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Feb. 5, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:51
20240205_piers-morgan-uncensored-king-charles-cancer-diagno
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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King Charles Cancer Diagnosis 00:14:21
From the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored.
Good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored.
King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer.
The King told close family members, including his sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, and his three siblings.
The announcement was made to the British public at 6pm this evening and shocked the world.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has told friends he's flying into the UK over the next few days to see his father, who he's already spoken to over the phone.
The type of cancer has not been revealed, but we do know from the palace it is not prostate cancer, but the cancer was discovered during the King's recent treatment for an enlarged prostate.
Well, Buckingham Palace said tonight the King began regular treatments as an outpatient on Monday.
He was last seen publicly as recently as Sunday, attending church in Norfolk with his wife, Queen Camilla.
He remains the head of state.
He will undertake basic state duties from the palace, including his weekly meeting with the Prime Minister.
But public engagements have all been postponed for the duration of his treatment.
It's unclear if he'll be able to undertake major international trips to Canada and New Zealand planned over the coming months.
Well, reaction, as you'd expect, is pouring in from around the world.
Here, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Sir Kirstana have wished him a speedy recovery.
In the United States, Donald Trump just posted, he's a wonderful man who I got to know well during my presidency, and we all pray that he has a fast and full recovery.
President Joe Biden said he's concerned and hopes to talk to him soon.
Messenger in Charles, you're the ball.
Senator Barnum, just heard his diagnosis.
Robbie Talker from Garmin.
Well, joining me now is talk to these royal editors Sarah Hewson, royal biographer Tom Bauer, Fox News contributor Mark Siegel and former editor of the Sunday Times Andrew Neill.
Okay well Sarah let's start with you just on this breaking news.
I got told just after five o'clock there's a massive statement coming from Buckingham Palace about King Charles and we think it's cancer and I read the statement maybe just a few minutes before it went out.
It was shocking.
I mean you don't read this kind of thing about a senior member of the royal family and yet it comes just after the previous health statements about both Charles having his prostate operation which was for a benign situation and for Kate the Princess of Wales.
A lot of health stories about the royals.
This is, it appears to be by far the most serious.
Yes and you're right it has come as a shock because we know the king went into hospital for a planned procedure on an enlarged prostate, a benign enlarged prostate we were told.
We thought that that was very typical for a man of his age and we were told that he'd put that diagnosis out there because he wanted to raise awareness.
He did have to stay in hospital a little bit longer than we had initially thought.
He was in for three nights.
He had regular visits from Queen Camilla during that period and it was during that procedure that an area of concern was noticed.
Some people were talking about the public.
Well actually I wonder about the timing because I'm told by people close to the royals that as late as like two days ago, yesterday, everything seemed fine.
And it seems to me what may be more likely, and maybe Dr. Mark Siegel can tell us this, is that they took some of his prostate away for further examination in that operation he had.
And then something nasty turned up, which was nothing to do with the prostate, but it revealed another cancer in his body.
And I think that this has come as a shock to everybody.
From what I can tell, even senior member of the royal family had no idea this was coming.
Absolutely.
And we saw the king and the queen at Sandringham yesterday.
We do understand that they knew last week Queen Camilla opened a Maggie's cancer care centre.
We're told that she did that knowing the diagnosis.
We think that she told that.
understanding is that she carried on with that engagement and it will have taken on an added significance of course for her we know that the king told his siblings and Edward and Andrew we don't know before this was made public and I spoke to both sons okay so Tom I think this has all happened pretty quickly and that says to me this has come as a big shock and that the royal family already reeling from the deaths of Prince Philip from Her Majesty the Queen,
from the double health blow that we had several weeks ago of Charles and Kate.
And now this, that our new monarch has cancer.
Well, it does come as a shock.
But on the other hand, I must tell you that before Christmas, someone, a neighbour of his in High Grove, did tell me that the king wasn't well and also warned that Queen Camilla is not perfect health either.
So I think that although it seems like it's a great shock tonight to us, I think this has been coming for some time.
Well, let's bring it to Andrew Neal.
Andrew, you were one of the great newspaper editors.
This is one of those stories, isn't it, where it breaks at six o'clock at night and everyone is scrambling.
I'd imagine the papers will be absolutely full of this tomorrow.
What do you make of this?
In particular, the wording of the Palace Statement, which I've got to say, with my own former newspaper editor hat on, I think this looks quite a serious situation.
Well, they told us more than they usually do in these circumstances.
They haven't told us anything like the full picture.
We don't know what kind of cancer it is, but they told us more than they usually do.
They told us more than they did when the Queen was getting seriously unwell.
It is a huge story.
I've been watching the American Network.
It's the lead story in every American news network tonight.
I've been watching French and German TV.
It's the lead story there as well.
It's the lead story in every major network, I would guess, around the world.
