‘Made Themselves Villains of the WORLD’ Megyn Kelly on Israel + Trump’s Trade Deal
President Trump’s golfing trip to Scotland resulted in a new trade agreement with the EU yesterday, plus an agreement with the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer to work together on the escalating starvation crisis in Gaza. Trump also said Putin's deadline for ending the war in Ukraine is to be dramatically cut to just 10 or 12 days. Could he be the peacemaker people said he would be? Or is he just making things worse? To discuss the latest in the American political landscape, Piers Morgan is joined by multimedia star Megyn Kelly, followed by Outkick founder Clay Travis plus ‘Breaking Points’ co-host Krystal Ball. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Birch Gold: Visit https://birchgold.com/piers to get your free info kit on gold. Oxford Natural: To watch their full stories, scan the QR code on your screen or visit https://oxfordnatural.com/piers/ to get 70% off your first order when you use code PIERS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trump's Cowed Critics00:03:12
The last time I was on with you, Piers, I think I said that I would dress as a full clown if the stock market in 18 months had not rebounded.
We are, as I speak to you right now, at an all-time high.
The level of fascistic cruelty with regard to the immigrant population here is more horrifying than I ever could have even anticipated.
Israel, whether it realizes it or not, has made itself the villain of the world.
Time to wrap it up.
A lot of deals get done on the golf course, and President Trump's golfing trip to Scotland is proving to be no exception.
Trump shook hands on a new trade agreement with the EU at Turnbury yesterday.
Today, it was British Prime Minister Sakir Starmer's turn.
Starmer is a terrible golfer and reportedly, very sensibly, declined the opportunity to show the world and Donald Trump this fact, which is a slight handicap when it comes to avoiding Trump's wrath.
Both leaders agreed to work together on the escalating starvation crisis in Gaza.
And Trump said that Putin's deadline for ending the war in Ukraine is to be dramatically cut to just 10 or 12 days.
Save a lot of people.
I mean, some of those kids are, that's real starvation stuff.
I see it.
And you can't fake that.
So we're going to be even more involved.
We did some airlifts before, some airdrops, and the people are running for it.
And the Prime Minister is going to help us.
They're very effective with that.
I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today.
There's no reason in waiting.
There's no reason in waiting.
It's 50 days.
I want to be generous, but we just don't see any progress being made.
Well, back in the U.S., debate is somehow still raging over the decision by CBS to cancel Stephen Colbert's late show.
The New York Post reported yesterday on how the loss-making show has hosted 176 Democrats and just one Republican since 2022, a period in which the Democratic Party became ever more unpopular.
Trump's critics say that Paramount is pandering to the president so that he'll sign off its $8 billion sale, starting a dictatorial chilling effect on press freedom.
This is the same Paramount, which just paid $1.5 billion for South Park, whose creators were cowed into airing shameless pro-Trump propaganda in their latest episode.
Hey, is this better?
This is the painting you asked for, sir.
Where's my dick so small?
But that's the size it is in the photo.
Get this guy out of here.
I'm going to sue you.
I'm going to sue both of you.
Yeah, they look really cowed, don't they?
Well, Trump has been so successful in forcing his most prominent critics off air that only one or two now remain.
Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers, John Oliver, John Stewart, Bill Maher, Anderson Cooper, Laura Coates, Jake Trapper Tappa, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow, Ari Melbourne, Stephanie Ruhl, Ali Belshi, Chris Hayes, everybody on the view.
The Tariff War Plan00:06:34
I could go on and on and on.
It really is beginning to feel like North Korea, isn't it?
Well, joining me to discuss all this is the host of the Megan Kelly Show, Megan Kelly.
Megan, how are you?
Hi, I'm great.
How are you doing, Piers?
I'm good.
I was just watching Donald Trump back in my homeland of the United Kingdom, up in Scotland.
And I was thinking as I watched him just riffing for about an hour.
There has never been a world leader ever that does this the way Trump does it, who can just feel questions for hour after hour, talk about all range of issues, and make so much news at the same time.
He's an extraordinary performer as a politician, isn't he?
It's completely refreshing, and it is unlike anything we've ever seen before.
And you can almost see foreign leaders admiring him, like watching him do this.
Like, you know, the head of NATO seemed completely enamored with Trump and his strength and his comfort level in communicating, in talking about his plans.
He has almost nothing to hide.
I mean, I guess on the downside for Trump, it does stand out when he comments on something that he clearly doesn't really want to go there on, like Epstein.
Then it's like blaring, blaring, blaring, because it sounds so much different than the way he normally sounds.
But on 99% of the subjects that he gets asked about or even brings up himself, he doesn't care.
He'll tell you whatever he can tell you.
He also knows, in my experience, the lines.
Like I can see him go right up to the line on the classified information and yet not cross it.
I can see him in legal debates with snarky reporters who think they know better than Trump does what the law is.
And I know what the law is.
Try to push him and push him.
And Trump will say what he can say.
And then he'll put just the right legal qualifier on it.
He's very clever.
He doesn't get enough credit for it because he communicates more like the common man, which is his gift, right?
So everyone can understand and relate to him.
But he has definitely a high level of intelligence and knows what he's doing.
