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July 14, 2025 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:37
20250714_even-trump-sees-theres-a-split-maga-in-meltdown-ov
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trump's Base Retention Dilemma 00:11:09
Okay, Elmo, you say your account was hanged.
I have to take your word for that.
If that is what happened here, do you condemn these posts?
President Trump was all smiles yesterday as Chelsea lifted the inaugural Club World Cup in New Jersey.
Future generations will be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump was in fact Chelsea's head coach.
It certainly looked like a welcome distraction from the president's day job of managing the actual United States.
MAGA Puritans must feel like they're in a bad dream.
A major rift that began with Trump's decision to order U.S. attacks on Iran and then descended into outrage over the Epstein files is about to be compounded by a dramatic shift on Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has 50 days to make a peace deal or face massive tariffs and an influx of weapons to Ukraine.
We are very unhappy, I am, with Russia.
But we'll discuss that maybe a different day.
But we're very, very unhappy with them and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days.
Tariffs at about 100%.
You'd call them secondary tariffs.
You know what that means.
But today we're going to talk about something else.
And as you know, we've spent $350 billion approximately on this war with Russia and Ukraine.
And we'd like to see it end.
It wasn't my war.
It was Biden's war.
It's not my war.
I'm trying to get you out of it.
Well, Senator Lindsey Graham, a MAGA Bet Noir, says that Trump is pivoting to a game-changing strategy of backing Ukraine.
The chorus of U.S. conservatives saying this is not what I voted for could be about to get a lot louder.
This weekend's Turning Point USA Conference in Florida was dominated by fury over the Epstein fumble and by criticism of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
It's extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government.
Now, no one's allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that that's naughty.
Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things.
Not just individuals, but also institutions, intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who is working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government.
She has never missed an opportunity to go on television and dangle sweet nothings that might be coming your way.
Try to lead you to believe that she's got it.
It's on her desk.
It's coming.
Tomorrow, you're going to see something on Epstein.
And it was a tease.
So you either believe that Pam Bondi was telling the truth then, or that she's telling the truth now.
But both cannot be true.
Well, Trump is standing by Pam Bondi and by his record.
He called for calm in a long truth social post this weekend aimed at his quarreling, quote, boys and gals.
But the Epstein's issue has done serious damage for three key reasons.
First, the people now in office made it a core campaigning symbol of a sordid deep state, as they put it, which prioritized the powerful friends of a wealthy sex offender over probity in government.
Second, they're telling people they can't believe their own eyes and ears.
The files are truly shocking.
The client list is on my desk, they said.
Now, there is no list, but if there is, it was written by Hillary Clinton and Obama.
And the third is Israel.
There's a strange coalition of nationalist anti-Semites, America First, isolationists, and legitimate critics of Israel's war in Gaza and its influence over U.S. politics.
The idea that Epstein could have been a Mossad agent facilitating abuse for leverage suits all of them and it angers them too.
Now, it may well be the case that, may well be the case, that releasing all of the paperwork would prove nothing new while unfairly implicating many innocent people who obsessively cultivated the contacts by Epstein.
And if so, then, well, that was always going to be the case.
But many people who are now in power created this monster, and they're finding out that if you don't feed the beast, it will eventually come back and eat you.
Well, joining me on the panel to discuss all this is Rob Smith, host of the Can't Cancel Rob Smith podcast and fellow from the Rainey Center for Public Policy.
Joe Walsh, the former Republican congressman for Illinois, a presidential candidate.
Josh Hammer, host of the Josh Hammer Show and author of Israel and Civilization, and Liz Wheeler, the host of the Liz Wheeler Show.
Welcome to all of you.
Let me start with you, Joe Walsh.
There's a lot going on.
It's been a lot going on since the day Donald Trump won the election.
There's a lot swirling around.
And unusually, Donald Trump is doing stuff which is angering his own hardcore MAGA base.
You could point to the strike on Iran.
I thought we weren't going to interfere in foreign wars anymore.
He did.
Now we're seeing that he may be lining up to inject a lot of money and support in favor of Ukraine against Russia.
Again, a lot of the MAGA crowd don't like that.
And then you have the Epstein scandal, where the MAGA crowd were led to believe the moment the Trump administration got their hands on all the files, everything would be revealed and true accountability would follow.
That isn't happening.
So Trump's got an interesting issue here of how to retain his base.
He's been very loyal to him at the same time as making big decisions which are enraging them.
What do you make of this?
Good to be with you, Pierce.
Look, I've never thought that Trump's followers follow him based on any sort of issues.
He's a symbol for them.
He's a clenched fist for them.
He's always been perceived of as an outsider who's going to reveal the deep state.
Pierce, that's why I think this Epstein story is going to damage him big time.
