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July 2, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
01:10:26
20240702_roger-waters-uncensored
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Two-State Solution Reality 00:01:52
When I take my stand for human rights, I'm not mucking around.
I don't care what they throw at me.
They are very powerful.
Who are you talking about?
All Palestinians should have exactly the same human legal rights as all Israeli Jews.
Eric said that he sees me waking up in tears.
I do.
I believe there should be a two-state solution.
It's not going to happen.
Nor is your plan.
Roger.
Social media.
Calm down.
Don't sink to this level.
What level?
There's no evidence.
Actually, there is extensive evidence.
There is no evidence.
You seem to have done extremely little reading about anything that happened to Israelis over now.
Are you deaf?
The Star of David is the emblem of a Jewish person.
You're on your own.
How to say this in a way you'll understand.
No!
You're so clever.
Do you know what?
I wasn't that clever.
As the man behind rock revolutionary's Pink Floyd, Roger Waters is music royalty.
He's still filling stadiums after six decades in the business.
Dark Side of the Moon remains one of the most iconic and acclaimed records in music history.
His critics say there's a dark side to Roger Waters too, namely his contentious views on political lightning rods like Putin, Israel, Donald Trump and many more.
I once perhaps uncharitably described him as the dumbest rock star in history.
He once accused me of being part of a media conspiracy to cancel him.
My story is yet another story of cancel culture.
Why are they trying to cancel Roger Woods?
Why aren't there real journalists going, hang on a minute, this is bullshit?
Cancel Culture Accusations 00:10:17
Maybe I'll call up and see what he has to say.
Why aren't you?
Piazz Morgan.
Eh?
Well, we got the call.
I'm delighted to say Roger Waters is here in the studio and I suspect will be most definitely uncensored.
Roger, good to see you.
Good to see you.
Here you are.
I'm glad to see you can read.
That's a good thing.
That's a step in the right direction.
Well, I like to think that reading is a prerequisite of an interviewer.
Well, it's a prerequisite of almost anything, I think.
As my own mum used to say to me, I'm sure you've heard this story, but I'm going to tell you it again.
And this was when I was...
Read, read, read, she used to say to you.
When I was about 13 years old, she said, you're going to come up with all kinds of things in your future that you have to think about and figure out and make your mind up about.
And when you do, my advice to you is read, read, read.
Read everything you can find about whatever the subject is and blah, When you've done that, you've done all the heavy lifting.
The next bit is easy.
Oh, really, mum?
What's the next bit then?
She said, then, Roger, you do the right thing.
And that was great advice from a mum to me.
Well, I can only tell you that I've always operated by my brother who was an army colonel.
He had an unofficial regimental motto, the seven P's.
Prior planning and preparation prevent piss-poor performance, which is not dissimilar.
And the fact that I applied the seven P's means I knew what your mother's advice to you was.
So at least we've passed that hurdle.
You've lost me.
Have I?
Yeah, I'm not very good at military.
Really?
Unlike your brother.
Was it your brother or?
He was an army colonel, yeah.
The seven P's, prior planning and preparation.
No, no, I heard the words.
Prevent piss-poor performance.
It's all that hard to understand, Roger.
Come on.
Now, it reminds me of a joke that a friend of mine who was in the army told me.
Hang on, isn't it?
He said, and it was a message sent back from the front to headquarters.
And the message was, send reinforcements, we're going to advance.
And they did advance, and nothing had happened, and it was a terrible disaster.
Eventually, the bloke came back from headquarters, and he went, There you are.
And the officer looks at him, he said, What's that?
It's from headquarters, sir.
I've just come back with that.
He said, Well, what is it?
He said, Well, we got a message.
It said, Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance.
That's a terrible joke.
Thank you very much.
Absolutely terrible joke.
Interestingly, about war and army and military, one of the more interesting aspects of your own early life was your father, Eric, who in World War II, and correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, but in World War II, in the early years, was a conscientious objector who drove an ambulance during the Blitz.
He later changed his stance on pacifism, joined the territorial army, and was commissioned into the 8th Battalion Royal Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 11th of September 1943.
And he was killed five months later on the 18th of February 1944 at Aprilia in Italy during the Battle of Anzio.
And you were just five months old.
And he's now commemorated in Apria and the Casino Wall Cemetery.
And you actually, in 2014, unveiled a memorial to your father and the other war casualties from April in Italy.
And you were made an honorary citizen of Anzio.
And there's a lot to unpack there, but I guess the overarching thing for me was: A, to lose your dad so young was obviously a huge blow, even though I guess you would have known very little about that.
My father died when I was not even one, so I can perhaps understand a little of that sort of complex feeling of not knowing somebody in that position.
But secondly, whether your views of military action, of warfare, were remotely dictated to by your father's own positions and shifting positions.
Well, we're all product of our party.
He wasn't ever a territorial, by the way.
Oh, he was.
He joined the Royal Fusiliers.
Right.
So he went back to the conscription board after he changed his mind because he was a conscientious objector in 1939 when he was called up because of the sixth commandment, which is thou shalt not kill, as you know.
He was a very Christian man, wasn't he, your dad?
He was very Christian, yeah.
And so when he went back, it was a it's an act of heroism, in my view.
And so it's something that has coloured my whole life to know that that's what my father did.
So he believed that the Nazis had to be fought and that his politics, because by that time he'd become a member of the Communist Party, that his politics trumped his Christianity and so he had to go and do his duty.
But you're right about February the 18th and you're right about Apulia and I did go there to unveil that monument that was all the work of a wonderful old friend of mine who died last year called Harry Schindler, who, interestingly enough...
Was he related to Oscar Schindler or?
Harry Schindler.
Yeah.
Was he any relation to Oscar Schindler?
I've no idea.
Of Schindler's list?
No, no, I don't think so.
No, I don't think so.
No, I don't think he was.
He was a vituler in London, but he was also a young soldier on the Anzio bridgehead, 10 years younger than my father was.
He was a show at Forrester.
And he since, since the war, he moved to Italy and he started an association for ex-Alied servicemen from Italy.
And he saw me do a TV interview when I was looking, trying to find out when my father had died back in, I think, 2015 when I was traveling around.
And he went, he'd no idea who I was.
He'd never heard of Pink Foot.
Really?
Yeah.
But he thought, I'm going to try and find.
And he did.
And so he found the document, the day brief from 8th Battalion Royal Fleet, Z Company.
Yeah, Z Company.
My father was a platoon commander in, and they were all killed.
They got cut off.
It was the big German push to push the bridgehead back into the sea.
Anyway, it's a long story, but yes, of course, it's hugely important in my life.
Funnily enough, there's a song on my new record, which I've been performing in Show's Life that goes, before I was born, my brother used to sit on Daddy's lap when he was home on leave.
Daddy'd smoke a cigarette and sometimes as a jest, he'd blow smoke rings up my big brother's sleeve.
More fire, daddy, my big brother would shout.