You know, I appeared on Bill Maher's show just after he'd been to see Trump at the White House and right around the time the global tariff war was commenced by Trump.
And Bill Maher was very scathing about that.
As I defended him over the trip to see Trump at the White House, but he was scathing about the tariffs.
He never thought it was going to be anything other than financial chaos.
And I saw today there are quotes coming out from Bill Maher, you know, that he was so wrong about the tariffs.
The stock markets have never been higher.
We've seen the deal announced with the EU.
Things are moving with China.
You know, and it just said to me again with Trump, the thing that people need to exercise more with Trump is patience.
That sometimes amid the apparent chaos, there's a real plan.
And if you give him enough time, it can actually work.
And it looks to me like this tariff war, as people phrased it, is working.
If you're an American, this seems to be working very well for America.
Yes, patience and an open mind.
And unfortunately, when it comes to Trump, almost no one has the latter, at least no one who's not already a fan.
You know, on tariffs, it's a good example, Piers, because I'll tell you, this is not my area of expertise.
I'm not an econ kind of gal.
This is not the kind of analysis I'm known for.
So when it came to the tariffs, my own takeaway was, let's just watch.
Let's do watchful waiting, as they say, and see how it plays out because I have no idea.
And I had the distinct impression that no one else really had any idea either.
The reason Donald Trump was hired is because he does things differently.
He is an outside of the box thinker.
He is known for his negotiations and he's very tough in negotiations.
And so I thought there actually is a chance he knows better.
There actually is a chance he could come up with some good deals here because his transactional nature of approaching everything, especially when it comes to anything involving money, could be really useful to the United States.
People said, oh, but these are our friends.
And Trump's response was, well, our friends are taking advantage of us.
And as it turns out, he was very right.
You know, you take Japan as one example, where you can't go past a street corner in any American city without seeing Toyotas for sale.
And yet we could not sell cars in Japan, not because of tariffs, but because of all the other restrictions they put on the sale of American vehicles.
Well, why did we put up with that?
What kind of friendship is that?
And so now we've renegotiated with Japan and things that look a lot different.
In fact, our deal with them looks very much like the deal he just announced that we struck with the EU, which notwithstanding all these predictions of store shelves are going to be empty.
It's going to be economic Armageddon.
We've won.
The Europeans wanted reciprocal zero tariffs.
Trump said no.
He said, I want 15.
Then they said, okay, how about 10?
He said, no, 15 and zero tariffs by you guys on our goods.
And that's the deal we just cut.
And the reason that the Europeans cut it is because our market is so huge, it's worth it.
They want access to it.
But on top of that, they're going to be doing billions of dollars of investment into the United States.
Like it's a multi-layer deal, which is extremely lucrative for the United States.
And it's not just Japan and it's not just Europe.
Trump's struck a bunch of deals in Asia, which make China less important to us, which have increased our trading presence over there.
And no one's really fluttering an eyelid in response to these tariffs, which is just padding the bottom line here in the United States.
For the first time in June, we were in the black on our monthly balance sheet, Piers, which we haven't been in forever because of the tariffs.
So now even his critics are starting to admit, holy, you know what?
They're working.
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Putin and the Scandal00:11:00
Where is he, do you think, on the foreign stage, Megan?
Because I was very struck today by his little monologue he did about being a peacemaker, because people seem to forget how unusual it is to see a Republican president in particular who constantly tries to forge peace rather than perhaps some of his predecessors who preferred to forge war.
And you see it almost everywhere.
This is a president who does not believe that warfare is anything other than a bad thing.
Yes, sometimes you have to be strong and defend yourself, but ultimately, it is not a good thing for America to engage in endless foreign wars.
They're expensive, both in human life cost, both in financial cost.
And I look at what he's doing now with Putin.
You know, I've said to people for a while, just watch him with Putin, because if Putin keeps pushing him and he keeps openly mocking him by having cordial conversations on the phone and then bombing the hell out of the Kiev at night, if he keeps doing that, he will tip Trump into a place where I think Trump now is, where forget the 50 days we were going to wait.
You've got 10 to 12 and then I'm going to do something.
I think this is a significant moment for Putin.
I think so too.
And it's funny because I think Democrats couldn't take Trump at his word on I'm not for forever wars or wars at all because they can't get it through their heads that Trump is really secretly a Democrat.
I mean, like he grew up a Democrat.
He was a Democrat for most of his adult voting life.
He wound up being more conservative in his older years and ran as a Republican.
But let's face it, he's been a Democrat far more of his life than he's been a Republican.
And notwithstanding the fact that he shares a lot of Democratic ideals, they loathed him because he's not woke and the way he spoke about immigrants and women and you name it, right?
That they just couldn't get it through their heads that he might actually be aligned with them on some of their own ideals.
And the war, the war footing is the perfect example, right?
Because it's like they, up until recently, styled themselves as more of the peacenick as between the Democrat and the Republican parties.
And that's what Trump is, notwithstanding his lack of timidity when it comes to pinpoint strikes or showing military strength in the right circumstance, like the Iranian nuclear sites like Soleimani, like Baghdadi.
He's not afraid to unleash American power, but he gets in and he gets out.
He has no desire to linger.
And I've jokingly called Trump like the Rodney King president when it comes to foreign policy, which was this man who was brutally beaten out in LA riots.
