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Dec. 11, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
01:09:01
20241211_ceo-killer-charged-daniel-penny-speaks
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Justice Or Vigilante Violence 00:06:23
He personally executed what an assassin.
No one should be feeling empathy for that.
Exactly.
He's a rich kid with a broken brain.
There is a festering resentment and anger and rage that I think has to be confronted.
And if you are a CEO or a 1%, you don't have to justify any of this, but you have to look at the reaction, Pierce.
It's a murder debate, not a healthcare debate.
People every year in the United States of America die because people like Brian Thompson, who run companies like United Healthcare, deny insurance claims that could have saved the lives of their loved ones.
This is someone who had a very privileged upbringing, background, very wealthy family.
The CEO of United Healthcare is someone who came from a working-class family, went to state schools, didn't go to the University of Pennsylvania.
To be clear, you don't have any empathy for him after he was executed.
I personally don't.
Two stories about violence and vigilantes in New York City have polarized debate this week, painting a vivid picture of America's divided morality.
United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead in central Manhattan, a few minutes' walk from the studio we often use to broadcast this show.
The father of two's execution was met with perverse festivity and yes, even joy.
Aren't you supposed to be on the caring, sharing left where, you know, you believe in the sanctity of life?
I do believe in the sanctity of life and I think that's why I felt along with so many other Americans joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like joy in a man's execution?
Maybe not joy, but certainly not no, certainly not empathy.
Because again, we're watching the footage.
How can this make you joyful?
This guy's a husband, he's a father, and he's been gunned down in the middle of Manhattan.
Why is that making joyful?
So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push a policy of denying care to the most vulnerable people.
Well, there was a massive global backlash to Taylor Lorenz and her joyful admission, but not everyone's lost their moral compass.
Taylor did attempt to dig herself out of a hole, but ended up even deeper inside it.
I take that back.
Joyful is the wrong word, Pierce.
As I clarify, yeah.
You think joyful is the wrong word?
Yeah.
I'd say it is.
It's indicated celebratory because, again, it feels like justice in this system when somebody responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.
Tommy Lehron's grimace said it all there.
Whether it's joy, celebration, vindication, or justice, it's all plainly wrong.
There are clearly problems with the U.S. healthcare system, some big problems.
Medical debt is the biggest cause of bankruptcy.
Thousands of people die every year because they lack insurance.
That's not good enough.
We don't have that problem in my country, for example.
But cheering for the death of an innocent man because you decided that he's a symbol of those problems is cheering for anarchy.
Luigi Mangioni has now been charged with the murder, shouting this his case is an insult to the intelligence of the American people.
We hate you as completely unjust and insult to the intelligence of the American people.
It's a good experience.
Today, some lunatic liberal women are bizarrely publicly drooling over what they perceive to be the hot assassin.
The real insult to American intelligence is this infantilizing celebration of someone who committed, allegedly, a cold-blooded execution in the middle of Manhattan.
I compare the reaction from the left to the case of Daniel Penny, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was finally acquitted of all charges for the death of Jordan Neely.
I didn't want any type of attention or praise, and I still don't.
The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do, would never be able to live with myself.
And I'll take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt.
Well, Neely was a tragic figure, that there's no doubt, a homeless drug addict and convict from a broken home.
The system failed him.
His family structures failed him.
That wasn't why he died.
He died because he was very aggressively threatening passengers on the subway, yelling he was ready to die or go to jail and was prepared to potentially kill people to afford that eventuality.
Daniel Penny placed him in a chokehold to restrain him.
Other passengers who were on that train testified that they were terrified by Neely.
They were grateful that Penny intervened.
We used to call that kind of behavior brave, a good Samaritan.
But Penny has been condemned by critics.
Activist Tim Wyers called him a racist, classist, ableist murderer.
And on the steps of the courtroom, there was this.
We need some black vigilantes.
That's right.
People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud?
How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us?
I'm tired.
Not a mention of what Neely was actually doing to terrorize the passengers on that subway, including women and children.
People do not want to randomly jump up and choke you for being loud.
That is race baiting and an incitement to violence.
We're sick of him.
Both of these debates are complicated because of the systemic problems they represent.
But for those on the extreme left who have apparently lost their minds this week, let me make it very simple.
Protecting terrified subway riders from a violent criminal is good.
Murdering a businessman because you don't like his business is bad.
End.
Well, to debate this, I'm joined by Natalie Winters, the co-host of Steve Bannon's Warham, Clay Travis, founder of Outkick, Brianna Joy Gray, the host of the Bad Faith podcast, and Majahat Ali, the host of Democracy-ish.
So Wajahat, let me start with you.
I found Taylor Lorenzi's performance on Monday night on this show utterly staggering.
Murdering Businessmen Is Bad 00:15:10
She was already in hot water for celebrating the death of this executive.
To then say that her honest, genuine response to what happened was one of joy.
And it was unambiguous.
She may have recounted it when she realized what she'd said, but she said it in the moment and she meant it.
She felt joyful that an executive, a husband, a father of two children, had been executed in the streets of Manhattan.
What would you say about that?
Yeah, so three things.
Number one, I can only speak for myself.
I, for one, I can't speak for the panel or anyone else, am against vigilante violence.
I think it's bad for a democratic society when people, especially in a country that has more guns than individuals, take matters in their own hand and kill unarmed individuals.
I think personally, that's wrong.
Secondly, it's not just a left thing because Taylor does not represent the left as one person.
I'm against the murder of Brian Thompson.
I thought it was a brutal, targeted murder.
And I, for one, did not celebrate the murder just like I did not celebrate a violent insurrection against our free and fair elections where people, some with weapons, attacked the Capitol Police.
And then that Capitol Police that was defending the U.S. Capitol and senators was mocked and ridiculed by people on the right.
And then finally, I'm really curious, Pierce, and I'm sure you are as well.
We have some gray hairs.
I have never seen this type of response.
The fact that almost this is the one thing that has united so many Americans, when I'm talking about the response to Brian Thompson's murder, you've seen people from the left, from the right, every ethnicity, every gender, people sitting there, and instead of having empathy, you see outrage.
Sometimes you see celebration.
You see people on social media, on TikTok, on Twitch, on Facebook, using their own, you know, face saying, this is what's happening.
And this is where I think we should really reflect upon why are so many Americans, so many otherwise decent people, not necessarily feeling empathy, also sometimes being celebratory over the murder of a United Healthcare CEO.
And I think you talked about it, touched upon it.
It's because in this country, so many Americans, because we have such a broken system where we pay so much money, don't have access to healthcare, are denied health insurance, right?
They're denied medical treatment.
They're denied life-saving medications.
United Healthcare has denied 32%, more so than any other company.
And they based it on an algorithm.
There is a festering resentment and anger and rage that I think has to be confronted.
And if you are a CEO or a 1%, you don't have to justify any of this, but you have to look at the reaction, Pierce, and say, this is what's happening in America.
Why are so many people united?
I mean, there was literally on Twitter yesterday when they arrested Luigi, right?
There was hashtag free him and pardon.
That is something that has to be confronted and why you see a simmering rage against the 1%, the elitists, and the billionaires.
Okay, Clay Travis, I mean, let me confront that first off, which is it shouldn't need to be confronted.
It's disgusting.
If you celebrate the death of an executive from a company whose policies you don't agree with, you're disgusting.
You're inhumane.
