I do think that in the end may be what happens.
And we don't end up with the rematch everyone doesn't want to have.
Jessica, final word to you.
Yeah, I mean, I think that if Joe Biden chooses of his own volition not to run, that you're absolutely going to see Gavin Newsome.
I think Gretchen Whitmer as well, her super PAC is raising money like wildfire.
She's fantastic.
The party's really excited about her.
Obviously, Kamala Harris will be part of a primary, though I doubt, frankly, that she would end up winning it.
And the contrast, yes, if you have 81, he'll be 81 Joe Biden when we start the debates and 45-year-old DeSantis, for instance, or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley, that is going to be very stark for people.
But it's not as easy as many Republicans think for the Republican Party writ large, whoever is the representative, to get away from some of their extreme positions.
Ron DeSantis signed a six-week heartbeat bill in Florida when the majority of Americans are firmly against.
I think, you know, if you chase down that road to get the nomination for the party, it's fine.
But to win a general election on the back of that, that can be very difficult.
Listen, thank you both very much indeed.
Thank you.
Expert analysis, much appreciated.
Thank you.
Your debuts on Piers Morgan has sent him.
I hope not the last time I see you both.
Thank you very much.
No.
Congratulations on the book, Kimberly.
Bye bye.
Yes, Kimberly, the book is called The Biden Malays, How America Bounces Back from Joe Biden's Dismal Repeat of the Jimmy Carter years.
I have to say, I've interviewed Jimmy Carter a few times.
I think he's one of the all-time great Americans.
So the good news for Joe Biden may be, if he does become the new Jimmy Carter, that in 50 years' time, everyone will remember him with great reverence.
Thank you both very much indeed.
Ron says that next, the four-star general, David Petraeus, led American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and ran the CIA.
He joins me live next to talk Ukraine.
Welcome back to Piers Morganized Center.
Similar to 500 days into the war in Ukraine, and Putin sustained heavy losses, not to mention barely surviving a coup by the head of his own mercenary group, former President Trump, claims he'd seal peace by threatening Putin with even more military support, and he'd do it all in 24 hours, apparently, and by telling President Zelensky he needs to consider a deal.
Stalemate Strategies in Ukraine War 00:09:29
Despite the wildly different rhetoric, that's pretty much the exact same strategy as President Biden's, all of which indicates that no one really has much of a clue about how to end this war or when it will end.
Well, who better to answer that question's potential?
The former CIA director and former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, General David Petraeus, whose new book, Conflict, the Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, is out in October.
General, great to have you back on the program.
Thank you very much indeed for joining me.
Good to be with you, Piers.
Thanks.
Where are we with this war?
I can't think of anyone better qualified to assess.
Well, we're about a month into the summer offensive for the Ukrainians, and they have already had to make adaptations.
You know, the old saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy.
And that has been the case here.
And I've been impressed by the way the Ukrainians have really learned from early challenges that they had making their way through these very extensive anti-tank and anti-personnel minefields, tank ditches, trench lines, dragon's teeth, and other obstacles.
And so what they've had to do is forego for now the kind of massive maneuver combined arms operations that a lot of us had hoped might be possible at some point, but this is not yet that point.
So what they're having to do is set conditions.
They are, in fact, in the words of the chief of defense staff of the UK, which captures this very well, they are going to starve, stretch, and strike the Russian forces.
Starving, they are carefully attriting the Russian headquarters, logistical sites, reserve force assembly areas, artillery units, drone elements, and the front lines themselves.
And they're working their way painstakingly through these minefields with soldiers, with sappers, engineers, rather than with the kind of massive breaching capabilities that we would have been able to bring to bear with air cover over top of it, carpet bombing the entire minefield and so forth.
They don't have that.
And so they are adapting.
They're also stretching.
They're ensuring that the Russians have to stay stretched out across the 600-mile front line.
This is an enormous distance.
Remember that just in the fight to Baghdad from Kuwait to Baghdad, when I was a two-star, for example, that's 150 miles less than this 600 miles.