At least that's how the story has survived.
I was mercifully spared the memories that they shared because I was only five months old when daddy died.
Yeah, you were.
Incredibly young.
I mean, I assume you have no actual tangible memory of that.
No.
What do you think you've got from him in terms of your personality?
I do the right thing.
I'm happy to say that that's something that I've taken with me so far in my life and I will continue to do the right thing until the day I die.
Do you accept that your idea of the right thing may not always be the right thing?
Well, if it's the right thing for me, I guess it is the right thing.
No, I'm not omnipotent or omniscient.
I'm just wondering how.
I haven't yet read all the books.
I haven't studied all the wise men throughout history.
But none of us have.
So we have to take a view, give them the piece of history that we're living in.
You accept you could be wrong about things.
This is what you do.
What's this little trap you're trying to do?
Isn't that trap at all?
All right.
All right.
I'm wondering how certain you are, because look, you're a controversial guy.
So am I.
Okay.
And I followed everything that you've done.
I think some of it has been massively overblown.
I think some of it legitimate, there's legitimate criticism to be made.
But the overarching theme is you're very opinionated.
You speak your mind.
I'm only curious whether you have a certainty that you're right or that you allow for the possibility that however well read you've been about any particular issue, you could occasionally be wrong.
Of course I allow for that possibility.
Absolutely.
But the foundation of my opinions, for instance, is based on solid things.
So the platform upon which I stand by and large is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the fledgling United Nations on the 10th of December in Paris in 1948.
I've read that document, obviously, the 30 articles of it.
I've taken them to heart.
And it is my belief that we, the people of the world, should observe those basic rights for all our brothers and sisters all over the world, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion.
Well, let me start with an unequivocal agreement.
I agree.
Our work here is done.
That's it.
That's the end of the conversation.
There's no point in continuing.
Well, we are going to continue, but actually on that point, it's an important point to reach unanimity over, right?
I mean, I agree with you.
Everyone has to do it.
I've watched your programme a lot and I confess, Piers, that you don't always seem to be of the same opinion as me about the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of the United States.
Well, I've always said that I believe...
Look, we're going to come to Israel-Palestine in a moment.
I've always said that I believe every Palestinian should be entitled to exactly the same human rights as every Israeli, for example.
Resisting Genocide Claims 00:15:35
I've been unwavering on that.
Now, we'll come to the war and what's happened and the history and everything in a moment.
But first, I wanted to start with Eric Clapton, who recently gave an interview in which he said about you, I love Roger.
I love him.
We are brothers and he goes his way about it, and it takes a lot of guts, and he suffers from it terribly.
I've seen him sit on the window ledge in tears and say, it's morning here in Manhattan, and I'm in tears again, you know?
What did you think of that when he said that?
Eric, well, it's deeply moving to me because we are friends.
We go back a long way.
Well, we go back to 1985.
I hardly met the man before then, but then he made a record with me, pros and cons of itch hiking.
And actually, he then persuaded me to tour with it.
When we finished making the record, he went, you are touring with this.
And I went, no.
And he went, because I'd already, anyway, he went, no, I've just left Pink Fluid and whatever.
And he said, you have to, this is great.
And I went, all right, you come in my band as my guitar player then.
And he went, all right.
And I was, you could have blown me, knocked me down with a feather.
I was so surprised.
I went, are you serious, El?
And he went, yeah, I am.
I'll come.
So we went on the road.
And I have no regrets.
It was brilliant.
And we have been very close friends since then.
And I think Elle became politicised more powerfully than he had been.
He's always had a big heart, Eric, and whatever, over the whole COVID thing.
Yeah, you did.
And the mRNA controversy.
And I think he was right.
But let's not get into that because that is somebody else's problem.
Okay, so that's not something that we're going to start thinking about.
What I was struck by by what he said was that he used the phrase a lot of guts.
Do you think it's courageous, the stances you take?
I've no idea.
That's not for me to say.
But I will say this.
When I take my stand for human rights, I'm not mucking around.
I'm serious about it.
And I don't care what they throw at me.
And we know who I'm talking about.
And they are very powerful.
Who are you talking about?
The Israeli lobby, obviously.
Well, actually, it's not just the Israeli lobby.
It's the war machine as well.
It's the war lobby.
So anyway, so yeah, have I paid a price?
Yeah, a bit of one, but I've been lucky.
You know, I've been very successful in my chosen career.
And so I've never wanted for a few quid.
I don't invest.
I'm not a capitalist.
How much are you worth?
That's none of your business.
It's been reported as over 300 million.
It's none of your business, Piers.
Are you deaf?
I can see you can read, but you're obviously a little bit deaf.
It's none of your business.
Just curious.
It's been reported.
You admit you're a very wealthy guy.
I'm not going to talk about my personal wealth.
It's none of your business.
It doesn't matter.
What does matter is that I have stood up for human rights all my life ever since the day that I marched for the first time in 1960 or whenever it was from Aldermarsden to Trafalgar Square and listened to Bertrand Russell and Cannon Collins and Father Trevor Huddleston standing there in Trafalgar Square and explaining to us that the independent nuclear deterrent was a terrible mistake, which it was and which it still is, which is something that I also say.
At the end of every single gig that I do, I do a song called Two Sons in the Sunset, which is a warning about how we might wake up one morning and the Third World War started.
Well, we might, but we might also, if you were Ukrainian, think that actually having a nuclear deterrent might stop Russian dictators invading you.
Well, we'll come to that.
We'll come to that.
All right, okay.
All right.
In other words, there are two ways of looking at all these things, and we're going to explore them, right?
There's no two ways of looking at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
You either believe in it or you don't, and you cannot cherry-pick it.
And what you said earlier.
Excuse me, don't interrupt.
What you said earlier was that Palestinians, all Palestinians, should have exactly the same human, religious, civil, legal rights as all Israeli Jews.
I agree with that.
And when that is one unified democratic state that they live in together with equal human rights for all the citizens of that country from the River Jordan to the sea, that will be a starting point from which they can all move on.
And I hope they do.
But it's not for me to say what happened.
It's for me to say what I feel about that.
Oh my God, I want to be there standing in that square when that state is declared there.
I want to be there on that day to embrace all my brothers and sisters, whether they're Muslim, Druze, Agnostic, Christian or Jewish, and whether their nationality was Palestinian or Lebanon or whatever, or Israeli.
I want to see them free of the burden of this constant war.
But you talk about a state there, not a two-state.
The two-state solution, everybody, you know, with an IQ above room temperature agrees is an non-starter because of Eratz, Israel and what's happened and all the building in the West Bank and what's happening in Gaza now, of course, as well.
Well, let me play you a clip.
This is from a month ago.
This was on your YouTube channel.
It's not George Galloway, is it?
No, no, it's from your own YouTube channel.
It's called Resist the Genocide.
And you said this.