If you lack any empathy and I'm proud of that, or you feel joyful, you are inhumane.
It is wrong.
I don't care who it is, what political divide they come from, what the policies are.
You don't execute people in the street and you don't get celebrated when you do that.
I agree.
But secondly, Clay, I would say this.
This extraordinary phenomenon of so many liberal women brazenly talking about the hot assassin as if somehow the fact that he was good looking in some way is the most important aspect of a hot assassin is bonkers to me, Piers, that this would take off as it has is utterly ridiculous.
But look, I mean, this was a cold-blooded murder that we were all able to watch take place on the video monitors in Midtown Manhattan.
And the thing I would point out is two things that usually happen.
One, I do think there's a deeper story here.
This is a incredibly privileged, it appears to be alleged, but seems like he is the killer based on all the evidence.
He went to a $40,000 a year high school.
He has double degrees from an Ivy League institution.
He has all the advantages and privileges that a rich kid in America would have.
And he killed an executive who was the son of lower middle class, it appears, parents, who worked his way up based on his own individual merit and accolades.
And so you have this incredible, if you want to talk about white privilege, this assassin is maybe the definition of white privilege.
And he also used a gun.
And usually anytime we have a shooting like this, almost immediately we hear that we need to have gun control.
It appears this may have been a gun that he created using some sort of 3D creation, that is some sort of advanced technology.
And we don't hear anything about gun control and we don't hear anything about white privilege.
And so in addition to the fact that a lot of crazy, broken-brained left-wing women like Taylor Lorenz can't find any man, so they decide to get all turned on by assassins.
It's, I think, evidence of how the left wing's brain is broken and they will use any situation to try to justify that which is unjustifiable.
Yeah, Brianna, let me bring you in.
Welcome to Uncensored.
I believe it's your debut.
So great to have you.
Just on the, but before we get to the shooting and the way it's been celebrated and so on, this whole issue of the hot assassin, you know, I made the point on X earlier.
Had this shooter executed a female CEO of a company, of a healthcare company, I don't think any women on the left would have gone public and talked about what a hot assassin he was.
Do you?
I frankly don't know that that's true.
And I also think we can't erase how many men are also thirsting, frankly, after the claims adjuster or as you have been describing him, the hot assassin, Luigi Mangioni.
But I think the real point is that both sides of the establishment political aisle are desperate to make this a conversation about something other than the fact that we have perhaps the most perverse healthcare system or insurance system is a more accurate way to put it, compared to every other similarly wealthy country in the world.
The reason you're seeing this outrage and sometimes kind of performative thirsting for the shooter is exactly because 68,000 people every year in the United States of America die because people like Brian Thompson, who run companies like United Healthcare, deny insurance claims that could have saved the lives of their loved ones.
And while there were a lot of words spent talking about the fear, the real fear of the people on the subway who had encountered Jordan Neely, it's important to note that Jordan Neely hadn't physically engaged with anybody on the subway.
Well, I'm going to come to Jordan.
Just to be clear, I'm going to come to Jordan.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Let's separate the two stories, though.
That was just an aside.
So many such words, passions, empathy was directed in that direction.
But Brian Thompson's actual crimes of having a direct connection to mass death and suffering for tens of thousands of people on a yearly basis.
Well, hang on, you said that.
I think it's going underexamined.
Okay, you said crimes.
Denying crimes, what was the crime?
Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately in the United States, our legal system is designed by people in power who enrich themselves, who don't make denying people's health care that results in mass death.
Yeah, but you called it a crime, though.
You called it a crime, but it wasn't a crime.
He wasn't a convicted criminal.
I would define it.
I would define it colloquially as a crime.
And the fact that Luigi allegedly took matters into his own hands is because no political system or legal system, United States of America, has been willing to step up.
We don't even know that, do we?
Yes, I would say, look, we don't know really enough about this guy yet.
It looks to me like he's a bit of a narcissist.
What do you mean?
I think he was a narcissist.
I think that he was clearly unhinged.
I'm not sure that he's the great Robin Hood.
Hang on, hang on.
Hang on.
Which guy?
I'm sorry.
Hang on.
Luigi, the shooter.
Brian Thompson.
The one who shot Brian Thompson, Luigi, right?
I'm just not sure that he's this great, you know, heroic guy standing up against the healthcare system.
I suspect it's...
I'm not talking about that.
This isn't about Luigi, who may or may not, you know, he's been arrested.
He's been charged.
We may or may not know that he's the actual shooter.
I'm talking about the public reaction to Brian Thompson's death.
No, I understand.
We do know about Brian Thompson.
No, I understand that.
We know about United Healthcare.
And that's the root of the discontent.
That's the root of the public outcry.
Luigi is just a vessel through which people are expressing their deep frustrations to the American healthcare system.
So the question is, if you don't want murders like this to be happening, assassinations to be happening like this in the street.
I'm someone who does not believe in the death penalty and don't condone these kinds of vigilante instances of violence in either case.
But if you want to get to the root of why people are so deeply unhappy, you have to, or it resonates so deeply with people that this has happened.
You have to get to the root of why there is this deep well of tragedy, despair, and outrage in the United States of America.
And that has to do with what Brian Thompson has chosen to do.
But just to companies like United Health, just to be clear to the American people.
But just to be clear, before I go to Natalie to respond to that, do you feel any empathy for Brian Thompson and his family?
I have infinite empathy for any individual as a person in their personal capacity.
As his role as the CEO of United Healthcare, I'm afraid I'm with the overwhelming majority, bipartisan majority of the American people who say I'm saving my empathy for people who are much more vulnerable, much more vulnerable and have caused a lot of people.
So to be clear, you don't have any empathy for him after he was executed.
I personally don't.
Right.
Okay, well, at least you're honest.
Let me go to Natalie Winters.
I mean, I find this staggering.
You've got to remember, the left is supposed to be the party that cares so much.
All of them have their be-kind hashtags.
They're the caring ones, the kind ones.
And they can't even bring it in their hearts to say they find a shred of empathy for a man who's just been executed, who's the father of children, the husband of a loving wife, and so on.
I find that just staggering, that you can't, on a human level, have empathy for the murder of someone, but also make your point about the system in which he was an executive.
What's your response?
I mean, it's absolutely shocking.
And look, what it gets to the core of is the continued dehumanization of people because in the sort of culturally Marxist paradigm of oppressor versus oppressed, you're allowed to do whatever you want to someone who has allegedly, or in this case, I'm not a supporter of the United States healthcare system or apparatus.
Believe me, there's so many problems that need to be fixed and adjusted there.
But condoning, which is in effect what these two panelists are doing, the assassination of him by a roundabout way by saying, well, the healthcare system, you just told me that you had absolutely no empathy and that you think what people are doing by gunning down healthcare executives because of bad observations.
By the way, I do not condone vigilante violence in either instance.
So don't miscarry that you have no representative.
If you wouldn't make your case without telling a limit, then you should do it.
I have empathy for the 68 million Americans.
Every single year, the United Healthcare system is a very important thing.
Okay, look.
Listen, Brianna, I'll let you speak about it.
Let Natalie have her say, and then I'll let people respond.
By the way, if you think Luigi Mangioni is someone who you maybe have empathy or sympathy for, this is someone who had a very privileged upbringing, background, very wealthy family.
The CEO of United Healthcare is someone who came from a working-class family, went to state schools, didn't go to the University of Pennsylvania.
