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Sept. 7, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:54
20230907_piers-morgan-uncensored-royals-in-a-rut-terror-sus
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Royals Stuck in a Rut 00:14:25
Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored, one year on from the late Queen's death, are the royals in a rut.
And are Prince Harry's relentless attacks to blame for that rut?
We'll debate that.
A terror suspect flees jail by clinging to the underside of a van dressed as a chef.
How the hell did this happen?
Plus, why is President Biden plunging in popularity with black voters?
Charlemagne the God, one of the most interesting characters in American media and most influential.
Will join me live live from the news building in London.
This is Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
A year ago, tomorrow, Britain changed irrevocably.
It was a day that I and many others have waited for and frankly dreaded for my entire adult life.
The late Queen was 96 when she died.
Her failing health had been the subject of speculation, of course, for months and we'd all watched her becoming steadily older and more frail for several years.
But part of her magic was that aura of invincibility.
She was the ever-present comfort blanket.
It's much a fact of life as the changing of our seasons.
We all knew that one day that awful day would come and we all knew that we would miss the Queen enormously.
We all knew that things were going to have to change.
The only thing I got wrong is exactly how much I think we miss Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Our monarchy didn't just lose its figurehead.
It lost much of the sparkle, the magic since she died.
Britain seems at the same time to have completely lost a plot.
We've smashed into crisis after crisis like a broken shopping trolley.
The late Queen represented us to the world with grace and dignity and humility and hard work and she was acclaimed around the world for those values and virtues.
Charlatans like Boris Johnson and Liz Truss made us a laughing stop by comparison.
As I keep saying, it just feels like nothing really works anymore.
Schools falling to pieces, a terror suspect escaping from jail, air traffic shut down by a dodgy line of code, a broken NHS health service, endless strikes, violent crime soaring, raging inflation still causing huge cost of living problems for millions of people.
Now sadly for our politicians, it's not possible to blame all of that on the Queen's death much as they'd probably like to try.
But it certainly compounded the sense of listless chaos that's dragging the country down.
That's exactly why a strong monarchy with its patriotic pomp and ceremony is so important to the national psyche.
The royals are the great symbolic figureheads of our nation.
I believe we need them, swaggering and sparkling, not bickering and curdling.
If the royals are in a rut, what chance have the rest of us got?
The ghastly timing.
Prince Harry's back in Britain tonight.
He's just been speaking an award ceremony.
As you know, I was unable to attend the awards last year as my grandmother passed away.
As you also probably know, she would have been the first person to insist that I still come to be with you all instead of going to her.
And that's precisely why I know exactly one year on that she is looking down on all of us tonight, happy we're together, continuing to spotlight such an incredible community.
Well, what she wouldn't be happy about is that he's not together with any of his family.
He's flown 6,000 miles from Los Angeles, from this luxurious world he now exists in with his wife Megan, fleecing their royal titles for gazillions of dollars, but in the process has fallen out with all his family.
There are no plans, we're told, for him to meet his father, King Charles, or his brother, Prince William.
Think about that.
That's his father and his brother.
And there are no plans when he's in the city they live in to see them.
Instead, he's going to award ceremonies.
There's no chance, it seems, of any bridges being repaired.
And why should there be?
How can you blame Charles and William?
They've had to endure now years of relentless muck-raking trash talk from Harry and Meghan, which has done more to tarnish the monarchy than anything I can remember.
This is just another stop on his endless tour of...
Well, it's self-service, isn't it?
It's the worldwide privacy tour.
People who wanted privacy but don't want privacy.
They actually just want to be seen as kind of royals without any of the duty that goes with that and to get all the benefits of that over in America where they can make huge amounts of money.
It's all about serving themselves, not the country here, not duty to the people of this country who bestowed, of course, through the monarchy these titles that they have.
In that sense, they're everything that the Queen wasn't.
And when he talks about unity and coming together, there'll be people in the palaces in London tonight, his family, open-mouthed, saying, really?
You are preaching about unity and coming together?
Every time Harry and Megan smear their family in public for money, it chips away again at the majesty of the monarchy.
It reduces our greatest institution to just reality show garbage.
The impact on the monarchy is there for all to see and it's got to stop.
Harry needs to realize he's wrecking something that's much, much bigger than him and his wife and their American media career.
And it's much more valuable than their fragile, hypocritical egos.
Well, joining me now is author and historian Tessa Dunloff, by the author of the Palace Papers Tina Brown in America, by royal historian and author of the new book, After Elizabeth, Can the Monarchy Save Itself, Ed Owens.
Welcome to all three of you.
Tina, let me start with you.
Very much the queen of royal experts, in my opinion.
So what is the Queen of Royal Experts' view?
As we, incredibly, it's a year tomorrow.
I can remember every moment of that day.
But it's a year tomorrow that we lost Elizabeth II.
I do feel a lot of the magic died with the Queen of the monarchy.
What do they do about this?
Well, you know, I actually think that Charles has actually gripped it in a way that's very surprising, actually.
I wouldn't really agree that it's all gone away and all drained away.