When this is all over, Israel is going to have to apologise not just to the Palestinians, but to the whole of the rest of the world.
Say we're very sorry.
We've got it all completely wrong.
And we are now go back to Eastern Europe or the United States and wherever we came from.
And leave these people, the Palestinian people, people whose land this is.
So if they can rebuild and live in peace.
Well, hang on.
You didn't play the rest of it.
But it said, of course, any of you who want to stay will be welcome to stay as citizens of this new state.
But the state, to be clear, would be Palestine.
Well, my personal opinion is that that would be what it should be called.
It was called Palestine up to 1948.
But hang on a minute.
That's an open discussion.
Well, I've not asked you.
I heard.
Excuse me.
Stop interrupting me.
I heard somebody suggest the other day it could be called the Holy Land.
I actually made that suggestion some time ago.
And I've been persuaded away from that idea by conversations I've had with other people.
No, it's Palestine.
Let's call it Palestine.
But that's not my business.
That's for all the people who live there to decide.
You say it's not your business, Roger, but with respect, when you say that all the Israelis should just up seven million of them should just get up and go.
All right, let me have my say.
You've just shown that out of context without showing the second half of it.
Fine.
I look miserable.
I was.
I'm in Barbados.
I'm talking to my phone.
When you said that Eric said that he sees me waking up in tears, I do.
I am prepared to admit that I am in tears over Gaza every morning when I wake up because I'm only 80 years old.
I have never experienced the genocide of a whole people in front of my eyes happening every day, every day.
The calumny.
Well, you have.
Well, with respect, you have.
You were born in World War II when there was an actual genocide of Jewish people by the Nazis.
I was that big.
What?
I was that big.
I didn't witness.
You were alive, is my point.
Well, I wasn't talking about being alive.
I'm saying I never witnessed it.
You can't witness something.
Six million Jews were killed.
You cannot witness something.
Well, I'm not saying they weren't.
And was that a disgusting, awful crime?
Yeah, it was, just like this one is a disgusting, awful crime.
But my question for you.
There's no difference.
Roger, my question for you is this.
When you say that you need to have the whole world say, we're very sorry, we got it wrong.
We're now leaving, go back to Eastern Europe or the United States or wherever you came from.
Do you understand how Israelis feel when they hear that?
Well, it depends which Israelis they are.
And frankly, and frankly, the fact is that something has to be.
Or would you suggest, no, let's just let them kill all the Palestinians.
Why don't we just let them kill them?
I believe there should be a two-state solution.
Well, it's not going to happen, but I don't want to argue with you about that.
But nor is your plan.
You're not going to have seven million Israelis being sent back to Europe or the United States.
Let me speak on behalf of we, the people of the world, because we, the people of the world, whatever the people are.
But you don't ever speak for the whole world, do you?
Well, come on, Roger.
Have a civilized conversation.
No, you can't have a civilized conversation with somebody who constantly interrupts.
Okay.
Nor can you speak unfettered without me correcting some of the things you're saying or challenging you.
You accept that?
I was about to say something.
Okay.
And you're doing it again.
My apologies.
I accept your apology.
Thank you.
Please don't do it again, Piers.
Right.
Most of the people of the world do not want the Israelis to continue in their inexorable course to the end of their extermination of the indigenous people of Palestine.
That's all I'm saying.
So something has to happen that is not that.
So if you say there are two possible alternatives, a two-state solution, and that's been on the table, let us not forget, certainly since the end of the 67 war.
And let's not go back into the old stuff about, oh, well, the Palestinians turned it down.
No, they don't.
That is a barefaced lie.
Well, Arafat did.
No, he didn't.
That is a barefaced lie.
I'm not going to argue the toss with you.
I know it is.
If you don't know it is, you haven't yet done the weak.
Oh, I have, and I've actually interviewed people like Bill Clinton who were involved in it.
Bill Clinton.
Dear God.
Anyway, I won't go.
You would believe Arafat over Clinton?
Of course.
Really?
Yeah.
Arafat's dead, sadly.
But you see, this is what...
No, this is what I shouldn't get sucked into.
Because the you're wrong, I'm right nature of this program is what's wrong with it.
I know you think it's a programme.
It's you say something and I challenge you and maybe you change my mind, which by the way, you might do.
It's the you're wrong, I'm right confrontational.
It's the confrontation, which is what you get you, your clicks.
Well, why are you here?
Confrontation.
Out of interest.
I'll tell you why I'm here.
Because we're having a general election in England at the moment.
And I've come over here to help four or five people who are standing as independents in different constituencies in the United Kingdom.
Because they, like me, believe in human rights.
Keir Starmer doesn't, and Rishi Sunak don't.
They've shown it.
And one of the ways they've shown it is in their support for the state of Israel and to continue to arm Israel, its genocide of the Palestinian people.
Now, those people include Andrew Feinstein.
Andrew Feinstein is standing as an independent in the constituency of Hoban and St Pancras against Keir Starmer, who is the possible incumbent prime minister of this country.
So if we, Andrew Feinstein and his team mainly, but if I can help him, I will, get a majority of the people to vote for him, to Feinstein instead of Starmer,
to forget the general politics of the United Kingdom for a moment and to accept that the most important thing that we're all fighting for at the moment is around Gaza and around the extermination of the people of Palestine.
Because what we're fighting for is the soul of the human race.
We're fighting to try and achieve a future where we understand that things like right and wrong exist and we have to stand up for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
No, not yet.
Andrew Feinstein will and Kier Starmer won't.
We know Kierstama's a bald man.
I wouldn't believe him, you know, if...
Well, we know Kierstama.
We've known him.
George Galloway last week told me he would trust Vladimir Putin over Kier Starmer.
Would you?
Did he?
Well, obviously, you only have to listen to what the two men say.
You would believe Putin over Stalma.
Why not?
But why would they be having a conversation about anything apart from let's make Ukraine into a NATO country, which is which...
Well, we'll come to Ukraine.
Can I just pick you up on one thing you said?
I haven't finished about Andrew Feinstein.
Excuse me.
So that's deeply important.
There are others.
There are two young women who I interviewed a couple of days ago, and they're up.
Double-down news, men.
Check it.
All right.
Okay, one is called Fiona Lali, and she's a young...
I think you've spoken to her.
Maybe you have, maybe you have.
And then there's Leanne Mohammed, who's standing in North Ilford.
And then there's my friend Craig Murray, who's standing up in, how many holes are there?
Blackburn, Lancashire.
See, I went to the Beatles thing.
It's a Beatles fan, you see?
You have to.
And whatever.
And George, obviously, is in Rochdale, is he?
So, If I can help swing any of those constituencies towards these people who believe in human rights, away from somebody like Starma or West Streetley, who don't believe in human rights, they just don't.
You have to look at their record and you say, yes, you must speak.
So I understand that you and many people share your view that they believe that Israel is perpetrating a genocide on Gaza.
And you talk about wanting to eliminate the people of Gaza.