And there will be a temptation for journalists to make Harry the story because he's now going to be flying back.
And we hope that at times of crisis, this is a crisis for the royal family, it can bring families together.
But I hope we don't make Harry the story.
The story is the king.
And the story is the Queen and Prince William and his wife Kate, who will have to step up to the plate, particularly when Kate gets better, to fill in some of the gaps that Charles will leave behind.
The important matter is the continuity of the British state in these circumstances.
And the core of the British state has a thousand years of experience in dealing with these things.
Not many countries that can say they've got a thousand years of experience.
And I'm encouraged by the fact that the king will still carry out a lot of functions in private, including the Privy Council and meeting the Prime Minister and his red boxes.
But it's not been thought necessary to create a council of state that would take over the functions, the constitutional functions of the monarch.
And I think when you add all that together, that's encouraging.
The continuity will continue.
And it's very important here in an election year.
Yes.
Because the purpose of the monarchy is to provide continuity and stability, regardless of what's happening in politics.
And we're having an election this year.
And it's very important that the monarchy plays that role above politics for the country as a whole.
Yeah, very, very good point, Andrew.
We've got Roy Nicker, who's the royal correspondent for the Sunday Times, Andrew's old paper.
Before I come to you, Roy, I want to read the Buckingham Palace statement in full and then get your reaction to this.
It says, during the King's recent hospital procedure for benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted.
Subsequent diagnostic tests have identified a form of cancer.
His Majesty has today commenced to schedule a regular treatment, during which time he's been advised by doctors to postpone public-facing duties.
Throughout this period, His Majesty will continue to undertake state business and official paperwork as usual.
The king is grateful to his medical team for their swift intervention, which was made possible thanks to his recent hospital procedure.
He remains wholly positive about his treatment and looks forward to returning to full public duty as soon as possible.
His Majesty has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world affected by cancer.
So, Roya, I mean, that was a bombshell statement.
And as always with royal statements, you kind of look for the devil in the detail, if you like.
And I've got to say, like I said, I think this is quite a serious situation, which has emerged from a not so serious situation, which was the procedure for the benign prostate enlargement.
This is clearly a separate and is a cancer.
So it's a different thing altogether and it's more serious.
You can't, Piers, detract from the fact that cancer is a very serious diagnosis, whatever form it is, and we don't know what form it is yet.
We're told, you know, he may choose to share more information down the line during his treatment.
But just to your point about, you know, always unpicking statements from the palace, I have to say I actually looked at that statement and some of the guidance that we've had tonight, some background guidance we've had from the palace, particularly the items about no councillors of state being needed.
So we are not going to see Prince William or Prince Edward or Anne stepping in constitutionally for the king.
It's been made very clear, quite sort of firmly, that constitutionally at the moment, nothing has changed.
The king is going to keep doing his affairs of state, his red boxes.
We just won't see him in public so much.
So yes, it's very serious.
He's got cancer.
But at the same time, that phrase, you know, he is wholly positive about his treatment and that he is still doing affairs of state.
I read that as actually quite a hopeful sign.
Yeah, but for a new king of less than a year to no longer be doing any engagements in front of the public, I just think, you know, knowing Charles as I have for a long time, not particularly closely, but having followed his life, this is a tough guy, a very fit guy, used to yomping around the highlands and leading a very fit, active life.
For him to basically retreat from public life in the way that he is, yes, he may be saying he's wholly positive.
I wouldn't expect anything else, but I think this must be a serious situation because he is cancelling all public engagements, apparently, while he undergoes this treatment.
I mean, there's no doubt that, you know, cancer is serious for anyone, but I think in terms of sort of retreating from public view, when, you know, depending on what his treatment involves, the palace and the royal family and the king himself will want to minimise, you know, the health risk to him in terms of it's one thing to meet with the prime minister and have an audience with him, as we're told, hopefully he will continue to do that and meet with the privy council.
It's another thing to, you know, be at a Buckingham Palace reception with 300 people in the room, which I think is why, you know, erring on the side of caution for the head of state, for our monarch, he's withdrawn.
But of course, you know, you cannot shy away from the fact that the king, as you say, just a year and a half into his reign, is having to withdraw from public life, temporarily, we hope, is a huge blow to him, a huge blow to his reign.
It's going to be a big challenge for him and the family to run around.
Yeah.
Tom, the subplot here, and Andrew Neil was quite right, this shouldn't be the story, but it's interesting that there's obviously this massive ongoing rift with Prince Harry and his father.
But we've been told from friends of Prince Harry that he's planning to fly from California to see his father, which will be the nearest thing to a rapprochement we've seen.
You do see this with families when they're warring, is a dramatic event like this can bring people together.
What do you make of that?
Well, I think that rapprochement is fitting.