I think that in a strange way, the chaos that you vividly describe at the top of the show has actually made Charles look a lot better.
He's suddenly the great statesman on the world stage.
He's the most august statesman that England can really put out there.
He's become a huge national asset.
And he really hasn't put a foot wrong in the last year.
That has actually, I think, sort of surprised everybody.
So that's good.
And you've got the sparkle coming out of Kate and William.
So I think that's not a bad double act of Charles being the kind of august grandfather of the country and sparkle, sparkle from William and Kate.
Here's the problem.
I don't think it's quite as dire.
Well, here's why I think it may be a little more dire than you think.
It may not as dire as the picture I painted.
I'm certainly a massive fan of King Charles and Queen Camilla.
I think they're fantastic and done a great job, I think, stabilising things after what was a very unstable period.
But young people in particular, according to all the polls at the moment, 37% of 18 to 24-year-olds want the monarchy to continue.
40% want an elected head of state.
Only 30% think the royal family is good value for money.
These are worrying numbers for the royals.
And it seems to me that when I talk to young people, they all had great reverence and, I think, interest in the Queen, but they're not so reverential or interested in the others at the moment.
It's not irretrievable, but at the moment, I think there's a kind of malaise.
Well, you know, I have to say that if you'd asked people, young people in the 1960s, if they had a great reverence for the Queen, they would have absolutely thought she was a complete bore, you know.
I mean, when you had all those irreverent shows, like that was the week that was, that was a period where the queen was very much out of fashion.
She was considered irrelevant.
I don't think that if you had polling at that time with all the young people at that moment, they would have particularly thought the queen was this fabulous icon that she became.
In a strange way, the last 20 years of the Queen's life sort of was the most iconic time for her.
I would actually argue that Stephen Freer's film The Queen, where with Helen Mirren, was a beginning of a kind of pop culture embrace of the Queen, where she went from being someone irrelevant to young people to suddenly being almost like a sort of hip pop culture icon.
And you had the thing with her wonderful appearance at the Olympics, and you had then she was with Paddington Bear.
All of a sudden, the Queen was kind of co-opted by pop culture, and she, in her brilliant way, embraced it.
But I'm not sure that you would have found young people thinking she was so fabulous when she was in her 50s.
Interesting point.
Right, Tessa, you've been gagging to get in here.
As always.
I mean, I think there are a lot of distractions going on at the moment.
You've got the Harry and Megan thing.
You've got the Prince Andrew scandal still bubbling away.
We're apparently not going to see the files on him now for some huge amount of time for reasons that completely baffle me.
You've got problems, I think, for Charles in what kind of monarchy he wants to present to the world.
What's he going to change?
And you've got William and Kayu, I think, are doing a great job.
But even you agreed with me that there was a bulldrop around the Women's World Cup.
That was a mistake.
A clear way he could have got some headway with young people.
William should at this time.
I've made it very clear.
William should have got on the first plane out to that World Cup final and watched the lionesses.
He's a president of the FA, for goodness sake.
It was ridiculous.
But actually, that spoke to a deeper stubbornness and, dare I say, entitlement.
And you put once again, if I may, you put all the blame on little pretty irrelevant in some respects, Harry, when if...
What I put all the blame on him.
But that piece is at the top, and I took notes on it.
I put a lot of extensive notes on it.
I put a lot of blame on those because they're the only two members of the royal family who have done what they've been doing.
But I'm sure, Ed, your academic, will agree with me that the broad-shouldered, it should be anyway, the broad-shouldered institutional monarchy.
That has to be where change comes from.
Whether it is the redemptive olive branch offered to Harry, it needs to come from his father, from his brother, who are part of an institution of state, not from a prince who wears a beanie and goes around Europe doing well-meaning charity gigs.
No, it needs to come from the institution of monarchy.
And actually, deeper change, you mentioned their transparency, access to files, freedom of information.
That needs to come from the monarchy.
They need to lead.
You're right.
Call out the politicians.
They're rotten.
We need to see leadership from Charles.
Ed, you wrote a piece about all this, pretty much affirming that there is a rut in the royal family.
Like I said, I don't think it's irretrievable, but I do sense it.
I do sense there's been a kind of downturn, if you like.
But we've been through these before and they've bounced back.
But where do you think we are with the royal family and the institution of the monarchy?
And do you see a way that they can get things back on track?
Well, actually, Piers, I think you're right.
There is something of a rut here.
And I have to briefly and respectfully take issue with something that Tina said before.
The opinion polls in the 1960s that were taken, there weren't many of them, but when young people were asked, more than 60% said that the Queen represented the best of British.
And I think that was really significant.
You know, we've only got to go back 10 years to 2013.
And 72% of young people were saying that the monarchy would continue, that they supported it, and that it was here to stay.
Fast forward 10 years, and things have definitely changed.
And I think the news and hubbub around Andrew and more recently Harry and Megan are partly to do with it.
But I think there's something bigger here as well.
I think there is a significant generational divide over the monarchy, just as there is a significant general divide in society more generally regarding the state of the nation.
Young people, under 45s, especially, and most acutely, the under 25s, are totally disenchanted with the state of modern Britain.
