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Aug. 1, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
47:11
20230801_piers-morgan-uncensored-nuke-threat-on-ukraine-twi
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Hollywood Escapism vs Real War 00:01:39
Good evening, welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored with me, Rosanna Lockwood.
Now on tonight's show, as Hollywood turns the story of Oppenheimer into a popcorn-pleasing, meme-friendly box office smash, Russia threatens Ukraine with a real nuclear bomb.
We'll debate if it's time for the West to take Armageddon a little more seriously.
Elon Musk's rebrand of Twitter has taken another set back.
He has been forced to take his giant X down off the corporate HQ over there in San Francisco.
Does the richest man in the world actually know what he's doing at this point?
And as the media rages about a cartoon drawing of a transgender man on a costa van, I will be asking, isn't this all a bit of a storm in a coffee cup?
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored with Rosanna Lockwood.
Good evening.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored with me.
Rosanna Lockwood in the chair for Piers again tonight.
The magic of the movies.
Nothing quite like them in terms of escapism.
But what if a movie isn't so much of an escape as a giant air raid siren?
Now, I'm not talking about Barbie.
Piers covered that comprehensively last week, of course.
I'm talking about Oppenheimer, the summer's other big blockbuster about the development of the first nuclear weapons.
And look, it's a great film.
Great acting, great soundtrack, yada yada yada, but it's not an escape, I don't think, because it's real.
I came out of the cinema on Sunday after watching it to news that Russian officials are once again threatening to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine's counter-offensive succeeds.
Strategic Nuclear Exchange Risks 00:14:13
And that is just the latest in a series of similar threats they've been making.
And have you been aware of that?
Is that a story you've seen discussed much in the news?
As much as, say, arguments about language and gender and ideology or the latest celebrity presenter scandal?
What if I told you that just last month, Putin said Russia has moved their first batch of nuclear weapons to Belarus and is saying the rest will be transferred, quote, by the end of the summer or the end of the year, a man with a plan.
Would you then be still so focused on the latest woke corporate advertising stunt?
This is actually an information warfare tactic that is favoured by the Kremlin, provoking hysteria and culture war debate in other countries to sow division and confusion.
You could actually call it a weapon of mass distraction.
And I'm not saying the Kremlin's been behind the latest cost of coffee ad or the latest Bud Light commercial.
I think we're doing that ourselves.
I'm also not saying that issues of ideology shouldn't be carefully debated in our societies.
But I am saying that we need to get some perspective and spot when our eye is dangerously off the ball.
There is an estimated 12,500 nuclear warheads in the world.
Russia's got almost half of those and they're telling us they might actually use some of them, but we're not really listening.
Maybe if we were Japanese, we would be, because they take the issue of nuclear war far more seriously because they know it.
A reminder that in 1945, that's just 77 years ago, the US detonated two atomic bombs over two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing its estimated anywhere up to a quarter of a million people.
It was the first and so far only wartime use of nuclear weapons in history.
So it is no wonder the Japanese reception of the American-made-on Oppenheimer movie has been so sensitive.
The movie is a terrifying summary of what happens when we leave the power of godlike destruction in the hands of politicians.
Well, joining me to discuss all of this from the campaign for nuclear disarmament, Carol Turner in the studio.
Also joined by former Major General of the British Armed Forces Tim Cross down the line.
And in New York, we're joined by theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku.
Mr. Kaku, I will start with you, if you don't mind.
Thank you for making time for us.
And I want you to respond to what I was just saying and the idea that we in the West don't fully appreciate the horror of the nuclear bomb like the Japanese do.
Do you think that's true?
I think there's a danger that people in the West may trivialize nuclear war.
We have computer games and we fight war all the time on a computer screen, not realizing the enormous potential of what could happen if we unleash nuclear fire.
Now, some people say, well, is it the scientists' fault?
Well, realize that back in the 1930s, it was widely believed that Nazi Germany was ahead of us in terms of developing the nuclear weapons.
The greatest atomic scientist of our time, Werner Heisenberg, was in charge of the Nazi atomic bomb project.
So naturally, Einstein would write a letter to the President Roosevelt saying that we have to start our own atomic bomb project because, well, the Germans are ahead, and who wants a Nazi atomic bomb?
But after the war, it became obvious that we had overkill.
We had more than enough nuclear weapons to fight any adversary.
Right now, we have on the order of 30,000 nuclear weapons, enough to destroy all life on the planet Earth.
And so we have to realize the consequences of our decisions made way back in the 1930s.
Back then, was it justified to build the atomic bomb?
I think so.
But to carry on the war after World War II, to create 30,000 tactical and hydrogen bombs, I think was unforgivable.