On the other hand, I'm very suspicious because as we've discussed often here, Harry's agenda has been so anti-monarchist, has been so disrespectful of the king and the queen and of course of his brother, that for him suddenly to turn up in London, not having expressed any concern for his father when he heard originally about the prostrate problem, which is two weeks ago, that's been a period of silence.
So suddenly he's flying in.
I think it seems two things, not the rapprochement only, but also how serious it is.
I don't think it is a benign issue at all.
I think you're quite right that there is a mini crisis happening.
Yeah, and Andrew Neil, if I could come back to you for a moment, you know, we've covered the royals for many, many decades, and they've always been the biggest story in town.
And like you say, the news of the king's diagnosis is leading the news around the world, not least in America, where it's huge.
I've had loads of calls of people wanting interviews about this already.
So you can see how big a story this is.
But does it also point to the fragility of our royal family right now?
We've lost the great matriarch in the Queen.
We lost the great patriarch in Prince Philip.
We've now got the Princess of Wales, who's having months off work because of, we don't know what it was that she had, but it was obviously pretty serious.
We've got Charles now, the new monarch who has cancer.
You know, if you look at the sort of top, the top list of royals, this is a big moment, isn't it?
I mean, this is a, like I say, this points to the fragility of the whole thing.
It's come at a bad time.
Of course, cancer diagnosis has never come at a good time, but with the royal family, we've gone from surplus to famine very, very quickly.
I mean, a lot of people say, I don't mind the king or the queen.
I don't mind the very top royals, but I don't like all these hangers-on.
Well, a lot of the so-called, my mother used to call them hangers-on.
Well, these kind of royals seem to have stopped hanging on.
They've disappeared now.
Prince Andrew is no longer in the game.
Prince Harry counted himself out along with Megan.
The Princess of Wales has not been well, so William has recused himself too.
We are now have a royal family that is pretty short-handed.
And of course, this will put huge strain on the Queen at a very difficult time for her, but also more strain on William, who was hoping to step back and look after his wife.
He is now under pressure and will succumb to that pressure to get back into public life and pick up some of these public engagements.
So it's the productivity of the remaining senior members of the royal family who are able to do what royals should be doing.
Not many of them anymore.
Royal Duties and Recovery 00:03:22
That will have to increase in the weeks and months ahead.
And I think the other thing to look for, this is just a breaking story because, as you know, we do not know what kind of cancer it is.
The ball cancer is scary and bad.
We do not know the treatment that the king is getting or what impact the treatment will have on the king himself, which I think is very important.
So I think in the days and probably the weeks ahead, we'll get a better idea of whether the king will be able to carry on in private with his important duties and eventually come back to the public life, or whether it's so serious that even in private, his duties are now hard to carry out.
That, to my mind, is the thing to look for in the weeks ahead.
Yeah, I completely agree.
Sarah, I mean, Andrew, you're so right, isn't it, that the number of top people in the royal family available to do the functional work of the royal family, which is huge.
I mean, they all do hundreds of royal engagements a year.
These can be big ones, small ones, but they're serving the people.
That's the deal, the contract with the British public.
There aren't many of them at the moment able to actually work.
No, and those that are working already have patched schedules.
Princess Anne, for example, has an incredibly busy parry.
And the king is going to be relying on his sister now, also on Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, on Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince William.
But as Andrew was saying, Prince William was hoping to take some time out to be looking after his wife and children.
Next week is half-term.
The children will be home from school.
Kate not really able to be carrying on as normal.
But we had the announcement today, and I think the timing of that was significant and choreographed, that he's back to public duties on Wednesday.
He's going to be hosting an investiture at Windsor Castle.
He's got an event on Wednesday.
He needs to be seen because as the late Queen used to say, you know, the royal family need to be seen to be aware of.
But worth remembering, William will be very worried about his wife.
And worried about his family.
And Camilla will be absolutely, you know, heartbroken about what's going on with Charles, the great love of her life.
Never mount the public duty stuff.
She's going to carry on with her duties.
There presumably some of them will have to pick up some of the kings at some stage if it carries on.
But she'll also have in her own world, this is a devastating moment.
Sometimes it's easy to forget.
The human beings.
She's supporting him through his treatment as well, because we don't know what impact it's going to have on him.
You talked about reading between the lines of the statements.
Now we look back on some of the words that Camilla has said over the past couple of weeks.
Initially, when she was asked, she said he was doing fine.
Last week, she said he's doing his best when she was asked how he was.
And that takes on a greater significance now we know what has been going on.
Okay.
Andrew Neil and Royneka, thank you both very much indeed.
I think you guys are staying with me.
Uncensored next, we're getting more on the breaking news that King Charles has been diagnosed with a form of cancer.
We'll talk to a constitutional expert.
What does this all mean actually for the monarchy?
If God forbid this turns into a very serious situation involving our monarch.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Well, Sarah Houston and Tom Bauer are still with me along with historian and author Sir Anthony Seldon.