And we thought that was a very long way and required extraordinary logistics to keep it all moving.
So they're doing that as well.
And then when the conditions are right, when they've conducted probing attacks that identify for them the locations where they will be able to unleash this new combined arms capability with Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, then I think you'll see them achieve the kind of breakthrough that many of us hope they can achieve during the summer and perhaps even a fall offensive.
They're going to keep at this.
There's no question that they recognize the imperative of achieving results in this offensive.
I was just there in early June in Kiev for a week.
That was the clear sense that I got and the clear determination that they conveyed.
So that's where we are.
Now, we should note that they have already taken in the first five weeks or so of this summer offensive more ground than the Russians took really since the early months of the offensive, certainly much more than they achieved during their winter offensive.
But that's not a huge amount.
It's about 100 square miles or so.
So far, they could retake Bakhmut.
That's the one location where there could be a breakthrough in the weeks that lie ahead because the Russians didn't have a chance to establish as formidable defenses there as they have throughout the South, where they had many, many months to prepare these belts of minefields, trenches, and so forth.
Let me ask a couple of supplementaries on that.
First of all, the use of cluster bombs, cluster munitions.
We ban them here, one of 100 countries in the UK, which does not support their use.
America's not signed up to that, and President Biden has green lit that.
Do you have any moral qualms?
I know the Russians have been using them, but they are, you know, very controversial weaponry because of the debris that they leave afterwards, the threat to civilians in the years after their use and so on.
Do you have any moral problem with America sending cluster munitions to the Ukrainians?
I agree with a decision that was made.
In fact, I was a proponent of it for the following reasons, Piers.
You noted, this area is already heavily infested with Russian cluster bombs that have been used that have a much higher dud rate than do the American cluster munitions that are being provided, that can be shot out of artillery and also out of rockets.
Second, they need the additional artillery ammunition and this will be very effective in going after some of the targets that I described.
They're seeking to attrip uh particularly, for example, those in frontline trenches, artillery units and so forth.
It's a very impressive and effective area weapon in that regard.
Third, the dud rate is actually quite low.
It's not the one percent that is the threshold for that agreement that you mentioned the UK is a signatory to, but it's certainly well under 2.5 percent.
And then, most importantly, I think, is this is not, we're not dumping these on another country's soil.
Ukraine is not dumping these all over some neighboring country.
They're dumping it on.
They're using it on their own territory, knowing that they will have to clear these areas later on in order to liberate that territory, and I think, at the end of the day, it should be up to them.
They're also not a signatory uh to particular issue, let me ask you, if you were running this operation uh, you would want airfire, you want air cover.
That's the quickest way, it seems to me, to try and push the Russians out.
At the moment, you know they're not getting much air cover at all.
Right, so what?
What is the answer to that?
Is there going to be a point in this war where, if Ukraine is actually going to prevail and throw the Russians out of the Donbass, for example, they're going to need heavy air cover, aren't they?
There's no question about that, and this is one of the uh decisions that I felt took too long to make.
Uh, the?
U.s has now certainly acceded to the uh desire of certain countries that have the F-16.
That's the most ubiquitous fighter bomber uh in the NATO arsenal.
Uh, but of course the?
U.s had to approve the transfer of those aircraft.
Uh, and then we're also supporting the training and various munitions and so forth.
But, but again, I wish that we had done that earlier.
This was an inevitable decision.
We could see that the MiG-29s and other old Soviet Bloc, if you will, Eastern Bloc aircraft in the Ukrainian arsenal were gradually being depleted.
There just aren't any more in the NATO countries that had them.
They've all transferred them to Ukraine, and so that was inevitable.
Now I should note.
Look what the US has done together with its key allies and the UK would be right at the top of that list and other NATO and Western countries has been extraordinary, not just keeping the alliance together in all different aspects, but in providing over $42 billion worth of arms, ammunition and other materiel.
It's a staggering quantity millions literally, of rounds of 155 millimeter howitzer ammunition.
But the aircraft decision, the tank decision, a few others took a bit longer than they needed to uh, and that has now been made, but it won't be available.