You're a physicist.
Talk to me a little bit about your connection with nuclear technology and the journey you've been on because you've now backed disarmament groups, if I'm correct in thinking.
That's correct.
Many of my professors were the ones who built the atomic bomb.
Philip Morrison, for example, at MIT, once confided to me that it was his job to assemble piece by piece much of the Nagasaki bomb with his bare hands.
There was no manual.
There's no book to put together a Nagasaki bomb in those days.
He did it with his bare hands.
And of course, he justified dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.
He said it helped to win the war.
But afterwards, he became anti-nuclear.
Now, when I was in high school, I was chosen by an atomic scientist to work on these things, Edward Teller.
Edward Teller was my mentor throughout my high school and college years.
He was the one who pushed forth the hydrogen bomb, a bomb that is a thousand times more powerful than a puny Hiroshima bomb.
And he was the one who helped to build the arsenal and went head to head with the Soviet Union.
And so you begin to realize there was a split, a split in the scientific community.
Many scientists would privately believe in the work of Oppenheimer, who had doubts about this nuclear proliferation, but the Pentagon was gung-ho in terms of grabbing at every single nuclear straw they could get their hands on.
Thank you for giving us that context.
Let's cross now to our other guests joining this conversation.
Coming to you, Tim, also joining us down the line.
And I bought up the recent Russian threat.
It's not the first, and it's certainly probably not going to be the last, unfortunately.
As a military man, how concerned are you by the recent Russia threat?
And do you think the public is paying enough attention?
I don't think we're paying enough attention, the public in the round.
It is a serious threat.
I think it's pretty improbable, but nonetheless, it is possible.
And we need to remember that, well, mostly when we talk about nuclear weapons, we talk about strategic nuclear exchange, what we used to call in the Cold War days mutually assured destruction.
And those numbers that the professor were talking about were very much a part of that.
And the huge numbers that we had in place at the time.
There have since been strategic arms limitation talks, but those have broken down recently.
But the other end of the spectrum is tactical nuclear weapons.
And these are small, relatively small nuclear weapons that can be fired from artillery and rockets and indeed dropped from airplanes and so forth.
And they have an effect on a battlefield rather than taking out major cities and so forth, which is strategic nuclear exchange we would be talking about.
These are battlefield weapons that will destroy large numbers of people over a relatively small area, but nonetheless a significant area.
And Putin's threat to use them is linked to the fact that he's not winning the conventional war in Ukraine.
He's worried, I think, about losing the provinces that he's gained so far.
And the key issue, the one that I think most psychologically is important to him, is the Crimea.
If Ukraine looked like they were going to retake the Crimea, which from a Russian perspective, and I don't agree with it, but nonetheless, we need to understand the Russian perspective here.
The Russian perspective is that Crimea is part of Russia.
And therefore, if they were to lose Crimea and things were turning really bad and the conventional war was not going well, then it is possible that Putin could order the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Now, would his generals carry that out?
What's the chain of command?
I mean, I know a little bit about it, but the chain of command to actually fire these weapons.
You know, how robust is that is another issue altogether.
And as you say, Tim, it's sort of almost a concession at this point that there is a counter-offensive.
There is some way to succeed.
And look, I want to come and bring Carol into this conversation now.
She's been sitting in the studio listening to this.
Strategic nuclear exchange or mutually assured destruction, as we talked about in the past, when you hear the argument for it, we're currently at war.
What do you say to the public to convince them that we don't need nuclear weapons?
I say, first of all, that these so-called small tactical nuclear weapons are many, many times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
And therefore, don't be fooled by the terminology.
These are being developed by the United States and by other countries.
The war in Ukraine is actually a confrontation between two nuclear powers.
Russia on the one hand, NATO with the nuclear armoury of the USA behind it on the other.
So let us not talk about continuing the war, which is 99% of information, I would say propaganda, that we get on British television and across Western Europe.
In fact, there is an incredible danger of the war spiralling out of hand.
The latest information, which most British people have not been made aware of, is that US nuclear weapons are coming to Britain as part of the NATO forces in Europe.
They're going to be stationed in Lakenheath, which is about 70 miles northeast of the capital in Suffolk.
If that puts us on the front line, were they to be used, then the whole of Britain, the whole of the British Isles, would be devastated by it.
And of course, of course, the fact that they were, whether they're used or not, makes us a front line, a threat, a front line.
So my final sentence is to everyone who's watching is please be very, very afraid.
Do not listen to the propaganda that nuclear weapons are small, they will be used in the battlefield.
This is not true.
So, you are very much obviously reinforcing the idea that we need to get wise about the real risk of nuclear weapons.
I want to come back to Tim, though, and talk a little bit about we do have them, they are there.