And I think the monarchy as a symbol at the heart of the country is taking a lot of flack.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Tina, Harry and Megan, I don't particularly like talking about them anymore.
I think it's become a, it's just a relentless kind of groundhog day thing, really.
They want attention.
They want to make money on their royal titles.
Every time they rear their heads to do it, everyone I hear goes nuts, including me.
And then we carry on repeat cycle.
What is going on with them in America, though?
I mean, what is their reputation like there now?
How relevant are they?
We're hearing that Megan's planning her big comeback, et cetera, et cetera.
But where are they over there?
Okay, well, first of all, just to say to Tessa's point, I completely agree about William blowing it with the Lionesses, but that's where I missed Harry, actually.
That's where they missed Harry.
If Harry'd been part of the mix, you know, Harry could have gone to the Lionesses, wouldn't he have been fabulous?
Let's face it.
Whatever you think about it.
Okay, I would say to that, why didn't he?
That would have been really clear.
Sorry to cut his brother.
Nothing was stopping him getting on a plane if he wanted to, and he didn't.
So he could have done.
But he wasn't the president of the FA.
That's probably the problem.
No, no, no.
But that is the sidebar.
William should have gone as president of the FA.
That was his duty to do that.
And it was a very rare, very bad misstep by him to not do that.
And also, actually, if you're a woman player for an England team, I mean, how fast would he have got on a plane if that had been the England men's team in the World Cup final?
He'd have been like a greyhound on speed.
But Harry could have gone if he wanted to, and he did.
But anyway, back to the bigger picture of Harry and Megan in America.
Is this brand working?
Well, I'll tell you what is interesting is the fact that Megan's old show, 12 Years Old, Suits, is actually the number one show at the moment in America.
Nobody understands why.
Somebody posted a meme on TikTok and the whole thing exploded and suddenly Suits, this old show, is the best viewed show on Netflix worldwide.
Go figure, nobody knows.
William's Missed FA Duty 00:07:13
And it's not really thought it's necessarily anything with Megan, but it is an interesting thing.
Well, it's actually a very, I've got to say, it's a very good show.
I really liked Suits.
So it doesn't surprise me.
I thought it was great.
Why it's suddenly been dug out of the sort of, I don't know.
But it's not weird, is it?
It's because they've got the X factor, which is why we find it painful when they left.
It was so painful.
As Tina said, it's not necessarily because of Megan Markle.
But Tina, to the wider point about how popular they are.
What do you think?
The wider point is, well, just to say, though, that in that instance, Hollywood agents I speak to kind of say, actually, the weird thing is if Megan wanted to go and make an acting deal right now, she could probably crush it and get a great acting deal.
But I don't think that's what she's looking for because acting is now way too much hard work.
Basically, they're a non-factor here, actually.
I mean, in Hollywood, nobody talks about them at all, I'm told, that the whole celebrity canvas is so much bigger, wider, and hotter.
They're not really a factor.
They're just minors who show up at celebrity events and so on.
So there's nothing really going on with their brand here.
And I think that they've really got to figure out, obviously, they have taken advice finally and gone quiet, which is exactly what they should have done.
Like, shut up, like, go away.
And they have gone away for the entire summer.
But they've got to figure out what Archwell is.
Like, what's it for?
You know, what is it actually for?
They haven't raised very much money with it, to be honest.
I mean, I think it's $12 or $13 million or something.
You'd think by now it'll be $100 million family.
The problem they've got, Tina, they're not raising money.
The problem they've got is they actually, the only currency they have so far that has proved remotely interesting to the public is when they're trashing their families.
And I find that pathetic and sad.
And it's caused unbelievable rifts, not just with his family, with her family.
The poor father sitting there 50 miles away has never met his grandchildren.
He's never met the person that married his daughter, despite bringing up Megan on his own for years.
All of it is just incredibly, on a human family level, incredibly sad.
And they keep talking about how happy they are over there.
How happy could anybody be if you're estranged from both of your families?
I mean, I just don't know.
But what you've heard about...
There is their vulnerability.
And I agree, there is a vulnerability because they're outside the institution.
But I don't know what Ed and Tina feel about this, but that's why I believe that the rapprochement, the olive leaf, the move towards making, they're never going to be a happy family again, but some kind of redemptive move has to come from the king.
No, but hang on, hang on.
He's made efforts to do this.
The problem is they don't trust Harry anymore.
They believe he's going to be taping them, recording them, making notes, doing stuff for future.
If you say something kind and loving, does it matter if you're taped?
Like my son.
I am told Charles has tried multiple times to do this.
But Harry wants them to apologise to him for the damage he's been wreaking on the royal family of the world.
The problem is young people sorely.
Let's face it though, I mean, it is not in Megan's interest to have a rapprochement between Harry and his family.
That's why I don't think it'll happen.
Because Megan does not want to live in England ever again.
She feels that England was just, you know, rejected her.
She rejects it.
She finds it cold, boring, nothing for her.
She loves her, you know, the holy.
He apparently said tonight.
That's where she wants to be.