It's not just Bondi and Bongino and Patel who are out there for a few years lying to their audiences about, oh my God, the Epstein thing, the files, the list.
I'm going to deliver Bill Clinton's head on a platter.
Trump was saying the same damn thing.
So when you look at this Epstein list, they promised their MAGA base that this was going to be the mother of all deep state going after the elite pedophile kind of a scandal like we've never seen.
And now Bondi, Patel, Bongino, and Trump are all saying nothing there.
Let's look away.
Let's move on.
They can't do that.
So either, Pierce, they were all lying to their base, and then they assume roles in government and they learn the truth, or it's more sinister than that, and they're covering up for Trump.
Why would Donald Trump want to move on from the Epstein files?
Makes no sense.
Well, the thing, Rob Smith, which complicates it, is of course the Elon Musk fallout with Donald Trump a few weeks ago and Elon in the middle of the night unleashing what he called the biggest bombshell of his falling out with Trump, which is that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.
And since then, all the apparent enthusiasm by the Trump administration, Alina Hab came on here and was telling me about how big it was going to be and how many people were involved and so on and so on.
None of that has materialized.
But people are putting two and two together here and maybe they're getting five, but they're saying Elon Musk says that and then the whole thing gets shut down.
And the problem with that is it lends itself, obviously, to furious speculation.
All right, Piers, let me make, thanks for having me.
Let me make a couple of points here.
My first point is this.
The concern over the Jeffrey Epstein case and the Epstein files and all of this stuff doesn't really seem to be a concern of the everyday American that voted for Donald Trump.
It seems to be an exclusive concern of the types of people, you know, myself included, as one of my side jobs, that speaks on camera or podcasts or spends time on social media every single day.
In addition to being a podcaster and a content creator, I'm also a fellow with the Rainey Center for Public Policy.
And as such, I talk with local and state legislators all across the country.
You know, they want to talk about deporting illegal immigrants.
They want to talk about making sure that America can compete with China in the race for energy independence.
They do not want to talk about, nor do they care about the Epstein files.
That's the first point that I want to make is that nobody really cares about this that doesn't do things like this for a living.
The second point that I will make about this entire topic is that, yes, the Alina Habas of the world and a lot of people on Team Trump made a fundamental miscalculation when after being elected and after being put in their positions, they still went on podcasts and they went on cable news and they kind of like drummed up and ginned up this expectation that there was going to be some big reveal.
That was a fundamental miscalculation on their part.
And I think that a lot of people who are either never Trump conservatives or people that are pushing liberal propaganda would like to make it seem that this is some huge schism or huge shift in the MAGA base, of which I don't think it is.
I think that the one thing that the MAGA base truly cares about is illegal immigration.
And the Trump administration is doing their job when it comes to that.
So Piers, probably a lot of people on this panel are going to disagree with me, but I just simply do not think that the average American who is not terminally online cares at all about the Epstein files.
Did they make a miscalculation spending too much time on social media themselves and ginning up this expectation?
Yes, but the average American just doesn't care.
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Okay, I think you'll find Liz Wheeler cares.
Liz Wheeler.
With all due respect, I think Rob Smith is misreading the mega base.
I think President Trump, with all due respect, is misreading the mega base on this too for an interesting reason, right?
The Deep State Paradox 00:14:57
Let's go back to that day in February at the White House.
I was there.
I was one of the new media figures that were invited to the White House.
I was given one of those infamous infernal white Epstein files binders that day.
And we weren't actually invited, by the way, to be given those files.
We weren't invited to be given anything on Epstein or even to meet with Pam Bondi.
We were there for a cool initiative by the White House to ostracize the mainstream media and instead say, hey, we're not going to reward bad behavior and propagandists.
We're going to give you access to the upper echelons of the Trump administration.
That's why we were there to meet with all kinds of officials in the Trump White House.
But during our maybe 15 minute meeting with Pam Bondi, she brings in these bankered boxes full of these Epstein files and hands them to us.
And as soon as we saw them, we were like, whoa, Epstein files phase one.
What are we getting our hands on?
She clarified very quickly and said, no, no, this is this is there's nothing juicy or dirty in here.
This is what was given to me by the FBI when I requested these files, as I promised you I would.
But a whistleblower called me last night and said, actually, the SDNY is hiding truckloads of these documents trying to subvert the president, the attorney general, and you.
So the real story is that there are still deep state swamp creatures in the federal government trying to subvert the president's agenda.
That was the story.
Now, here's the strange part of this story.
And it started right, the red flag started right from that moment is on the front of that binder, that cover sheet that said the most transparent administration in history, Attorney General Pam Bondi told us at the White House that day that she created that cover, that cover sheet, that she printed it, she created it and she was very proud of it.