In terms of, I know you speak on behalf of disarmament, but Tim, when we think about policy and the way politicians use nuclear weapons, that's a big issue that is brought up within the movie Oppenheimer, which obviously is based in real life.
Interesting statistics, six in ten Americans are uncomfortable with the president having the sole authority to authorize the use of nuclear weapons.
Do you think politicians can be trusted with nukes?
And if not, who should be?
Well, I don't think anybody could be trusted with nukes, but whether we like it much or not, we live in a democratic society.
We elect our politicians, and ultimately, the other alternative would be to have the military in charge, and that's not a clever solution either.
So, I'm afraid we're stuck with the fact that politicians do have to have the authority and the responsibility, and therefore the accountability to decide whether to use these weapons or not.
Now, you know, again, I understand what the lady is saying, and I'm not a great fan of strategic nuclear weapons at all.
But nonetheless, we do need to understand the distinction between these things.
It is, I'm afraid she's not correct in saying it is not true that they are different.
These are escalatory weapons that can be used in different ways under the deterrence, strategic deterrence theory and so forth that we all used to know so well back in the Cold War years.
But at the end of the day, again, to focus back in on your question, who else do you want to be in charge of this?
We're not going to disinvent these things.
They are around.
What we need to have in place is the ability to ensure that we deter the use of these weapons by the ability to stand firm against people like Putin.
I mean, in the introductory comments by the professor, quite rightly, he raised the whole issue of the threat of Germany having a nuclear weapon.
I've got no doubt at all that if Hitler had had access to nuclear weapons, he would have used them in 1945.
So, you know, we have to recognize, and I've been on operations against people like, you know, Milosevic and Saddam Hussein and all the other hoods who are, you know, dangerous, nasty people in the world.
We can't be naive about this.
So it has to be, I think, in that, at the end of the day, in the hands of politicians.
Now, the command chain and who gathers around within the political world to make those decisions, you know, that's another issue.
Should it just be the prime minister or should it be the cabinet or whomever else?
It's a fair question to ask.
Offer the final thoughts to Dr. Kaku joining us from the US because he set up this debate so well and gave us that important context.
Mentored, as you said, by Teller himself, which of course was a character, well, who was personified within the movie.
Look, Dr. Kaku, you think a lot about the future.
When you think about the future from here with regards to the nuclear threat and how we handle this strategic nuclear exchange, what do you see?
Well, in the short term, of course, we have the theory of deterrence using nuclear weapons to deter the enemy from using nuclear weapons.
But I think we have to go beyond that.
I think we have to look at the question of disarmament.
Now, we're not talking about a pie in the sky.
We're talking about real-life conflicts.
We don't want people like Putin to threaten other people with tactical nuclear weapons.
Because once it starts, how do you stop it?
It's easy to start a nuclear war, but how do you stop a nuclear war once it's in progress?
Once you lose Washington, once you lose Moscow, at what point do you stop?
So even though a small tactical exchange could be very bad, it could easily escalate to a full-fledged confrontation with strategic nuclear weapons.
And so I think that beyond deterrence, we have to begin honest, realistic discussions of disarmament, or else we will have more Putins in the future declaring that they will settle their ancient grudge matches with nuclear weapons.
Trans Surgery and Corporate Exploitation 00:12:02
Doctor, Carol, Tim, thank you all very much for a really interesting discussion.
Well, I bet you're awake now, aren't you?
Uncensored next tonight, a cartoon drawing.
Lots of people have gotten their thoughts and a twist about is it all a storm in a coffee cup?
We'll be debating that next.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Now, in case you've been in a cupboard all day or haven't gone on social media, let me tell you that the coffee chain Costa Coffee has caused a furor following an advert they sort of put on the side of a van, basically featuring a cartoon of what appears to be a post-operative transsexual man.
Now, critics who've been very angry about this online all day say it's glorifying and celebrating irreversible surgical procedures for young women.
A spokesperson for those behind this mural from Costa said, quote, at Costa Coffee, we celebrate the diversity of our customers, team members, and partners.
We want everyone that interacts with us to experience the inclusive environment that we create to encourage people to feel welcome, free and unashamedly proud to be themselves.
The mural in its entirety showcases and celebrates inclusivity.
Now, we're going to be talking about this now.
Is it outrageous woke propaganda or just a storm in a coffee cup?
Who better then to give us our opinions on this than CEO of the LGB Alliance, Kate Barker, and celebrated LGBTQI Plus campaigner Peter Tatchell?
Thank you both for making time to talk about this.
And I'll just, if you don't mind, give you my view on it.
And I sort of include it within the opening sort of talk in the show regards nuclear.
I said, you know, we've taken our eye off the ball here.