Yeah, he apparently said tonight in his speech at this charity event that his wife was really sorry she couldn't be there.
That's complete nonsense.
She's not sorry she can't be there.
She was at two Beyoncé concerts last week.
If she wanted to be there, she'd be there.
She doesn't want to be there for the reasons Tina said.
I've got to be on our time.
There's still hope in them.
And then the hope got taken away.
And that's why the world is...
You know what?
If you trash your family in public in the way that they've done for so long, eventually any family would go, that's it.
Drawbridge down, done.
And that's sadly where we are.
Incredible that he's here, Harry.
And he's not going to see his brother or his father.
I'm just holding up Ed's work quickly.
The only thing I will say, the only thing I will say about that is this family has never been a touchy-feely family.
I mean, you know, they never rush to family reunions except at Christmas, Easter.
You know, this is not a family that is all over each other at the best of times.
And quite obviously, Harry's completely alienated his family.
And it's done.
I don't quite understand why, you know, English coverage is constantly about, and he comes to England and he hasn't seen his family.
No, they're estranged.
No, no, I agree.
Listen, Tina.
No one's going to rush.
I totally agree.
We've got to leave it there.
Tina Brown, lovely to see you.
Great to see you, Tessa.
Ed Owens, After Elizabeth, Can the Monarchy Save Itself?
Actually, a really interesting book about the future of our monarchy here.
Does it have a future?
How long is that future?
I hope it does.
I think it will.
But work to be done by King Charles.
He's doing a great job, but work to be done in reshaping now the monarchy in his image for what he wants for us and the country.
Great to see you all.
Thank you very much indeed.
Well, I'm sorry to say next.
I'm very excited about this.
One of the most influential young men in American media, Charlemagne the God, which is a great name.
I might have to adopt some of that myself.
Here's Morgan the God.
We'll interview Charlemagne the God after the break.
He's interviewed some of the most powerful people in the world.
Politicians are queuing up to crave his approval.
Will he get mine?
Well, we'll find out next because Charlemagne the God will be uncensored after the break.
Welcome back to Players Booking Uncensored.
He's been called the hip-hop Howard Stern, Charlemagne the God.
It's one of the most influential voices in the American media right now with a smashing show and a very influential, predominantly black audience.
Here he is in action.
What is it about music that you love so much that would still make you want to go on the damn radio grind?
Because you don't need it.
You're rich, you're famous.
You don't need to be on this radio grind.
I love, I love music.
Put your hands in the air.
One wish I'm singing.
This is how we're living down here.
Sitting on the edge looking at without...
It's older, if you don't mind us.
You know what?
I had a really strong voice, like exceptionally strong voice, until I was 46 years old.
You do mention your husband a lot.
And he said, how is she so black, but she married white?
You got more questions, but I tell you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're from me or Trump, and you ain't black.
Well, Charlemagne joins me now.
Charlemagne, it's great to have you on Uncensored.
Thank you very much indeed for finally succumbing to you.
Thank you for having me on Uncensored.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
How are you?
I'm really fascinated by you because we come from very different backgrounds, upbringings.
I always wanted to be a journalist.
I trained to be a journalist.
I went to an English journalism college and worked my way up and I do a lot of interviews.
You came from a very different background in South Carolina.
Nothing about that background suggested that you would end up being one of the most influential interviewers in American media.
How do you think that's happened?
I think that's happened because, you know, I always approach things from the perspective of just a curious fan.
You know, I always feel like the know-it-all knows nothing.
And, you know, I'm not an expert at anything.
Father's Pivotal Life Lessons 00:03:12
I'm just a person who, you know, has some experiences in life.
And, you know, my mother was an English teacher in South Carolina.
And, you know, one of the things that she told me when I was younger was to always read things that, you know, don't necessarily pertain to you.
So being that, she told me that I always had this curiosity for a little bit of everything.
So I would read everything from, you know, the XL magazine to, you know, every Judy Bloom book in the library.
And I think just having that, you know, curiosity and always approaching things from the perspective of a curious fan, you know, I think that might be...
That might be intriguing to some people.
It's very intriguing.
Your whole story is very intriguing to me.
You were born Leonard Larry McKelvey.
And I'm a big- Lenard.
Lenard, I got to correct you for a little bit.
Lenard, I'm sorry, Charlotte.
Lenard, I'm sorry.
You'd be called Leonard over here.
But what's interesting about you is I'm a big believer in second chances for people.
God knows I've had enough of them myself in my career.
But in your early years, you got into a bit of trouble.
You were arrested twice for possession of drugs.
On your third arrest, because you were near a non-fatal shooting at the time, your father refused to pay bail money and you went to jail.
And after 41 days, you asked your mother to pay for the bail.
And at that point, the father decided to give you another chance.
How, when you look back on it, how pivotal was that moment of your father deciding, I'm going to give him another go at this and see what happens?
Man, that was very pivotal, you know, and honestly, it wasn't something that I took as serious as I should because, you know, I kind of went back, you know, to hanging around the same crowd and, you know, being involved in a lot of the same, you know, type of activities.
