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Jan. 15, 2025 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
01:01:31
20250115_ceasefire-deal-pete-hegseth-with-michael-knowles-d
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Qualified Yet Alleged Threat 00:14:25
I'm a change agent and a threat to them because Donald Trump was willing to choose me to empower me to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is War 500.
I think he's going to reform the military very quickly and I think we're going to get back to having a functioning military that people can be proud of rather than counting, you know, how many lesbian generals that wear dog collars we have.
I spent more than 10 years at Fox News.
I don't think I'm qualified to run the DOD.
The most egregious accusation you make against him, though, is that he's an extremist because he has a tattoo.
Could you tell us what the tattoo is?
Oh my lord.
Breaking news.
Donald Trump has got on his Truth Social platform.
We have a deal for hostages in the Middle East.
They will be released shortly.
Thank you.
Whether it's Trump who does it, whether it's Biden who does it, the war has to end.
What did Gavin Newsom do to prevent this?
He did absolutely nothing.
I'm sure you all saw the video of that woman coming up to him.
Am I allowed to use the word that starts with W on your show?
Absolutely.
He's a wanker.
Pete Hegseth faced the Senate yesterday as heads for confirmation as the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
He'll lead a department of 3 million people and a budget of $800 billion.
Ultimately, he'll be responsible for ensuring the world's most powerful military is ready, trained, and equipped to meet any emergency and fight any war.
But listening to some of the questions he faced, you'd be forgiven for thinking he was auditioning to be a spiritual leader.
I assume that in each of your weddings, you've pledged to be faithful to your wife.
You've taken an oath to do that, haven't you?
Senator, as I've acknowledged to everyone in this committee, not a perfect person, not claiming to be.
But no, I just asked the simple question.
You've taken an oath like you would take an oath to be Secretary of Defense in all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife.
Is that correct?
I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I'm redeemed by my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Well, that was Democrat Senator Tim Kaine who endorsed Bill Clinton for president and campaigned as Hillary Clinton's running mate.
I wonder if he asked the same questions of them.
If past marital problems are now a barrier to entry for government service, Elon Musk's cost-cutting mission is about to get a lot easier.
There may not be many senators left.
Hegseth was also grilled on his past statements that women should not serve in frontline combat roles and has accepted a nomination.
He's made clear that women can serve in those roles provided they meet the same standards as men.
That's an inherently common sense position, but not for Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Some of our greatest warriors are women and you support having them serve in combat.
Now, that is a very, very big about face in a very, very short period of time.
So help me understand, Mr. Hagseth, what extraordinary event happened in that 32-day period that made you change the core values you had expressed for the preceding 12 years.
Senator, again, I very much appreciate you bringing up my comments from 2013 because for me, this issue has always been about standards.
And unfortunately, because of some of the people that have been involved in the world priorities other than standards, have driven this money.
I'm quoting you from the podcast.
It went on and on like that.
She really didn't let him answer.
It was more about the gotcha.
Yes, Hegseth has clearly sovereign his position in order to secure the job.
That's indisputable.
But that's how this whole politics thing works.
Politics and power are not puritanical.
It's about getting things done.
If you trade 25% of your vision, 75% of your plan, it's normally a pretty good result.
And there are plenty of question marks about Pete Hegseth's qualifications for this job at a time when the modern world has seldom felt more dangerous.
But that wasn't the tone for most of his hearing.
At times, both sides seem bent on grandstanding and using headsets to score political points.
And I thought he hit Manel on the head when he said this.
Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters.
We are not Republicans.
We are not Democrats.
We are American warriors.
Our standards will be high and they will be equal.
Not equitable.
That's a very different word.
We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system.
Every pilot's fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying.
And every general or flag officer is selected for leadership or promotion purely based on performance, readiness, and merit.
So is Pete Hegseth the man for the job?
Will Senator Marco Rubio make America safe again as Secretary of State?
Did Trump just seal the Israel-Hamas ceasefire?
He's literally just written on through Social that the deal has been agreed.
And as Los Angeles braces for more wins and warnings of extreme danger, who will be held accountable for disaster in failed preparation?
Do you want me to debate all this?
The host of the Michael Knowles Show on Daily Wire, Michael Knowles.
Dave Rubin, host of the Rubin Report, Wajahat Ali, the host of Democracy-ish, and Julie Roginsky, the Democrat strategist and author of the Salty Politics newsletter.
Okay, well, welcome to all of you, a stellar panel, if I may say so, and happy new year to you all.
Let me start with Dave Rubin.
I watched most of Pete Hegseth's stuff yesterday, and all I kept thinking to myself, I've got a lot of military in my family.
My brother was a British Army colonel.
My sister married a British Army colonel.
My grandfather was a decorated commando.
My great uncle was a decorated war hero, and so on.
So I watched with great interest thinking one thing.
If I was in the U.S. military, would I feel good or bad about what I heard from Pete Hegseth?
And I concluded I'd be pretty happy that I had a guy there who not only has served his country for a long period with great personal courage himself, but seemed to really understand what is required from a military and also seemed to pride actual meritocracy over mediocrity or virtue signaling or box ticking or DEI or any of these things.
And I thought, yeah, if I'm in the U.S. military, I think I'd probably like this guy being at the top of the pyramid.
What did you think?
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And I can speak as someone that's on this side of the pond that I have friends and family in the military and they're happy about this too.
You know, there's two things going on with Hegseth here, despite the, I would say, hysterical virtue signaling of some of the senators that you just showed there.
The things are that he's qualified.
There's very little question about his qualifications.
But the other thing that I think is really allowing him to shine right now is his decade plus time at Fox News, where he is able as a TV presenter, that's what he's been and a talk show host, he's able to communicate these ideas clearly when he went out of his way to talk about equality and not equity, and that we should have meritocracy and its qualifications that should matter.
These are all of the important things that we need to reintegrate, not only into the military in America, very obviously, instead of lowering our standards and caring about skin color and genitals and sexuality, but we need to reintegrate it across all of our institutions.
That's the work for the broader Trump administration.
But I think Hegseth, well, we also know he's going to pass.
I mean, Boone, who's the majority leader, has already said it.
I mean, it's basically a done deal already.
But I think he's going to reform the military very quickly.
And I think we're going to get back to having a functioning military that people can be proud of rather than counting, you know, how many lesbian generals that wear dog collars we have.
As important as that is, Michael Knowles.
Why are you pointing at me?
Hold on.
I'm not going to bring that allegation to the fore before we have a Senate inquiry.
Let me go to Majahat.
Which I mean, I've heard the criticisms about Pete Hegseth.
I know him a bit from when I've done stuff at Fox.
He's always been perfectly good to me and always, I thought, a very good performer on television.