And he came out and said, Can't we all just get along?
That's kind of Trump.
That's his approach to everybody.
Can't we get along?
Like he goes into the Middle East into Gaza, the middle of Gaza and Israel and says, let's just get along.
We'll build Gaziera, the Mara Gaza of the sea.
I'll take it over.
Everyone can prosper.
He goes to Saudi Arabia.
I mean, most of the 9-11 hijackers were trained in Saudi Arabia and were Saudi.
And what does he say?
It's only 25 years later.
It's not that much later that he goes over there and says, let's make each other super rich.
We can get along.
The Democrats just can't see it clearly because they have TDS.
It's very hard to get past the TDS.
But to me, this is exactly how American power should be wielded.
He's not afraid to drop it.
And one other point on Putin.
I completely agree with every word you just said.
And the thing with Trump is, to his credit, he needed time to get there on his own.
All these other swaggering so-called experts walked in there and tried to demand that he take a much more bellicose stance against Putin from the beginning.
That's not how Trump operates.
He's more of a negotiator.
He was kind of approaching it with like kind of nasty to our friends and kind to our enemies as a tactic to try to get the enemies to put their guard down and strike deals and so on.
And as the man who's actually going to have to provide the bombs that are going to kill a lot of people or inch, God forbid, the United States closer to a posture in which we're looking at a direct conflict with Russia, which literally no one over here wants other than like the Lindsey Grahams of the world.
He had to be convinced himself that Putin was not a guy with whom he could make a deal.
And you can see Trump now, after six months, which is not a lot of time, clearly getting there.
You mentioned Gaza there.
I was struck again by Trump today because I've had a position on this whole war from the start, that what happened on October the 7th was utterly horrific.
That of course Israel had to defend itself with force, which they did.
But I kept saying from the start for a few months, I don't know what a proportionate response is.
It seemed like the response was overwhelming.
And at what point would that cease to be proportionate?
And I've been really dismayed in the last few months by the way it seems to me that the Israeli government has moved from a position of self-defense to one of just obliterating Gaza, perhaps expelling all Palestinians, as people like Svondrich and the government are now openly saying, and starving children.
And I don't think the two things are incompatible.
I think you can be supportive of Israel's right to defend itself.
And you can support what Israel did with Hezbollah and what they did with Iran, as I have done, but also be incredibly concerned by these images coming out of Gaza now of starving people.
Where do you sit with this, Megan?
Because it is complex.
I don't for a moment suggest this is easy in any way.
But where do you sit with what is going on now with Gaza?
Well, I'm always reluctant to put too much stock in the images coming out of Gaza, that phrase, because they're manipulated and they're masters of propaganda and they're fine having their own children starve, just as long as they can put them on camera and show them off to the world.
That's Hamas.
And frankly, it's a lot of Palestinians.
So I'm very skeptical of taking those images at face value and saying it's Israel's fault.
Having said that, it's time.
It's time now.
Israel, whether it realizes it or not, has made itself the villain of the world in letting this thing go on so long.
They have lost support amongst their dearest friends.
And even the entire Democrat Party here in the United States has turned against them and they're losing Republicans by the day here in America, which is their most important ally.
So whether the fight continues to be just or not is almost irrelevant.
As Trump said when he was running this time last year, not yet elected, time to wrap it up.
And that's how I feel too.
And I've given Israel a long berth.
I fully understand as an American who was attacked on 9-11.
My country was that, you know, when you attack the United States and you kill thousands of our citizens, and Israel was in this position on 10-7, it's fine to respond.
And it doesn't have to be proportionate.
Whoever said it has to be proportionate, it can be overwhelming force to teach a lesson to any enemy.
You mess with us.
It's going to be extremely painful, disproportionately painful for you.
I have no problem with that.
But what Israel's doing now is losing its standing with the rest of the world.
And it can sit in its corner and claim that it's morally justified and it has the upper hand.
It's too late.
It's lost.
It's starting to lose too, even with its closest friends, its moral reputation, its moral high ground.
And as Trump said a year ago, time to wrap it up.
Yeah, completely agree.
Let's talk quickly about Jeffrey Epstein.
It seems to me the biggest problem with the Epstein scandal for Trump, which has obviously divided his entire base.
A lot of people on the right in America just squabbling with each other about this.
It seems to me the problem is probably nothing to do with anything Trump ever did with Epstein.
I don't think he's ever done anything criminal with Jeffrey Epstein.
It's the way they've handled the scandal has been so bad.
Leading everybody up to the water's edge and then not giving anyone a drink.
It's like rule one of how not to play out a scandal.
What do you think?
Completely agree.
This is self-inflicted.
First of all, nobody told Pam Bondi she had to issue that memo in the middle of a slow news summer where people would, of course, predictably be digesting it and the Republican base be horrified by it for the entire summer.
That's really how this has unfolded.
And whoever told the Justice Department that this could somehow be buried and that people would move on and that the Trump administration could get away with that ridiculous two-page summation of you're not getting any more information because there's no there there should be fired.
That person is an idiot and didn't understand the Republican base, certainly the core MAGA base.
And by the way, of course, their hackles have been up and their interest in this story has been at a peak in large part because of the two men Trump put in charge of his FBI.