But it was very pivotal for me, you know, because my father used to always tell me something.
would always say, man, if you don't change your lifestyle, you're going to end up in jail, dead, or broke sitting under the tree.
And when you're that age and you start to see people around you actually go, you know, the prison for long stints, or you saw people around you actually dying, or you saw people that you used to look up to, you know, actually be broke sitting under the tree.
And you can kind of see yourself going down that same path.
It kind of like is a wake-up call where you're like, yo, my father is right.
So that for me, that was one of those moments that just made me say, I do have to change my lifestyle because I truly believe that destiny is not a matter of chance.
It's a matter of choice.
And I think a lot of us, we just make poor choices for whatever reason.
So I just think you make better choices, you better the chances of having a more successful life.
I completely agree.
Now, it takes a healthy ego, let me put it like that, to rename yourself the God.
Why did you do that?
Because I grew up studying the 5% teachings.
And in the 5% teachings, they teach you that God is a Greek word derived from the Aramic words, guma azabar, which means wisdom, strength, and beauty.
And the first letter of each word was used by Greek students in their identification of their Egyptian teachers.
Voting Against Your Own Interests 00:05:08
So that's one thing.
And then in the Bible, it says God created man in his image according to his likeness.
So whenever somebody literally said this to me yesterday when I was doing something unhealthy, which is reading the comments on social media, and they said, your name is derived from ego.
And I said, no, actually, my name is derived from 5% teachings in scripture.
Very interesting.
And that Biden clip that we had at the end there, let's move to the general political scene in America right now.
Biden's claim there in that interview that basically if you're a black person in America, you should be voting for him.
Let's just replay that again just to remind viewers of this.
You got more questions, but I tell you, if you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, and you ain't black.
Now, what did you make of that when he said that?
What was your instinctive reaction?
My instinctive reaction was exactly what I said in that moment.
Like, you know, it's not about Trump.
It's just about me, you know, wanting to, you know, get something for my community.
You know, votes are transactional.
You know, we vote for you.
You do something for us.
And so that's literally where my mind was at.
And, you know, even with that, you know, you ain't black comment that he made, you know, I think he got that from black people that were around him at the time.
And I think that was a granddad joke.
But I think what he was trying to say is simply, you know, if you vote for Donald Trump as a black person, you may be voting against your own interests.
And what do you think about that?
As far as, what do I think about what?
About what you just said about what people may have thought Biden meant.
Do you think that is true?
Do you think you're voting against your own interests as a black American if you vote for Trump?
Yes, I do, because, you know, I feel like, you know, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.
And, you know, when you talk about a country that could be leaning toward fascism because you have people in a party that are leaning toward fascism, you know, as a black person or any minority, I don't think, you know, you would want to live under a fascist regime.
And, you know, that's not something that, you know, it doesn't matter what your money, how much money you have or, you know, what your status is.
You know, if you're a person of color or a minority under a fascist regime, I don't think that's going to fare too well for you.
The problem at the moment, it seems, for people who share your views about that, there are many Americans who share that opinion of Trump, and there are many who still support him, is that Trump is running away with the Republican nomination race, fueled, it seems, by all these legal issues that he has.
The more times he gets indicted, we're up to nearly 100 criminal charges now, the more popular he seems to get.
And part of that is people thinking it's the establishment trying to destroy him.
And people don't like that in America, even if they don't agree necessarily with Trump's political views.
They just think he's getting put upon and victimized.
Is all this backfiring, do you think?
Just as a reality check about the political environment.
I kind of expected this.
Like, you know, I knew that it was an easy call for him to say that it's a witch hunt.
You know, I kind of predicted that.
You know, if you was listening to, you know, my radio show, The Breakfast Club and my podcast, The Brilliant Idiots, I was saying that, you know, I could see a lot of this working in his favor now.
I don't know how it's going to work in a general election, because I think you have a lot of independent voters.
I don't know if they'll necessarily, you know, show up for him.
And, you know, you're those hypothetical swing voters who, you know, voted for President Obama one year and then came back and voted for Trump another year.
They might have came back and voted for President Biden.
I don't know if they're necessarily going to show up.
But the thing I find interesting about Trump, President Trump the most is that you have 91 criminal charges, what is it, four indictments.
I haven't heard him talk about policy at all.
I haven't heard him talk about any legislation he wants to implement at all.
Every time he's getting on television, it's about the witch hunt and it's about the charges against him.
And to me, man, I would have to look at the people who are supporting him and say, well, what are y'all supporting?
Because he's not even out there campaigning.
Well, I guess the other side of the coin is that Biden himself is now looking horribly old.
And it's not about his age, it's just his ability to perform, to function.
I know you said a lot about this yourself, that you're very concerned about this.
Nikki Haley wants to put term limits now on age limits now on politicians.
You're seeing it with Mitch McConnell.
You're seeing it with Diane Feinstein.
You're seeing Biden falling over and stumbling and making mistakes constantly.
It does seem an extraordinary situation that America, this incredible multiracial, multicultural place, can only come up out of 330 million people with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, one already in his 80s, one heading to his 80s, one facing nearly 100 criminal charges, one can barely string a sentence together.