But I also thought that under fire yesterday, and some of it got a bit personal and ferocious, he conducted himself calmly.
He seemed very well informed.
He clearly has some opinions about the military, which others may not share.
But I certainly didn't get a feeling of somebody out of his depth.
And when you actually look at people who've held that job in the past, yes, some have been generals, but they can be pretty intransigent sometimes in their view about how things should be.
And some have not been generals and are imminently less qualified than Pete Hegseth.
So what was your view?
Look, I know that Republicans actually like affirmative action because they're perfectly fine with mediocre MAGA men and lowering the standards to the point where Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, can slither under it and be the Secretary of Defense.
For people who don't know, the Secretary of Defense overlooks a budget of over $900 billion, 3 million people.
He is responsible in particular for defense policymaking.
We're talking about law and order, national security.
You're going to give it to Pete Hegseth, a man who was in the National Army Guard.
His fellow colleague in the Guard looked at his tattoos and actually reported him to be an insider threat because it was so extreme.
This is a man who wrote a book called American Crusade.
In his book, Pete Hegseth said, I am too extreme for the U.S. military.
In his book, Pete Hegseth said, I support these militias, these paramilitary forces.
In his book, he calls the enemies liberals extremists.
So much for unity.
This is a man, not just adultery, but sexual impropriety.
He has been alleged of sexual impropriety and sexual assault.
If he has nothing to hide, release the woman that he has signed to an NDA and paid off.
Let her tell her story.
This is a man whose own mother sent one of the most damning emails I have ever heard and read in my life.
If your mother sends the email that Pete Hex's mother said you have failed in life, accusing him of being a sexual abuser, a man whose own Fox colleagues have said allegedly in the New York Times that they're worried about his alcoholism and alcohol problem and a man who has economic impropriety allegations.
He was released from two nonprofits.
What are we doing here, Pierce?
Listen, with Marco Rubio, I disagree with him.
You don't see me here complaining.
Qualified guy, intelligent guy, Secretary of State, fine.
Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of Defense, what are we doing?
You guys are putting lipsticks on a pig and you're making America less safe.
And the right wing in MAGA is doing this for Pete Hegseth.
You're making this country less safe just because you're bending the knee to Donald Trump and he wants a lap dog who, by the way, I'll agree with Dave on this, who's good on TV.
So that's what we're doing.
I'm going to come to Michael.
Release the woman from the NDA.
I'm going to hear from the woman.
Secretary of Defense, let's defend women.
You made your point.
That's my take.
You made your point.
Any negatives while we're at it?
He works.
This is a joke.
It was a joke.
I don't actually take that seriously.
Let me bring Michael in here.
I mean, look, a whole litany of stuff there, almost all of which was put to Pete Hegseth.
I thought he actually batted away all of that stuff.
We've got a clip actually of him batting away one of them.
Let's take a look.
All they were out to do, Mr. Chairman, was to destroy me.
And why do they want to destroy me?
Because I'm a change agent and a threat to them because Donald Trump was willing to choose me to empower me to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is warfighting.
So I'm willing to endure these attacks.
But what I will do is stand up for the truth and for my reputation.
False attacks, anonymous attacks, repeated ad nauseum, printed as ad nauseum, as facts.
We have provided to the committee, Mr. Chairman, and I know you're going to share, on the record statement after on-the-record statement from people who have served with me, worked with me at Fox News, Concerned Vets, Vets for Freedom, you name it, from the top of the chain to the bottom, who will say I treat them with respect, with kindness, with dignity.
That's men, that's women, that's black, that's white, that's every background.
I have prided myself as a leader of respecting people, being professional.
Michael, I thought that was quite an effective response, really, because a lot of it is just innuendo, hearsay, unsubstantiated allegation.
Other stuff has been settled, as Wajahat says.
That's not uncommon in America.
It's incredibly common for people to do NDA settlements or whatever with no blame or liability attached.
Where do you sit with this?
I mean, it looks like Hegset is going to...
That's not common.
Sorry?
That's not common.
Not for me.
I don't know about you, but that's not common.
I'm not saying for you to do that.
There's a police report where I sexually assault a woman and I say that.
In America, that kind of settlement is not uncommon, is my point.
Just generally, in the American system, a lot of things get settled that way without any admission of liability or wrongdoing, which is the case with Pete Hegseth.
Michael, where do you sit with this?
Well, so much of what Wajahat just said is not true, or as you point out, Pierce, is completely unsubstantiated, like the allegations that Pete Hegset showed.
I've been, excuse me one second, Wajahat.
I've been on that morning show with Pete a number of times.
I've been in studio with him a number of times.
The only thing you could accuse Pete of is being too alert and energetic.
I found it overwhelming, actually, while I was there, tired, trying to dust the sand out of my eyes.
But you suggest that the graduate of Princeton and Harvard, who for decades has been in the U.S. military, served his country honorably, that he's somehow unqualified to work at the Pentagon.
The most egregious accusation you make against him, though, is that he's an extremist because he has a tattoo.
Could you tell us what the tattoo is?
The tattoos specifically, I did not make the allegation that he's an extremist.
It was actually called him as an insider threat.
Yeah, right.
So what's the tattoo?
I can tell you it says he was his fellow.
No, hang on.
Let me answer.
Hang on.
Wajahat breaks the tattoo.
But John, what is this tattoo that you're selling?
Wait, wait, wait.
Two things.
John, hang on.
Simple question.
What is this tattoo that you're so upset about?
I wasn't the one upset about it.
I was talking about his fellow colleague.
This is exactly what I said.
His fellow colleague in the U.S. Army called him out as a potential insider threat.
What is the tattoos on his chest?
What is the tattoo?
Also, I called him an extremist based upon his own book.
Read the book.
What is the tattoo?
His own words.
If you don't know what the tattoo is, just admit it.
Explaining The Tattoo Mystery 00:05:19
Oh, my lord.
Listen, what is what the tattoo is?
I'm genuinely intrigued.
Do you know what it is or not?
Do you know what it is or not?
She hasn't spoken yet.
A woman hasn't spoken yet.
She's going to count on this panel.
She's going to answer the question you're not answering.
Final question to you, Wajah.
My colleague right here.
Be honest.
Be honest, Wajar.
Do you actually know what that tattoo is or not?
Listen, what I do know is I read his book.
And in his book, if you're a family of the American.
In his book, wait a second.
Be honest.
In his book.
Be honest.
I am.
Look, ironically, putting rush on a paper.
No one's going to crucify bending for Donald Trump.
But do you know?
Putting our national security at risk for Pete Hexon.
I'm telling you everything, and you guys are finding ways to spend.
Why are you guys simply asking you?
Who has an NDA with an allegedly sexually sexual?