Sir Anthony, a big shock tonight for the country, for the world, that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer.
We don't know what the cancer is.
Constitutional Crisis Explained 00:03:47
We don't know how serious it is, but we do know he's cancelling all engagements where he would have to face the public for the foreseeable future.
What do you read into this?
I don't know what to read in it to Piers.
I mean, it's so unexpected.
We can read so many different things into it.
It could be just precaution that he is 75.
He's not a young man.
It could be the doctors are just saying, let's take it very steadily and cautiously and carefully, but there's nothing very much to worry about that we can't deal with with our modern treatments at one end of the spectrum or the other.
It could be a serious and advanced form of cancer.
At the moment, I don't know.
I don't know if anybody else does outside the royal circle.
So Anthony, what are the constitutional implications of this situation?
If we assume for a moment, God forbid, that the king is very seriously ill with a serious cancer and that there is a possibility that he may not come through it.
And that's the worst case scenario, obviously.
And we don't know for a moment that that is the case.
But what is the constitutional situation here?
So it does show that the monarchy really matters in modern Britain.
I mean, why are we talking about it?
Why is the world obsessed about this today when there are so many other pressing issues, wars and in this country, the prospect of a general election and party politics, it's all been swept aside.
And why?
And in a way, it's very hard to say exactly what the monarchy does do, but we do know that it's important, not important because many people, a majority of the country like it and want it to continue, but because it's fulfilling part of our constitutional function.
It does help hold the United Kingdom together, take away the monarchy.
And there's not a great deal holding together the constituent nations of the United Kingdom.
It does help provide a sense of continuity, meaning and purpose.
And somebody has to do it.
So what will happen has already been pointed out with Princess Catherine herself unwell.
And we don't quite know what's going on with her.
That's a lot falling back on William, but also on his two functioning siblings of Edward and Princess Anne.
But they're not exactly front tier figures.
So there will be cover.
I mean, what's important, what we know is that this monarchy fights.
It hasn't survived for 950 years without fighting for its survival.
And it will make do somehow whatever absence or whatever problem this is.
But Mr. Anthony, on the Constitution, if the king is incapacitated, what happens then?
If he's alive but incapacitated, if he can't perform the functions of state, if he can't see the prime minister and so on, what happens in that eventuality?
Well, eventually there could be a regency, as happened with George III, who was incapacitated through mental problems.
He reigned for 60 years, but by the beginning of the 19th century, he clearly was incapable of providing that steadiness of purpose at a time that the monarchy was more central and important in the country than it is now.
Bladder Cancer Speculation 00:05:36
So there would be some form of regency, and I would imagine that William would step up and become the regent and that he would be taking over the political functions of the monarchy so that those essential functions for the continuity of the British state would be allowed seamlessly to continue.
So Anthony, thank you very much indeed.
I'm joined now from the United States by Dr. Mark Siegel.
He's the Fox News contributor.
Dr. Mark, great to see you.
Big bombshell news tonight.
I know it's making big news across the pond in America.
When you read the statement from the palace, and it says when he had the procedure for the benign prostate enlargement, a separate issue of concern was noted, which is another form of cancer has been identified.
Just talk me through the process that could have led to that discovery.
Well, Piers, good to see you.
And we actually talked together about this at the very beginning when he went in for the procedure.
Now, I talked to our top urologist at NYU, New York University, today about this issue with the prostate.
And he said about one out of a hundred times when you're there, when you're going in, you could see a bladder cancer, that it could look like a large prostate, or it could be there at the same time as enlarged prostate, or it could come out on pathology.
One out of a hundred times or more that happens.
I'll tell you, Piers, I'm suspicious that this is bladder cancer because he went home, because they're treating him as an outpatient, because what you do with bladder cancer after you resect it, if you can resect it, You give BCG, which is a form of inactivated bacteria like tuberculosis, you infuse that into the bladder and it cures it over 90% of the time.
It's the fourth most common cancer in men.
Number one is prostate cancer, which they say this is not.
Lung cancer, colon cancer, those could have spread, but the King of England, I think, would be getting inpatient treatment for those.
So I'm suspicious that this is bladder cancer, and that would be good news.
Well, that's encouraging if that's what it is.
We've been asked not to speculate about what it is, but it's impossible, really, given that we know the king has cancer, not to at least theorize what the range of cancers it could be, given that it was discovered from this procedure for the benign prostate enlargement.
I mean, I heard a doctor this morning, this evening on the radio talking about how when you have that benign prostate enlargement, if you are the king, they probably took some tissue from the prostate area as well, and that it may have taken some time for that to be properly tested and come back.
Would that be consistent with a bladder cancer discovery?
And could it also have unearthed something else completely different?
In other words, like you say, could it have been a secondary site for a lung cancer or colon cancer or something of that nature?
Absolutely.