Like I said, I'm not defending the healthcare system writ large, but to say that you don't have empathy because you view him as an oppressor of the American people is a perversion, not just of the system of law and justice in this country, but that's extreme.
You just said You don't have empathy for a man who was murdered in cold blood on the streets of New York.
So, what do you have for our empathy?
You are so much so that you just said you don't have to be a person.
I said, Let me be clear.
I said, as a person, interpersonally, of course, he has a family, and those people are feeling grief.
And those people, as far as I know, are innocent in all of this.
But the question is: why are, here's the real question: why are we asking random pundits who might personally have been victimized, by the way, by someone like Brian Thompson, why they would have empathy for him and their family, while there's no question being asked about who has empathy for the tens of thousands of Americans who are killed every year by the policies that Brian Thompson has made millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars off of.
We're not talking about the fact that this 25-year-old, 26-year-old perpetrator, alleged perpetrator, went to an Ivy League school when obviously he was so still financially precarious.
Or obviously, we don't know, those facts will come out.
But the fact that someone who is relatively privileged in the United States of America can still feel so overwhelmed by our health care system that they would go to these lengths, that people who are relatively affluent still find themselves in medical bankruptcy, as you so rightly pointed out earlier, Piers Morgan.
That 50% of families that have a cancer diagnosis in their family in the United States of America go bankrupt.
That is where the moral outrage should lie.
But when you hold it, don't get me wrong.
Listen, wealthy, affluent houses.
The focus seems to be on the family of the millionaire and not on the families of the people who have been terrorized by the healthcare system.
You made your point.
Listen, I'm in London at the moment.
In the UK, we have the National Health Service.
It's free healthcare for all.
So I find the whole system in America completely baffling.
A country of your size and power and economic muscle can't have a better system where people don't fall through the cracks in such large numbers.
I completely agree.
But that is a separate issue to the execution of someone in the street.
Clay, I could see you were rolling your eyes.
That's not a separate issue.
Let me bring Clay in.
It is.
It is a separate.
Pierce, I'm in Israel right now.
I've just been touring a lot of the kibbutzes where there were people who were murdered because they were Jewish.
I can't help but see the analogy here.
You can be upset with a larger societal issue.
It does not justify murdering people because of it.
And if you are making that argument, and Brianna is making that argument, I'm sorry, her brain is broken because what she is saying is, I'm so upset about the healthcare system that I believe that assassinating an innocent person who has never been convicted of any crime in cold blood on the streets of Manhattan is okay.
Then your brain is broken.
Joy Over Assassination Wrong 00:05:57
If you don't have empathy, that's not what I'm saying.
And the audience is intelligent enough to have heard what I'm actually saying.
No, no.
You said you didn't have empathy for the killing of a man because you were upset about the city.
I brought the issue of health care.
That is not any different.
That he is a person in this private capacity.
I do not have empathy for the people who are in the world.
That you're not happy about the situation here.
Neither does millions of Americans who've been victimized by Brianna.
That's a larger societal issue that you don't like.
And by the way, this is not a healthcare debate.
I want to pay for it.
It is a healthcare debate.
Hang on.
I want to hear from you.
It is a healthcare debate.
It's a murder debate.
It's a murder debate, not your healthcare debate.
People are not excited about it.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
People are not excited about murder.
There are thousands of murders that happen.
Well, maybe not thousands, but hundreds, whatever, dozens of murders that happen every day in the United States of America.
And those perpetrators are not being celebrated by the public.
The public right now is feeling empathy for Luigi.
They are feeling some kind of catharsis shot and fraud, whatever you want to call it.
You're feeling empathy for an actor.
Executioner.
But not the person they executed.
What an assassin.
No one should be feeling empathy for that.
Exactly.
He's a rich kid with a broken brain.
Totally agree.
Probably like you.
Okay, I want to play two clips now.
I want to play, first of all, a mashup of the reaction to our Taylor Lorenz joy clip, which has gone very big in America.
Let's watch this.
That is this ideology.
She has joy for a guy getting murdered in the streets of New York.
I just feel like saying that you feel joy over someone getting assassinated.
Like even if you do feel that way, I just don't think it's helpful to say that.
She in her mind is like a man that worked for a company at the highest levels died, so she feels joy.
Okay.
And now this woman is all over online on her sub stack and elsewhere trying to justify this man's murder and goes on with Piers Morgan on his YouTube show last night.
Wow, we have a real problem in this country.
The left has a real problem.
But there is something deeper, a sickness that is going on in our political class.
Best exemplified by the absolute nut job, Taylor Lorenz, who used to work for the Washington Post.
She appeared on Piers Morgan yesterday, and she said that she felt actual joy when the United Healthcare CEO was murdered on the street.
Now, John, before I come to you, I want to play Joe Rogan, who interestingly had this take.
I don't think this guy was a professional.
I think this guy, if I had a guess, some guy who got fucked over.
Apparently that company is really bad on denying claims.
34% denial rate.
So it's like 16.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So those guys.
I don't think anybody's going to like be crying too hard over that guy.
Maybe he's family, but that's about it.
It's a dirty, dirty business.
The business of insurance is fucking gross.
Now, John Haye, I mean, it's interesting there.
Joe Rogan, you know, he didn't come out and say he felt joyful, but certainly no great tears being shed, no great expression of sympathy.
You know, as Brianna, I mean, I wouldn't have phrased it the way she did.
And I think to admit you have no empathy for someone when they'd be murdered is very bizarre.
Joe Rogan and I had the same take.
Well, that's what I'm about to make the point.
Joe Rogan and I had the exact same take.
Allow me to conduct my own interviews, Brianna, if you don't mind.
But John Hayek, I mean, there's not a massive amount of difference in response there.
So is there a point here that the issue of healthcare in America is angering so many Americans because of these denial rates and so on, that this was almost an inevitable conclusion to this, that somebody at some stage was going to turn violent.
Yeah, and let me respond to Claire, your question on also the clips.
First and foremost, I, for one, have said that I'm against vigilante violence.
I have the capacity to feel empathy for unarmed individuals who get killed.
What I find fascinating about the framing is where is the pearl clutching?
Where is the outrage?
It seems very selective, right?
So if you're in Israel, Clay, I'm glad you're there.
Talk to everyone.
Go visit the West Bank and talk to Palestinians if you truly want to have empathy.
When you talk about framing, right?
I think Clay said, you know, just because you're angry about a system doesn't give you the right to commit vigilante violence.
I agree.
Just because you're angry and you think that Donald Trump won the 2020 election that he lost, it does not give you the right to be part of an incited violent insurrection where you hurt and harm Capitol police, take a shit in the U.S. Capitol.
Some people come armed to assassinate people.
By the way, just over the weekend, Donald Trump said he would pardon those people, traitors, violent insurrectionists, whom he called hostages.
I see no condemnation.
I see celebration from the right.
Another story about murder, how common it is.
Another Daniel, Daniel Perry, a white man, a veteran.
He was convicted, Piers, just a couple of months ago.
He was convicted by a jury of our peers for killing an unarmed white man who was attending a BLM rally with his black girlfriend.
Governor Abbott of Texas.
Do you know what happened?
The story no one talks about.
Governor Abbott of Texas pardoned this man who was convicted by a jury for killing an unarmed white man.
MAGA celebrates it.
So when do we celebrate and when do we not?
And right now, to go to your question, this comment that Joe said and what Brianna said and what I said is the reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson is what I'm fascinated about.