We need some perspective on this.
The fura over issues like this drives me absolutely up the wall.
I understand there's important sensitive debates and discussions to be had about the trans movement and about its place in society.
But I am slightly exasperated by the attention that this type of stunt gets.
And my concern is that corporates and companies are now exploiting the experience of trans people, saying that they're being inclusive, but at the same time, knowing that it's just going to generate so much controversy and conversation around their brand that they won't be forgotten about.
And sure, some people may boycott Costa Coffee, not get their coffee, but some people may well go in.
And that's successful marketing in and of itself.
My fear about all these things as always is that trans people haven't been included or consulted within this debate.
I'm obviously far on probably the more left and wokey end of this than some other people on this network as well.
But I want to come to you and ask for your opinion on this.
Let's just start with you, Kate.
I mean...
Well, I mean, to start with, I think it's actually ghoulish and it's grotesque.
And it's really greedy of Costa.
Imagine thinking, what's really going to make our tills ring?
I know the mutilation and the misery of girls who hate their bodies.
And this isn't about a trans issue.
This is about girls who are opting for bilateral mastectomies.
They're having healthy breast tissue removed.
And it's not a niche issue.
It's not a small issue.
Before I came on this afternoon, I hopped onto GoFundMe.
And into the search bar, I put top surgery.
And there are 8,649 girls saving up, hoping, planning for top surgery.
GoFundMe is only one platform.
There are loads and loads of others.
So what we're looking at really is tens and thousands of girls in the UK trying to save up money to get this done.
Now, so it's not niche.
I don't think it's...
Like your storm in a coffee cup, I don't think it is.
And I think it's about vulnerable girls.
I don't think it's a trans issue.
And I think that adds too much heat to the debate.
I think it's very much more about girls who are gender non-conforming.
And I would say that a lot of those girls are tomboys, what used to be called tomboys.
Like me, when I was a kid, I didn't like dresses and pink, and I wanted to play football.
And if I was 12 now and I saw all this and I saw the glorification, if I was being cheered on to go ahead and mutilate myself, I would have just leapt onto that bandwagon with both feet.
I see the point you're making.
Mutilate to me is a strong word.
When it's obviously, we're talking about people who are young doing this.
We don't know the person on the cost of an could be 26.
But the core of the debate is, of course, that young people in this sort of industrial complex of breath removal and augmentation and everything else like that are being exploited, Peter.
But if it's voluntary, is it mutilation?
I mean, this is strong terminology.
Well, first, let me say that I think that the obsession with the trans issue is out of all proportion.
We have more than seven million people on our hospital waiting lists.
Some of them are dying because they can't get surgery and we're obsessing over a cartoon on a coffee van.
That's absurd priorities.
But to answer your point directly, in this country, no one can have gender reassignment surgery before the age of 17 as a minimum in England.
I didn't interrupt you.
Let me finish.
You didn't interrupt.
In England, not before the age of 17, except if there are exceptional circumstances.
But most people will wait three to five years to get their first appointment at a gender identity clinic.
They'll have to have a series of further appointments, usually between six months and one year apart, and then they have to wait another three to five years to have the surgery.
So it's very rare for anybody to have surgery before the mid to late 20s.
And I know people in their early 30s who are still waiting, having applied 13 years ago.
Okay, so you're saying the issue isn't as grossly out of proportion or it's not happening as frequently as some might think, and some people are struggling at this.
Kate, you had a point.
Yeah, it's actually false that no children are being operated on.
The NHS has highlighted 51, it's not very many, but 51 girls aged 16 and 17 who've had mastectomies.
And I know you think mutilation is a bit extreme, but you know, that's healthy breast tissue.
Those operations are really, really serious.
And there's a reason why people like Peter call it top surgery.
Because I've heard you mention it before, because it's, oh, it sanitizes it.
It sounds quite cute and neat and easy and simple, but it isn't.
It's a really serious surgery.
Ask any woman that's had breast cancer what it's like to have a mastectomy.
And to do that to yourself, to your healthy body, it's irreversible.
I think it's the only silver lining is that people do have to wait a long time.
Is there an age at which you would deem it acceptable for somebody to make that decision themselves?
Our position is that for a very small minority of people who've had the proper support, proper counseling, had time to think, having a surgery, a cosmetic surgery, which enables them to resemble the opposite sex is a good option for them.
And we hope that would help them to live a happy life.
And I don't think it's done to ages, except we would say never, ever, ever for children.
It's absolutely wrong.
Let's listen to some testimony now.
In fact, this is the story of Chloe Cole.
She's a detransitioner, 27th of July 2023, her 19th birthday, testified to Congress with a final warning that medical treatments to change the gender of confused children is quite horrific.