All of those things are possible.
I'm just considering the idea that he went home.
And as you say, they ask us not to speculate, but if I'm right, this is very, very, very good news.
This also happens pretty commonly.
And also, they didn't talk about a CAT scan or other tests.
You know, this is most likely something you would find while you're doing the other procedure.
So you would be quietly encouraged by the sequence of events.
Because he went home.
Because the King of England went home.
And because if they found this, now another possibility might be lymphoma.
Lymphoma is eminently treatable as well.
But again, I would have expected the king to be treated in the hospital for that, at least initially.
So the fact that...
I'm encouraged by the fact that he went home and that he's getting the treatment as an outpatient.
I find that very encouraging.
That seems to me to be a significant part of this.
I mean, we know that was the case on Monday.
What we don't know from that statement is whether he will remain an outpatient or whether he will actually have to go in as well.
All we do know is that all public engagements involving FaceTime with the public have all been cancelled or postponed.
That is very, very unusual, Dr. Mark, which suggests to me that whatever it is, they're very worried about it.
Well, or that he has a recovery time here or that he had surgery done.
You know, if it was bladder cancer, they would have tried to remove it at the time that they were doing the prostate.
If it's metastatic cancer of another sort, it still can respond to chemotherapy or immunotherapy or radiation, but it would be more dire than if it were the bladder.
I mean, if it is the bladder cancer, as you say, if he's had the procedure that you said he may have had for that, what's the recovery time period like?
Well, that would be a matter of weeks.
Of course, he's 75 years old.
That factors into it.
He's pretty fit.
And as you know, Piers, he's the anti-smoking king.
He's been asking for no smoking in all of the UK.
So that's good because more likely these cancers are related to smoking.
So he's a healthy king.
And I think that that bodes well for a faster recovery unless he has a more severe cancer.
Right.
Treatment Timeline Concerns 00:14:47
Dr. Ma, as always, great to talk to you.
Thank you so much for sparing the time.
I know you're very, very busy over there with all the stuff going on, Fox, so I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Well we're going to take another break and come back and talk to Tessa Dunlop who's a royal historian and also Dickie Armitage, the former press secretary to the Queen on this big new blow.
So stay with us for more on the big breaking story.
Welcome back to a special edition of Piers Morgan on Censored about the bombshell news that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer.
Still with me is Tom Bauer and I'm the Royal Historian now.
Tessa Dunlop and the former press secretary of the late Queen Dickie Arbiter.
Before I come to our new guests, there's just some more tributes pouring in from everywhere, all around the world.
The Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sarah and I send our heartfelt well wishes to King Charles III, our prayers for his good health.
Joe Biden, we quoted earlier.
Yes, I'm concerned about him.
I've just heard his diagnosis.
Hopefully I'll be talking to him soon.
Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.
I like Canadians across the country and people around the world.
I'm thinking of His Majesty King Charles III as he undergoes treatment for cancer.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan wish the king a speedy and full recovery on behalf of Londoners.
I look forward to his return to full health as soon as possible.
And the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the whole country will be rooting for the king today.
Best wishes to Charles III for a full and speedy recovery.
And they're coming in from literally every quarter of the world as this news reverberates around the globe.
Well, let me go to Dickie Arbiter.
Dickie, you've dealt with many royal crises in your time.
Hard to imagine many more serious than our new monarch of just a year and a half taking over from the late, great queen and the enormity of her own death, that he's now been diagnosed with cancer.
What's your reaction to this?
Well, my initial reaction to it is that good old Buckingham Palace for announcing that the king does have cancer, because if he's not seen out and about, which is his job, there'll be a lot of speculation as to where he is.
They've made very clear that he's robust.
He will continue with his constitutional role.
And that's going through red boxes of papers of state, which he has to do, and also audiences with the Prime Minister.
So that will carry on.
The only difference is that we won't see him out and about.
The part that he really enjoys is going up and down the country, whether it's England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, whatever, or abroad.
He will miss that.
He will miss meeting the people.
He will miss meeting businessmen, industrialists, politicians.
But he's got to live with that.
And he has been told that he does have cancer.
He will have treatment.
What is interesting, and Dr. Siegel did make the point, that he's being treated at home.
And that is probably good news, that they didn't feel that it necessary, the medic studies, to treat him in hospital.
So treating at home is good news.
It means he can carry on with a fairly normal life, albeit restricted in not going out and about.
And I think it's good that Buckingham Palace did announce it.
They wouldn't have done it without his say-so.
And it just shows a new monarchy, a new attitude towards the ills of mankind that they have announced that he has cancer.
And we can just hope that in the fullness of time, he will be cured.
Got to remember that we are already in February.
Engagements usually go up until the end of March when Easter Court is in play and very rarely any engagements.
And I don't think we'll see the king back until after Easter, and very much the Princess of Wales.