It is inevitable, I believe, to answer your question directly, in a country, the most powerful, wealthy country on earth, right?
That where we pay more money than any other country for healthcare, where so many people, so many adults, their number one debt, Pierce, is medical debt.
I had a daughter who is a stage four cancer survivor.
She's five years on.
She's cancer-free, full liver transplant.
She's a little diva.
A person like myself, Pierce.
The only reason I had insurance is through my wife, who's a doctor.
We're pretty privileged compared to most people.
If I wasn't able to get help from my family and friends, I would be in debt.
I would be $200,000 in debt.
Pierce, I had to do a GoFundMe.
And that's me, a person with relative privilege.
Protecting Riders Not Killing Men 00:16:13
So look at the reaction right now.
And I keep telling people for CEOs, I mean this sincerely.
If you are in healthcare, if you're a billionaire, if you are a CEO, if you're a 1%, look at the bipartisan rage from Brianna to Joe Rogan about the healthcare system where, you know, millions of Americans, Pierce, I don't think they're evil.
I'm telling you, I've never seen anything like this in my life.
I know deeply empathetic people who looked at this murder and said, I feel bad for Brian, but you know what?
United Healthcare screwed over a lot of people.
I have a story.
And the system has to change.
Well, listen, I think the system has got to change.
I totally agree with that.
Let me bring Natalie in.
I want to pivot to Daniel Penny now, because it really has been a tale of two vigilante stories, very different stories in my estimation.
You know, I am very pleased that Daniel Perry was acquitted of committing it, Penny was committed of any crime, because I believe he was a hero.
I believe that he was a Marine veteran on the subway who recognized a dangerous situation.
He knew nothing about Jordan Neely's background at all.
He didn't know that he was a homeless man or he had mental health issues.
He didn't know that he had a criminal record as long as his arm, 40 plus offenses, including several involving violence, including against old people.
He didn't know anything.
All he knew was this guy was ranting and raving, talking about killing people, prepared to die, prepared to go to prison for the rest of his life.
And in that moment, the military instinct kicked in.
It seems to me.
I've got a lot of military in my family.
It kicked in instinctively.
He knew how to restrain him and he did restrain him.
And tragically, Jordan Neely ends up dying.
He was high on drugs at the time, but he ends up dying.
And I can absolutely have empathy for the death of Jordan Neely.
It shouldn't have happened.
It was a tragedy.
But it was an accident.
And Daniel Penny did not want to kill him, obviously.
He wanted to stop him potentially killing the passengers, women and children.
I'm struck by the fact that of the 11 eyewitnesses who gave evidence, nine of them said it was the most terrifying experience they'd ever had on the subway.
Not what Daniel Penny did, what Jordan Neely was doing before Daniel Penny apprehended him and resisted and got him under control.
So I don't understand how anyone who looks at this with a logical common sense brain could possibly construct any argument that says this is the new George Floyd.
This was a white supremacist, as they called him, a racist who only picked on Jordan Neely because of his skin color.
And by the way, the system betrayed Jordan Neely and all these things.
Really?
I just see a deranged, violent guy with a long criminal record threatening to kill people and somebody, thank God, stepped in to stop him from potentially carrying out his threat.
You also don't see them systemic violence.
No, hang on, Joe.
This is for.
No, no, I'm sorry.
I'll come to all of you.
Don't worry.
We'll come to all of you.
No, you're, you know, it's the same old tired playbook that they've always been using.
I mean, it's just race baiting.
In this case, they're effectively, I think, trying to start a race war.
If you look at the way from NAACP to BLM to left-wing outlets have framed this, they always portray the man who died as some Michael Jackson street performer and Daniel Penny as a former Marine, right?
You can see it in the analytical way that they're approaching this.
But I think it even is something that's much more, much worse than this.
And what I mean is that you have progressive elites who have pushed soft on crime, that's an understatement, policies, proposals that lead to the continual release and bailing out of people who've been arrested on 42 separate crimes, including attempted abductions of seven-year-olds and beating up and trying to harass elderly women and men on public transportation.
And as a result of those horrible policies, average working-class Americans, the same people that I think these two co-panelists would probably say that they have a lot of empathy for, are forced to suffer the brunt and the negative ramifications of policies that lead to criminals who need to be in jail or insane asylums plaguing public transportation, especially in New York.
Yeah, I agree.
Well, let me go to Brianna.
Brianna, you know, I've seen people coming out saying the most ridiculous things about this case.
There is zero evidence that there was any racial motivation whatsoever for Daniel Penny's actions.
There's zero evidence of him ever being any kind of white supremacist.
And the interview he gave last night, he's a publicity shy guy.
He doesn't want to get involved in anything like that, who's had his life nearly destroyed by what happened, but says he would do it all over again in the same circumstances.
We used to salute people like this.
We used to literally give them awards for public service.
Why is he being vilified?
So I'm not interested in doing identity politics.
That's not my game.
I wasn't interested in talking about the race and the other vigilante case, and I'm not especially interested in talking about race in this one.
I think, as is often the case when race is evoked in the United States of America, the underlying issue is really class.
And this very much is a class issue.
This is a person, Daniel, sorry, Jordan Neely, who was clearly in the middle of a mental health episode, who was loud, who was threatening, who was making very grievous threats that I think sincerely scared people in the subway.
Look, I'm from New York, Piers.
I know what it feels like to feel intimidated by someone who is having some kind of mental episode or is just a violent person in a subway car.
And I think it's legitimate to feel afraid, to want to move to the other end of the car like so many passengers did, to want to get off of the next stop, to even call the police.
I think what's really unconscionable is that New York City has a $6 billion police budget, and there never seems to be an officer who's actually trained to de-escalate these kinds of situations in the car where they need to.
They're out standing at the turnstiles trying to spend tens of thousands of dollars of salary to catch subway evaders who've stolen $2 in change by jumping over a turnstile.
I think the critical issue here is the question of how Penny intervened.
I think the idea of wanting to intervene to de-escalate and prevent harm from coming to your fellow passengers is heroic.
But the question is whether or not he used proportional force and whether he should be responsible if the way that he intervened with physical force before, to be clear, Jordan Neely did anything physical that resulted in the death of Jordan Neely should have legal implications or whether we should incentivize as a public, just like I'm sure you don't want to incentivize vigilante shooters like Luigi, whether we should incentivize as a public Marines who are trained in the art of killing to go around taking matters into their own hands in a way that leads to the death of our fellow citizens.
So just to be clear, before I go to Clay to respond to that, you would have preferred to wait for potentially Jordan Neely to commit an act of violence before Daniel Penny intervened.
I don't think that you can, you yourself use violence against someone first.
I think that that's a goal that you learn in the LLC.
In that circumstance, that you don't put it in the hands of other people.
So you would have preferred him to wait to see if he attacked a woman or a child or whatever, and then it would be a lot of fun.
Not at all.
Not at all, Pierce.
I'm glad you asked for clarification.
I think that Jordan, sorry, Daniel Penny could have put his body between Jordan Neely and the other passengers, could have put his hands up, tried to de-escalate, a myriad of ways that I think we could imagine someone with proper training, like a police officer or a mental health professional, would have done.
But I'm asking you, Pierce, is it impossible for you to imagine a kind of de-escalation that didn't result in the struggle?
Well, I wasn't there, but I mean, I'm a mentally ill person.