Let's take a listen.
We need to stop telling children that puberty is an option.
Puberty is a rite of passage to adulthood, not a disease to be mitigated.
My childhood was ruined along with thousands of detransitioners that I know through our networks.
Enough children have already been victimized by this barbaric pseudoscience.
Please let me be your final warning.
Peter, interesting points already brought up by both of you this evening in that separating this almost from the trans discussion, because you've got other things going on here.
You've got people, as Kate said, who prefer to look like a tomboy.
You've also got the issue of age and consent going on here.
When you hear Chloe's testimony, how do you think that plays into the way the public are perceiving all this?
Well, I'm very sorry for Chloe that she went through a bad experience, but she did not go to that experience, as far as I'm aware, under pressure or in a short space of time.
This resulted in many years of counselling and seeing specialists, and then she decided to go ahead with it.
Now, I'm sorry that she regrets it.
I'm very sorry for her, but there are only less than 1% of trans people who have gender reassignment surgery reject or have regrets about it.
You know, 99%, or almost 99%, say it has dramatically improved the quality of their lives.
They're happier, more fulfilled individuals, and their families and friends support that.
So for most people, Chloe's experience is not typical.
Gender reassignment surgery is life-enhancing, and it does mean a better quality of life for the people who go through it.
So I would say live and let live.
Oh, Kate, so statistically, Peter's saying exception to the rule.
I mean, that's simply false.
We don't have any data for the huge influx of young people who've been having those kind of surgeries in the past few years.
We have no long-term data, and that's just plucked out of the air that 99%, you know, that's a very suspicious surgery.
There's three major surveys.
Hang on, hang on.
So what we do have, we have no evidence that children, particularly girls, are any happier after their surgery.
We have a lot of evidence, for example, that most children who are allowed to go through adolescence unmedicalised, 80 to 90%, grow out of their feelings of dysphoria.
So we would always argue that waiting is best.
We see what's happened with this poor girl, Chloe.
I think that in years to come, we're not going to remember the names of these girls because there's going to be a flood of them.
And do you think that they've been caught up in a zeitgeist feature?
I mean, returning back to the original source of this conversation, Costa Coffee, can you believe it?
But the way that the narrative has been pursued by corporates, by companies, but also by society, do you think people are getting caught up in it?
Teenagers, young people influenced by social media?
There may be a tiny element of that, but it's not typical and not the norm.
The vast majority of people, and I know dozens and dozens of trans women.
I wish Kate would stop calling them girls.
They're not girls.
They're mature women, often in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
Chloe is 15.
Yes, I just explained that I had sympathy with her, but she's in the United States.
She's not here.
Here in this country, people have to wait years, typically, for gender reassignment surgery from the very first application to have a gender identity clinic appointment.
It will take 10 or more years for them to have any surgery, during which time they are counselled and given support, so they've got opportunity to reconsider and to assess whether they're making the right decision.
So the idea this is rushed or forced on people is simply false.
And it's really painful for those many trans people who have to wait all these years to get the surgery that will affirm who they truly are and make them happy.
Let me just say that those 8,500 young people, mostly girls who are crowdfunding for their surgery, aren't going through the NHS.
I was busy on Google today and I had a look at clinics in London where you can go and get gender reassignment surgery and the prices for it.
Elon Musk's Free Speech Platform 00:11:29
And they are absolutely booming.
So the NHS is one thing and there is a long wait time, but people are funding for surgery themselves and they're going to clinics which are taking advantage of people who dislike their own bodies.
It's an absolute scandal.
This should be the biggest scandal.
We agree.
We agree that no one should be rushed into this.
And that no one should make a swift decision.
It has to be thought through very carefully.
People have to be counseled.
They have to be questioned.
They have to be given other options.
And then if they decide that's what they want, then we should respect their autonomy and their right to consent.
Yeah, I think that is an agreement we've reached.
And look, I don't think we've finished talking about it.
I think this will continue to be a hot topic of debate extraordinarily.
But this evening, we've learned, of course, that there's so many different levels of this and people involved.
Kate, Peter, thank you very much for your views.
Here on Uncensored next tonight, we're going to be debating Elon Musk's ongoing rebrand of Twitter.
Does X mark the rot or are we all missing the great man's genius?
That coming up next.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Look, they say what goes up must come down.
Well, no one knows that more than Elon Musk, especially over the past week.
The business magnet has been forced by San Francisco authorities to take down his giant glowing X sign after local residents complained it was interrupting their sleep.
And it's just the latest setback for Musk's attempts to rebrand Twitter and that iconic blue bird symbol.
The platform, which saw Ye West's account reinstated at the weekend following an almost eight-month ban for anti-Semitism, also faces accusations of allowing hate speech to go unchecked.