We won't see her back until after Easter.
But I think along with everybody else globally, that we wish the King well.
Yeah, absolutely.
Tessa Dunlop, a big shock.
Yeah, and one can't help but feel great sympathy for King Charles.
He's been in a job that he's waited his entire life for, for one year and four months.
And this news will have come as a shock.
The word cancer always comes as a shock.
He's shared, but he's not overshared.
We don't know, of course, what the treatment will be, and we don't know what cancer he has.
But I think we can feel cautiously optimistic.
Rishi mentioned he would be having still his weekly meetings with the monarch.
Tom Bauer, it was interesting.
There was a big media briefing attached to the statement, which was not for publication.
Very detailed, very long, actually, five pages or so.
And as I was reading it, I was thinking, this is not something you would do if this was a trivial matter.
I do think, we're watching live pictures outside Buckingham Palace.
I do think there's a lot of concern there.
I think there's a lot of concern, and rightly so.
I mean, King Charles is after all our monarch.
He's an older man, 75.
I think it has come as a shock to the public.
I don't think that it was a complete shock to him.
I think he already was feeling unwell for some weeks.
And I think that we're just not ready.
After having, after all, having lost the Queen, we don't really want to lose the King.
And I think that is the problem, that as Dr. Saals Ni Sullivan rightly said, we rely on the monarchy to keep this country together.
We rely on the monarchy to represent us at all these amazing charities, all the rest, the work they do.
And without them, I think the country is lost.
And I think that's what we've got to fear, that somehow, as you rightly say, there's a depletion in the ranks.
Dickie Arbiter, I mean, just on forthcoming events that would have involved the King being sent to stage, Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on March the 11th.
And then the King and Queen were expected to visit Canada in May, and then Australia, New Zealand, and Samoa for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October.
I mean, these are all big events, particularly the foreign tours and visits.
We don't know, of course, whether he'll be up to doing this.
But what would happen if he's not able to go?
Do they simply postpone it?
Do they send Queen Camilla on her own?
Do they send other members of the family?
What would you be thinking if you were at the palace now?
Well, let me rewind slightly.
And if it was the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, you can't postpone that.
I mean, it has been postponed in the past because of COVID, but there is no reason for it to be postponed.
And the King could quite easily delegate the Prince of Wales to go in much the same way as the late Queen delegated the King, current King when he was Prince of Wales, to go in her stead.
So that is not impossible.
As far as state visits are concerned to Canada and Australia, these could still go ahead in terms of the Prince of Wales going.
And let's hope that the Princess of Wales becomes fit and healthy and well to be able to resume duties.
So it's not lost.
It's not lost at all.
But, you know, you're talking about events in May, in October.
And these are a long time hence.
We're only at the beginning of February.
And I think with the right treatment, the right care, and the right peace of mind on behalf of the king, that we will see him back in harness after Easter.
But as far as those engagements are concerned, they're not lost.
They won't be postponed.
Tessa, the statement said that His Majesty has chosen to share the diagnosis, very unusual to do this, to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for those around the world affected by cancer.
I thought that was quite a significant change, as Dickie suggested earlier, to normal procedure when it comes to matters of health involving senior royals.
It's very true.
The late Queen, I think the most we got from her was poor mobility issues, even when she was in the depths of her 90s.
Her own father looked literally like walking death towards the end of his life.
Doctors could guess that he had cancer, but no word was uttered.
In fact, in his Christmas speech, just sort of six weeks prior to his death, he talked about the NHS and the doctors and nurses making him well again.
So this is a sea change.
Of course, we live in very different times.
The king has gone to great lengths to try and establish himself as a more empathetic, progressive monarch, and this is in keeping with that.
And like I say, he's shared, but he's not overshared.
We don't know what the cancer is.
We don't know what the treatment will be.
Regarding those trips, the Edinburghs, as they were then, Philip and Elizabeth, of course, stepped in for her father and they went to Canada and America in 1951.
And depending on Kate's health and, of course, how their children are, because they have pretty heavy familial duties with three of their own, we might see Kate and Williams step into the breach for that Australian-New Zealand tour, which by definition being long haul will be tiring.
Yeah.
Tessa, thank you very much.
Dickie Alberta, thank you very much.
Tombaugh, thank you very much.
Appreciate you coming in at such short notice tonight on this big breaking news.
I'll censor the next more live coverage on this extraordinary news that King Charles has cancer.
I'll be with my pack, Esther Ava, and Kevin after Uncensored, our special edition on this live-breaking news about King Charles III, who has been diagnosed with cancer.
I'm joined now by my PAC talk to your contributor, Esther Kraken, Denny Mary's Associate Editor Kevin Maguire, and the political journalist Ava Santina.
Well, it's a little bit of a shock, isn't it?
And we've had a lot of them with the Royals and Health.