Well, listen, I'll come to Clay now.
I mean, Clay, I wasn't there.
You weren't there.
None of us were there.
We do know it was all over in six minutes.
He did it waiting for the police to arrive.
He apparently applied a military technique where he applied pressure, then he took pressure off, then he applied pressure again.
And that's a technique they use for restraining people, which is what the military are taught and trained to do.
And clearly something went wrong.
We don't know if it was affected by the fact that Jordan Neely was high on drugs and whether that affected things.
We just don't know, right?
What we do know is he died.
And that is a tragedy.
And I feel absolute empathy for him and for everyone involved in that.
And I feel it for Daniel Penny.
But I don't see what Daniel Penny did wrong.
He was trying to protect people.
Well, neither does the jury.
Right.
Neither does the jury, Piers.
And I think that's the big takeaway here.
This was a racially diverse jury in New York City that looked at all the evidence surrounding Daniel Penny, and they unanimously said this guy did absolutely nothing wrong from a criminal context.
I think it's a signature victory for people who want there to be a form of law and order in New York City.
I think it's important to recognize that if you couldn't get a conviction, if Alvin Bragg couldn't get a conviction on this case in New York City, it means virtually every jury in the entire nation would have said that there was no crime at all that was committed here by Daniel Penny.
I also think it's important you asked a good question because there have been and there are people who are saying Daniel Penny is an evil white supremacist who needs to spend the rest of his life in prison and they're simultaneously having hot flashes over the killer of the United Healthcare CEO.
And how do you analyze that to me?
It all comes down to intent.
Their brains are broken because what we examine in the law is the intent here.
Daniel Penny's intent when he got on the subway that day was not to do anything at all other than take a ride to wherever he was going.
And then he felt compelled to act because he saw an issue of violence arise and he felt like he needed to protect the people that were on that subway car.
And the flip side, the killer of the United Healthcare CEO traveled there and in cold blood planned, plotted, and executed as an assassin would a man he shot with his back against him that never saw the moment that he would be killed.
The intent is one first-degree murder.
The intent in the other is try to prevent a potential murder or violent act.
They aren't in any way similar, and it really boggles my mind, Piers, that anyone could even try and analogize the two.
Because again, the only way you could come up in that scenario with that situation and in any way analogize them is if you are functionally incapable of applying basic logic.
Let me bring Major in here.
I mean, Major.
Hang on, let Majah help respond.
I just want to give a response just for people watching why there's a different series of responses from a lot of individuals, right?
Especially when it comes to people of color, not just people of color, some white people, because they understand the history of America, systemic violence against people of color, especially black people by white men that goes unpunished.
Agree with a lot of people that I don't think Daniel Penny, Perry, excuse me, wanted to, yeah, Penny, excuse me, wanted to kill Jordan Neely.
Facts matter: Jordan Neely, according to all the eyewitnesses, did not touch a single person.
Yes, he was acting erratic.
He threw his jacket, he yelled, he screamed, he said, I don't care if I live or die.
One woman in particular said that she feared that he might have made a lunging motion.
That's when he took him in a chokehold.
I believe that chokehold lasted too long, six minutes.
He was killed.
There was someone in the video who said he can't breathe.
He can't breathe.
Neely, the street performer whose mother was killed and stuffed in a suitcase.
And after that, he had a mental breakdown.
He was found not with a gun or a knife.
You know what I found in his pocket?
A muffin.
Before any of the details came out, though, the right wing celebrated, celebrated this man and this murder, right?
The right wing also celebrated the guy, Daniel Perry, the other veteran who killed an unarmed white man.
The right wing also celebrated.
You mean to be disingenuous, Ajai?
And I'll tell you why.
Wait, wait, wait.
Well, hang on.
Let me tell you this way.
Go ahead.
Let me finish.
Here's the question.
I'll tell you why I'm being disingenuous.
Sure, sure.
Please.
Okay.
So Kyle Rittenhouse also acquitted, celebrated as a hero.
The violent insurrectionists, mostly white celebrated as heroes.
So you see a double standard here.
And a lot of people see, oh, this keeps happening when there's a white man or certain white people who kill black folks.
Like example, like this.
Ameth Arbery, a modern-day lynching in Georgia.
This man was guilty while running black in his neighborhood.
He was just jogging in his neighborhood.
Three white men lynched him.
Yeah, terrible.
The DA at the time, twice, twice Pierce refused to bring up charges.
The only reason a local attorney released them.
And then they're now in prison for life.
Look, the reality here is because of the video claim, because the video keeps happening again and again.
That's all I'm saying.
Was because there's no difference of opinion.
That's the only reason they charged him in New York City.
If this had been a black guy doing what Daniel Penny did, there would have been no charge of fraud.
If he had been choking, if he had been choking a white guy, there would have been no charge of the craft.
Also, let me make this point.
Let me make this point.
Let me make this point to Wajaha, which is, you know, you make out the guy just had a muffin on him, right?
I mean, what was the need to do what you did?
Well, okay.
He had a 42-arrest record from 2013 to 2021.
So that's an eight-year-old.
Did anyone know that at the time?
Nobody knew that.
Hang on.
No one on the car knew that.
No, no, I'm just talking about the reality of who Jordan Neely was and what his record was, right?
Right, the subjective reality in the car.
Hang on, hang on, let me finish.
Allow me to finish.
You may not want to hear it, but allow me to finish.
Right?
In 2015, he was arrested for attempting to kidnap a seven-year-old girl after dragging her down a street.
In 2021, he punched a 67-year-old woman as she left a subway station in lower Manhattan.
She got a broken nose, a fractured orbital bone, bruising, swelling, substantial pain in the back of her head in the attack.
He pleaded guilty from January 2020 to August 2021.
He was arrested for public lewdness after pulling his pants down, exposing himself to a female stranger, misdemeanor assault for hitting a woman in the face, criminal contempt for violating a restraining order.
All three cases were then dealt with.
This is a guy with a prolonged history of violence, attempted kidnap, appalling stuff, right?
He's not just a guy carrying it.
He's deserved to be murdered.
He's all hang on.
He's not just some innocent, homeless guy clutching a muffin, right?
On the day he was choked to death, on the day he was choked to death, he did not touch a single person and he had a problem.
But let's not pretend he was some kind of angel.
But this is here's what I would say on the day I was choking to death.
Don't all talk over each other.
Clay?
What I would say about what you just said.
Brianna, wait a minute, please.
If you took over each other, we can't hear anyone.
I think we're going to be able to do that.
Listen, allow me to bring in each guest when I want to, because otherwise the viewers can't hear a word anyone's saying.
I hear this all the time from viewers.
Like, get in there, Piers, because they all talk over each other.
Clay, then I'll come to you, Brianna.
What I think you're laying out is actually a huge part of this story, Piers, which is the reason Daniel Penny felt compelled to act is because New York City has failed to take violent criminals off the streets despite their violent criminality.
And that is why so many people, including Brianna herself, said they are nervous when they get on the subway in New York City where crime had skyrocketed.
The context in which this occurred, the city of New York, which tried to put Daniel Penny in prison, actually failed not only Daniel Penny, but Jordan Neely.
Because if they had adequately punished him for the violent acts that he had engaged in, he wouldn't have been on the subway that day, and there wouldn't have been any need at all for the vigilante act to the extent that it's vigilante in any way, which I don't believe it was, and the jury didn't find it was.