You know, there were no bigger proponents of there being more to the Epstein story than Kash Patel and Dan Bongino.
And it's actually one of the reasons why Republicans were so thrilled to see them get put in charge of the FBI.
So you reap what you sow.
And if they had gotten in there and determined there actually is no there there, oh my gosh, it's very different actually being in a governing position versus being a podcaster.
And they worked with Bondi and said, my God, we're going to have some egg on our face because we were the ones who fanned this flame.
There was a way of handling it by having a full-blown presser where we could have asked whatever questions we wanted to ask.
And sure, the die-hard quote-unquote conspiracy theorists will never be satisfied because that's not how conspiracy theorists work.
They're never satisfied ever, no matter how much information is disclosed.
The vast majority of Epstein pushers, which I would say is 80% of the group, would have said, fine, we've gotten what we're going to get.
It was mishandled from the start.
And that's why there was a day on that Friday, early July, where Dan Bongino said behind the scenes, it's either Bondi or me, but one of us is going.
And the only reason he stayed was because he received administrative assurances that she would release more, that the administration would do more to satisfy what Dan thought were his own detractors.
In any event, now that the president's very annoyed that it won't go away, it won't go away because of the way he's handled it.
Everybody knows when you handle a scandal, the first thing to do is get out there early, get out there fully, answer all the questions, and then for the rest of the time, say, oh, I've answered everything.
I've answered everything.
Well, we know that's not true.
So it's drip, drip, drip.
The first move was, well, okay, we'll seek the grand jury transcripts in Epstein and Maxwell in their criminal proceedings, knowing that the judge was highly unlikely to release those.
And indeed, that's what's happened.
They've said no.
Now it's, we'll go talk to Ghelain Maxwell.
Okay, fine.
She's talking to them, but what really does she have?
Wouldn't she have offered it up already?
People are shocked, shocked.
No one ever went to talk to her during the course of the criminal trials.
Well, if she had something she was willing to give up that she thought could save her freedom, don't you think her people would have called the DOJ?
So now, can we really trust anything this woman says when she, it's either this, give something up or someone up or spend 20 years in jail.
Handling Political Fallout00:06:46
So they've really created this own pickle for themselves.
And we still haven't had a presser by Pam Bondi or even a long-form interview.
So it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for the complaints of why won't this go away.
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Yeah.
Finally, I've got to ask you quickly about Stephen Colbert.
Because Stephen Colbert got canned, it seemed to me, for very obvious reasons.
One, his ratings sucked.
Second, he'd been boring his viewers to tears with the constant anti-Trump diatribes.
Thirdly, he was costing $40 million a year off the bottom line for CBS.
I mean, any one of those would be enough to turf somebody out.
But the idea that they're now all making him some kind of martyr, right?
And that Donald Trump has cost him his job and forced him out.
Well, in a way, he has, not for the reasons the left are saying.
He's done it because of Colbert's obsession with Trump bashing, which just got so hyper-partisan that in the end, the public went, I don't want to watch this anymore.
And as Jay Leno said today, you know, actually, the late night shows from him, you know, back to Johnny Carson and others, at their peak, they used to tease everybody.
But what they didn't do was take obvious politically partisan positions.
What do you think quickly about Stephen Colbert?
I think he's the same as CNN.
He killed his own career.
Trump was Kvorkian.
He was sitting right next to him with the suicide machine saying, this is how it works.
If you want to do it, I'll show you.
But it was CNN and it was Colbert who said, yes, let me press the button and cause my own professional demise.
That's really what's happened there.
He decided to go for applause instead of laughs.
And that's the beginning of the end for any comedian.
And by the way, if this really were some Trump scheme to just take down Stephen Colbert because he told mean jokes about him in late night or so-called jokes about him in late night, why wouldn't he have gone after Kimmel when ABC News was begging to settle with Trump over his lawsuit against ABC's George Stephanopoulos?
Why if it was a vendetta against people who say nasty things about Trump on CBS, does Gail King still have her job?
Why does Scott Pelley, who is the headliner over at 60 Minutes, still have his job?
Why does Margaret Brennan? who antagonizes Trump administration officials every Sunday, though she's incredibly stupid and actually very helpful to Trump NetNet.
But why does she still have her job?
If he wanted to get rid of the people on CBS who are taking shots at him unfairly, you'd go up and down the line.
You get Nora O'Donnell out of there too, these two women who tried to tank the vice presidential debate against JD Vance.
You know, you could do all day on the CBS news people who are unfair to Trump.
It was not some vendetta against Stephen Colbert.
His show was losing $40 million a year.
It cost $100 million to make.
He had 200 staffers.
Piers, you and I used to be across from each other in prime time.
When I was doing the Kelly file, you know how many staffers we had on the Kelly file?
You know how many producers we had?
And in a given moment, between 9 and 12, they have 200 to make that show.
And guess how much money the Kelly file made when I was on it between 13 and 17?
It netted $100 million back then.
So that's how you keep your job.
Stephen Colbert had 200 employees and was losing $40 million a year.
That will get you fired all day, every day on any television show in America.
Yeah.
Finally, you've made a bit of news yourself as I walked in to do this today.
You've just hired a good friend of mine who was brilliant in her previous role, Hope Hicks, the former Trump press secretary, who's going to run your burgeoning global media empire.