We lost Prince Philip, we lost the Queen, and then two weeks ago, we suddenly woke up and in the space of two hours, we had Charles in hospital, Kate, Princess of Wales in hospital, and now this massive escalation in the King's health.
Kevin, I know you're not a monarchist, but for the country, this is a bit of a seismic blow.
Oh, it is.
Look, I wish him a full and speedy recovery.
He's more fortunate than the two in five people who don't get their cancer treatment to start with in the two months they're supposed to on the NHS.
But you're right, because look, he's just become king.
It was only May, eight months ago, he had the coronation.
And I admire and respect the openness in saying he has a form of cancer.
But of course, the questions will come.
Which cancer is it?
What is the stage?
How will the treatment proceed?
Because these are all questions.
Interestingly, the school doctor, Dr. Mark Siegel, theorising that because he's not being treated in hospital as an inpatient, he was quite encouraged by that.
And he felt that led more to potentially something like Vladicas, which is very treatable, apparently, in this kind of situation.
We don't know, but he thought the fact he wasn't being kept in was a good sign.
I've known friends who've not been treated in hospital and they've died from cancer.
And then because of the course of treatment.
If you get cancer at 75, whatever it is, it's not good.
Ava, what do you make of this?
I mean, it's just blown everything else up.
The news is a huge development, as it always is with the royals, going around the world.
What do you think?
I mean, it's very sad that a man has got cancer, but let's just remember he is but a man.
He is not, you know, any more special just than the kids.
Well, he is the king.
Yeah, but you know, I think that does make him quite special.
He's a celebrity, and it's always very sad when celebrities are unwell.
And I completely appreciate that.
However, I would also say this is a really good moment in time to talk about statutory sick pay.
So King Charles now doesn't have to work.
He'll do his phone call with the Prime Minister or whatever, but he's not going to his public engagement.
75 years old.
You have to work anyway.
Why would you want to be so churlish?
I'm not being churlish.
What I'm pointing out is that 75-year-old king has cancer.
You should be talking about statutory sick pay.
We've woken up and they might be 56.
They might need to go to work.
Would they be working at 75 as hard as he does?
Do you know any 75-year-old that works as hard as he does?
What hard?
75.
Let's not get into this today because I feel bad because a man is unwell and a family is uncomfortable.
You don't think he worked hard?
I appreciate that.
But look, you know, I think it's a pretty cushy job that I think many of us could all be.
I think I would be fine being King of England.
I could do it as a side job, actually.
You'd have to identify as a man, which I know you probably would.
Just because you could, right?
Esther, I don't share that view at all.
I don't think he has an easy life.
I think he's had a very tough few years, actually, losing both his parents and then having a coronation to replace the most popular, longest-serving monarch in our history.
All very, very tough stuff.
He's all the stuff with Harry, disenfranchised from one of his sons.
I mean, he's not had this easy at all.
But whatever this is, it's serious, I think, from the way this has played out tonight.
Of course, and I think most people are concerned with actually the constitutional implications of this, not just the fact that, obviously, this is a man who's in his 70s and he has been diagnosed with cancer.
It's obviously tragic.
But there are questions of will he have to abdicate, you know, only about a year into his reign.
What will happen with Prince William, who has three young children, and his dynamic or family dynamic will change radically if he has to take on more duties.
I think that's probably the bigger implications.
Look, yes, the UK does have, in terms of clinical outcomes, some of the lowest cancer outcomes in the developed world.
I mean, we're on par with Portugal, and we spend as much on our NHS as the whole GDP of Portugal.
So, you know, it's not great.
But at the end of the day, illness doesn't discriminate.
I don't think saying that he has the best care somehow negates the fact that this is a man with cancer.
If this was the only best care, he's the king of England.
No, even if he was your grandfather, you would want him to have cancer.
I'm glad to put out a statement and have been more open than they have in the past, the royal family.
But it raises so many questions.
They should be answered in public because he is the ultimate public figure.
What is it in the UK?
Which cancer is it?
Do you think you should be obliged to say that?
I do.
We never knew that about the other royalists.
If he's going to help other people, which he says he wants to, and I think he did, talking about his...
Well, there might be a time when he does talk about what type of cancer, but the mere fact he's talking about having cancer.
But then you understand.
But we're not going to be able to do that.
He's not Joe public.
But also think about it this way.
What if he needs time to process this?
I mean, we're talking about this breaking news.
I think we so quickly forget that humans.
I've been guilty of it myself.
I actually feel really feel for Camilla tonight.
This is the great love of her life.
And he is fighting a battle for his life.
And she's got to go out and still be the queen, still do all, perform all her functional duties, apparently.
He can't do his, she'll have to do hers, whilst every night going back to the reality that her husband is facing this huge battle.
You're absolutely right.
Rwanda Bet Fallout 00:04:55
I've been fortunate.
I've never been diagnosed with cancer.