The most transparent administration in history.
She was bragging about this, which was the first red flag to me because I thought, well, what's in this?
There's nothing in this.
And I asked her at the time, I said, have you seen the documents that the SDNY is hiding from you, the real dirt?
She told us.
And she said, no.
So you fast forward a little bit.
You know, at the time, she's the attorney general of the United States.
It's a friendly White House because I'm a supporter of President Trump.
You give the Attorney General the benefit of the doubt.
You hope she produces.
Obviously, we can talk about the botched embargo that led to the media frenzy that day.
But you can't square what Pam Bondi said in that room to me bragging about the cover sheet of that binder.
You can't square that with her appearances on Fox News where she says, it's on my desk, the client list, the Epstein client list, where she promises the real stuff, videos and photos and recordings, that's going to be delivered to you.
You can't square that then with its unsigned memo that probably she leaked to Axio saying, actually, there's no client list.
There's no blackmail.
He definitively killed himself.
You're not getting any more information.
So Pierre, suddenly we're left in this situation.
And the reason this narrative is so important is because it demonstrates why the base cares about this, why it's not just an online issue.
Listen, I was never one of those podcasters that dug deeply into all of the details and nuances of the Epstein case itself.
I was never one that was filing FOIA requests for government information about it.
But all of a sudden, to the base, because of Attorney General Pam Bondi's lies, all of a sudden to the base, the Epstein files start to represent the justice that we voted for.
You have to understand that during the Joe Biden administration, we were hurt.
We were hurt by the deep state.
We were told you have to stay in your homes.
You're locked down because of COVID.
You're going to be forced to get a vaccine.
We were thrown in jail over January 6th.
We were cascaded as Russian agents because of RussiaGate.
You know, we were hurt by the lawfare against President Trump by censorship.
Pro-lifers were jailed.
Undercover journalists, some of whom work for my show right now, were targeted by the FBI.
Parents were called domestic terrorists.
Catholics were called violent extremists.
We were hurt by this deep state.
And we voted for President Trump because he promised justice.
Justice does not mean memory holing these things and moving forward.
It means identifying the people who committed the wrongdoing, indicting them, arresting them, and putting them on trial.
And when you have that mentality, if that's the reason why you voted for President Trump and suddenly the Epstein files, you are not just smelling a rat with his operation and his connections and his money and his death, not just the facts of the case itself, but the lack of transparency and the outright lies that you can identify being told by, not by Trump, by Attorney General Pam Bondi, then suddenly this starts to be associated with the justice that you voted for.
And you worry that you're not going to get that very justice.
That's why the base fairs.
Well, I think that's a really, really interesting assessment of what I think is the correct way that many MAGA voters are looking at this.
Let me bring in Josh Hammer.
I mean, there are two arguments about this.
One is, I do think Liz Wheeler hit the net on the head.
This is what the MAGA base, a lot of them are feeling, is that actually the Trump administration on this issue is behaving exactly like the deep state it professes to want to get rid of.
And that is damaging just politically, I think.
Never mind anything else.
But there's also the issue that maybe, you know, is it all disproportionate?
That actually, are there much more important things going on?
As we're talking, President Trump has come out and said, look, if Russia doesn't do a deal now with Ukraine in the next 60 days, then all hell is going to break loose with massive tariffs.
50 days, I think.
Let me read the exact quote.
We're very, very unhappy with them, Russia.
We're going to be doing severe tariffs.
We don't have a deal in 50 days.
Tariffs at about 100% and billions of dollars more in weapons for Ukraine if no deal is done.
And he's already authorized the use of the Patriot missiles.
There's a lot going on here.
Israel, there may be a ceasefire in Gaza and so on and so on.
Are people putting a disproportionate amount of attention on the Epstein files?
Or is it, in terms of the politics here, actually really significant?
Because it may hemorrhage Trump's core support?
Piers, it's a great question.
I happen to agree with large swaths of what both my good old friend Liz Wheeler and what Rob Smith have said.
So I'll try to thread something of a needle here.
I do agree with, I certainly agree with the entire list of grievances that Liz laid out against the Biden administration when it comes to XYZ things, prosecuting the pro-life grandmothers under the FACE Act, calling anti-critical race theory parents, domestic terrorists.
All of that is totally fair game.
And more generally, Piers, I think what you have to understand when we talk about something like the Epstein files, there have been so many data points over the past five to 10 years in American, perhaps by extension, Western public life, but especially American public life that have really made people genuinely, genuinely distrust authority.
You have COVID-19 and all the various restrictions and the vaccines and the lockdowns and all that our governor here in Florida, Ron DeSantis, calls the biomedical security state.