So does Elon Musk know what he's doing or does X mark the rot for this social media platform?
I'm joined in the studio by Talk TV contributor Paula Ronadrian and down the line from the author and former Levi brand president Jennifer Say and the chief strategy officer rather, sorry, at Raux and PR guru Ian Baer.
Thank you all so much.
Look, Jennifer, I'll come to you first because you have headed up a much beloved brand.
When you saw this rebrand from Twitter to X, and it's still very much in process and it's in a very bumpy rebrand.
What have you made of it all?
Well, I'm of the sort of school of thought from a branding standpoint, but that a brand is what you make of it and brand logos, brand meetings, they're expansive.
And so, you know, I think what he's trying to signal is that X is going to be a super app, you know, like China's WeChat.
We don't have anything like that here in America, for instance.
And, you know, X is sort of meant to kind of be broad and expansive.
But I think when you have a brand and a logo and a mark like Twitter, which has to have 90% awareness at least, I feel like the smarter route, and I'm an avid Twitter user, but I feel like the smarter route would have been to keep the existing name and logo and to expand the meaning with enhanced product services.
This feels like a distraction to me.
Look, Saul, if I was Musk, I would have hired you to give that advice because I am a real person.
No one hires me.
I am a real Twitter.
Nice.
Nice comeback.
I am a real Twitter user.
I will now an X user.
Hate the rebrand, if I'm being quite honest.
I do think Musk has slightly lost his way, but I kind of have to hold my sort of breath here because he is a sort of twisted genius.
You've got to give him time with these things with Tesla, with everything else.
He's proved time and again that he can just make it work.
But let's be honest, Ian, advertising revenues down extraordinarily.
He's got this huge debt load in the company as well.
I don't want to get too much in the business weeds because it's just what I like to do.
But also just an X.
The letter X, for some reason, to me, it's a sort of totem of his fragile masculinity.
Am I going too far?
Well, look, X is Elon Musk's personal brand.
I mean, before he was the monolithic billionaire force of nature that he is, he had this thing called X.com that he sold to PayPal.
And that really led to so much of what would follow from Musk.
So this is just him putting his own personal brand on it.
And yeah, we could talk about the relative brand awareness of the Twitter name versus X.
But the biggest brand of all here is Elon Musk.
And what he decided to do 10 days ago is really the end of what's been going on for a year.
You spoke to the declining ad revenues.
There's been a huge turnover and shift in the base.
The base has become a little more politically skewed, actually a lot more politically skewed than it formally was.
So this is just the conclusion of a process.
And I completely agree.
I mean, now what we're going to see, here's the next step, right?
There's a new CEO, Lindy Yaccarino, who, if nothing else, is doing a really good job of mouthpiecing Musk's vision as something that she buys into.
And now we have to see what X becomes.
But Elon Musk is the biggest brand we're talking about here, not Twitter.
Yeah.
And the question is, Jen, I suppose, is can people back the brand Musk?
Because, you know, yes, he is a business genius and he's done a lot, but he's not that popular.
He's very controversial.
You know, famously, he's got sort of 10 children by many different women, which doesn't really get a lot of women on side.
Also, he's not really got San Francisco on side of the moment, which of course is the corporate headquarters for that company.
He's having this battle about this giant X logo, but it's sort of all a bit Gotham City-esque, isn't it?
It's sort of like he's this megalomaniac genius falling out with the authorities there.
What do you make of it?
Or do you think people will gather behind Musk like Ian's suggesting?
You know, at the end of the day, they're using Twitter.
And so they have to like that product and feel like it adds value to their lives.
They're not going to use it.
I think they're not going to use it because of him.
You know, I do think his form of provocation used to make him very popular.
And now he's fallen out of favor and certainly hasn't a media kind of coming at him aggressively.
What I find ironic, and I'm a former San Franciscan, I lived there for over 30 years, very near the Twitter headquarters.
I find it, look, he should have gotten the right permits.
But again, that's his kind of bad boy persona.
He does what he wants.
He didn't get the right permits.
He's got to take the sign down.
People complained.
I find it sort of unbelievable that the people had the energy and gumption to complain about a lighted sign, but not the hundreds, if not thousands of people that are dying on the streets of San Francisco who are homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicted right in front of Twitter.
That is where they sort of congregate.
Some of the largest encampments are right there.
They can't get the energy to push back and try to help those people, but they sure did find a lot of energy to get that sign taken down.
Really interesting context from a former resident and a native as well that you can tell us that, because in the UK, especially, we might not get the full picture of it.
And it is bleak when you put it like that.