But again, friends, family who are say everything stops.
Everything stops.
Everything stops when you just hear you have cancer.
And you've got William the same with his wife.
We don't know what happened with Kate, but it must have been serious.
She's off for months.
Let's just pivot slightly because we were going to run tonight my interview with the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, which I did over the weekend.
It's actually been running on our YouTube channel, the Piers Morgan Icens YouTube channel.
You can see it all there now, unedited.
A lot of people watching it at the moment.
And we're going to run it at 11 o'clock tonight on Talk TV.
It would have aired in this slot if it hadn't been for the big breaking news, obviously.
But I'll put one clip that's really blown up today on social media and get the PAX reaction.
I can just imagine what the reaction would be from at least two of them.
But let's take a look.
I'll bet you £1,000 to a refugee charity.
You don't get anybody on those planes before the election.
Will you take that bet?
Well, I want to get the people on the planes, right?
Of course I want to get the people on the plane.
£1,000.
Right?
I want to get the people on the plane.
And you say you're scratching your head.
Albania is an example of why it's working.
We created a new returns agreement with Albania.
It meant that if people came here illegally, we could send them back, and you know what?
They stopped coming.
Rwanda will do the same thing for us.
I do not think it's going to work for you.
Okay, well, we'll have to advise you.
That's my disagreement.
That's my grim prediction.
You don't have an alternative way to solve that problem then.
No, I'm not Prime Minister.
Well, the truth is, I'm not.
And if you want the top job, these are the problems that you have to solve.
I mean, Kevin, it was...
It's blown up as being in a terrible moment.
He should never have done it.
I think in his head, he was trying to compute, should I take this bet or not?
If I don't, does it look like I don't believe in my policy?
I didn't plan it.
I just thought about it on the moment.
I was like, because I feel this Rwanda plan is such a weird hill for someone as logical and sensible otherwise as Rishi Sunak to find himself dying on.
Which is what it looks like it may do to his tenure as Premier.
Right, I think you'll win.
Albania isn't Rwanda because only Albanians go there.
He's going to send all sorts of people to Rwanda.
He should not have taken that bet.
And he looked a naive fool to do so.
He looked glib.
Ava, what did you think?
I liked your question because I think it showed the callousness of the prime minister and the politicking that is going on with this Rwanda policy.
You cannot tell me that's a man that cares about curbing immigration or whatever he claims to do.
So I mean, that is pure politics.
Well, the reason I think it was effective was simply that I really don't believe this policy is going to work.
I do not think before he has to call the next election, he's going to get any illegal migrant on a plane to Rwanda.
It's going to get caught up in parliament, it's going to get caught up in the courts.
But even if it doesn't, as I said to him, you're talking about a couple of hundred people at vast expense who may or may not end up in Rwanda.
Well, if they have a legitimate asylum claim, they don't get sent back to the UK.
They stay in Rwanda.
That doesn't seem right to me.
I said, none of this seems right to me.
Yeah, and if you take a giant step back as well, you remember that this is all about curbing the number of people who are crossing the channel.
And if you subscribe to that school of thought, this policy is having no effect on that whatsoever.
And the bigger problem, Esther I said to him, is this shocking ONS forecast, which we could be seeing a population of 73 million by 2036, because actually legal immigration is a far bigger problem for this country than what is now 30,000 people coming over on small boats.
Yes, I'm concerned about yet.
Yes, it shouldn't be happening.
Yes, I want it stopped.
But actually, when you've got nearly 800,000 people coming in legally this year alone, and the projection is our population dramatically increasing, I want my Prime Minister focusing on that.
Well, this is the thing, because they've prioritised Rwanda so much, they've taken the oxygen out of what they really should be focusing on, which is bringing down legal migration.
I mean, 40% of the figures that we're seeing in legal migration are dependents, right?
And many of them, in terms of regions globally, are from this funk of chain migration from Southeast Asia mainly.
The Tories should be banging on about that, but they're not.
They're talking about Rwanda.
And I do think that there will be people on the planes before they're in the middle of the day.
What did you think of the bet?
Should he have taken the bet?
I think he should have taken the bet because he would look like a wimp otherwise.
But I think he should have also said, but don't forget, Piers, we're also talking about legal migration, which is an even bigger priority.
What he should have said.
No political instincts.
That's the issue.
What he should have said to the bet is, you come back, and I'll give you another interview.
We're running out of time.
We'll come back again later in the week to this.
And you can watch the whole Rishi Sunak interview on our YouTube channel now.
And it will air on Talk TV at 11 o'clock.
Well, that's it from us on Piers Morgan's Census Night, a show we didn't expect to do, a show I'm sad to have been doing.
I wish King Charles III and his family all the very best as he fights cancer.
And we just hope, as they say, long live the king.
And I hope it all goes well for him.
Thank you for watching.
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