This is a symptom of the failure of not only New York City, but many other big left-wing blue city, blue state decisions when it comes to prosecuting violent crimes.
Punishment And Systemic Failure 00:07:26
They lead to more violent crimes, and we end up in situations like these, which never should have occurred.
Jordan Neely shouldn't have been on the street that day.
He should have been behind bars for his violent acts.
I agree, Brianna.
Well, let me use the exact same logical formulation that our friend here just made.
That Luigi Maggioni had to act because our legal system and our political system has failed to address the overwhelming crisis of the U.S. health system.
That's exactly how you framed it with respect to the vigilante training.
That is not the same thing.
Wait a minute, because the state had not intervened.
And then you disagree with someone here.
Let Brianna finish her point.
Then I'll bring you in, Natalie.
Natalie, I'll bring you in after Brianna.
Let Brianna finish her point.
Yeah.
I'm not making the argument, but I am parroting exactly the framing that the gentleman there just used.
That because the state didn't intervene in the way that he thinks they should have intervened with Jordan Neely.
And I agree about, and by the way, I agree that the state failed him, not because I think they need to lock mentally ill people up forever and throw away the key, but because we have another crisis in America that's related to this healthcare crisis that is a healthcare crisis with respect to not having enough social support for people who are having mental health crisis.
Jordan Neely's inability to get the medication that affected his mood, that brought his mood down, is a significant part of the story and comes right back to the healthcare CEO situation.
But if you understand, if you believe that it can be a vigilante killing that is justified in your view on the subway, I think you have to look deep within yourself and ask why you're doing so much hand-wringing about the public outcry, the public celebration, Sean Fraud, again, however you want to describe it, about the CEO killing when the CEO is responsible for the money.
Because one meant to do it and the other one did this badge.
And Jordan Neely could have ever imagined that.
Hang on.
All right, let me bring it in.
I want to bring in.
It has a history of violence.
This is important why the analogy falls apart.
Jordan Neely has a history of violence that failed in New York, and that's why the action had to occur.
The United Healthcare CEO has never committed any actual crime at all and was doing nothing at all to engage in any kind of a lot of people.
And our legal system decides that the people is legal.
Okay, well, you've already made that point.
You made that point already.
That's a problem.
Okay, I want to bring in Natalie.
It's been waiting patiently.
I mean, it seems to me there is an obvious difference, which is that Daniel Penny didn't mean to do what happened to Jordan Neely.
But quite clearly, the shooter of Brian Thompson absolutely meant to do it, planned it, carried it out, executed him without him even knowing what was going on.
They are completely different stories.
Yeah, I mean, I really think we should take a step back here.
And I don't just mean it because the left is essentially defending violent, homeless people who are attacking and harassing Americans, trying to abduct children.
But I mean the fact that this slippery slope logic chain that you're hearing right now is why you saw two assassination attempts against President Donald J. Trump.
In other words, if you think or you disagree with someone's politics, you are allowed to use outside the system change to try to effectuate whatever goals you may deem appropriate for this country.
And by the way, this goes all the way to the top with Alvin Bragg and all the lawfare cases that you saw against President Trump too, which by the way, you want to talk about a waste of resources, how we need more police officers in the train?
Well, maybe they shouldn't have spent tens of millions of dollars prosecuting President Donald J. Trump.
And by the way, you want to talk about where New York City has had to spend all of its fund?
It's on illegal immigration, right?
And that goes back to this oppressor versus oppress narrative, this idea that this country needs to perpetually defend and bail out criminal, in this case, criminal aliens, but criminals like Jordan Neely, who are harassing everyday working Americans, the same people that you probably think are being screwed over by healthcare CEOs, which I agree in that case.
But I don't understand in your worldview how you can both want to support these progressive soft on crime policies that make the living experience, the lived experience, the working daily commutes of average Americans, they have to face people, crazy homeless people who are trying to kill them because their tax dollars are being used to what, house illegal immigrants in homes that are nicer than the very homes that they live in.
And by the way, might I just add, I am so down to have a conversation about the healthcare system in this country, but I'm old enough to remember that what was it?
The entirety of the left, the Biden White House, weaponized millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to censor the entire conservative movement saying that we were absolutely crazy because we dared to question where COVID came from.
We dared to question, well, healthcare and big pharmaceutical, the whole gamut.
So I'm down to have that conversation, but you guys have spent years censoring us, trying to open that conversation.
And when we try to put a rapid change maker, you know what?
These people melt down.
You know what?
I think that's a perfectly valid point, but we're not going to debate that now.
It might be another time.
Pierce, can I ask one small, very quickly?
Yeah.
I think I've been very consistent that I'm against vigilante violence.
I want to ask just for posterity and for the audience, and because I've heard the arguments and the framing, Clay and Natalie, do you condemn the violence that took place in January 6th, the violent insurrection cited by Donald Trump?
And just over the weekend, Donald Trump said he would pardon these traitorous, violent insurrectionists who he praised as hostages.
You condemn that.
I condemn it.
Okay, so all of these people have been punished in January 6th, wildly in excess of how violent criminals have been punished for virtually every other crime in Washington, D.C.
So they have done their time.
I believe every single one of them should be pardoned, just like Hunter Biden, who didn't do any of his time, has been pardoned.
And by the way, just like virtually every single BLM rioter has been pardoned as well.
Is anybody in prison right now for burning the committee?
Hold on.
Is anybody in prison who burned down the Minneapolis police station?
Virtually no one who rioted.
I absolutely feel that has been protested.
I am, very few.
I am anti any sort of violent act.
I think people should serve punishments.
All of them have.
I think, in fact, they've been wildly over Compare their treatment with everything else that's gone on in Washington, D.C., where almost every violent felony is actually reduced to a misdemeanor.
So I believe that the January 6th political convictees have all served far in excess what they should know.
I believe at this point in time, they should all be.
I listen very carefully.
In fact, what Clay was saying, Majahat, he condemns all violence.
So he says that those immune violations are not perpetrated by people.
I've been arguing for years that anybody who riots, anybody who loots, regardless of their motivation, Democrat, Republican, Independent, they should be prosecuted.
But I believe the January 6th individuals have all been prosecuted in excess.
Most of them have already served their time.
I would pardon them.
I would also, by the way, if you want to get into who Clay Travis would pardon, I would pardon Eric Adams because I think he's being targeted for politics.
I think we have to get out of the world of targeting primarily people for politics from our Department of Justice.
I think that has to end.
Before we let everyone go, I want to, even where you are right now, Clay, obviously over in Tel Aviv.
Jan 6th Prosecutions In Excess 00:05:31
I want to start with Wajahat here about what Israel has been doing in response to the extraordinary deposing of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator.
Israel's gone in, they've struck 350 military sites across Syria.
They say they've destroyed most of the country's strategic weapons stockpiles in the last 48 hours.
Are they wrong to do that?
Yes, Israel's policy under Benjamin Nanyahu has been the following: de-escalation through escalation.
I'm not making that up.
That's an exact quote: de-escalation through escalation, which is like saying we will have to kill them to save them.
Here we have something remarkable in our lifetime.
Six decades of tyrannical rule of a dictatorship is being overthrown.
And we've seen the rebels do something amazing in the past week, Pierce, right?
You're seeing not Sunni versus Shia violence, not Sunni versus Christians.
They're actually uniting.