It was his colleague.
His colleague called him out as an insider threat, not me.
His colleague.
And I also said, go to his book, read his words.
Just to be clear, Wajarat, you're going to have to meet stuff.
But he's too much for the U.S. military.
Pete Hexet's own words.
Why are you still talking for a moment?
Wajahat.
David, Michael, why are you guys so clear?
Look at that.
You don't know.
Literally in his book, American Crusade.
Wajah.
He says he's too extreme for the U.S. military.
You don't know, do you?
Oh, my gosh.
All right.
Let's look up Brian.
No, no, don't look it up.
Don't look it up.
Let's go back to Michael.
Michael, hang on.
Michael, we gave him this charge.
He obviously has no idea.
Michael, what is the threat as an insider?
No, no, no, no, but John actually.
2021 pegged Pete Hexet as a potential.
You had 98 chances to answer and he failed to the test.
Sorry, I'm going to Michael.
I'm going to Michael.
I know it's all good for each other.
Michael tattoo in question, the tattoo in question, is called a Jerusalem cross.
This is a medieval Christian symbol, goes back a long time.
In fact, at Jimmy Carter's funeral, there was a Jerusalem cross on the floor of the cathedral.
And on the program for the funeral, there's one other tattoo that some have suggested could be extremist.
It's the phrase Deus Volt, which is a medieval Christian slogan, a long traditional slogan that refers to God's will and goes back a long way.
These are very traditional, very mainstream Christian symbols that not only are not extreme in any way, but which even the people who want to accuse him of extremism couldn't possibly name.
That is pathetic.
All right.
Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast.
If you want straight talk on national security, foreign policy, and the biggest global stories going on of the day, this is the show for you.
We publish twice a day, Monday through Friday, once in the morning, again in the afternoon.
And on the weekend, we go longer with the PVB Situation Report with excellent guests, including national security insiders and foreign policy experts.
Check us out on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, on our YouTube channel at President's Daily Brief.
His insider and guardsman did it, which is what I said.
And also, I said that he called himself too extreme for the U.S. military in his book.
That's pathetic.
Okay.
So you're going to, is Pete Hegseth lying that he's too extreme in his book?
Let me go to Julie.
He's been waiting for you.
He's too extreme for radical leftists.
Let me go to Julie.
Is he lying to Julie?
Is he lying?
Be gentlemanly, please.
We have a lady who's not spoken.
Julie, be waiting very patiently.
Your view of this.
I'll tell you what, before you answer, I know you said in your substack about this, under normal circumstances, he, Pete Hegseth, would be precluded from serving in any leadership role.
So explain why you said that.
Well, let me explain in one second.
Let me go back to something that was said in the very beginning that he spent more than 10 years at Fox News, and that's what qualifies him to be in this position that he wants to be in.
I spent more than 10 years at Fox News.
I don't think I'm qualified to run the DOD whatsoever based on my time at Fox News.
I said that was one of the things.
Well, I don't think that's even a remote qualification.
That's one.
Being able to communicate ideas to the Secretary of Defense and explain policy is actually a very big problem.
There are plenty of qualified Republicans out there who can run the DOD who also are good on television.
It does not need to be Pete Hekseth.
Secondly, again, you talked about NDAs.
I am bound by an NDA Fox News.
If I were not bound by an NDA and if Fox News wanted to release me from that NDA, I could tell you about my time with Pete Hegseth.
Unfortunately, that's not possible.
But I will say that the reason that there are so many people who anonymously came forward at Fox News is that because they're also bound by confidentiality provisions, which one-third of all American workers need to sign on their first day of work.
And if they were to go public, they could get sued.
The reason this accuser is not heard from is because, according to the New Yorker, she tried desperately to meet with Joni Ernst on the committee, and Joni Ernst turned her down.
So the reason that she has not been able to come out publicly is because she has an NDA and even privately, she could not meet with a senator on this committee who's also a rape survivor to share her story because that rape survivor did not want to hear from a woman who was going to put her potentially in a position to vote against Pete Hegseth.
Pete Hegseth has written himself while at Princeton saying that women who are passed out, if you have sex with them while they're unconscious, that's not really rape.
Crusades And Specific Terminology 00:02:38
Right?
Now, the American military has a tremendous sexual assault problem, A horrible sexual assault problem.
I have spoken to women in the military who say on deployment, it's not a question of if, but a question of when they will be sexually assaulted.
You cannot possibly have somebody running our military who has said that women who are unconscious deserve to be raped because it's not really rape.
You can just go have your way with them.
So I don't know which soldiers you've been talking to who think Pete Heckseth is a great thing for the military.
There is not one woman out there who cares about being assaulted on deployment, who thinks that this is the person that needs to be in charge of the United States military.
And as for the cross that you talked about, yes, Deus Volt, which is the cross that he has, and the slogan that he has.
Well, Deus Volt is a colour.
Is an old Christian cross.
The phrase, excuse me, the phrase.
The phrase, however, was uttered by crusaders as they were slaughtering Jews and Muslims during the Second Crusade specifically.
So it's not just a random cross.
It's not just a random phrase.
That isn't true.
The phrase the phrase was uttered after the Council of Clermont when Pope Urban II declared the crusade.
And it was actually probably Dieu le voule, but it's been rendered in Latin as Deus Volt.
It has nothing to do with slaughtering.
It has nothing to do with slaughtering Muslims because the Muslims had invaded Europe, not the other way around.
Oh my God, are you really saying that the reason the Crusade, which was sent to the Holy Land to liberate the Holy Land, from whom?
From Jews and Muslims.
And that is the phrase that you have.
I'll tell you why the Crusade began.
The Crusade began because the Eastern Emperor asked for help from the Western Pope because the Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land because those lands were Christian before the Muslims invaded in the seventh century.
So that's why.
No, no, no.
Good to know Michael's programme.
I'm sorry.
Those lands became Christian after the First Crusade, okay?
So let's go to the United States.
The lands were Christian.
We're talking about the Kingdom of Christianity.
Islam didn't exist before the 7th century.
What are you talking about?
Okay, I could, listen, listen.
I can go all day if you want to talk about the Crusades, but the point is, I can also say that.
Where people are going to be able to do that.
What that has to do with Pete Hekseth is it's not that he has a random cross that talks about his faith in Jesus Christ.
He used a very specific terminology.
But putting all of that information.
It was first uttered to defend persecuted Christians in the Middle East, just like they're being persecuted today.
Okay.
West Bank Reality Check 00:15:46
That's who you want as a Secretary of Defense.
Wonderful.
Julie, finish your point.
Julie, finish your point, and I'll go to Michael.
My point is that I cannot even believe that something the Vatican apologized for is something that you're defending, which is the slaughter of Muslims during the Crusades.