But surely that clip that I played, when you talk about the Israelis having to go back to where they come from.
If they could apologize for what they're doing...
Roger, let me ask a question.
On that point of wherever you come from, back to Eastern Europe, wherever you come from, to tell seven million people to go back where they come from, many people would view that as racist.
False Flag Allegations 00:15:03
And in the case of Israelis, to be anti-Semitic, something you've been accused of being.
Do you understand why they would take it that way?
Absolutely, of course I do.
We have to remember that most of the population of Israel are young, much younger than me, even younger than you if such a thing was possible.
And they have been pretty well brainwashed into believing that they are superior to the other people who live there.
And I have to say, the thing about Eastern Europe or Northeastern Europe and the United States, they've tried to sell us this idea that somehow they are biblical people and that God has given them the land.
That's what the Christian evangelicals believe.
All I'm saying is that they're not indigenous people.
Most of them.
There are a few of the Jewish people who are citizens of Israel who are indigenous to the area.
But back in the 19th century, that was only 7 or 8% of the people.
Can I respond?
Yes, of course.
So ancient Egyptian records mention Israel from 1213 BC.
Religious literature records Israelites as far back as 1500 BC.
As far as many Jewish people are concerned, this is where they come from.
Within Judaism, Israel is the Holy Land.
It's the land where the faith began.
Jerusalem is the holy city.
For Jews, Jerusalem is at the core of their faith and their world.
Now, I believe you're an atheist.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
So you may not understand or accept that, but that is how millions of people in Israel feel.
They believe this is their original holy land.
Now, I think that the displacement of the Palestinians back in 1948 was appalling.
I also think the simultaneous virtue of displacement of many Jewish people from their homes was also appalling.
All of it was appalling.
And you can create a narrative that would be supportive of both sides and critical of the other sides.
But there's no doubting that Jewish people believe this is their holy land too, in the way that many Palestinians do.
I haven't read that book, I admit, and I'm not sure I want to, because I've only got a few years.
Well, how many years I've got left issue?
You're doing Better than the President of the United States, aren't you?
I beg your pardon.
You're doing a lot better than the President of the United States.
Yes, I am.
Your mental acuity appears to be much harmful.
Let me finish.
All of what you're saying, though, may well be fascinating to historians and Jewish scholars and scholars of other religions, but it's completely irrelevant to the genocide that is going on now in the West Bank and Gaza.
It's not irrelevant to why Jewish people, when you say it's not irrelevant to why they think they have a right to commit genocide.
No, I didn't say that.
Well, what is stuff from Egypt?
No, I'm just going to say that, again, referring to the quote from your own mouth, when you say to seven million people, go back to Eastern Europe or the United States or wherever you came from, many will believe, if not most of people in Israel, will believe that this is where they originally came from.
What I say in that little video is, I think you made a terrible mistake, and I think you should now say, we're sorry, it was a terrible mistake.
Just look at what's happened.
This is obviously a completely failed experiment.
Zionism, the whole thing, is a failed experiment.
And we're going to leave you to live your lives in your country.
Maybe a few of us will stay, or maybe we'll all stay, but we all have to live together with equal rights from the people.
But this needs to be clear, will you?
Hang on, hang on.
Let me finish.
That's all.
I.e., I'm going to keep dragging this conversation back to these two things: Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the genocide that the state of Israel is committing on the Palestinian people.
And I don't care about what your history books from Egypt are.
I'm not saying you're wrong.
I haven't read them.
And frankly, I couldn't care less.
But I thought you did care about reading and getting more knowledgeable.
You see, there you go.
You're so clever.
I just remembered what you said.
It's not that clever.
It just says I've got a good memory.
Do you know what?
No, you're right.
It wasn't that clever.
Okay.
Let's go back to.
No, let's stay on the genocide.
It's either right, it's either all wrong.
And it doesn't matter what happened in the history of the Israeli.
I'm coming to this.
Let's go back to October the 7th, 2023, when the Hamas attacks occurred.
George Galloway was here last week.
He described them as terror attacks.
Do you agree with that?
I'm not going to have this conversation.
I've seen you have it with everybody.
And it's a waste of time.
Why?
Because you always reach the same conclusions and you always waste 10 or 12 minutes.
Let's waste one minute.
All I ever asked people is: do you condemn what Hamas did?
I condemn the killing of civilians, always, whoever does it, wherever it is.
I condemn war crimes.
If Hamas committed war crimes on October the 7th, I condemn it.
You referred earlier.
Excuse me, you referred earlier to my conversation with Glenn Greenwald, which happened in December last year.
And I was taken to task after that because on his program, and this was only a few weeks after October the 7th, I said, I would love to know what happened on October the 7th so that we can all have a proper conversation.
Well, the Israelis won't allow it.
We suggested it might be a false flag operation.
Well, wempling that Israel created it.
Hang on, maybe false flag's not exactly the right word, but why did you not?
Well, it's obviously not allowed.
Can I finish?
You're wrong.
All right, never mind.
Roger.
It obviously wasn't a false flag.
And the reason we know that is that Hamas broadcast in real time through video to social media what they were doing.
There's nothing false flag about it.
I'm not saying that part of the Palestinian resistance movement didn't cross that wire fence into what's called hang on.
However many, it doesn't really matter how many it was.
I'm not saying they didn't do that.
I'm not saying that that didn't happen at all.
What I'm saying is there's all this talk about does Israel have a right to defend itself.
Why didn't Israel defend itself that morning?
Why did they wait seven hours before they started machine learning?
It was a catastrophic failure of defense and security.
And this is the most efficient security.
Yeah, it's catastrophic.
That's why when this is over, next.
All right, you don't want to have that conversation.
Neither do I, but wouldn't it be a great question?
I just asked you what I think.
Wouldn't it be great to have that conversation at some point?
And wouldn't it be great if we could have an actual real investigation beyond the very good Al Jazeera documentary that we all saw that came out and all the great work that the Grey Zone and Electronic Indefatram people did in debunking all the filthy, disgusting lies that the Israelis told after October the 7th about burning babies and women being raped, which were all completely...
Actually, women were raped.
No, they weren't.
Yes, they weren't.
Well, there's no evidence.
Well, it's been established by the United States.
You can say anything that you want, but there's no evidence.
But actually, there is extensive evidence.
There is no evidence.
There's no sexual assault and rape.
Well, there is.
Okay, well, all right, now.
Also, we know what Hamad broadcasts.
Calm down.
Roger.
Roger.
Calm down.
Don't sink to this level.
All right, I won't.
What level?
But stop shouting.
Stop shouting back.
Let him interrupt you as much as you want.
Okay.
Sorry, Piers, what were you saying?
Look, let's not prolong the discussion about whether you believe what happened on October the 7th, other than me just to simply ask you.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to look at all the evidence and come to a grown-up conclusion rather than just saying this happened or that happened or this didn't happen?