And look, he is trying to develop what we're going to call a Chinese super app, an app called WeChat in China, where they integrate payment systems and business items within the sort of social networking and the media as well.
Ian, quickly, before I get to Paula and the studio, do you think a super app is something that the world is going to embrace?
Well, certain parts of the world already have.
And I don't think that his vision for a super app is that divergent from necessarily what Jeff Bezos is building with his many Amazon holdings.
And, you know, if Apple makes a bold move in the future for a content acquisition, let's say a Netflix is in play or a Disney is in play, you can see others marching down that path.
This has been his stated vision from day one.
The question more is what he's going to do with it.
He's great at setting vision.
His history speaks to his ability to marry that vision to creation of enormous wealth and capital.
His brand has lost some luster.
He's lost some credibility.
A number of his stock prices have gotten crushed with questions about his ability to lead.
Here's his chance to see through perhaps his biggest vision.
I mean, we tolerated Facebook renaming themselves Meta to support a bigger vision.
Before that, Google became Alphabet to support a bigger vision.
It can work there.
There is precedent for it.
Look, I want to come to Paula in the studio now and talk a little bit about hate speech because that is where some of the brand luster has been lost, as Ian just put it.
Especially for me when I'm using the app, you know, you can just feel and you can see that there is more.
And there's an organization called the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
They've run a number of reports to find out how much hate is on the platform.
And they've come out and said extraordinary amounts.
And Twitter is failing or X is failing to take action against 99 out of 100 Twitter blue accounts that have been reported for hate speech violations.
Musk is going to counter sue because he says your methodology was wrong.
When you think about this from a legal perspective, because you are a legal mind, these platforms for years have said we're not publishers, but it seems Musk is heading towards the publishing route.
I think he's heading towards a very dangerous area, actually, where he's going to consistently encounter the law and consistently encounter clients.
We can't call them tweets anymore, you know, users, social media users who are going to be upset with what he is essentially promoting because he is providing this platform that will allow for hate speech.
Now, interestingly, as I understand it, the lawsuit has been lodged.
It was lodged on Monday in the Californian court.
And where that's going to take us, I don't know.
But we have to remember, don't we, that it's okay to criticize a company.
It's okay to criticize someone if they are not acting in a way that we think is appropriate or responsible.
And when we talk about freedom of speech, we're not talking about the right to have your say.
We're talking about the right not to hate.
We're talking about the right not to publish that hate.
And I do worry for Elon that he's going down that dangerous road.
Now, to be fair to him, we had Yi, who had been banned from the platform twice, to be fair.
And he's only just come back on in the last eight months.
So let's see what happens with that.
Trump was also banned.
And although he was offered an opportunity to come back, he said no, thank you.
He's got his own now.
He's got his own now.
He's in his own thing.
But I do worry that Elon Musk thinks that offering somebody a platform from freedom of speech is suddenly going to mean that he is going to be overrun with lots of new members.
I don't think that's going to work.
Do you think he underestimated the challenge of free speech?
Completely.
Yeah, I do.
Completely.
And he's going to pay for that.
He will.
And he is, well, literally paying for it, it seems, at the moment.
We'll see how this latest lawsuit goes.
Border Collie Personality Traits 00:06:28
Ian and Jennifer, thank you very much for joining us, giving us your insights.
Paula in the studio as well, we'll keep you here.
Thanks for a great chat.
Uncensored next tonight, it is World Youth Day, and in honor of it, we're looking at some family pics.
Do you know who this is?
Oh, I think you can guess.
We'll reveal after the break.
Well, the match appears uncensored.
Still with me, Talk TV contributor, Paula Rona Adrian, and joining us in the studio, Talk TV presenter, Richard Tice.
Now, excuse me, just still shuddering from the concept of seeing Boris Johnson in that jungle shower.
Can't resist it, can we?
This country.
This country is a sucker for punishment.
Look, look, we've got you in to have a bit of fun because we've covered some really serious topics so far, nuclear disarmament and the rest of it.
And it's been a really big week for animal stories.
Don't work with animals and children.
That's the common saying in television.
Well, let's take a look at this animal.
This is from Japan.
A man who identifies as a border collie.
Japanese man transformed himself into a canine after forking out more than $14,000 for a custom-made collie costume.
He goes by Toko online and says it's his dream to be an animal.
And I don't know about YouTube, but when I saw this first on Twitter, actually, I thought, wow, that just looks like a border collie.
I'm quite impressed.
I mean, that's serious attention to detail, Paula.
Incredible attention to detail.
And can I say, it looks like hard work.
I mean, if anyone has taken the downward dog position in yoga, that is not something that you can hold for particularly long.
So, God knows, I mean, he went for a walk, Rosanna, in that.