And it comes at a time, other than congratulations on a great high, because I think Hope's fantastic.
But other than that, there's a brilliant thing that's come out.
Time magazine has released its list of the top 100 podcasters ever.
These are the most innovative, influential, informative listens in the history of podcast medium.
Do you know who they didn't include on there, Megan, out of 100, Joe Rogan, who's probably the most famous podcaster in the history of the medium?
The biggest.
Megan Kelly, Ben Shapiro, Bret Cooper, Candice Owens, Theo Vaughn, me.
Nobody actually out there who does not tow the woke liberal line made the top 100 ever.
And if a list ever laid bare the obvious problem with mainstream media, it's right there.
It's there.
The combination of Colbert and his left-leaning late-night hosts and the fact that in a list by Time magazine of 100 top podcasters, A, they leave us out, but they leave Joe Rogan out, the number one podcast in the world.
What do you think of that?
And, well, I think it's predictable.
And it's funny because the left, when more honest, will lament how strong we all are and is constantly saying they've got to find their own version of Joe Rogan, of Megan Kelly, of Piers Morris.
They got to find their own.
So wait, if we're so important and relevant that they need in order to win more elections to find their own version of us, how do none of us make the list?
And I actually did look at this the other day because I found it so amusing.
Do you sense any theme in the ones that they selected?
The New York Times', The Daily.
Here's one, Code Switch, Unpacking Race in America.
Who hasn't listened to that one, Pierce?
The Ezra Klein Show, another New York post.
Okay, Fresh Air from NPR, Pivot with Kara Swisher, Slate's podcast about audio book club, This American Life.
All of them are far left.
And the woman who was the correspondent for Time who made the selections focuses for her living on culture, society, and gender.
Deporting Millions of People00:14:56
She writes extensively on feminism, diversity, and the Me Too movement has written, for example, at length on the evolution of Barbie.
That is how we did not make the list and these other irrelevant people did.
Wait, you know what, Megan?
I've got a new book coming out in the fall called Woke is Dead.
I look forward to discussing that with you on your increasingly globally renowned podcast when it comes out.
Can't wait.
I'm joined now by the founder of Outkick, Clay Travis, and my Crystal Ball, the co-host of Breaking Poise.
Welcome to both of you.
Crystal Ball, let me start with you.
The Democrats have just crashed to a new 35-year low in popularity.
Trump has just announced a new trade deal with the EU, which is more advantageous to America than the previous deal.
Are you prepared to give Trump any credit today?
I will give him credit for humiliating the Europeans effectively.
But in terms of delivering for the American people, I mean, remember what we were sold originally?
90 deals in 90 days?
How did that work out?
And now we're going to have tariffs put on especially key pharmaceuticals coming out of Europe, not to mention European cars.
So what you're likely to see is price go up, prices go up for your average working class American.
So, no, for the American people, I think that this is not even close to a win.
And reducing the number of people coming in illegally on the southern border from 10 million in four years to, I think it was 6,000 last month.
Do you give him credit for that?
He certainly has cracked down on the border, no doubt about it.
But, you know, the cruelty of this immigration system, we're learning more and more about the men who were sent to Seacot with no due process, who were raped and tortured and abused.
We're learning more about the conditions in Alligator Alcatraz.
I mean, it's a horror show, which is exactly why the American people are revolting against all of his immigration policies across the board, even though that had previously been a strength for him.
All right, Clay Travis.
One of the problems, it seems to me, for the Democrats is their unwillingness to give Trump credit when he gets things right.
The Trump dementia or derangement syndrome, as people call it, it is a real thing, isn't it?
Because I think they would get so much better in terms of a relationship with Trump, with themselves, if they were just able to give him credit where he deserves it.
Well, first, the last time I was on with you, Piers, I think I said that I would dress as a full clown if the stock market in 18 months had not rebounded to where it was on election day.
We are, as I speak to you right now, at an all-time high.
I think you're right.
And by the way, I don't know if anybody else on that show who disagreed with me is willing to put on the clown nose, but maybe they should.
I hope they at least didn't sell their stocks despite the fact they were telling everybody else to do it.
But yeah, look, Trump ran primarily, Piers, on three things.
He ran on the economy.
He ran on border.
He ran on crime.
On the economy, we're at record highs in the stock market.
Inflation is basically beaten down to about 2.5%.
On the border, as you just mentioned, there are no illegals coming in at all.
We are deporting violent, illegal criminals at record rates.
And on crime, it's not getting a ton of attention, but we are on pace in the United States potentially for the lowest murder rate, lowest violent crime rate in the 21st century, if these numbers can hold for the remainder of this calendar year.
I don't see how you could look at those three things and not say, hey, first six months of Trump, it's not a disaster.
We've also started to lessen the amount of war.
There are less people dying.
He managed to destabilize the Iranian government and take back their chances of getting nuclear weapons without a single loss of life.
I can't think, Piers, in my life, I'm 46, of a better six months presidency than what we've seen from Trump so far.
Where would you criticize him, Clay?
If I were going to criticize him, it would probably be that I think on the Epstein case, I think that they totally overpromised and under delivered.
And I think it has knocked them off their stride.