Well, it's now been established that 1,200 people were killed, of whom 400 were military, which means 800 innocent people were killed.
Over 250 were then kidnapped, including Holocaust survivors who were grandparents and babies.
Do you accept that that happened?
The people were kidnapped.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Do you accept the Holocaust survivors and babies were kidnapped?
I don't know about that.
Oh, yeah, I did.
I saw one released.
In the first set of releases, there was somebody who was a Holocaust.
Why are you not curious to read about that, though?
Well, I did.
I did read about it.
I mean, a big thing of reasoning.
There were a number of old people and young people who were released, I don't know, sometime in November.
The baby's never been released.
I beg your pardon.
The baby was never released.
The baby was kidnapped and never been released.
Well, Piers, you may or may not just be making it.
I know.
Making it up.
Piers, I know you believe nonsense that you're told by Zaka and other people who made up tons of lies about October the 7th.
Who's Zaka?
Sorry?
Oh, don't be silly.
Who is that?
Who are you talking about?
You are kidding now.
I don't know who you're talking about.
Zaka.
It was an organisation collecting bodies, paramedics.
I've never heard of it.
Well, you have no right to be having this conversation at all.
What you have to do now, Piers, is go and look through all the documentation that there is and all the video evidence that there is of those paramedic people lying about burned babies and rape and babies in ovens, and all the atrocity stories that came out immediately after the, immediately after October the 7th, that gave impetus to the idea somehow,
that to commit genocide on the people of Gaza would be a reasonable defense against all those atrocities, which is the story that you, among others, have tried to sell to your audience.
No, I haven't.
Oh, I have.
I'll just try to get to that.
I'm sorry.
I apologise for accusing you.
Do you believe that?
Well, hang on, you need to look up Zaka.
Look it up.
I'll look it up.
And then maybe we could have another conversation, because until you know that story, you know.
You seem to have done extremely little reading about anything that happened to Israelis that day.
That's nonsense.
I've had long conversations, not least with my friend Gideon Levy, who's a journalist in Israel, who writes.
But do you actually believe Israel had anything to do with what happened that day?
Israel?
You suggested it was a false flag.
That would imply the Israeli government or something to do with it.
No, I've no idea.
Why didn't they respond, though?
They've tended always to...
But you believe is it logical that they would perpetrate that attack on their own people?
I've no idea.
Nobody knows.
Excuse me, they definitely attacked their own people.
That is absolutely cast iron.
All those piles of cars, they were destroyed by Apache missiles from helicopters.
Hamas didn't have helicopters.
Do you think Hamas killed anybody that day?
Yeah, of course I do.
Yeah, and they probably killed civilians as well.
Were they acts of terrorism?
To kill a civilian is a war crime.
Act of terror?
Well, to use the word terrorism is really dangerous and difficult because you have to remember that people fighting on behalf of Palestine liberation have a legal and moral what's the word I'm trying to search for?
Not just a right.
No, they have a right to fight back against the oppressor.
If somebody invades your country, kicks all your people out of their homes, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years, you have an absolute right to armed resistance.
Not to commit war crimes.
That invader.
Not to commit war crimes.
No.
Not to commit war crimes, to armed resistance.
Do you believe Hamas committed war crimes on October the 7th?
Probably.
Probably.
Yeah, probably.
And you've seen what they actually believe in.
Well, no, the Israelis won't allow anybody to investigate it.
And they literally broadcast it from their own GoPros onto social media.
They were live streaming the attacks on Jewish people.
We're wasting time.
I'm not saying that some people from Hamas didn't fire their guns at people who were not armed.
I'm sure they did.
I'm sure they did.
And I condemn it.
I condemn that act, okay?
Okay.
But it cannot be seen.
October the 7th cannot be seen on its own.
This is after 75 years.
I agree.
I didn't for a moment suggest it was.
What I was curious about was that you tweeted at four o'clock that day, October the 7th, but not about the attacks.
You were promoting your new album.
On October the 8th, again, promotion of your new album, nothing about the attacks.
It was only on October the 14th, a week later, that you released a video about it.
Why did it take you so long to respond to what was one of the worst terrorist attacks of modern times?
My guess is, though, if you ask me to remember what happened on every day of all those intervening days, I think I was trying to find out what had actually happened because it was very, very confused.
And the stories that were coming out were mind-bogglingly confusing in every way.
And that's what I said to Glenn Greenwald when I did my interview with him.
I said, I'd really like to know what happened.
And I still would.
And I'd still, I think, if I could wave a banana wand, I would have an international, UN-supported investigation into all the events of October.
Well, the UN and after.
The UN has investigated it, and they have established there was sexual assault and rape.
No, they haven't.
But I've read those reports.
Well, you need to read it.
That is not what they say.
That is what they say.
364 civilians were killed.
Many, many, many were wounded by Hamas at the supernova succot gathering, the open-air music festival.
And after that...
The music in that little film that you saw of me suggesting that the Israelis should say, we're very, very, very sorry that we did this horrific thing that we've been doing.
And we'll go away now.
And hopefully you can live in peace in this land.
Maybe some of us...
The music in the back of it is music to a song I wrote around the time that you're talking about called Under the Rubble.
It's a very short song.
There's very little to it.
It just says, Papa, Papa, I want to go home.
Papa, please take me home.
That's a verse.
And the second verse is, Mama, Mama, Daddy, stop breathing.
Mama.
Dion Warwick Comments 00:15:44
Who are you talking about, though?
I'm talking about children dying under the rubble, murdered by the state.
What about the children who were killed at the music festival?
Oh, my God.
There were definitely music.
You know, music festival goes killed.
I feel for them.
Well, 364 were killed.
Hang on a minute.
There's a hundred thousand.
There's 40,000 under the rubble at least.
I'm just asking you because you...
It's a false equivalent.
I'm not equivalent anything.
You are.
I'm trying to suggest.
No, here's why I've mentioned it.
Is that Bono from U2 introduced his song Pride in the Name of Love at the Sphere in Vegas?
And he said, in light of what's happened in Israel and Gaza.
The Stars of David.
Wait a minute.
In the light of what's happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable.
But our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence.
But our hearts and our anger, you know where that's pointed.
So sing with us and those beautiful kids at that music festival.
He later referred to those killed by Hamas that day at the festival as Stars of David.
Now you responded on Al Jazeera by saying anyone who knows Bono should go and pick him up by his ankles and shake him until he stops being an enormous shit.
We have to start saying to these people, your opinion is so disgusting and so degrading, sticking up for the Zionist entity.
What he did a couple of weeks ago in the sphere in Vegas singing about the Stars of David was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life.
Yes.
How do you justify that?
All he was doing was paying a tribute to young music lovers at a music festival who happened to be Jewish.
And the Star of David is the emblem of a Jewish person.
You're on your own.
I'm not on my own.
You are.
Why?
I don't understand why you'd be so hateful to Bono.