How can it be that this is the only choice that might be presented to the American people next year?
Prisons and National Malaise 00:08:17
Man, you're absolutely right, Piers.
And that's something that, you know, I discuss a lot and people around me discuss a lot.
But the only thing I can tell people right now, and I don't belong to, you know, any particular party, but I will tell you that you have one party who still seems like they're attempting to preserve democracy, no matter how old their leadership is.
And you have another party that seems like they're on the fast track to fascism.
So you just have to ask yourself, do you care about democracy or not?
As an American, you just have to ask yourself that simple question.
Do you care about democracy or not?
If the answer is yes, then, hey, man, you might have to vote for the elderly.
It's an extraordinarily dispiriting choice.
Charlemagne, it's great to talk to you.
Thanks.
It is.
Thank you very much indeed for coming on the show.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, Piers.
Well, it says the next.
A terror suspect on the run of escaping from Wandsworth prison dressed as a chef.
How can that happen?
Or are we just not surprised?
Because everything else in Britain is broken.
We may as well include the prisons.
Our pack is here to debate that and much more.
I'll talk about it.
Welcome back to you, Piers.
We're going to sensor.
Join me now as my pack.
Talk to me, contributing lawyer, Tori Adrian.
Talk to your presenter, Richard Tyson, international editor.
That's a wonderfully fancy title.
Isabel Oakshot.
Welcome to all of you.
You can see you've all missed me, even if your eyes and expressions are telling a different story.
Richard, are prisons join the long list of things that simply aren't working in this country?
What is going on?
Why does nothing work anymore?
Why can't we even keep dangerous terrorists in prison?
It's got worse since you've been away, Piers.
And I mean, this is nothing short, actually, of gross negligence.
That's all it is.
I mean, if you and I said, let's go and run a few prisons, I'm pretty sure the first thing we would do is to say, when vehicles come in and out, we should check them.
The roof inside and underneath.
It is the most basic stuff.
Here's the thing, though.
It cannot be just this one individual on their own.
There's CCTV everywhere.
If you actually look at the entrance and exit of that prison, there are two secure zones that vehicle will have gone through.
There has to be, in my view.
I mean, I've actually gone into some of these prisons to interview people or whatever, or to see people.
And the levels of security you have to go through is absolutely mind-boggling to me, Isabel, that anyone could actually, in this day and age, get out of one of these things.
Which is why I think it was absolutely an inside job.
There will have been multiple people, I am sure.
That's my instinct, assisting this individual.
And we know from the testimony of so many prison officers and other sources that there is a huge amount of corruption in our prisons, a huge amount of drugs and bribery.
And all sorts will have gone on to assist them.
But do you feel like I do that it is indicative of a wider malaise in the country about almost everything?
100%.
Everywhere I go now, people say, what is wrong with this?
I think nothing is working.
We talk about this every day, don't we?
And every day you see more and more examples, whether it's the collapsing schools, bits of the NHS not working.
You get on a train, inevitably it's late.
You ring a call centre, no one answers because there's a high volume of calls, nothing works.
Paula, the problem is, as always, it's the people with the least amount of money and ability to get through all this cost of living crisis and so on who suffer the most, right?
Absolutely.
And you see that frustration spilling out onto the street.
You see it in relation to youth thinking that it's okay to arrange a raid on JD Sports or wherever it is.
You see protesters, but members of the public attacking protesters because they don't feel that the police are acting in their best interests and allowing them to get on with their daily work.
You see it in relation to what's happening to the ULES cameras and attacks on ULUC cameras because you also see it in what's happening with the NHS, which I'm a massive fan of and have had good reason to be a massive fan of over many decades with family and friends and so on.
And particularly Great Ormond Street, where I had a cousin who was a consultant neurologist there for kids for many years and brilliant.
But in the middle of all this, you read a story, the advice for staff at Great Ormondry Hospital urges them to stop using gendered language in conversation.
Suggest the wrong pronouns can make people feel disrespected, invalidated, dismissed, triggered, alienated, or often all of these things.
And they've stopped people to use words like boy or girl or man or woman.
And I'm sorry, Richard.
How are they finding the time to do this stuff?
But secondly, where are the rights, I'm going to say this again, where are the rights of people like me who would like to be called a man?
Or Isabel, who I suspect would like to be called a woman when she goes to a hospital?
Or a boy or a girl?
Where are the rights of the vast majority of people to carry on being called what they damn well want to be called?
I just want people in the hospitals, doctors and nurses, to be focusing on looking after the patients.
Right, nothing else.
It's the time and energy, not just the money, the resource that's wasted.
And the bowing mentality that everything has to now be inclusive, even if in the process it excludes the majority of people from what they want.
And actually, Richard, you know, the truth is that the doctors and nurses, the healthcare professionals, actually also want what you want.
This exasperates them more than these endless media.
Have you ever met a doctor who wants to use gender-neutral language?
It's absolutely clap trap.
Paula, I'm coming to you, Lars, because I know what's going to happen.
You're going to launch a spirited, ludicrous defense.
And I'm going to be right, and you're all going to agree.