Excuse me, the Vatican said the Crusade.
Oh, my Jesus.
You know what?
Why don't you give me a call after this, and I will walk you through exactly what we're talking about?
All right, let's try and bring things back.
Let me achieve it a Muslim Crusade.
But if you want to talk about, but if you want to get away from the case, we'll do a separate Crusade debate another time.
Let me bring Dave Rubin in.
Dave, the issue of DEI came up quite a lot in Pete Hegseth's day yesterday.
And there's certainly been a growing sense of DEI invading almost every aspect of American life, society, culture, and so on, including the military.
I thought you landed some pretty effective points on that as well.
I'm coming at a time when you see people like Martin Zuckerberg, who were leading the kind of charge of DEI and liberal woke policy, now doing me screeching U-turns, recognizing that actually it wasn't right, wasn't fair, wasn't equitable.
It effectively has collectively encouraged mediocrity over meritocracy and so on.
And I thought he was effective on that, Pete Hegset.
Oh, I thought he was quite effective because he is a TV presenter and knows how to communicate ideas effectively.
He has been well versed in interviewing people and discussing this and talking to people inside the military and inside of all of our institutions and corporations that have been wrecked and ransacked by DEI.
The idea of America is based on individual rights.
We do not care about your sexuality or your gender or your skin color or any of those other immutable traits.
What we care about is especially in the military, which we all, regardless, I think, of political allegiance, would like to be effective and be able to protect Americans and American interests.
We want people who are competent, who are physically fit and mentally fit to do these jobs.
We can only, I mean, there's a million examples I can give you here, Piers, but we only need to look at what's going on with the California fires right now and the amount of time that the fire department and the administration and Gavin Newsom and the mayor and the LA and California as a whole spent on diversity in the fire department rather than figuring out ways to go about combating fire properly and preventing these things.
And that's the exact same thing that the military is going through.
It's, by the way, exactly what Mark Zuckerberg was going through at Facebook, where he was dealing with an insurrection of his own employees who were woke and trying to silence everybody and the rest of it.
So all of these things are deeply connected.
And I would say if we're going to save America, which I think we're five days away from turning around a lot of this nonsense, these hearings are a great example of seeing how the ideas of equity are actually completely antithetical to everything that this country was founded upon.
Yeah, I actually want to segue to something else, which is the breaking news as we started this.
Donald Trump has gone on his truth social platform.
We have a deal for hostages in the Middle East.
They will be released shortly.
Thank you.
The BBC also reporting a deal between Israel and Hamas has been agreed.
It's a complex deal.
It involves the release of 30-odd hostages over a period of six, seven weeks and many more Palestinians being released from jail and various other security guarantees and ceasefires and so on.
All multi-layered, complex has to be seen whether, A, this is official, which looks like it may be in the next day or two.
And secondly, if it's workable and if it actually gets carried out.
But what is your gut reaction to the sort of overall deal that is apparently in play here?
You know, I've been on your show for the past 15 months, Pierce, and you and I have talked about what's been happening.
I think initially October, you know, you and I agreed that what Hamas did was a terrorism attack.
It was atrocious.
Israel had a right to respond.
But you and I have also seen the devastation of the past 15 months.
The Lancet just came out with this journey, with this peer-reviewed study that said actually the casualties might be 40% more, Pierce.
So right now we know that 45,000 Palestinians have been killed.
That could be up to 65,000, 70,000.
We know Israel has bombed churches.
I know Michael cares a lot about churches right now, but I'm curious to see if he's okay with Israel bombing churches, mosques.
It has killed UN workers.
It has killed journalists.
It has not allowed journalists to give us insight to look at the damage.
It has actually killed refugees.
It has bombed refugee camps.
It has bombed UN workers.
More children have been killed in the past two years in Gaza than all the war zones combined in the past two years.
Right now, we know that the majority of the people that have been killed have been women, children, and the elderly, civilians.
So in this particular case, we've heard this before in the summer, right?
There was a deal.
What's the best deal?
Ceasefire hostages.
There are about 100 Israeli hostages who are still captured by Hamas.
I talked to a father of Israeli hostage, Yehuda Cohen, who blames Netanyahu for the current situation.
He says that Netanyahu is to blame for being belligerent, for advancing this war, for rejecting the ceasefire deal when it was in place, right?
In the summer, it was President Biden.
Remember that, Pierce?
I was on your show.
President Biden came out and said, hey, this is Israel's deal.
Let's do it.
And they keep slow walking it because they have an expansionist view.
They want everything from the river to the sea.
I hope this time, Pierce, and I said this before on your show, whether it's Trump who does it, whether it's Biden who does it, the war has to end.
Ceasefire deal for the hostages.
Bring the hostages home.
Do a ceasefire deal.
End this bombing.
End this pain and the suffering a genocide according to Amnesty International.
A genocide according to Human Rights Watch.
A genocide according to Israeli scholars of genocide uh, who've been saying it for a while this particular situation where both Hamas leaders and Nanyahu are war criminals according to the ICC.
End this once and for all.
If it happens, then maybe, just maybe, there could be some peace.
You need rebuilding, humanitarian aid in Gaza.
You need the Gaznats who've been displaced to come back to the north.
You need the hostages to be released.
So, if it can happen Pierce, I don't care if it's Trump who does it, I don't care if it's in the last week of Biden has to be done okay uh, I mean Michael, it seems to me that all the heavy lifting has been done in the last few days by Trump and his Middle East envoy and that that's really speeded things up both.
I think Trump's saying, if this isn't resolved by my inauguration, there's going to be hell, and I suspect Hamas have taken him at his word.
Uh, we never quite explained what that hell would entail, but they clearly, I think, have been racing to try and do a deal that they were maybe procrastinating over.
But your response to Majahad?
What do you feel about this deal?
Well, I think every person of goodwill agrees with Wad Jahat on the minor point or on the narrow point rather, that we want to see an end to the war.
Probably not with some of his claims about the war, but we want to see an end to the war that includes Jews, that includes Muslims, that includes Christians.
As Wajahat mentioned, ancient churches, churches that have existed in the Holy land long before Islam ever existed, have been.
We lost Michael.
We'll bring in let's bring in Dave as uh, as his running mate.
Dave, we'll bring you in here because we lost Michael Nulls there.
God probably intervened in that expert on the Crusades, but I think I can handle the rest of it.
Look, everyone wants an end to the war, and the war could have been over on october 8th.
All they had to do was release all of the hostages and no one uh would have been supporting any sort of military action.
Right, that's.
That's obvious and real, and we all know it.
Hamas has intentionally placed civilians in the way.
We all know that as well.
There is no genocide.