Nice try, Piers.
Why were you so hateful?
It's none of your business.
You said it publicly on TV.
All right.
So it's not a private, is it?
I was a bit upset.
I'm watching a genocide.
I wake up in tears every morning.
How do you understand?
Don't you get it?
Yes, I understand.
I understand the strength of your feeling.
I don't understand why you seem to have very little feeling for the people who've died on the other side.
Because there's a few hundred older.
Especially music lovers.
Because it amuses me.
Because the state of Israel is how to get it into your thick head.
They're committing genocide.
They're killing every single Palestinian.
They're going to kill every Palestinian.
But they're not going to kill every Palestinian.
Their dream, and their leaders have said that, is Eretz Israel.
Every single bit of was once Palestinian.
They're not going to kill every Palestinian, obviously.
Oh, they're not?
No, they're not.
Well, they're trying to.
Why not?
They're trying to kill every member of Hamas.
I personally believe, as I know you do, that I think they have massively, the response has been massively disproportionate.
And way too many Palestinian civilians have died.
And because the population is half under 18, it is absolutely outrageous now that so many young people have been killed.
But that doesn't change the fact that there's 154 Israeli civilians and other nationalities who were killed that day.
And when Bono sings a song about them and pays a tribute to them, you attack him.
They said to me, don't raise your voice.
You know what he's like.
And I said, yeah, I...
What am I like?
See, he's like that.
All right.
This is a complete false equivalence.
I'm not making a false equivalent.
He's interrupting again.
Who are you talking to?
I'm talking to the camera.
The oppressor, the state of Israel, is committing genocide on a whole people.
Okay?
Some of the people in the prison where the genocide is being committed resisted, resisted the genocide on October the 7th.
And some people in Israel were killed.
And I feel for them and their families.
But let's not forget where all this started.
It started in May.
I believe it was May.
May even have been the 15th of May, 1948, at the Nakba.
It's one set of people trying to steal a whole land from another set of people.
I remember having a conversation with Dion Warwick about this.
I said, Dion, I know how old you are.
You're five years younger than me.
In 1940...
Oh, no, no, three years younger than me.
In 1948.
No, no, I'm talking to the audience.
In 1948, Dion Warwick was eight years old.
She was living in Chicago.
Dion, there's a bang on the door, right?
You go to the door, there's a bloke there with a gun.
He says, out, go and walk to Canada.
But we live here.
No, we're taking this house and this land and all your stuff.
Your father comes running downstairs.
He says, what are you doing with my daughter?
Bang, he's dead.
He's lying on the...
You leave, you and your mum, and you start walking towards Canada.
How would you feel?
This was in a conversation that I didn't have, but in a letter I wrote to Dion Warwick after she had attacked me for being part of the BDS movement, where I tried to help the whole of Palestinian civil society to persuade musicians not to go...
Excuse me, I haven't finished.
I haven't finished.
It's not to go along to the world.
This is an interview.
Come on.
By the way, I agree with you about the NACBAR.
It was wrong.
It shouldn't have happened.
I've already said that.
We agree.
You've been accused of anti-Semitism by a lot of people.
But in February 2023, Polly Sampson, the former lyricist of Pink Floyd and the wife of Dave Gilmore from Pink Floyd, tweeted this.
Sadly, Roger Waters, you are anti-Semitic to your rotten core, also a putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-syncing, misogynistic, sick with envy, megalomaniac.
Enough of your nonsense.
A few hours later, David Gilmore retweeted this and commented every word demonstrably true.
No comment.
You have no comment to that?
Oh, shut up.
Really?
No comment?
It's private.
It's not private.
It's public on Twitter.
I'm sorry.
She's public.
I'm private.
All right.
I'm private about that.
These are people you've worked with in one of the biggest bands in the world.
Oh, I've gone.
There I am.
No.
Come on.
Didn't bother you?
I'm not saying it didn't bother me.
I'm saying I'm not making a comment about that on your TV program.
Why not?
Because I don't want to.
Why?
It's none of your business.
I'm not sharing that with you.
I was talking to you about Dion Warwick.
I was in the middle of a story.
You weren't talking to me at all.
No, because you're trying to get a rise out of me.
I'm really not.
I'm really not trying to get a rise out of it.
Why are you bringing up that?
Because it was a public statement from people who are part of the band that you and they made hugely famous.
I'm used to people making derogatory comments about me from time to time.
I'm a big boy.
I can handle it.
Okay?
Am I going to discuss it with you?
No, I'm not.
Why don't you move on?
Because on record, are you anti-Semitic to your rotten core?
I'm not anti-Semitic, even very faintly, at any part of my body, let alone my core.
I absolutely promise you that.
Do you know who would know if Roger Waters was an anti-Semite?
Roger Waters would know, because I would have feelings about Jews.
What are your feelings about Jews?
Well, I don't have any.
I don't have feelings about negative feelings.
I very rarely even think about whether somebody is of the Jewish faith or not.
And I've known obviously thousands of people who are Jewish all my life.
And it never crosses my mind ever to think, oh, they're Jewish.
I don't like Jews.
It just doesn't ever cross my mind.
I am not even faintly in any way anti-Semitic.
Now he's going to go, well, why do you wear a Nazi uniform then?
Why do you?
Tell me.
You nearly drew the F-bomb out of me then, but you failed.
Don't be silly.
Go and watch the war.
Go and listen to my album, The War.
And then you'll know, because it's perfectly obvious.
It's part of a narrative.
It's a satirical part of a narrative about a rock star who becomes slightly unhinged and thinks that he's become a fascist demagogue.
And he acts it out and then he realizes that it's not the path for him and he has a breakdown and tries, just bloody well watch it.
Actually, had you let me respond, I would have said to you, I believe you were misrepresented in that Fiori.
Well, cheers.
I appreciate it.
I knew it was part of a character.
I knew you'd done it for a long, long time in different ways.
So I do think that you were shot down perhaps unfairly there.
I wasn't shot down, by the way.
I'm still...
But you were attacked and you were cancelled in both places and so on.
I was attacked, yeah.
But, you know, that's coming home to Roos now because the anti-Semite accusation that worked so well five years ago doesn't work so well now.
People are beginning to realise, particularly now in general election year in this country, that the ousting of Jeremy Corbyn from the leadership of the Labour Party, organised to some extent by...
I think the problem you have, Roger, is this.
The problem is that when you say to Jewish people in Israel, seven million of them, they've got to go back to Eastern Europe or something.
You say they've got to.
I said, wherever you came from.
Excuse me, I think.
That is anti-Semitic.
No, it's not.
Well, it is.
The Israelis, the Israelis should in the aftermath of all of this, hopefully there will be truth and reconciliation sessions between the oppressors and the oppressed, between the torturers and the tortured.
The oppressors and the torturers are the state of Israel.
The oppressed and the tortured are the people of Palestine.
Hopefully, like there was after the demise of the apartheid state of South Africa, truth and reconciliation.