Go on then.
Because you know I'm right.
This, and I am disappointed in you all, is actually a good news story.
Why?
It's a good news story because it's people being respectful to people.
And you say, what about the rights of you, Piers, to be called a man?
Who said you weren't going to be called a man?
If I go to Great Ormond Street, they won't call me a man.
Well, as I understand it, the guidelines are that you will be asked how you prefer to be referenced as.
You will then explain how you prefer to be ready.
And then you will be referenced as a person.
Aren't you happy with that, Piers?
Can you imagine going to Ukraine right now and saying to those people, do you feel disrespected, invalidated, dismissed, triggered, alienated, or all of those things by the wrong pronoun?
Why do you think you think we've lost our perspective on reality of what it feels like to actually be oppressed?
It's not about being called the wrong pronoun.
It's about being bombed by Russian barbarians.
That is oppression.
This is nonsense.
I think that's a poor argument because we're not equating the NHS.
We're not equating what the NHS are attempting to do to make certain people feel better with the horror.
It's not making people horrifying.
This whole pronoun thing is utterly ridiculous.
Because the truth is, the truth is, if I decide if I decide, what's a bit like the number of letters now, the LGBTQ?
Do you know the rest of it?
Are they all?
Two plus.
Something, something, right?
Nobody knows.
It's all complete nonsense.
So I understand that there are even members of the LGBTQ community who don't know themselves community.
You've forgot two plus.
Who would agree with you?
And so I can understand that sometimes in terms of marketing, branding, getting a message out there, people get it wrong.
But that isn't a reason to see.
It's not a coincidence.
The quality of the service and outcomes of the NHS are declining because they're wasting time.
There are people at Great Ormond Street.
And this is nonsense.
People at Great Orma Street who are having to come up.
I don't know that that's having to come up with a lot of people.
But we are not struggling.
Our NHS is not struggling because there are people out there who are in the world.
It is the folks who are in the world.
I want Great Orma Street staff to do what they've always done so brilliantly and become world leaders in, which is take care of sick kids.
I don't want them worrying or fretting about whether somebody is a they themselves.
It is bullshit.
Anyway, let me just turn to something else which is bullt, which is something doing the rounds online.
It's probably an old one.
I don't know, but it's fun.
It's about the perfect tea.
Veganism Protects the Environment 00:08:36
It's a meme about the perfect tea.
Somebody has come up here with a sort of grit.
And I think we've got it here.
We can show the grid.
So they reckon that E3, right, is the perfect example of the perfect colour tea.
I think that is overstewed.
I am more of a C4.
I think that is the perfect colour.
And it has to be Yorkshire Gold, obviously.
But that is, it's 4.
It's 4C.
No.
Sorry, Piers.
Isabel?
D2, D2.
D2.
D2, Isabel.
That's what I'm saying.
No, that's C5.
Can we see it again?
Can we see it again?
It's got to be a teacher.
Keep it up there.
You've got to see it all the time.
Sorry.
We can't take it down.
No, no, way too weak.
You're C5 and strong and robust.
No, that's overstewed.
Well, I obviously drink green tea, Piers.
But if I was...
You had it with milk.
If I had to have it with...
Well, you don't have green tea.
I know you'd be.
You'd be pathetically.
I was just going to say, why don't you get what I would be?
Put it back.
Put it back a moment.
Put it back.
A1.
And then you say, but the trouble with that is it's racist.
I think you'll find I'd probably be a C5.
My sister in law.
Do you agree with me, Matthew?
My sister in laws from farms she'd make a C5.
I'm a world expert on tea making.
I've actually taught Americans how to make it, and it's C4.
Anyway, it's a good debate.
Thank you, Pat.
Good to see you.
I'm glad we all reached a position of totally disagreeing.
As always, always more fun that way.
Uncensored next.
The vegans are back, you'll be pleased to know, offending common decency with an advert so vile it's had to be banned.
The woman behind that advert is here to explain why yogurts are evil.
That's next.
Welcome back to Petersburg and Uncensored.
We all know Mullah yogurts, these creamy treats with crunchy or fruity bits in your corner.
Other delicious brands are available.
But apparently, all yoghurts are evil.
They're murderous.
A vegan charity has released an ad about them that will give you nightmares.
A warning, you might find this disturbing.
But when I hear vegans talking about this.
Sorry, we got the wrong clip there.
We're going to play the right one.
I hope.
Have we got the right one?
Sorry, my apologies.
We don't have the clip, but we are going to find it.
Anyway, it's a pretty gruesome clip of well, basically makes out that this yogurt here, the mullah, we do have it.
We do have it.
Here we go.
New from killer yogurts.
The umbilical cord flavour.
Produced with only the finest ingredients.
The stolen milk of grieving mothers.
Taste the torment in every mouthful.
Blended with brutality.
Be complicit with killer yogurts.
Well, I'm joined now by the director of the charity, Viva, who made the ad, Juliet Galatali.
Well, Juliette, I've got to be honest, that's one of the most disgusting things I think I've ever had to watch.
It's also one of the most disingenuous.