I think Pam Bondi with phase one on the binders, whoever okayed that.
It was a colossal misstep that has created a mess of their own creation that was unnecessary and that they could have addressed in a more succinct, honest way with the public.
But if you take that off the calendar, I think you can say, look, the Senate has not moved as aggressively as they should have to confirm his judges.
They're not moving at a very good pace there.
I think you can address issues on that front.
But I think in general, if I were giving him a letter grade, I'd give him an A, maybe not an A plus, but an A.
And again, I think it's the best first six months of any president in my life.
Well, Crystal, what grade would you give Donald Trump?
So let me just clear up for your audience.
I am not some liberal Democratic sycophant who capes for the Democratic Party and can never give Trump credit.
In fact, in his first term, I actually supported the tariffs that he put in place because I thought they made some sort of sense.
This term, there is virtually nothing maybe changing like the pressure on the showerheads, that executive order, that I can get behind.
And I'll tell you why, Pierce.
First of all, his major quote unquote accomplishment at this point is the Big Beautiful bill, which will strip health care away from millions of people in order to fund a tax cut for the people who need it the least.
Second of all, the level of fascistic cruelty with regard to the immigrant population here is more horrifying than I ever could have even anticipated.
Deploying the military in American streets, rounding up people at Home Depot, sending them off with no due process to a slave labor camp.
Are you kidding me?
The idea that this is a peace president, hey, I thought he was going to solve the Ukraine-Russia crisis in a day before he even got into office, but that's still ongoing.
No change is there.
We have backed and funded an absolute campaign of starvation and horror in Gaza, and we started a new war with Iran.
So on every single level, this presidency has been a chaotic horror show and a disaster.
And the people who will be hurt the most in this country are the very working class people that Trump claimed and lied to support.
So I give him an F across the board.
And again, I am not some Trump deranged.
I've given him credit in the past.
I said it was good when he went and talked to the leader of North Korea.
I said it was good when he met with the Taliban to try to negotiate a deal, but he never actually had the stones to pull out of Afghanistan.
But in any case, he's a disaster this time.
I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined how terrible this administration would be and how quickly he's only six months in.
Do you know of interest, Crystal, how many people Barack Obama deported in eight years?
I know he deported a lot, Pierce.
But here, do you realize this though?
Clay said something earlier.
He said, oh, we're deporting record-breaking numbers of violent criminals.
Look, I'm fine with deporting violent criminals.
The reality is that's not what's happening.
Actually, the proportion of violent criminals that we are deporting is far less.
Why?
Because ICE agents have been told, stop chasing after the gang members.
Stop going after the criminals because that takes time.
That takes energy.
Instead, Stephen Miller says, go to the Home Depot, go to the 7-Eleven, round up the mom, round up the grandma, round up the person who is going through the asylum process and actually doing the proper things and hasn't done anything wrong and ship them off to Seacot.
It's disgusting.
And that's why there's truly a revolt against it from the American public.
I mean, the backlash against Trump's immigration policies is striking.
That wasn't actually my question.
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Yeah.
What is your question?
Well, do you know how many people Barack Obama deported in eight years?
He deported millions of people.
I'm not here to simp for Barack Obama.
I think he had a lot of cruelty in his immigration system as well, which I said at the time and have said afterwards as well.
Okay, that's fair enough.
Clay, in this immigration policy that Trump is prosecuting, I completely think what he's done on the southern border is brilliant.
It's great for America.
It's great for security.
He's completely stemmed the flow of people coming in there illegally.
And everyone should agree to that.
I also completely agree, and I think most Americans would completely agree, that the strategy that he set out to do of deporting people who are here in the United States undocumented and then commit a crime, I don't hear any Americans demurring about that.
They're like, okay, fine.
If you commit a crime and you're here and you're undocumented, you leave.
Where the problem comes, and Crystal hit on this, I think, there's something feel something very un-American about ICE patrolling Home Depot to find people who may have been there 10 years, may have had kids in the United States, maybe paying taxes, doing an honest day's work, who may be here undocumented, but who actually are contributing to American society.
Do you not have a problem with those kind of people being rounded up in the way they are and shipped out of the country?
Tom Holman says there's 20 million illegals in this country right now.
We know Joe Biden let in around 10 million in his four years, which is an unprecedented stem of illegal immigration.
So the first thing Trump had to do was shut down that flow.
Second thing he has to do is start to reverse it.
And this year he is starting to reverse that process.
I think it's unfortunate, but when you break the law, sometimes there are going to be stories that are important to get back.
In the same way, when you were in Venezuela and somebody got on the phone and they said, hey, if you come to America right now, they'll put you up in a hotel.
They'll feed you.
They'll give you Wi-Fi and you get to stay in Manhattan.
And you're living in squalor in Venezuela.
Do you think that encouraged millions of people all over Latin America, those kind of phone calls to make the trip to America?
I think it did.
And at some point, American generosity was being taken advantage of, and actual American citizens don't have the resources that they need.
So sometimes daddy has to take control and you have to sometimes be mean.
And I think that's the way that the Trump immigration policy has to go because the phone calls have to shift from, hey, you can stay in a four-star Manhattan hotel and get taken care of on American taxpayer dime to, hey, they're looking for people who are here illegally, don't come, and maybe even consider going back.