I would love to hear any panelists call for Egypt to open up the border and let all the Gazans in, but no Arab country, no Muslim country wants any of the Palestinians.
There never was a Palestinian state, and if there was, tell me who the prime minister was.
Uh, this is.
This is just an endless assault on Israel.
There will.
There's not going to be peace in any real way.
There's no such thing as the two-state solution.
There never were two states.
Palestine used to be the place that the Jews lived.
A lot of Jews just celebrated Hanukkah.
You know where Hanukkah took place?
The Judean Hills, which we now unfortunately call the West Bank.
Uh, but that's because the Jews lived there.
So this is, this is largely we can get into the.
Okay, they're going to, you know, give away 30 hostages, or they're going to get one hostage back for 30 Palestinians who have blood on their hands or anything else that tells you right there who actually values life here.
So i'm not.
Look, it'll be nice to get back some people and hopefully, Americans.
As an American, I do hope that the five or six Americans who have been held will will return.
Uh, but i'm not.
I'm not bullish on peace or anything else at the moment.
Julie, what do you feel about this?
I mean it's it's obviously an extraordinarily complex situation.
I don't think there'll be any clean way out of this for many years, but do you feel that this deal which they're talking about um, is at least a step in the right direction?
Yeah, you're absolutely right that it's too complex to lend itself to short soundbites.
It's a deal, right?
And it's a deal.
I'm happy for the families whose loved ones are being released.
But I think Dave did touch on something.
I don't agree with a lot of what he said, but he did touch on something, which is I don't know what the end solution to this is.
Because you had Ariel Sharon give Gaza, effectively give the land that Gaza is, you know, Gazan land right now to the Palestinians.
And in an election, they elected Hamas after a short period of time.
And so what do you do if you're Israeli when you have that kind of threat on your border?
It's not to excuse what the Israelis are doing in the West Bank right now.
It's absolutely atrocious.
And I say that as somebody who has a lot of family in Israel.
I don't support it.
I'm fully for the two-state solution, but it has to be two states where one of those states is not run by a terrorist organization like Hamas.
No, it doesn't have to be a two-state solution.
There's no reason for anyone to think there should be a two-state solution.
They can go to Jordan.
They can go to Egypt.
Gaza was part of Egypt.
Remember?
West Bank was part of Jordan.
Why would they have to go to Jordan and Egypt when they've been living on this land for generations?
I mean, the reality is they're being genocided and all of the other things that the other panelists said right there, they might want to look into that.
You know, like you might want to if any of that is true.
Or how about there's one place in the Middle East where Jews and Christians and Muslims live peacefully.
It's Israel, ironically.
Pierre, so I have a solution.
Listen, have you been to Israel recently?
Let me just say this.
Let's make it a little bit different.
Okay, so let's be very clear.
There are places in Israel where they live peacefully, and there are places in Israel where settlers are not allowing Muslims to live peacefully.
So let's not put this all on just the Muslim population.
Where are the Muslims allowing Israel in the West Bank?
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Where are the Muslims allowing the Jews to live peacefully?
I walked around in Jerusalem where you can walk around with Orthodox Jews walking next to women in burqas.
Where are the Muslims allowing the Jews or the Christians to live peacefully?
Ask the Coptic Christians of Egypt.
How many Jews are left in Morocco?
Any Jews in Jordan these days?
We could go through all the people.
Listen, I'm not disagreeing with you on how the Muslim countries have treated Jews.
You're absolutely right.
I will answer your question.
You're right.
There's two million Muslims in Israel.
They live in the world.
So you're not going to answer the question.
May I, as a resident Muslim job?
Let me just answer this question.
Sure, sure.
John has a solution.
Go on.
No, no, go ahead.
But you wanted to finish your point.
Please, go ahead.
Julie.
Well, my only point that I want to finish is, look, there's no question that in the West Bank, which I would hope would one day lead to an independent, safe Palestinian state that wants to live in peace with its Israeli neighbors, that there are settlers there who are not necessarily allowing Muslims to live in peace at the moment.
Okay, I'm not suggesting that Gaza, Gaza is a whole different story, but you can't put this just on the Palestinians.
There are elements within Israeli society that are also prone to violence.
And you can't say that there aren't.
It's not a black or white issue.
It's a deeply complex issue.
It's a lot of people about a half dozen times over 20 plus years.
You're absolutely right.
Palestinians have rejected every single piece of people.
You're absolutely right.
Here I go.
You're absolutely right.
And nobody has screwed the Palestinians more than their leadership.
You're absolutely right on that.
I think we're going to be able to do it.
So there's no problem.
No Israeli government has actually ever tried.
Israeli governments, whether they're labor or Likud, have never tried ending the occupation in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem, and in Gaza.
What they haven't done is end the settlements.
The settlements have actually expanded.
In the West, in the West Bank, Hamas is not under control.
There's two and a half million Palestinians who live under military law.
There's about 750,000 Israelis who live under Israeli law.
An unequal system.
You've been there, Pierce.
I've been there.
It's horrifying.
This is why Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, rest in peace, called it what? Apartheid.
Their words, not mine.
I've been there.
I've seen it.
We are complicit in it.
Hamas is not in control.
There's no excuse.
We have Ben Gavir, the National Security Minister, a man who Israeli reporters told me is like, imagine if the KKK was elected as a national security minister.
That's the national security minister under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has openly said, I want River to the sea.
He laughed and mocked and said, aha, I have blocked the peace deal.
I have blocked two state solutions.
When President Biden said end settlements, he added 3,000 more settlements.
When President Biden said don't bomb Russia, President Biden said, don't kill civilians.
He bombed the World Trade Central kitchen staff.
Remember that?
It is a chaos to the point where everyone in the world, except in the U.S. and except in Israel, they see Israel as becoming a pariah, increasingly an extremist Jewish supremacist state.
If it was up to David, River to the Sea, let Israel do what it wants and continue the occupation.
Dave said Palestinians don't exist.
There's no such thing as Palestinians.
David, today you have gone on the site against justice and on the side of Pete Hegseth.
But since you're so good on TV, let me finish.
I'll let you say your hateful stuff.
Let me finish.
Since you're so good on TV, based on your own logic, you should replace Mike Huckabee as the ambassador to Israel.
You're great on TV.
All right.
Let me switch to something else.
So you mentioned President Biden.
He's come out with his farewell letter, Dave, President Biden.
I mean, I've read some deluded claptrap in my time, but Biden's self-appraisal of basically how he saved America and the world is pretty priceless.
And I watched his stuff he said on television the other night as well.
The guy seems to be tripping towards retirement in an utterly deluded manner about his presidency, doesn't he?
Dave, that's for you.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I didn't hear who the question was for.