This new air power won't be available in Time for this particular summer offensive, I would not think.
And again, that is only one component, though, of the kind of comprehensive approach that is required.
Yes, no, I can reach in the South.
I understand that.
I want to wait just with you giving me a one-word answer, if you can.
It's not can Ukraine win the war.
Do you think they will win it?
Well, you have to define winning at the end of the day, Piers.
And I think that at the end of the day, I interviewed the negotiated resolution.
Yeah, I mean, Delensky told me that he wouldn't give up an inch of land.
So put part the Crimea to one side is something that happened before and has to be perhaps negotiated at a different time.
But the Donbass region, for example, the territory the Russians have taken, I don't think they're going to give an inch of that up voluntarily.
So does victory look like they have that land back?
And is that achievable?
I think it is achievable.
It remains to be seen whether the capabilities we've provided are enough to enable that achievement.
There's no question about the sheer resolve of the entire population of Ukraine, including those certainly on the front lines, but everyone else as well.
This is their war of independence, Piers, and they're approaching it this way.
They're absolutely determined.
They're also incredibly innovative, adaptable, resourceful.
And so the qualities are all there.
And I think one question we have to continually ask is when do the Russian forces start to crumble?
They've got turmoil in their upper ranks.
They've had their deputy commander killed by a storm shadow reportedly provided by the UK.
Fired Progozhin, although now he may be back in favor.
There's fired a two-star combined arms army commander.
Veganism Trends and Animal Ethics 00:06:37
The troops are complaining.
They're treated poorly.
When does this manifest itself in real surrenders?
That's, I think, the question that we have to answer.
And of course, it will come about by the Ukrainians putting enormous pressure on them, but having changed now from the initial plans that they may have had, very likely, to achieve their objectives of this offensive.
General Petraeus, brilliant to talk to you.
I've got to leave it there, but thank you very much indeed for joining the program.
Always a treat to have you with you.
Thank you, Piers.
Thank you.
All the best.
On Sesa Next, a chorus of celebrities have denounced veganism and the market for vegan foods has imploded.
Have I won the plant-based argument?
Notorious activist Vegan Booty doesn't think so.
She joins me next.
Welcome back to Peters Organizers.
Celebrities are denouncing veganism en masse.
The market for plant-based gruels falling off a cliff.
It's increasingly likely that the rest of the world agrees with me, which is often what happens with issues.
Infamous activist Tash Peterson, better known as Vegan Booty, is on a mission to change people's minds by all means necessary.
So is veganism here to stay or is dead as a steak on my plate later this evening?
I'm joined by Vegan Booty, Tash Peterson, and our kick host and Fox commentator Tommy Larin.
All right.
Would you go by the name vegan or Vegan, Miss Booty, or what?
Tash Peterson is fine.
Tash, yes.
Veganism is going out of fashion.
Meatless farm, announced their only production.
Beyond meat shares, crashed 95%.
Most vegan companies in this country, lack of consumer demand now.
I think people have got a bit fed up with it.
I think one of the reasons is they're fed up with me shouted at.
You're one of these people that runs into restaurants and plays sounds from screaming animals and abattoirs and so on.
I know you care passionately about it.
I think it's very off-putting.
It's a bit like the Just Stop Oil protesters doing a lot of their stuff.
It just annoys people.
It has the opposite effect to what you hope.
No, I don't think so at all.
I think it brings more attention to the animal Holocaust.
Animals are subjected to rape, torture, enslavement, abuse, and murder.
And I'm bringing light to that.
And I'm saying that.
Why use the word Holocaust?
Holocaust is the mass extermination of more than 6 million Jewish people by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Well, that's one Holocaust in history.
Why would you avoid it?
People know that as the Holocaust.
Why would you use that kind of very emotive language, knowing it would offend a lot of people?
Well, it's just a factual statement.
If you look at the definition of a Holocaust, it is slaughter or destruction on a mass scale.
Multiple Holocausts have occurred throughout human history, and non-human animals can be subjected to the same atrocities that humans can.