And historically, the way that immigration worked in this country when illegals came in was they came in seasonally and then they walked back, basically traveled back to Mexico and still had lives there.
What's happened is people have stopped going back to their countries of origin at all.
And we can't be.
I would ask to Crystal or anybody else, okay, you think it's being too mean.
What's the number of illegal immigrants in this country that would be too many for you?
For Crystal, for anybody else out there.
For me, 20 million is too many.
For a lot of Democrats, I think 100 million wouldn't be enough.
So where do you draw the line?
If you're breaking the law, sooner or later, there have to be consequences.
So can I just talk about that?
Yeah, Crystal, yeah.
I want to address a couple of things about that.
So first of all, I'm probably more permissive of immigration than your average Democratic Party member.
I know there's this idea that Democrats are open borders.
That's obviously preposterous.
But I believe, and I think this is borne out by the data, that immigrants overall are good for the country.
Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't a limit to the number of people that you can reasonably absorb.
Exactly what that number is.
You'd have to get an expert to study and to be able to say.
But there's something honest about what Clay is saying here, which is basically like the cruelty is the point.
We need to make an example of people.
It needs to be a horror show.
That's exactly why you have these grotesque ASMR videos of deportations, all this like fascist, fascist theater of marching everybody through the park, the intentional cruelty at Alligator Alcatraz, the shipping of people to Sikh, where again, we now know that there are reports of rape and torture and abuse.
Yeah, that is all an intentional part of the policy.
So I appreciate the honesty about that.
The dishonest part is there's always this rhetoric about, oh, well, we've got to take care of our people first.
Oh, we've got to make sure that American citizens are taken care of.
Bull shit.
This president just took healthcare away from 17 million people.
He's cutting food assistance to millions of people.
And you expect me to believe he cares about your average American citizen.
This trade deal that you guys are so hot on is going to jack up the prices on pharmaceuticals, on medicine, for your average American people.
So, you know, where is the care and concern for the American citizen here?
It's all just about scapegoating an immigrant population and saying they're the reason.
They're the reason for your pain and your problems when in reality, it's the very oligarchic class that Trump himself represents and serves and protects with all of his actions, including the protection of the Epstein files, by the way.
Okay, well, let's just pivot if we can to Gaza.
Megan Kelly earlier, Clay, was saying enough is enough.
Whether you supported Israel at the start of this as she did and I did, this has gone on too long.
It's too painful.
The disproportionate scale of what is happening now is turning Israel into a global pariah.
And I completely agree with that.
I just feel like someone like me who has always supported Israel, has a lot of Israeli friends, Jewish friends.
Every day this continues with all these images coming out of Gaza now, starving children and the endless civilian deaths that are being recorded every day.
The worst this gets for Israel and I think for the security of Jews around the world.
Gaza Aid Challenges00:09:32
And it shouldn't do, but it is.
Do you agree, Clay, that the time has come, this is brought to an end?
Well, I think Hamas is a suicide cult.
And the problem is they're not behaving in a rational fashion, which I think is what President Trump has kind of just thrown up his hands about is they see the destruction of Gaza and the suffering of their people as good for them politically because of what you just laid out.
There is no rationality associated with their decision making.
So how do you negotiate peace with a suicidal cult?
I think that's the challenge that Israel has found itself in the midst of.
And I think there is no good solution at this point in the wake of what they did on October 7th, which basically created the seeds of their own destruction.
And I think the analogy here is you can either go to Pearl Harbor or you can go to 9-11, where you had a sneak attack that initially appeared that it was going to be profoundly successful that actually led to the utter destruction of the people who engaged in the sneak attack.
And if you go back and look at what happened to Japan, or you go back and look at what happened to everyone associated with al-Qaeda in the wake of 9-11, it's been an unmitigated disaster.
And I think ultimately, Pierce, the challenge is, I think everybody wants there to be less kids dying.
I think everybody wants there to be peace in the Middle East of rational, good, sound mind.
The problem is Hamas is not a rational, sound actor, and they are, in fact, a suicide cult.
So how do you negotiate with them?
And I truly believe they see this as politically beneficial to them.
They're restricting the distribution of aid to the people who need it.
They're sometimes killing people when they're trying to take it.
So I think we're in a position with the value of Israel.
The problem play with that is, as the New York Times reported at the weekend, there is no actual proof that it's Hamas that has been preventing this UNA getting through to the United States.
I believe the evidence is pretty clear that Hamas is not acting in the best interests of the people that are living in Gaza and it's profoundly unfortunate.
Well, that is indisputable.
That is indisputable.
I'm talking about the issue of the aid.
And the truth is nearly a thousand or maybe more than a thousand now Gazans have been killed in these lines, you know, waiting for aid.
And the reality is that the vast majority have been killed by the IDF.
And the idea says, well, we were firing warning shots or people were moving towards us in a threatening way or whatever it is.
There's always some excuse.
We're going to launch an investigation.
We're going to do this.
And nothing ever happens.
And this is why Israel's reputation is plummeting around the world because people see thousands of starving Gazans, population of 2 million where half are under 18.
They're starving hungry.
We're seeing emaciated, you know, we've got the 40th anniversary of live aid.