That's impressive.
He looks a little bit stiff, doesn't it?
I mean, he's either.
He's very stiff or he's got arthritis or something, because I mean, he is not.
He's not moving well, is he?
You ever done the downward dog, Richard?
I have, actually.
Believe it or not, I do a bit of yogurt.
I was doing yoga last week on holiday, actually.
Yeah, in the sunshine.
Producers, get a Border Collie outfit for Richard Neptune.
Honestly.
I mean, to be fair to him, I don't think he so much identifies as a Border Collie.
What he says is that he loves fairy animals.
He's very much in love with animals and he likes to replicate them.
And this is just one of the many that he has dressed up as.
I've got better things to do with $14,000.
That is.
What?
Look at the joy it is brought to your face.
I mean, come on.
It is a sort of movement, isn't it?
Fairies.
And like you said, you know, it can have sexual connotations or it cannot.
Some people are very innocent about it.
I mean, we're just watching a guy walking around as a dog.
Well, we're being very innocent about it because, you know, fairies are all about dressing up and it's all about animation as well.
It's not just about the dressing up.
And so it's aching to your child wanting to be Luke Skywalker or your child wanting to be Barbie.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, talking of children, let's move on to another very innocent topic.
I promise you, it is World Youth Day.
That is today.
We love a sort of segment, pegged to some sort of day.
This youth day to sort of bring together people to talk about their youth, but also to deepen their religious faith.
That's what this day is all about.
But we, of course, thought we'd mark it with some funny pictures, show you what we all look like as kids.
Let's see what Richard Tice looked like as a child.
Oh, look at that.
Very, very sweet.
Picture of innocence, Richard.
Picture of innocence.
There we are.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
What would your parents have said about you as a child?
Oh, I think I might have been a little bit of a rogue, actually.
I think I was a bit noisy.
Yeah, the bow tie gives it away.
I think it does, yes.
Maybe a little bit sort of individualistic, you know.
Paula, let's see what you look like as a child.
Oh, look at that.
Sweet.
I can see the eyes.
Photogenic, looking into the camera.
Yeah, that bit, that picture was the first portrait taken when we came to England.
So I am from Jamaica and I would probably have been about five years old in that picture.
And we lived in a bedfit in one room.
We were a family of four.
But my mum really wanted to mark that occasion.
And so we got somebody in to take some photos of us.
You remember that?
Having that specially come and the dress I was wearing was a dress that I wore on the plane from Jamaica.
It was, you know, a very special outfit.
It was red, my favourite colour.
I had my red ribbons in my hair.
I remember everything about it.
That's absolutely lovely.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Look, we've also got a game for you.
Again, just to lighten the mood and keep it on this youth topic.
We have got some pictures of famous people from when they were children.
We want you to guess who they are just from the pictures alone.
Panel game for Richard and Paula.
Let's get the first picture.
Come on, Richard.
You can play the dude at home as well.
Who is this?
Rishi.
Oh, straight away.
Very good.
Richard.
Yeah, there you go.
Bing.
Next, who do we have?
Oh, Boris.
Oh, Elon.
Oh, Boris.
Oh, Donald.
Let's see what we've got.
Number three.
That's obvious.
Come on.
Oh, that's Elon.
That's Elon, isn't it?
Absolutely is.
Elon Musk, that goes to Paula.
And the next one, fourth, who have we got here?
This is a famous picture.
Richard, I would expect you to maybe recognise.
I'm not that old.
I think this person's the same age as you.
Oh, what?
Come on.
Give us a clue.
Give us a clue.
Oh, I see it now.
I think I preferred him when he was younger.
And last of all, the one we showed our audience just before the break.
Who is this?
This adorable Sherub.
They're cute.
Oh, God.
Would you say it's a girl or a boy?
Wow.
Okay.
Get me in trouble.
That's you.
Is that you?
Is it you?
It's not me.
Guessing the Famous Picture 00:01:17
It's not you.
I mean, it's you, but in male form.
I can show you.
We were close.
That is absolutely.
Brilliant.
We can show you a picture of me as a child.
Very different.
That's me.
Very serious.
Wannabe New.
So deeply serious.
It's very thoughtful.
Picture taken by my when we lived in Wales back in the day.
I think it was about four years old.
It's been great fun having you both.
Richard and Paulie really lightened the mood after some very heavy topics this evening.
I think you won the game, Paula.
Of course.
Three or four.
Absolutely.
I was not very good at that.
And you can send your apologies to Piers Morgan in a stuffed envelope and leave it in this dressing room and pass it on to him.
That is it from me tonight.
Whatever you're up to, make sure it is uncensored and join us back here tomorrow night and stay with us here on Talk TV.
Good night.
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