In fact, it's the largest Holocaust in history with 3 trillion individuals brutally murdered every year for human food consumption.
All right, Tommy, you're from a ranching family.
I don't know about you.
I just find I don't mind people being vegan.
If you don't want to eat meat, it's absolutely fine.
I get some of the reasons why they don't want to, personal choice.
You know, they care about animals and so on.
Although I would point out animals eat a lot of animals, just for the record, naturally.
What do you feel about this whole vegan debate?
Are we getting bored with it?
It seems to me from all the sales in the UK and stuff, it's kind of going out of fashion.
Like it was a fad for a lot of people.
They've gone back to munching meat.
Well, veganism is an ethics.
Oh, sorry, I must be, Tommy.
Sorry.
Yeah, I think a lot of people realize that it wasn't, in fact, the healthier choice because when they choose this beyond meat or these other substitutes, it's actually just packed with different fillers.
So it's not actually this cleaner option like a lot of people thought at the onset of the whole vegan craze.
But I got to tell you, speaking of the animal Holocaust, which I think is a ridiculous thing to say, I'm from a ranching family.
I'm from a ranching state.
There is nobody that cares more for their animals than those in the ranching and farming communities.
Now, I'm against factory ranching and farming as well, by the way.
I think that that's atrocious.
I'm an animal lover.
But as somebody who comes from a ranching family, I can tell you that ranchers and farmers care for their livestock dearly.
Yes, it does, at the end of the day, turn into a product for human consumption.
But that doesn't mean that it is always inhumane, that it's always disgusting, that it's this animal holocaust or genocide, as your guest was referring to it as.
It's also really annoying to me when people try to say that animals are causing climate change.
I mean, if you don't want to eat animals because you love animals or you have a health reason that prevents you from eating animals, that's fine.
But this whole environmental craze that we need to get rid of animals because they're causing climate change, that's also a step too far.
And part of the reason why this whole vegan craze is going out the window.
Yeah, and you know, Bear Grylls said recently I was a vegan quite a few years.
He said, but I thought it was good for the environment, I thought it was good for my health.
And through time and experience and knowledge and study, I realized I was wrong on both counts.
It was bad for the environment, bad for his health.
He was never a vegan in the first place.
He was an ethical view against murder.
If you're against animal abuse and murder, you never contribute it to it again.
He wrote a vegan cookbook.
It wasn't actually a vegan cookbook.
It contained animal abuse and...
You're saying Bear Grylls was a fake vegan.
He never was a vegan.
He was a vegan.
No, I was afraid.
You're saying he's a liar.
He's not a liar.
No, well, I've looked at the cookbook.
You may not have liked the fact that he went back to eating meat, but he was a vegan for quite a while.
Well, people don't buy that label all the time, but if they actually truly hold their ethical view against animal abuse and murder, then they would never turn back on veganism.
You know, Tommy, over here, I railed against vegan sausage rolls because I didn't like the way they appropriated the language of meat products.
I don't think vegan companies should be allowed to use words like sausage rolls or steaks because that's meat.
Yeah, exactly.
And they're filled with soy and fillers and other disgusting things that you actually don't want to put into your body.
And meat tastes good.
That's why all of these fake meat companies try to make it taste like meat.
It never actually comes to fruition because it still tastes like crap.
And I would also point out during COVID when we were having shortages in the grocery store, if you looked for meat, it was sometimes hard to find, at least here in the U.S.
But that beyond meat crap, that was always available because people don't want it.
The consumers are deciding that they want maybe an organic option, maybe a free range option, but people still want to eat meat.
And you can eat meat and respect animals at the same time.
It can be done.
It's been done since the dawn of time.
But we are beyond, beyond meat now.
We're going back to munching meat.
I love meat.
I won't be persuaded otherwise.
And I think there are better tactics than running into restaurants and playing noises of screaming animals.
Personally.
But thank you for coming on the program.
Tash, and thank you to Tommy, as always.
Whatever you're up to.
Keep it uncensored.
Good night.
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