Well, look, this is the obvious end to an utterly embarrassing, pandering, and I would say, frankly, almost illegal presidency.
Biden's Cognitive Decline 00:03:01
The man has been cognitively impaired.
We all knew it, or most of us knew it.
I was doing videos on this back in 2019.
The idea that he's been in charge of this administration is a complete sham.
He can't speak off the cuff, obviously.
He can barely read off the prompter.
We're just watching the end of something that, look, they cooed him over the summer, right?
He didn't, he wanted to run.
We know Jill wanted him to run.
Kamala Harris and Barack Obama and whatever party leaders, they threatened him with the 25th Amendment.
This entire thing has been one sham after the other.
And I think, you know, after we have five more days of this, we're going to probably see Joe Biden about three more times.
And then there will suddenly be a letter released and it will say that he has been dealing with these cognitive issues.
They knew it, blah, blah, blah.
And then it will leak out.
Over the course of the next year, there will be plenty more to leak out.
But he has not been in charge.
It is a miracle we got through these four years.
And we're going to have to deal with a lot of the fallout that he put in.
But I'm very bullish, obviously, on Trump and this administration and the people he's bringing in, including Pete Hegseth.
And I think we're going to see a lot of positive change very quickly.
And it couldn't come too soon.
Yeah, I mean, Julie, I've heard Democrats trying to defend Joe Biden.
They're sort of running out of energy for it.
I think everyone kind of knows now that this is an old guy, probably suffering from a form of dementia, who's just stammering and stuttering and falling his way through to the end of what has turned out to be a pretty poor presidency, isn't it?
Have you listened to Donald Trump?
I mean, I'm listening to this and I'm kind of in shock.
Have you listened to what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth, who, by the way, is an insurrectionist?
Well, I see is...
I think it's interesting you mentioned Trump.
So I see a guy in Trump who's two years younger than Biden, but looks about 20 years younger than Biden and still has.
Well, I'm sure if you got the mistake of not getting airbrushed every day.
But look, here's the bottom line.
Joe Biden is leaving Donald Trump a very strong economy.
Donald Trump promised, he promised to bring down, and I quote, the price of bacon, the price of eggs, and the price of apples.
I can't wait to watch those promises.
And on January 20th, that clock starts.
Those are commitments that he made, and he's going to have to live up to them.
He's going to have to live up to the fact that he's going to explode the American economy even more, even more than his gangbusters right now.
And you have to admit, the American economy is doing better than any other Western country at the moment.
He's going to have to come through on his promises.
He will support people.
He's going to support people.
Yeah, I agree.
Wait, wait, stop, stop, stop.
Mass deportation, tariffs on everybody, and keep the economy going and bring down the price of goods.
I can't wait to see him pull that rat.
Listen, I'll be the first to say when he does that, I'll be the first to compliment him.
But right now, I'm going to sit back and watch him try to do that.
Okay, good.
I look forward to it.
You're right.
It's on Trump.
Climate Catastrophe And Deportation 00:15:07
Turning now to the LA wildfires, the bill for rebuilding Los Angeles is now estimated to be $250 billion, even as the city braces for yet more devastation today.
House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that federal aid for California may be conditional on big changes from local government.
Well, that hasn't gone down well with some, including Woodby Goldberg, who says it's unfair to hold anyone accountable for an historic national disaster.
Having lived in California, having lost every house save for one that we ever lived in, I take great offense at pointing fingers.
You should be pointing fingers about how can we help?
Yeah.
It's too soon to be saying, oh, it's Gavin's fault.
It says, it's nobody's fault.
It's like us taking seriously that there are, you know, magic lasers in the sky that direct the weather.
That doesn't work.
It doesn't happen.
This is a catastrophe, and this is what's happened.
And let's try to figure out how to work towards not having it happen again.
But, you know, we don't control Mother Nature.
Mother Nature doesn't give a damn what we want.
Mother Nature does what she does.
And if you're in the way, this is what happens.
And California is chock full of people.
Well, we've got Michael back.
Michael, welcome back.
Sorry we lost you temporarily.
Let's start with you, given you've rejoined us.
You know, I just couldn't disagree with her more.
And also, I have a fundamental belief that if it was a Republican-controlled setup in California, she'd be saying the complete opposite.
You know, the view regularly rants about Republican failures of accountability.
And the truth is, I have a home in LA, which thankfully is still standing, and I hope it continues to do so.
But I know so many people who've lost their homes who are incandescent with rage about what they perceive to be persistent failures right across the board of the mayor, Karen Bass, who fled the country, having said she'd never leave the country.
She went to Ghana for an inauguration as these winds were coming in, as fires were breaking out.
Unbelievable dereliction of duty.
You've got the Justin Trudeau of the Operation in Gavin Newsom, who I think deserves a lot of heat, literally, for what is going on here and a lot of accountability.
So this idea that they all should be blameless, because, you know, nature, I think it's for the birds, isn't it?
Of course.
And Whoopi's argument here that this was unpredictable and inevitable would be more persuasive if you hadn't had many people, up to and including President Trump, personally warning Gavin Newsom that this would happen in 2018, 2019, just at the end of last year, in 2024.
It was not inevitable and an act of nature that 95% of Delta rainwater was sent into the Pacific Ocean rather than filling reservoirs.
It wasn't an act of nature that the Pacific Palisades reservoir was empty, was turned off before the predictable perennial Santa Ana winds.
It was not unpredictable that you'd have 100 mile an hour wings.
That happens regularly in LA.
It was not nature and inevitable that LA wouldn't have cleared its brush.
You know, these were basic political problems.
Even people who were not expert in it could have seen this coming a mile away and did.
And so the residents of LA, I'm a former Angelino myself, they deserve some answers.
And the politicians, Newsom and Karen Bass in particular, need to be held accountable.
Of course, Karen Bass has turned out to be utterly useless.
From her silence when she finally flew back from this jolly to Ghana, where she had no need to be at, and she knew these winds were coming in.
She then says nothing to sky news in the most paralyzing, embarrassing scene I've ever witnessed of a mayor coming back to a disaster.
And every public utterance since has been, frankly, just utterly pointless and nonsensical and contributes nothing to anyone.
The idea that she should continue to be considered blameless because of nature when you've got the person she beat, Rick Caruso, who I think lost because he's a rich white billionaire, but actually specializes in property and development.
You know, it comes down to this for me.
Who do I trust more to rebuild LA?
Is it Karen Bass or is it Rick Caruso?
And if it's obviously Rick Caruso, then why is she still mayor?
Why isn't she being held accountable right now?
Why aren't they kicking her out and getting someone in who understands reconstruction, for example?
Who are you planning on having her kick out?
I mean, she's, listen, there's going to be an election or there's going to be some sort of recall.