That was a major deal.
Big tech censorship subsequently revealed by Elon Musk in the Twitter files.
That was a massive deal as well, especially when it comes to the 2020 election, the 51 deep state spooks, John Brennan, Jim Comey.
I could go on.
Russia gave.
There are a lot of things I think have soured the American people there.
So when you have what appears to be an irreconcilable flip-flop, what we have seen from the Trump administration, I think that a lot of people definitely, they're kind of jaw drops the floor and they're like, and they're asking, perhaps not illegitimately, what the heck is going on here.
On the other hand, I think Rob Smith is totally right.
And this was actually the syndicated column that I wrote just on Friday.
I titled this column, Log Off Social Media and Return to the Real Things.
I think it is also true that the median Donald Trump voter, not the median attendee of a high-profile conservative conference, the likes of which the one I just spoke at yesterday, the Turning Point USA, those are the kind of folks who are really riled up about this.
But the median person who voted for Donald Trump to lower the price of chicken and eggs and butter at the supermarket, who voted for Donald Trump to finally, once and for all, secure the southern border and to make sure that illegal aliens are not disproportionately committing crime, to voted for Donald Trump to try to get some semblance of peace and stability, whether it's in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Middle East, or to finally once and for all roll back Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific.
To me, these are the real issues, Piers.
These are the issues that I personally get very animated about, certainly in my capacity as a speaker, as a talker.
And I think that the Epstein files is not unimportant.
The administration, clearly, this has been very, very far from their finest hour.
But I think that this too is ultimately going to blow over.
If there is one thing that I feel very, very, very confident about knowing about Donald Trump's voters, they support Donald Trump.
If Donald Trump is really, really, really going to dig his heels here and stand by his Attorney General Pam Bondi, regardless of the merits, whether that is a good or a bad thing, Donald Trump's voters are going to stand by him.
And I think that we will probably forget about all of this two to three weeks from now.
Do you know the spanner in the works of that, actually?
I'll bring Joe back in.
Elon Musk is lurking in the wings here.
And he's not just any old lurker.
This is the most, well, the richest and most successful businessman, arguably, in American history.
He unleashed his 200 million followers on his own social media platform to thoroughly endorse Trump all the way back to the White House.
I think he had a significant effect on Trump winning that election, particularly with younger male voters.
I think he is vengeful.
I think he's angry.
I think he feels he's been let down.
Obviously, he brought in to do Doge and then sees a big, beautiful bill, which he thinks is the opposite to what Doge was trying to achieve and so on.
So they've had this big falling out.
He's already shown how intemperate he can be, you know, with his posting and that, you know, bombshell, Donald Trump's in the Epstein files and so on.
I think anyone who thinks Elon Musk is going to leave it all here, I think if he senses that he can politically damage Trump now as he promotes his America party and so on, I've got a feeling this has quite a way to play.
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Britain's right-wing media for the last few years has been echoing what Bongino and Patel and Bondi and Trump and Vance all said about the Epstein files.
And they're upset.
They're every bit as upset as Liz Wheeler is and others are.
The conservative talking voices are.
I agree with Liz.
This is not an online issue.
For the MAGA base, this is a huge issue.
I can't remember another issue where Trump has gotten so much blowback from his own base.
And again, I keep coming back to this, Pierce.
Why?
The base was promised these goodies.
Why is Trump and don't let Trump off the hook?
Pam Bondi's doing what Trump wants to do.
And also, you know what?
My gut feeling as a journalist for many decades, more than I'd like to share with you.
My gut feeling about this is obviously the only people who committed crimes here are not likely to be exclusively Epstein and his madame, Ghillane Maxwell.
It just defies all credulity that this guy was ferrying around underage girls to his island, to his properties and so on.
We know from Prince Andrew in my country, paying $11 million reportedly to make a case go away whether a woman said she had underage sex with him in various locations.
Why would the Queen of England's son pay $11 million to get rid of a problem like that for someone he claims he never met?
So a lot of this stinks, honestly.
And I've always felt there are lots of men.
I interviewed Alan Dershowitz earlier, who was actually wrongly accused by the same person that accused Prince Andrew and who herself took her life very sadly recently.
It's all riddled with tragedy, this whole story.
The poor girls in this in many different ways.
But what he did say was interesting.
He knows personally of a handful, as he put it, of men who he believes.
you know, are in these files who should be properly investigated.
And when you have someone like Dershowitz, who acted for Jeffrey Epstein in his first case back, you know, 15 years ago, he knows him better than most people.
If he says there are other men who ought to be investigated, I can't see this going away.
Yeah.
Pierce, can I jump in for a moment?
Pierce, I agree.
So why?
Pierce, can I interject?