That was one of the great things that Nelson Mandela brought in with the ANC after they took power.
Hopefully that will happen.
That, me, that you showed there, that is me being very, very sad and it is a hope.
And I'll say it again now, I really hope you come to your senses.
I really hope that you realize that what you have done since 1948 has been a huge mistake.
I really hope that you get to understand that what you're doing now, the genocide you're committing in Gaza, is a huge mistake.
And I hope you will find it in your hearts to be sorry and eventually even for some of you to say you are sorry.
Come back to the interview, Roger.
Do you believe the same thing about Vladimir Putin then, given what he's been waging in Ukraine?
What do you mean?
No, of course not.
Well, illegally invaded a sovereign democratic European country.
Yeah, and he's killed many thousands of innocent Ukrainians in the process.
Well, hold on a minute.
I actually spoke to the Security Council upon this matter a few years ago when it happened in 2022.
And it should never have gone on.
The Russians sued for peace in April 2022.
That's all just beginning to come out now.
But our Western leaders refused to allow Zelensky to make peace with.
You said in 2022 that talk of an attack, this was a week before the invasion, you told Russia today.
Yeah.
The talk of an attack was bullshit.
I thought it was...
It was Western propaganda to demonise Russia.
I thought that, and I was...
And you couldn't have been more wrong, could you?
No, I couldn't have been more wrong about that.
Putin did invade Ukraine.
Could it be that Putin can't really be trusted in the way that you thought?
Putin sort of did what he said he was going to do, actually.
Why didn't you think?
Putin had been talking about a new system for European security since the Munich conference in 2007, where he made a long speech saying, we need to talk about the Ukraine and about the Baltic.
Is he waging genocide in Ukraine?
Of course not.
Really?
No, of course not.
Why not?
He wants to take vast swing.
Hang on.
Let's not have this conversation.
We know there was an illegal, the Maidan coup.
Do you agree that that was illegal and that it was a US paid for and inspired?
It certainly looked corrupt.
All right, well, can we not have that conversation?
What he has always called the special military operation, I believe to have been an illegal invasion of Ukraine under Article 51 of the US.
So war crime.
Excuse me.
As I said.
I'm just trying to get you to clarify what you think.
As I said.
So a war crime.
Maybe, I don't know.
You need to ask the lawyers.
It's an illegal invasion.
Ask the ICG.
Hang on, Roger.
If it's an illegal invasion with respect to you, it is a war crime.
If it is, I believe it.
You just called it an illegal invasion.
If you say it is, it is.
No, you said it wasn't.
I'm not, I don't want to have the conversation.
Have the conversation.
You literally just said it was an illegal invasion of Ukraine.
So I said, so it's a war crime.
And you said, I don't know.
That's undoubtedly.
What's an illegal invasion?
And I don't know.
And if you do know, you're telling me.
And I say, thank you.
You don't think an illegal invasion is a war crime?
Let's move on.
Why can't you just answer a straight question?
I can't.
You can't.
You're refusing to.
You can't recognise the straight.
Is it because you don't want to call Putin a war criminal?
I'm not sure if Putin is a war criminal.
Even though he perpetrated an illegal invasion of a European country.
Listen, as soon as I leave this meeting, and when I'm with somebody who understands international law, I'm going to ask them.
But I'm not going to take it from you necessarily.
Do you think an illegal invasion, as you put it, might just be illegal and therefore a crime?
No, I think it probably is a war crime.
You can have illegal invasions that aren't crimes.
I don't think so.
No, I think you're right about that.
So he's a war criminal.
Okay.
Is he?
Piers, I'm not going to...
You're worried about not getting any more Russia Today gigs if you say the war criminal.
I'll tell you what I am worried about.
The fact that between us, the Western powers and Putin, we're still murdering Ukrainians when that war should have been stopped two years ago.
Well, the Western powers aren't murdering Ukrainians.
Russians are.
Excuse me.
Well, no Western forces are murdering Ukrainians.
They're encouraging Russian forces.
They've encouraged Ukrainian people against their will to lay down their lives in the quagmire that is the trench warfare in the Ukraine.
They're defending their country.
Because they want to weaken Russia.
So they say anyway.
They're defending themselves against an illegal invasion.
Something you yourself called an illegal invasion.
All right.
I've got to have a word with the people.
No, you're not.
You're not.
Honestly, it's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous.
I know we're going to have this conversation.
Because it is ridiculous.
Pierre's right about that.
This is a ridiculous conversation to have in this forum.
Many people are having...
Should listen to John Mearsheimer.
Don't listen to Philip.
I've interviewed John Mearsheimer twice.
Okay, and I saw it.
Yeah.
And he sort of made mincemeat of you.
Dangerous Political Ground 00:06:23
He gave his view, and I agree with some of it, and I disagree with some of the rest of it.
In your case, you've stated things like, yes, it was an illegal invasion of Ukraine, but when I say, so Putin's a war criminal, you won't say so, which I think is sort of morally a bit cowardly, isn't it?
He obviously is if he's perpetrating an illegal invasion.
If you illegally invade somewhere, you're a criminal, a war criminal, aren't you, Roger?
Why are you reluctant to call him a war criminal?
Is this boring you?
A bit, yeah.
Why?
Because you don't like being challenged on your ideas?
Oh my goodness, you'll try anything.
Your father fought against the Nazis.
Don't you talk about my father?
Well, he fought for freedom and democracy, didn't he?
Against the Nazis.
You're on dangerous ground.
Why?
Don't go for it, Roger.
Just ignore it.
Why is that dangerous ground?
Isn't that what Ukrainians are doing against Russia?
Fighting to safeguard their freedom and democracy.
They are a sovereign democratic European country, as we were when we fought the Nazis.
What's the difference?
Morally, in principle?
No, they aren't, and it is different.
And that's all I'm going to do.
Explain why.
No.
Why?
No, I'm not going to have this.
Seems to me, Roger, you like saying these things.
I don't like them explaining why you think I've come.
It doesn't suit you.
Why do you think I've come on your program?
I don't really know.
You, the people of Hoban and St. Pancras, have a chance to stand up on Thursday in the general election, okay, and to represent the rest of us, the people of England, the vast majority of whom want to stop the genocide of the Palestinian people.
You can make a great point in that debate by voting for Andrew Feinstein and making certain that Kirstama does not become the next prime minister.
Kirstama's going to win by a gigantic majority, I can tell you that.
So I wish your candidates well that you're supporting.
But there is zero doubt now from all the polls that Keir Stammer will not be the Prime Minister and he will be in charge of a massive majority, everything.
Let's turn to something that I think we may find agreement on.
Julian Assange, you campaigned for a long time to get him freed.
How did you feel when you heard he had been?
Very happy.
Very, very emotional.
I'm very happy the news came through in dribs and drabs.
He was going to Stancid or he's on the plane or he's this and that.