And preemptively, Israel has done a massive bombing campaign that has taken out their navy, taken out their missile defense system, taken out their tanks, and then saying, by the way, we want peace.
This is the same country that is occupying illegally Palestinians, that is building settlements, that has killed over 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, broken humanitarian laws, committed war crimes, committing more war crimes right now.
And also want to remind people that Israel, for the first time in 50 years, has moved troops into a buffer zone in Syria.
How does this de-escalate anything?
I think this is just going to be more escalation.
Let me get a response.
Clay, I know you got to go.
So let me get a response from you, given you're over there.
Yeah, so I toured the Nova music festival yesterday, Pierce, where over 400 innocent young men and women of all different backgrounds were brutally murdered by Hamas on October 7th.
I also went and toured all the kibbutzes, including near Oz, where I talked to people who hid with their children inside of the bomb shelters for hours as their neighbors were brutally murdered and kidnapped by Hamas.
So I don't blame Israel at all when it comes to Syria for taking out the weapons, which were almost all provided by Iran and Russia and would be potentially used against Israel, depending on who ends up in a position of power there.
Assad was a bad man, but a lot of bad men have been in power in the Middle East.
I'm not sure whether things are going to get better or worse in Syria.
But if I'm in Israel right now, if I were in Israeli, I would want as many of the weapons that Syria has that are weapons of war that they could use in the event that these guys who used to be members of al-Qaeda and ISIS violent terror groups come to power.
I'm not sure things are going to get better.
And so I would rather them have less weapons than more.
And I think it is a continuation of what to me is a highly justified and morally just response to the depredations and attacks of Hamas, which were then followed up with Hezbollah.
Right.
And what is the feeling of the people over in Israel?
Because Netanyahu was very unpopular after October the 7th for many months with people wanting the mission against Hamas to go ahead, but also wanting him gone.
Very, very unpopular.
That's completely changed, particularly since the attacks on the Hezbollah terrorists, where 3,000 of them got targeted with the infamous Pedra attacks.
The success he's had militarily against Iran, against Hamas.
And so you put it all together.
And now, obviously, what's happened with Assad?
Is the feeling that Netanyahu was a lot more popular, a lot stronger than he was perhaps six months ago?
I think that's certainly true.
The other analogy I would make for Americans is having spent time over here, and I think it's one that makes sense.
We all remember how we felt on September 11th when the Twin Towers were attacked in New York City.
But imagine that.
And then you also layered on hundreds of terrorists having taken hundreds of hostages.
And it's still an open wound here, Piers, because there's over 100 hostages that Hamas still has.
It's a never-ending story.
So many moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas here in Israel want their hostages brought home.
And I can't even imagine what 430 plus days now of uncertainty is like.
So I think there's a profound anger.
The scar is still there.
The wound is still open.
But I do believe that we're going to get a ceasefire sooner rather than later.
I hope those hostages come back.
And fingers crossed, I hope Syria ends up with a more democratic, human rights-embracing leader than they had in the past.
Clay, thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you, Piers.
I've got to let Clay go because he's got his own show to do.
Thank you very much, Clay.
Great to talk to you.
Let me bring in.
I hope Clay can visit Palestinians and also the Jewish settlers on the West Bank.
I hope he could see Hebron.
Yeah, but look, to be fair, you didn't mention anything about what Hamas had done to the Jewish people.
And that didn't cross your mind.
I've been on your show for 13 months.
You know, the first time I was on your show, we've talked about this for more than a year.
For the first time I was on your show, the first question you asked me is, do I condemn Hamas?
I not only condemned Hamas, I condemned Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, I condemned Hamas.
I condemn everything.
Chocolate Hamas, not Hamas.
You know, if you want me to condemn it again, I will.
I've been very consistent.
Well, no, let me bring in Brianna on this.
I mean, Brianna, it's an interesting situation in Syria.
I mean, my big takeaway, I have to say, doesn't involve any of this.
Condemning Hamas And Tragedy 00:02:57
It involves what Russia did, which is having steadfastly stood side by side with Assad since 2015.
They suddenly just bailed.
And there's an amazing story that's come out today that Ukraine sent a bunch of drones to help the rebels overthrow Assad.
And they did that to effectively attack Russia on a different front because it was going against Russia's interests.
And my feeling is that both, as Trump said the other day, both Russia and Iran are immeasurably weakened by this.
And Putin is in real trouble because the war he thought would take three or four days in Ukraine has now taken nearly three years.
They're losing an unbelievable number of men to the extent they're having to recruit from North Korea.
And their proxies, like Iran, Syria, and others are all severely damaged.
So I think this is an opportunity for Putin to be put firmly back in his box.
Yeah, I mean, you're echoing the American military state, which has been very open about the extent to which our support of Ukraine is not only kind of tangentially about the well-being of the people of Ukraine, but really about a proxy war to weaken Russia.
Joe Biden gave a statement about this just in the last couple of days, where he applauded the fact that part of why Assad fell was because Russia's support was weakened by this war in Ukraine, which I think raises some questions domestically for millions of Americans across the political spectrum who are very frustrated by how much money gets spent overseas when, as you've been talking about for the rest of this segment, there are really dire domestic issues at play,
both with the homeless crisis that was core to the Jordan Neely story, the health care crisis, which is core to the Brian Thompson story.
And the question is, why are we sacrificing the lives of Ukrainians?
They've obviously had to lower the conscription age.
You have old people and very young people fighting to the very last Ukrainian, all so that America can weaken its historical and current enemy in Russia and do military interventionism across the globe.
Why is that routinely America's priority?
And I also just wanted to say, to one of the points that was made earlier before our colleague here left, I think it's really appropriate to bring up Israel at Palestine and look at the language that we're using to talk about them all.
I think it's perfectly fair to talk about the innocent civilians that were killed on October 7th and what a tragedy that was to them and their families and their communities.
But as studies have shown, I think the Intercept did a write-up analyzing the kinds of language that was used to describe what is now a tragedy of infinitely greater magnitude that has befallen the people of Palestine, where there are estimates the Lancet study from months and months ago estimated over 180,000 dead.
And that's not to mention the number of people that have been maimed.
Palestine is the amputation, child amputation capital of the world.
Amnesty International, one of the most important humanitarian organizations in the world, have come out and said that Israel is committing a genocide.
Innocent Civilians And Proxy Wars 00:06:17
The kinds of compassionate language that are used to, I think, appropriately describe the innocent people who were killed on October 7th never gets applied to the people of Palestine and now people throughout the region who are being victimized.
Well, I think it does.
I think it does with increasing volume.
Natalie, I mean, what's your take on this?
There's a lot going on.
Normally in the wind down to Christmas, everything, you know, it's party season.
We all get our hats on and we put news aside for a bit.
I can't remember a busier few weeks than we're getting right now.
What do you make of it?
Well, look, I agree with Brianna in the sense that this entire show is an example of all the domestic issues that we need to be focusing on here at home.
And I don't think military interventionism abroad and arming essentially every single side of the trade in every single country is something that's advantageous to the interests of the American people, excluding maybe shareholders or the C-suite over at Boeing and Raytheon.
But in the case, I think, particularly in Syria, I think it's particularly egregious.
I mean, this is the new leader of HGS is someone who, what, just a few years ago, the United States embassy in Syria was busy tweeting out pictures about how this man was a terrorist.
They were offering up to a $10 million reward for his capture, for his return.
And now all of a sudden we're apparently backing him.