If that's the case, then she'll be recalled.
People agree or don't agree.
But I mean, I think right now people are a little too concerned about saving their lives and saving their houses to worry about recalling Karen Bass at the moment.
I don't agree.
I see that.
Yeah, but Julie, I don't agree with that.
I mean, I had Dennis Quaid on yesterday.
He knows 100 people who've lost their homes.
He wants her recalled immediately.
You think she literally disappeared.
Fine, then he should get the signatures, circulate the petitions to get a recall.
That's not a problem.
I mean, listen, the beauty of living in this country is there are mechanisms with which to do that if you so choose.
I would say to you, however, the larger issue here is that California is not the only state that deals with natural disasters and Republicans will not be in charge forever.
What goes around comes around.
And I would be very, very wary of throwing out these kinds of contingencies because one day Donald Trump will not be president.
One day Mike Johnson will not be Speaker.
One day there will be Democrats sitting in both those offices.
And one day Louisiana, Mike Johnson's home state, or Florida, Donald Trump's home state, probably sooner rather than later, is going to have a horrible natural disaster.
And on that happens.
But we have them, and we have plenty of democracy.
Of course.
Have you met Roger Santa?
Plenty, plenty, plenty of Democrats.
This happens all the time.
Listen, I'm from New York, and I recall very clearly when Ted Cruz would not vote for Hurricane Sandy relief.
And then a few years later, all of a sudden, this horrible situation in Texas happened, and he came crawling hat in hand to New York senators and to New York members of Congress, begging them for money for Texas.
So if you want to go down this road, feel free.
If you want to take advantage of people's natural disasters, feel free.
But the reality is, when that happens, can I say something?
Expect that what goes around comes along.
All right, what's our hand?
Yeah, real quick.
California is my home state.
It is the fifth largest economy in the world, the most populous state in the country, 40 million people, currently suffering from one of the most devastating fires.
Over 100,000 people have been displaced.
You know what's free?
Compassion.
You know what's free?
Decency.
You know what's free?
Empathy.
The United States of America can afford that.
The president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, at the very least, he can do that.
Don't be cruel.
Don't promote misinformation.
Don't promote an AI-generated image of Los Angeles on fire and replacing Hollywood with Trump was right.
You know what you also agree on?
It's climate change, which is here, which will exist after Republicans and Democrats.
And if I take the logic of Michael and Dave and cruel MAGA folks, then Ted Cruz should not have gone to Cancun while his state was freezing.
These dumbass Republicans in Texas around the world.
He shouldn't have.
For the sake of politics, not for the sake of money, not for the sake of national security.
They are off the national grid.
They have their own grid.
So if they want to actually resign, if you want leaders to resign, Texas Republicans should resign for literally helping their own constituents.
Okay, all right.
Commendable what about areas?
Climate change.
Commendable what about climate change.
Climate change actually bears very little contribution to the market.
No, a study came out just to discuss.
Climate change could be blamed for probably more than you've studied it.
I can guarantee you.
And actually, the reality is just today, UCLA scientists came out and said that climate change could be blamed for 95% of the fuel available for the fires, but the fires would have happened regardless, but climate change made it worse.
Just like the Caniff Garing fire.
Yeah, the truth is, I'll come to Dave.
I mean, the truth, Dave, about California and LA in particular is that for 100 years or so, it's had very hot winters, very wet winters.
This thing, this cyclical thing builds up again.
Santa Ana's come and go.
There's nothing particularly different about this other than freakishly, they had two very wet winters followed by a very, very dry one this time, which meant there was a lot more vegetation out there to then get very, very dry.
And that has meant the whole thing has become a bit of a tinderbox, which, by the way, should have been spotted and dealt with in a much better way, in my opinion, by the politicians.
And it wasn't.
So that's good.
Of course, and Michael made the point that Donald Trump warned Gavin Newsom about this years ago.
There is plenty of video of them standing in a bar talking about it.
I would also mention the personal insults of the other panelists aside for a moment.
If you actually believe in climate change, if you believe in climate change, it's the Democrats that have been president for the last four years.
It's the Democrats that have the governorship of California.
It's the Democrats that have the mayorship of Los Angeles.
It's the Democrats that have a super majority in the legislature in California.
So if you believe in climate change, I do not, but if you do, what did Gavin Newsom do to prevent this?
He did absolutely nothing.
And it's not only that he did nothing, but then he gets up there and he lies to everyone and takes no culpability.
I'm sure you all saw the video of that woman coming up to him saying, we need help, we need help.
And he says, I'm on the phone with the president of the United States right now, literally.
He says, literally.
And then a moment later, he says, oh, I have no cell service.
The man's inclination is to lie.
Funny enough.
Funny enough.
This is the same thing.
He should have gone to Canada.
I don't want to leave Ted Cruz.
I don't interrupt, but Dave, you've teed this up perfectly because you're a professional, even though you didn't know about this.
I'm going to let you guys go because I know, Julie, you've got a hard art, but also because I actually do have the LA resident Rachel Darvish waiting, who was the woman involved in that interaction with Gavin Newsom.
So those who didn't see it, take a look at the original incident.
That was my daughter's school, Governor.
Please tell me what you're going to do.
I'm not going to hurt him, I promise.
talking to the president right now to specifically answer the question of what we can do for you and your daughter.
Can I hear it?
Can I hear your call?
Because I don't believe it.
I'm sorry.
There's literally, I've tried five times.
That's why I'm walking around to make that.
Why is the president not taking your call?
Because it's not going through.
Why?
I have to get self-service.
Let's get it.
Let's get it.
I want to be here when you call the president.
So the question is, has the governor lived up to his will?
But joining me now is Rachel herself.
Rachel, great to have you on our sensor.
I watched that with mounting anger, actually, on your behalf, because you were just getting so obviously fobbed off by Gavin Newsom, and your anger was palpable and entirely justified.
How do you feel now now that everyone's seen this video?
How do you feel about it?
I'm an American, Piers.
Thanks for having me on.
Am I allowed to use the word that starts with W on your show?
Absolutely.
He's a wanker.
That's all I can say.
It was insanity.
It was pure insanity.
It's still insanity.
I was standing in front of my daughter's preschool, for God's sake, Methodist preschool, looking at the rubble of her school, looking at the rubble of school where all those kids, I was up on a mountain coming down the hill when the fire started.
I was one of the first people to know about this fire.
I got to tell you, we were the second home in at the top of the hill.
It took me five hours to get down the hill.
Not a single fire truck, not a single bit of assistance, no warning, no nothing.
And then to come down the hill, ask somebody else to watch my daughter and then know that that person's house burned down.
And in a matter of moments, it just to see that I'm standing in front of the man who's been in charge of my state since 2011 in some way, shape, and form.