It's a yogurt, for goodness sake.
Why are you making ads like that?
About a yogurt.
I'm sorry, I don't believe that that's the most disgusting thing in your editorial career that you've seen.
Pretty much one of them.
I've got to be honest.
I'm sorry, it's a pantomime style.
It's obviously a parody.
It's obviously fake blood.
You know, over 3 million people saw it.
Well, the point is, we went into and investigated dairy farming and blew apart the notion that these animals are in idle.
One in five of the animals and supplying people like that were zero grazed.
This means they never saw a blade of grass.
And so I went in myself to check this out and they were in filthy conditions.
The male calves taken away and shot or knifed in the throat because they don't produce milk.
The mothers, when their milk production went down, killed.
So there's a lot of death in the dairy.
Let me ask you.
Let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this.
What do you think happens in the wild?
How do you think animals eat?
What species are you talking about?
Well, you're very concerned about the protection of animals, but if you go to the African bush, animals eat each other all day long in the most savage, primeval way.
Why aren't you campaigning about that?
Why don't you go and protect animals from other animals?
Yeah, listen, my degree of zoology, I know quite a lot about animals.
So you say they are not.
My TikTok feed, all I see all day are lions destroying gazelles in the field.
Come on, they're not, which is a bit more gory than that.
They're not farmed.
They're not factory farmed.
These animals never see sunlight, they never graze a blade of grass.
It's obscene.
I don't think even you would agree with that.
Well, I always, my problem with vegans is this.
I mean, I bet you probably like almonds, do you?
Oh, no, you're not going to do the almond avocado with me.
I'm just asking you, do you eat...
This is boring.
It's very boring.
No, no, no.
I actually find the vegan assault on meat eaters boring.
So do you eat avocados and almonds?
I'm not assaulting anybody.
Do you eat them?
I eat them from Spain.
So you do?
You eat avocados and alien.
Spain, because the issues that you talk about.
And about the milk.
What kind of milk did you drink?
You're talking about the murder.
What kind of milk do you drink?
You talk about the murder of... Sawyer.
Sawyer.
You talk about the murder of bees in other interviews.
Yes, because vegans don't die.
I don't care.
But you don't care about the billions of calves and chicks and piglets.
I understand.
You're a complete hypocrite.
No, I'm not.
You are people.
No, the hypocrites are the vegans who munch away on almonds and their avocados and stuff.
They don't give a damn about billions of bees getting annihilated.
That's absolutely.
Because the bees are the little guys.
And I had this conversation each time because that's the hypocrisy.
I don't care.
You're obsessed with this because you think it catches me.
I am a proud and happy meat and yogurt.
When you try and make out this yogurt is the most evil thing that anyone has in the world, I think you're bonkers.
It is.
We're in the sixth mass extinction.
We're living it now.
You're behaving like a new Zancon.
I'm in the what?
You're behaving like a new Zang control.
What's extinction?
Look up.
In the sixth mass extinction.
You're deflecting all the time from the forest.
The world is not going to end.
You're trying to deflect.
Because I eat a mullah yogurt.
Animals are factory farmed.
You're trying to deflect from the festival.
We're still here.
Veganism protects the environment.
We're still here.
We are, but how do we get it?
Nobody's extinct.
What have we got?
You've got kids.
You must care about the climate crisis.
I let my kids eat meat.
I let them eat yogurt.
And you know what?
I don't think it's evil.
You must care about the climate crisis.
And you must be aware that the University of Oxford has specifically stated that a vegan diet, it protects the environment.
Really?
But you just said you eat...
You said you've got almonds or avocados from Spain.
Which one?
From Spain.
Which one?
Both.
I don't eat almonds.
How do they get here?
Avocados.
How do they get here?
Boat.
Boat.
Really?
You sure?
I am sure.
You sure?
I am absolutely sure.
Really?
And how do you think most vegans get most of their almonds and avocados from California?
And how do you think most meat eaters get there?
No, they don't.
They don't get them from a boat.
They get them on planes.
Beat eaters get their enemies.
They get them on planes which guzzle up the environment.
Do you eat avocados?
Yes.
But you care about all these millions of bees being killed.
No, I care about your hypocrisy about the little guys.
Rubbish.
Most bees are killed because of overuse of pesticides.
Most of them.
Pesticides due to the way that the pollen in the polls are for farmers' animals.
That is not.
So you're talking about...
Most of the bees get killed in the pollination process.
And by the way, after they get killed, you vegans get all your almonds and avocados flown over on these gas-guzzling planes.
And my point is, I like to fly.
I like to eat meat.
I like to eat yogurts.
I'm just fed up with vegans trying to shake me for it when you're all such hypocrites when it comes to the bees.
No, you're not.
You're against factory farming.
If you went inside the farms that I've been inside and the reason that I set up Viva, the state of the animals that I've seen them in, pigs, you know, dying in front of me.
If this makes me evil, this makes me evil.
I am happy to be evil.
It's disgusting.
It's delicious.
Julia Galadley, lovely to see you.
That's it from me.
Whatever you're up to, keep it Creamy.
Possibly.
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