And mainstream media is all in the same way.
You know what, Natalie?
You know somebody else that was once prescribed as a terrorist by the United States, by the UK, and then turned out to be rather different was Nelson Mandela.
You never know, do you?
Well, the comparison to Nelson Mandela.
I'm being facetious, but there is a point there.
No, no, I'm being facetious because obviously this guy was in al-Qaeda, but he has, look, he has, oh, hang on.
My point is, this guy, the leader of the rebels, did renounce the extreme elements of Islamic fundamentalism many years ago.
I mean, for a long time, he's been moving to a far more moderate position.
And all his language and behavior, since he's taken control, is very much that of a much more moderate person.
I don't trust these things until we see the proof and the pudding.
But certainly, I think we should give him the time to prove that he is a more moderate paradigm.
And if he is, that's great for the people of Syria.
If I can answer your question, Piers, though, to the question as to why we're seeing such, I think, intensified chaos in what, the final few months, final few days of the Biden regime.
It's because I think that they're essentially trying to hand President Donald Trump an extremely and unnecessarily complicated geopolitical slave affair as you see it with them jamming through, making it so that Ukraine can, what, receive a $50 billion loan that we're underwriting, sending what, even more billions of dollars in aid and equipment and we don't even have in our supply chain.
But the trouble is, I agree with it because I, I'll tell you what, I'll bring Wajaha back here.
I actually agree with America putting the screw on, helping Ukraine as much as possible to force Putin into doing a deal.
I do think it's a sensible strategy.
I think he's on the run.
We saw that from Syria.
Quite extraordinary.
The Russians didn't put up any kind of supportive fight for Assad.
All they've done is give him a safe hand.
Traitorist, though.
Yeah, but my point is to try to give a foreign national Zelensky a better negotiating footing or seat at the table, not just against Putin, but also against the United States too.
And by the way, where are the audits?
We haven't had any audits.
So I'm all to talk about aid.
But how do we actually know that any of this is actually going forward?
Well, this 50 billion, as I understand it, like a lot of the other money, is a loan, which will, it's a loan, right?
So Majaha, I mean, do you have a problem in Pierre's eyes?
Let Majahat respond.
There's only one person called Majaha in this panel, and he's on the right, and he's the only bloke, as far as I know.
So Majaha.
So Piers, I actually agree with you, especially with Syria, with HTS.
We hope for the best.
We don't know, Piers.
Prepare for the worst.
Hope for the best.
Yeah, yeah, because we've seen what's happening in Libya.
We've seen what's happening in Yemen.
And right now, as of the past week, we've seen that the Syrian armed forces, right, instead of causing havoc and killing Shias and Christians, it's quite the opposite.
So we're hopeful.
They broke away from al-Qaeda.
They fought against ISIS.
Let's hope for the best.
And before answering your question about, you know, arming Ukraine and supporting Ukraine as a means of weakening Russia, Russia is anti-American.
Russia is a threat.
In this power vacuum, Iran and Russia helped Syria, specifically Bashar al-Assad, for the past 14 years, just commit havoc and terror.
I mean, I'm not even using the words that are appropriate.
Over half a million Syrians were killed by Bashar al-Assad.
Half of the country was displaced, right?
Majority of them are living in poverty.
The biggest refugee crisis is the Syrian refugee crisis.
The amount of destruction, I want people to just really take a moment and sit with this.
We should just take this one moment.
I think the whole panel can agree that what we're witnessing is remarkable and we hope for the best because the Syrian people should be free.
We're seeing underground prisons.
We're seeing people, 150,000 people were disappeared.
People thought they were dead and now they're coming out of underground prisons.
So let's hope for the best with Syria.
And with Syria, it's going to be a power vacuum.
And some players, other players will come in.
I think it's an opportunity for the United States of America, which has a terrible track record in the Middle East, to make sure that at least people like Russia, right, or if you have Iran, don't get another foothold in Syria.
They were complicit with Assad in this tyranny.
Let's be honest about it.
And I do believe an anti-American Putin, because that's what he is.
He's anti-American.
If Russia is weakened, I think it's for the betterment of the region and for the Ukrainian people who right now, by the way, are being occupied by Russia.
So if the United States could step in with humanitarian aid, economic aid, and actually help transfer this transition, hopefully from what is chaos to some type of inclusive democracy for Syria, it'll be good for the United States because that's what we care about.
The United States would be able to do it.
You know what's fascinating?
Having covered a lot of Middle Eastern issues and Russian issues and so on for many, many years, it's quite fascinating to be moderating a panel now where the Republican is arguing for not getting involved against a Russian dictator invading a European country.
Weakening Russia For Imperial Ambitions 00:02:51
As am I, by the way.
And you were Jahat on the left arguing the complete reverse.
We have reached a complete 360 in positions.
We have.
It used to be the right that would be available.
It used to be the right that was overtaking on dictators when they invade European countries.
And it was the left that would be the same.
Sorry, I've got to be able to control sovereign nations that should advance the interests of its citizens and its people.
It's not a K-Street think tank or lobbying group, or it doesn't do the bidding of military-industrial complex members and contractors.
I'm not saying Russia told me that Natalie, what would you have done?
Hang on, what would you have done in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland out of interest?
Pierce.
Okay, all that I'll tell you what I would say.
Hang on, hang on, Brianna.
I'll come to you.
Brianna, your name's not Natalie.
Hang on.
I'll come to you.
Natalie?
What would you have done in 39 when Hitler invaded?
I've got an issue with the way that Ukraine aid has been administered.
I get that.
What would you have done in 39?
But that's not a fair comparison.
It is.
Obviously, I don't support it.
Dictator invades European country.
World has to make a call.
In my worldview, the Chinese Communist Party is, in my opinion, more equivalent to that comparison in the fact that I believe they want to overtake the United States as a global hegemon and institute a new sort of global hegemony in which it's not a bipolar world order.
It's a unipolar world order where they're in charge.
And that is more reminiscent of the US.
Actually, I don't think it's available.
I think the Chinese want to be economic imperialists.
And that's up to America and its business brains to repel them and to win that war.
And that's why I'm actually in favor of Trump saying he's going to slap all these big tariffs on.
He won't actually do it, but he's putting them back in their box a bit and putting them on notice.
Brianna, final word to you.
Yeah, like so many of the issues we've talked about today, there's actually a lot of unanimity of opinion outside of the pundit class, outside of the elites, outside of people who have multi-million dollar studios.
And it's this.
People want their tax dollars, people want their domestic spending to be on America.
They want that, it's now been widely reported that about two months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there was a willingness to come to the table and settle the conflict in a way that would have cost Ukraine so much less territory than it has already lost.
But America and Boris Johnson foiled that plan.
And why?
In order to weaken Russia and advance America's broader interventionist ambitions, imperial ambitions, instead of focusing on what's happening at home.
Americans across the aisle did not have a real option to vote for a canon in this last election that was serious about performing health care, that supported a universal health care plan that has the support of a majority of Americans, or that wanted us to de-escalate our military instead of aping the conduct of our closest ally in the Middle East and escalating constantly to de-escalate at the cost of Americans' welfare.
Anti Occupation Final Thoughts 00:00:11
And that's my final word on that.
Okay.
Well, listen.
Can I just say I'm anti-occupation and anti-vigilante violence for the red?
So am I. Great to have you all.
Thank you all very much.
Appreciate it.
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