Well, there's so much that goes on inside of you.
And I had just had to ask him.
And then to be lied to, so baldfaced.
I'm looking at his phone.
He actually offered his phone to me, Pierce.
And was he on the phone to President Biden, do you think?
Or was that, did he make that up?
Was he on the phone with President Biden?
But the cameras were running, obviously.
I caught him from the time I was in my vehicle with Sky TV and I rushed over to him.
I didn't do anything to change his particular circumstances.
He was not on the phone with the president.
The very first call on his call log was to a woman.
It was his wife.
So what does that tell you about Gavin Newsom?
The same thing that everyone's known for years.
The same thing that everyone's known for years.
Look, if you study history, you just don't want to see history repeat itself.
2011, we've had Gavin Newsome in charge of our state.
We've had 2011 to 2025 for this guy to be ready for us.
And when the time came, boy, was he not ready.
Man, you know, Piers, the water ran out at 3.30 in the morning.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
Where did our money go?
Where did all our property taxes go?
Where did 250 million in your coffers?
You couldn't send a fire truck up there.
You couldn't keep the hydrants full, man.
Come on.
The thing is, I sat here listening to your panel, and it actually is exactly what inspired me.
I'm listening to each one of those people that spoke.
And let me tell you, I heard something great from each one of them.
I really did.
But I can tell you who's the Democrat, and I can tell you who's the Republican.
Wouldn't it be beautiful if we took each and every one of what they said that was so good and so right and we took that and put someone like that in office?
Yeah.
Someone who didn't care.
Whoopi Goldberg, what are you talking about, Whoopee?
We shouldn't be pointing fingers.
How are we going to fix this?
Those two people are so irrelevant to the solution here that let's just point those two fingers right at them and say bye-bye.
Do you think that Mayor Bash should be recalled?
There's no thinking involved in that.
There's no thinking involved in that, Pierce.
I believe they've already started the petition.
You know, the problem is that they should not even be here in the first place, but I can't fix that.
So California has a lot to deal with at the moment.
And I hope that while we are in the midst of trying to find a place to live, while we're in the midst of trying to get clean water, while we're getting ourselves out of this war zone that we're in, that we have something going on up here, that we don't let this happen again.
And Rachel, what is your personal situation at the moment?
I'm going to be homeless for a little while.
I'm going to be homeless.
I'm fighting with the thousands of displaced people trying to find a place to live that will accommodate my elderly mother and my three-year-old daughter.
Hope Amidst War Zone 00:05:12
Was anything left of your home?
I can tell you that yesterday and the day before and every day before that I've gotten more and more information.
Whether my home is standing or not almost doesn't make any difference.
My home is standing, but I can't get there.
I believe it's actually part of what could be a crime scene, Pierce, as this continues.
So, you know, every single person in the Palisades is facing a completely different circumstance in front of them.
Some people have a home, some people don't.
You have a home.
You've got nothing to go home to.
And then we face other battles, the insurance battle.
We are facing the rains that are going to inevitably come.
I live right behind the hill.
I texted the governor's office this morning and last night, asking him for assistance for the future.
I asked him if he could have the foresight to know that what's next on the horizon are rains.
And we're going to have mudslides and we're going to be whatever was there is going to be destroyed even further if these guys don't pay attention.
I haven't heard back from them.
A lot of people feel that LA has always been pretty Democrat, but they feel that what's happened here on the Democrat watch will lead to a lot of people flipping and voting Republican in future.
Do you get that sense as well?
I got to tell you, the first call I got from someone was a really good friend of mine, total lifelong Democrat.
And I won't use the words she used.
She's a doctor, very, very professional, but very professionally told me that she would not be voting for the Ds ever again.
And I actually think that's a travesty.
I think that's a shame because I'm sure there are wonderful Democrats out there who don't fall into the category of a Gavin Newsom or an incompetent Karen Bass.
So I'm sure that's the reality.
Let's not make the Democrat or Republican thing the big issue.
We just got some really SHINY people in charge right now.
Have you heard from Gavin Newsom since your exchange went viral?
No, I have not.
I have texted and had a few exchanges with somebody in his office.
I've gotten copy-paste responses.
I have asked, I asked on camera.
I asked Governor Newsom if I could be there when he was meeting with the president.
I want to be there when he meets with the president-elect because I don't trust this man.
And look, I'm just a mom from Pacific Palisades.
I just wanted to have an in with the man responsible for where my money goes.
And where did my money go?
It went to no fire hydrants, no reservoirs full.
It went to the destruction of a town built by some really, really great people who never wanted to leave.
Wait until the Olympics comes.
What are we going to do?
What are we going to do then?
Wait till what's coming up?
The World Cup, the Olympics?
We have the Super Bowl coming to LA.
We're in big trouble if we let Whoopi Goldberg or anyone else like that make decisions for us down the line.
Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom, but how do we get there?
How do we get to the point where we don't make these kind of decisions again?
That, I think, is something we need to be talking about hardcore with the people, with the people of Los Angeles so that we are not in this predicament again.
Yeah.
Finally, Rachel, I mean, if he's watching this and he might be, what's your message to Gavin Newsom?
The same it was the first time I saw you.
I've never met you before, Governor.
Please ask me for help.
Please let me come there and help you.
I told you I said I would fill up the fire hydrants.
You know, I know.
I hope you know that that was my way of saying, I'd like to help.
Please respond to me.
How else can I get in touch with you?
I have a direct line to your office and you still won't respond to me.
Maybe the president-elect will take me up on my offer to have Palestinian mothers be present when their town is being rebuilt.
But I am asking for some way to be part of this problem so that we can make a solution that my neighbors, my residents, the people I live with don't have to worry whether the fire department is going to come and save our lives when we pay their salaries.
Yeah.
Rachel, you're a very powerful and eloquent advocate for change in LA.
And I really do respect you.
I respected you in the way you dealt with Gavin Newsome.
I respect you more having interviewed you.
Thank you very much indeed for joining me.
Thanks for your time, Pierce.
I appreciate your words.
I wish you and everyone there all the very best.
I've got a house in LA and up in Beverly Hills.
Thankfully, that hasn't so far been affected.
But my heart goes out to all of you down there.
My manager lost his home in the Palisade.
So that brought it home to me and it's just been utterly devastating.
And I send my heart to all of you.
I really do and hope things get sorted quickly.
I hope we can do better for you.
I hope we can do better for you, your manager.
I hope we can do better for the world because we are the fifth largest economy in the world.
We should be leading the world in how we fight fires.
Yeah, you have a bigger economy in California than we do in the United Kingdom here, where I am currently, which makes it all the more ridiculous.
Rachel, thank you very much indeed.
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