I'll bring you all in.
Let Joe just respond quickly.
Then I'll bring Leslie in.
So then, Pierce, I agree with all of that.
So then why does Trump want it to all just go away?
I don't know.
And I find it odd.
And I'd love to ask him.
I find it odd, but I also think from the conspiracy theory viewpoint, and it may not be a conspiracy theory, we don't know, right?
Because the files haven't all been released.
But that Elon Musk post and then the juxtaposition on the timeline of all this getting shut down is pretty close, right?
It's like, well, hang on a second.
Everyone's gone from coming on my show, administration people, really pumping up the Epstein files as being really damaging and really serious, and it's all going to come out to suddenly, boom, it all shuts down.
And the only thing that seemed to change was Elon Musk's post.
Now, it might be totally disconnected.
Alan Dershowitz, again, said he'd seen no evidence to ever link Donald Trump to anything nefarious with Epstein other than he happened to hang around with him for a bit and then he disowned him.
So I'm not suggesting for a moment Trump's done anything wrong here, but the juxtaposition of his right-hand guy, Elon Musk, who was there pretty much all the time before, during, and after the election, and that post and this getting closed down is unsettling.
Piers, let me jump in here for just a moment because I think a couple of things.
Never Trumpers, whether they're on the left or whether they're never Trumpers on the right, want to use this issue that the mega base is expressing as a way to drive a wedge between the mega base and President Trump.
And that's stupid.
I don't think they need to try.
Beyond the Epstein Files 00:15:35
No, because a true friend, well, that's not how I view it because I think a true friend tells you the truth even when it's uncomfortable.
But hang on, Donald Trump, hang on, hang on, Liz.
In his true social statement, Donald Trump talks about the division in his own base.
He talks about the boys and gals all falling out in the mega base, right?
So it's not outside people trying to create a wedge here between MAGA and Trump.
It's Trump understanding that all this stuff around Epstein has created a big wedge amongst his MAGA base.
He's the one that's identified.
Right.
I understand already.
Hang on, I'll bring you in after Liz.
Let's finish her point.
Then I'll bring you in, Rob.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, let me finish my point here.
So a true friend tells you the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable.
And there's this idea, there's this idea that criticizing an administration that you support is somehow disloyal.
And that's not how I view it at all.
I view it completely the opposite.
I share an Americaverse agenda with President Trump, and I want to do what I can to help him run his administration the most effectively that he can.
Sometimes that means sharpening his administration.
Like when I exposed Dr. Jeanette Nishiwat, his surgeon general nominee, who was absolutely terrible, she was a COVID freak.
I did that not to get one on the Trump administration, but to make sure the Trump administration understood what the base wants when it comes to COVID accountability and COVID justice.
So, when I look at this issue, the Epstein files, first of all, there's one person who made this a problem in the past four months.
And that person is Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Yes, there was a lot of talk from various figures during the campaign about the Epstein files, but it was Pam Bondi who deliberately gave us those Epstein bond or those Epstein binders.
It was Bondi who bragged about making that cover sheet.
It was Bondi who's a family.
No, I totally agree.
She led everybody.
She wants attention.
And that's what associated the Epstein files with justice in the base.
I would prefer that we had accountability for COVID.
I would prefer we have accountability for the journalists.
You have an attorney general who led everybody to the water's edge.
Exactly.
So President Trump can take care of this.
Then gave nobody a drink.
Yeah, look, if you take people to the water's edge like that, you've got to give them a drink.
Rob.
All right.
So the point that I want to make here is this.
I think that this idea that the MAGA base is fractured and there's all this stuff, again, it just seems to be something that's entirely about the internet.
You're wrong about that.
Has there been anything?
You're wrong about that because a number of times.
Rob, you're wrong.
I'm going to tell you why you're wrong.
When you've got people like Tucker Carlson and other very high-profile figures on the right, they're not just online people.
They are big, big figures who are getting mainstream media coverage because of it.
This is a big, genuine issue in the MAGA movement.
It is.
And again, and again, it is.
And to the point that I was going to make, Piers, yes, Tucker Carlson is major.
Megan Kelly is major.
All of these people are major journalists and podcasters who command huge audiences.
And a large part of their business is to get attention from, said, huge audiences.
Has there been a single Trump administration cabinet member that has said, I'm stepping down because I don't like the handling of the Epstein files?
Has there been a congressman or congresswoman, an elected official all across the country?
Dan Bongino came pretty close if I'm really reporting.
I'm stepping down because of the Epstein files.
Has there been an elected that is saying that I have so thoroughly lost all of my confidence in Trump and the Trump administration over the mishandling of the Epstein files that I'm literally going to resign?
Yes, Bondino.
Rob, hang on, hang on.