So it's wonderful.
You want to see him back at Wikileaks doing more of what he did?
I think it would be fantastic if he went back here.
But obviously he's got to get well.
As you know, I went and visited him last September in Belmarsh, and he was not at all well.
No, no.
I went with Stella and the boys.
Have you spoken to him since he got released?
No, I haven't spoken to him.
I've exchanged messages with Stella, which is nice.
So I've been in contact, but I haven't spoken to him.
Let me ask you one question about Assange, because broadly I think we're in agreement.
The one criticism of him, which I think has validity, is that he didn't redact enough from the leaks that he put out, which automatically would have put people's lives at jeopardy.
Do you agree with that?
Do you accept that?
No, that is completely wrong, factually.
He redacted everything.
I said enough.
He redacted everything that could possibly have put anyone's life in danger.
And you can go down that rabbit hole as far as you want.
You won't find a single person who came to any harm at all from the revelations in all of those emails and in the files.
So it's absolute nonsense.
And you still hear American politicians say he put out.
No, he didn't.
No, he didn't.
So we know that.
And I don't want to let my voice rise again, but we know for absolute certain sure that he didn't.
So that's just a lie.
Let me ask you quickly about the American election.
You're 80 years old?
I am, sir.
You seem to be remarkably more eloquent and articulate and on it, even if we disagree about stuff, than the current president of the United States.
What do you make of the state of Joe Biden and who would be better for the world, President Trump Mark II or Biden to get re-elected?
Neither of them.
The whole system needs overhauling so that we get candidates who might be of some use.
American, you know, even more than here, government is bought and paid for.
And it's a shame to see Biden bumbling around like he is.
I'm sorry for him.
Has he got dementia, do you think?
Of course he has.
You don't have to think that.
I agree.
Do you think the Democrats should get rid of him before the election?
I don't care what they do.
They're irrelevant.
Is there not a Democrat that you think would, I mean, if Bernie Saunders, for example, was to replace him, would that not be something you might agree with?
I'm not really in a position to have a conversation about who or shouldn't be, who shouldn't be a candidate.
You've got a place in America, haven't you?
Yes, I have.
Do you not have a view?
Look, if I was a mechanic and you bought in a car and about 100 pieces covered in rust and with the battery gone and whatever and said, go on, then, what do you think?
How do you think we should...
I would say, I don't know.
That's how I feel about American politics.
What's your view of that?
It's impossible.
What do you think of Trump?
Well, it's a joke, obviously.
But the whole thing's a joke.
He was elected President of the United States once, and the man's a complete joke, obviously.
But so what?
You know, that's their system.
That's how they've managed to maintain control.
It doesn't matter who's president, so long as the ruling class is...
Trump System Jokes 00:04:15
Why didn't you ever run for office?
You know, it's a funny thing.
Years ago, I was chairman of the Young Socialists and the YCND in Cambridge.
So I was a little bit involved.
Your father was a labour activist?
No, he wasn't.
Well, he was.
No, he wasn't.
My father was an ambulance driver who became converted, if you like.
I think he joined the Communist Party before he went back in the army.
But that was all to do with him seeing our Russian brothers and sisters fighting against the German army all through 42, 43, whatever, all that time.
And so that his politicisation meant that he went back to join.
But the reason that I never went into politics was because I thought rock and roll might be a better way of buying a sports car and getting laid.
Was it?
No.
Was it?
That isn't the reason I did.
You've had five wives.
I am not a committee guy.
You obviously have been laid a lot.
Excuse me.
I am not a kind of committee guy.
I couldn't do all the conversing that you have, certainly in English politics.
All those meetings with all those people.
Have you found that?
And to do all of that and do all the good work and become Jeremy Corbyn and get stabbed in the back by Keir Starmer, no thank you.
Let me end on a few lighter things.
You've been married five times.
Have you found true love?
Yes, I have.
You're in love now, probably?
Do you think you've worked it out?
I'm not going to talk about that.
It's private, but the answer is yes.
And hypothetically, what is the secret of true love?
I don't know.
You're going to have to discover that for yourself, Piers.
Well, you sing about love.
Do I?
Well, you must have sung about love, surely.
There's very few love songs in.
But what do you think the secret of true love is?
It's a meet.
Do you know what?
I quite like the word soulmate.
Yeah.
Soulmates.
Have you found a soul?
It's a meeting of...
Yes, I have.
It's a meeting of souls.
My wife often gets asked, how'd you put up with him?
Does your wife get asked the same?
You'd have to ask my wife, wouldn't you?
I doubt it.
I think the people who have conversations with my wife can see that we're soulmates.
And so that's how we put up with each other.
Is it nice to have reached that point at the stage of your life?
Absolutely, yeah, of course.
You've got three children, two sons and a daughter?
Yes, I have.
You fired one of them, who was your keyball player?
And he seemed a bit mystified when you fired him.
Who?
Harry.
He never talked to you, did he?
No, he gave an interview.
That little swine.
You gave an interview saying you'd fired him, and he wasn't sure why you'd fired him.
Maybe you could clear this up.
Why did you fire your own son?
He definitely.
You ruthless bastard.
Listen, I had plenty of conversations with him, and we understand one another.
But why did you fire him?
In fact, him and his two kids and his wife were staying with me for the whole of last weekend.
So he's forgiving me for firing him.
Yeah, absolutely.
Of course.
Why did you fire him?
It's none of your business.
He talked about it, not me.
I mean, he keeps saying these things are none of my business.
They're all in the public domain.
But listen, he's made different decisions with people about what he will and won't talk about.
That's his business.
He's a man.
Are you a good father, did you say?
Part of me is a good father, yeah.
What's the good and bad of your...
I'm not going to talk about it.
Even about just general fatherhood?
Yeah, I can't talk about that because I didn't have a father.
And I think that affected me and my capacity to be a father.
I think if I'd had a father living when I was growing up, I would have learned, hopefully, a lot about that that I didn't learn and that made things a bit difficult.
But I did, as I explained to you in the story that I told you earlier, have a mother.
Fatherhood and Secrets 00:01:12
Yes, you do.
And my mum was a very interesting and flawed, but a wonderful woman who taught me the difference between right and wrong.
And that is why I stand on the platform of Paris 1948 and human rights.
Final question for you.
It's a music question.
We haven't really talked about music.
If you could choose your all-time great super group, who would be in it?
Oh, I'm not doing that.
Come on.
Give me something.
Give me a little bone.
Hang on.
Let me see.
Who's the best singer you've ever seen?
I've got to try and figure out how to say this in a way you'll understand.
No!
Well, on that lovely point of agreement and camaraderie between interviewer and interviewee.
Roger Waters, thank you very much.
Thank you for having me.
Good to see you.
Andrew Feinstein.
Right?
Hoban and St. Pancras.
It didn't disappoint.
Uncensored could have been made for Roger Waters.
Can I go now?
That's brilliant.
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