Hang on, hang on, Rob.
Here's my answer to you.
Here's my answer to you.
Donald Trump on Truth Social, 12th of July.
What's going on with my boys and in some cases, gals?
They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's doing a fantastic job.
We're one team on MAGA and I don't like what's happening.
And he goes on and on and on about it.
Donald Trump thinks there's a split in MAGA.
And he's not an online guy.
He's the president of the United States.
No, he's not an online guy.
Look, he's the president of the United States, who I fully support and voted for.
That's fine.
But you can't just protect his money against you.
And he's also somebody, but still, he's also somebody, again, that spends an inordinate amount of time on social media and on regular.
Honestly, I'm taking you sound.
Literally, Piers, Piers, I will die on the hill that normal people do not care about this.
I spend enough time talking with local and state legislators with people.
Hang on, hang on.
Hang on, hang on.
I'm trying to say something like that.
Hang on, I want to tell Rob who he sounds like.
Rob sounds like the members of the woke left who keep trying to tell me that nobody in America cared about biological men in women's sports.
Oh, so now trust me.
Okay.
Trust me.
So this is why I'm not going to be able to do that.
Trust me that they did.
I want to bring in Josh, Josh, because Josh has been very patiently waiting.
Josh.
I don't just want to talk about the Epstein thing here because I think there are other things going on, which the MAGA base is also likely to be pretty upset about.
And one of them is Trump now going all in against Vladimir Putin and helping Ukraine.
Now, I happen to agree with this, right?
I think it's long overdue that Trump flexed his muscles with Putin.
I think Putin's been mocking Trump and mocking America by talking to Trump and then unleashing his biggest bombardment within hours of doing it.
This is deliberate taunting of the president of the United States.
So it's long overdue.
But again, the mass.
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And they didn't want to have any more intervention in foreign wars and so on.
So again, if I'm a MAGA guy and I'm already incensed about the Epstein thing, and now I'm hearing that Donald Trump, who has closed down the Epstein files, now wants to go all in behind Zelensky, who many people on the MAGA side think is a reprehensible character.
I don't get it why they think that, because I've met him.
I respect him hugely.
I think he's been invaded by a marauding Russian dictator.
And in the good old days, the conservative right in America would be united in wanting to repel the Russian invader.
Those days don't exist anymore.
But my point is, it's not just going to be about Epstein.
I think that Trump's going to find that a lot of the MAGA base really don't like him now going fill in behind Ukraine.
What do you think of that?
So I have lots of thoughts on Ukraine.
I've had lots of thoughts on Ukraine for a long time.
Just a very brief word, if I may, on Epstein and DOJ to kind of put a bow on that conversation, then I'm happy to weigh in on Ukraine.
Look, I hear you, Piers, and I hear Rob.
I agree this is not a solely online phenomenon.
My contention is that there are other issues I think the median Trump vans voter cares more about.
But I think there's also a bit of a missing of force for the trees type thing going on here, even within the confines of the Trump DOJ.
Piers, I'm also a lawyer.
I clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
I speak at law schools all across the country.
This is the most conservative Department of Justice in my entire lifetime.
Has Pam Bondi and the DOJ handled all of this to a T?
Have they crossed all T's dot the eyes?
No, of course not.
I am not here to be Pam Bondi's apologist or anything like that there.
But when you look at what the DOJ is doing when it comes to prosecuting this, prosecuting that, assisting Tom Holman to execute the avowed largest mass deportation operation in American history, all the things that Solicitor General Sauer is doing at the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to ending chemical castration for minors in the state of Tennessee and on and on.
The DOJ under Trump is getting win after win after win.
So that is one of many reasons why I come back to the point that if Donald Trump is really going to dig in his heels on this and stick with Pam Bondi, as I have every reason in the world to expect based on all my sources that he is 100% going to do that, that within the next two to three weeks at the most, people will have forgotten that this ever happened.
So that's kind of my bow on that on that conversation.
Now, turning a little bit to Ukraine and Russia, look, I am someone who has indeed been skeptical of aggressive U.S. involvement in Ukraine for a very long time.
I've written countless articles on this.
I've spoken about this at great length.
I view the exact contours of the eastern boundary between Ukraine and Russia to be something that is not necessarily directly in the American national interest.
Of course, if Lanyard Putin starts marching into Warsaw, Poland triggers Article 5 of NATO.
Very, very different conversation there.
Now, I did vote for Donald Trump, among other things, for foreign policy because he shares my nationalist, realist, sober foreign policy that is neither neoconservative nor isolationist.
I think that Donald Trump, with good faith, with good faith, has really actually tried to get a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
He has tried to apply pressure on both Vladimir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.
Probably a little bit too much pressure, actually, at times on one and then the other there.
But he really has actually tried, from all I can tell, in genuine good faith to do that.
And it turns out, Piers, Vladimir Putin is simply not playing ball.
In fact, if you look at the missiles and the drones and the death tolls over Kiev over the past month or so, these are some of the largest volleys of the past three and a half years of the war.
So, what is he supposed to do other than to threaten tariffs and sanctions?
He's actually approached this in a very empirical, ad hoc, step-by-step way, not necessarily in hockey to ideological blinders that so many in the foreign policy establishment have.
So, even I, as someone who is skeptical of advanced involvement for the U.S. in the Russian-Ukraine theater, I think he's actually handled it quite well.
I'm still cautiously optimistic that we can find our way to a ceasefire here sooner rather than later.
Okay, Joe, on Ukraine, I know you've been very critical that Trump hasn't acted earlier.
I've talked to him quite a few times this year, and I got a real sense of his utter determination to stop the censors killing, as he saw it.
The numbers are just, I mean, terrifying of soldiers on both sides getting killed on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
So, I've got no doubt he's determined to bring this to an end.
I think he felt he could do a deal earlier with Putin than has turned out to be possible.
I think he gave Ukraine quite a hard time.
We all saw that.
It was a bit unedifying in parts with the Oval Office bust up and so on, but he was certainly effective in getting Ukraine to crystallize their relationship with the United States to a way that Trump was happy.
And I think Ukraine were okay with where they got to with the mineral deal and everything else.
The problem, as Josh just said, is that Putin is not playing ball.
In fact, what he's doing is raining more and more bombs down on Ukraine.
And I feel the moment has come where the doubting manga right on this have got to understand what they're dealing with for Putin.
He is a ruthless Russian dictator who's a former KGB agent who took Crimea, invaded Georgia, now invaded Ukraine.
He's not going to stop until actually the bigger person in the room stands up and stops it.
That is America.
So, what do you feel about where we are now with Ukraine?
I worry that this isn't permanent.
Look, Pierce, from the beginning, Trump's inclination has been, and this is where he was before he won in November, to always take Putin's side and to always go after Ukraine.
From the moment Donald Trump was sworn in, everything he's said and done has been to praise and stroke Putin and to hit Zelensky over the head.
That's gotten us nowhere because, as you say, Pierce, the bad guy in this, the bully, the tyrant, the dictator, the evil one is Putin.
Now, does Trump now, after six months, finally realize that?
I don't know.
I think people around him realize that.
But I don't, I worry, Pierce, this isn't permanent.
He was asked today, what did Trump do today?
He threatened the secondary tariffs in 50 days.
That's the second time he's made that threat to Putin.
I don't know if it's real.
And he was asked today, what are you going to do if Putin accelerates his attacks and does more?
And he said, oh, it's Biden's war.
Don't ask me a question like that.
So he still is loath to say anything bad about Putin.
But Pierce, last thing to your point, his base isn't going to understand this.
And that's why I go back to the Epstein issue, because the Epstein issue is a breach of trust with his base.
That's going to make him selling what he's doing in Ukraine even more difficult.
Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Rob, let me bring you in here.
I do think that's a good point.
And that's why I think you're slightly, I say this respectfully, but I think you're slightly downplaying, I think, the scale of what is happening here by saying it's only an online thing, because it's not.
And I think that Trump's going to face.
I think Trump's going to face a real uprising of pretty high-profile people who are going to use these three things, actually.
They'll probably use Iran, the strike there.
They're probably going to use the Ukraine support.
They're going to use the Epstein files.
They're going to put it all together and say, this ain't what we voted for.
And that's where the problem's going to come.
Well, Piers, let me respond as a newly minted member of the woke left.
I'm kidding.
So you conflated a couple of things that I was saying.
You conflated a couple of points that I was making.
I will die on the hill that nobody cares about Epstein.
What the base and what people like myself do care about is they do care about the handling of Iran.
And they do very much care about sending more money and more weapons to Ukraine because there are people that are still, like myself, incredulous that this war is still happening.
All right.
And so that's the same thing.
How would you stop not only the people?
I'm not a child, Rob.
How would you stop Vladimir Putin?
What's that?
I don't know.
I'm not in the administration.
If you don't like the current strategy, what I will say is this.
You can't just let him do it, can you?
And I'm not speaking.
What's that now?
Well, you can't just let Vladimir Putin rode around invading sovereign democratic European countries.
Okay.
No, you absolutely can't.
And you absolutely can.
And I'm not saying that.
And I'm also not saying to stop funding the war and to stop arming Ukraine.
I'm not saying these things at all.
What I will say and what I will agree with the majority of the panel about is that this is something that the base cares about.
So now the Trump administration, I think that the one thing and one of the many things that I can really ding them for, but I think that they have a really hard time effectively communicating their messaging on things that are important, like the Russia-Ukraine situation, right?
I think that they have problems with communications.
I think that they have problems managing influencers and all of that stuff.
And so now what I will say to this is that they need to find out a way how to effectively communicate to not only the MAGA base, but to the American people that voted for Donald Trump that, by the way, are not all MAGA base, why they are doing this, why they need to continue to do this, and what is the reasoning behind this.
Because I will tell you that, yes, there are a lot of people that obviously do not want Russia to just be given free reign to do what they want to in this war, but there are people that have some very solid concerns and points.
Auditing Every Dollar Sent 00:04:17
And I'm one of them myself, that is saying, we did not elect you to continue writing blank checks to the Ukraine.
So Piers, I absolutely understand where you're coming from on this.
Hell, I even understand where Joe is coming from on this.
And so I think that it's up to the Trump administration and everybody that is in charge here to figure out more of a way to more effectively communicate their messaging about this.
I think they depend way too heavily on MAGA influencers and the MAGA base.
And I think that they need to tighten up the communication and they have to actually have some of their employed staffed people whose job it is to be communicating these things to the American people.
They need to get them out there effectively communicating this because I think that they're losing in the comms game right now because it's all about communications.
And I don't think they're doing a great job.
Okay.
Liz.
Two things.
First of all, the American people and the people that voted for President Trump want nothing more than an audit on all of the money, the American taxpayer money or the money that Joe Biden printed and sent to Zelensky because you can believe two things at one time.
You can believe that Vladimir Putin was wrong and shouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
And you can also understand that when Joe Biden sent blank check after blank check of U.S. dollars to Zelensky, it impacted us.
It devalued the U.S. dollar, which caused inflation to rise, which made it more difficult for us to buy gas and groceries.
That's real world effects, day-to-day kitchen table effects that it had on us, even if you think that Vladimir Putin is wrong.
So I think my standpoint on this is that we should audit every dollar that we sent, whether it was in military equipment, whether it was in humanitarian aid, every dollar we sent to Ukraine, because I don't want to be paying for the pensions of Ukrainian government bureaucrats when we have issues we need that money for in our country.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is the answer to your question that you posed to Rob before of, okay, well, what should be done to stop Vladimir Putin?
Well, the answer is.
President Trump has an almost 100% track record in foreign policy.
If there is one area that he gets less credit than he deserves, it's foreign policy.
That guy is good at foreign policy.
And look at a couple of months ago, that true social post when he said, guys, don't be pannikins about the tariffs.
He said, he just stayed quiet because when you're in the middle of a negotiation, you can't show your hand to your base because it also shows your hand to the other side.
And he just sat there for about 72 hours while a lot of his baits lost their minds about the tariffs.
And ultimately, all the countries that he levied these tariff threats on caved.
And we are now in a situation where he is working towards a more or a fairer playing field for economic trade deals with countries all around the world.
That is what's happening before our very eyes right now.
These tariffs that he is threatening on Vladimir Putin, it's the exact same playbook.
You can just watch what's unfolding.
Step back for a minute and watch what's unfolding.
You can see it happen.
So I'm not fearful that President Trump is sending more Patriot missiles to Ukraine, even though I don't think that we should be involved.
I don't want more of my money sent over there.
I know exactly what President Trump is doing.
He is negotiating his way and he's being tough about it because like you mentioned, Piers, Vladimir Putin didn't just roll over on day one like Trump and we were all hoping that he would.
You have to play a little hardball if this is the Trump negotiation strategy.
My money is on President Trump.
I think it'll work.
Yeah, listen, he also gave Iran a deadline to do a deal.
And the day after that deadline elapsed, Israel attacked.
And about 10 days later, Trump attacked with the most powerful bombs in the world.
So this idea that he doesn't go through on things, I think people that live under that massive misapprehension, look at General Suleimani, look at the former head of ISIS.
I mean, there are lots of people where Trump has been boxed into a place where he thinks, actually, I'm going to do something.
And I think Putin's got to be very careful.
If I was advising him, I'd be like, do not push Trump too far.
Because if Trump thinks you're mocking him, which I think he does now in the way that Putin's going about this war, then I think he's going to suddenly wake up and find that actually Trump's no longer his big pal.
But we'll see.
Look, it's a fascinating.
Already this Trump administration is one of the most fascinating I've ever covered.
Putin Must Not Push Too Far 00:00:37
And we're only six months in.
We're all nearly exhausted.
There's only three and a half years left, but it is riveting to watch.
And it's great to talk to you all.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you, Pierce.
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