These are scenes reminiscent now of what we saw in Ethiopia when Bob Geldoff rallied the world.
And I just don't see how any of this is a win for Israel.
It just, it is every day Israel's reputation is damaged.
The challenge is how do you end it?
And I think the challenge is if you don't have a rational political actor on the other side to negotiate.
It's so ridiculous because they don't give a shit about the hostages, Clay.
They're starving the hostages.
They're bombing the hostages.
The hostages have been emotional blackmail.
It's a lie.
They admit they don't give a shit about the hostages.
Ask the hostage families about how much Netanyahu cares about the hostages.
I've been to Israel and talked to hostage families.
You asked, how do you negotiate with Hamas?
Guess what?
The Trump administration can answer that question because they did it.
They negotiated a ceasefire.
And guess who?
The Trump administration just said no interest in peace.
Don't even know how to negotiate.
Guess who blew that ceasefire up?
It wasn't Hamas.
It was Israel.
And greenlit by the Trump administration, which has allowed Bibi Netanyahu and his psycho far-right ministers who are openly announcing that their plan is complete starvation and ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.
That is their plan.
It's not so mystery what's going on here.
They had to engineer over months, over years at this point, a complete famine.
Over the past 24 hours, 14 more people have starved to death.
Do you know how hard it is to starve an entire population?
So your butt Hamas why they're allowing bullshit is so tired.
Israel never, oh, they could never be in the wrong.
It could never be that they intentionally want to have a final solution here and fled as they do.
And they have no interest in the people of Gaza.
Hamas is not.
Okay.
Smotrich, who is an Israeli minister, just announced there should be no aid sent into Gaza, just shells.
That's it.
They have openly announced their plans to ethnically cleanse the entire Gaza Strip.
Is that okay with you?
Are you okay with innocent women and children who are not Hamas?
No, no, no.
Babies who are starving before they even say their first word.
No one wants innocent people to die of raw.
Then why are you running cover for them?
I'm not running cover.
Why are you running cover?
Yes, you are.
Obviously, you are.
Hamas is not.
It's like about Hamas stealing the aid and trying to kill people who are getting paid.
What a bunch of lies and bullshit.
This is the idea that there is no, the Israeli military said that's not true.
The ability of Israeli military.
Hamas is true.
Israeli military said that's not true.
Do you think Hamas is evil?
I think killing innocent civilians is evil.
And I'm willing to say it when it's Hamas who did it on October 7th.
And I'm willing to say it when it's our government funding a genocide where the Gaza city is not available.
Intentional terroristic killing, which is what Hamas did, and trying to negotiate peace with terrorists, which is what is a real Israeli leader.
What makes you think that the Israelis are intentionally negotiating peace?
There is no sign of that whatsoever.
None at all.
Clay, do you think that just all of the Gaza Strip being turned into rubble, churches, they are all hospitals?
All being destroyed.
Oh, it's just an accident.
It's just an accident.
Places as they can.
Hamas is to blame for the bread.
Please.
Oh, please.
No one.
Okay, let me jump in.
Your own party doesn't believe that.
Let me jump in.
Let me jump in.
I would make the point, Clay, that I totally agree with everything you say about Hamas.
But the problem is Israel should be better than Hamas.
But who can they be?
This is the challenge.
Well, here's my point.
But here's my point.
Israel.
Israel, as the only democracy in the Middle East, should be showing the world what humanity actually looks like.
They shouldn't be replicating the lack of humanity that Hamas show.
Everybody knows Hamas are a inhumane.
I think the challenge that Israel is doing.
For Israel to behave in a way that appears to be as inhumane towards starving children, innocent women being killed in huge numbers, all of this happening.
This is inhumane.
And I don't think it suits Israel's purposes either in getting rid of Hamas, which they can't appear to do, getting the hostage released, which they can't appear to do, or in enhancing their reputation around the world.
It's having the opposite effect.
And so I say, Miss as a friend of Israel, enough.
You've got to stop this.
You know, I messaged Netanyahu today on X and said, you've got to start starving children.
You have to.
Otherwise, the end result for Israel will be catastrophic.
I think the challenge they have is the minute they step out of controlling and patrolling Gaza and trying to, in some way, keep Hamas from coming back into power, the people who live there are going to allow Hamas to return to power.
And so there needs to be, in my opinion, a solution that removes Hamas from leadership in Gaza for all time.
If that means that you have to bring in other Arab countries that are also opposed to Hamas, which is many of them now.
And thanks to a weakened Iran, there is no supplement that is going to continue to uplift Hamas in Gaza.
That to me feels like the long-term solution.
Can I see something that can be helpful in that?
Okay, I want to just hang on.
Crystal, I want to just put on careers.
This is important.
Very quickly, in the last peace negotiations, Hamas agreed to step down from political leadership.
They agreed to that in the peace negotiations.
You can check Jeremy Scahill drop sites reporting on all of this.
And the Israelis said, we don't want that.
Bibi Netanyahu has loved having Hamas there.
He flew to Qatar to make sure that they were still getting their money because he always wants to be able to say there is no partner for peace.
So let's deal in facts and reality here.
The Israelis have decided they want to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip.
Playing Golf Diplomacy00:05:39
That is the plan they're putting into place.
They're announcing it, Clay.
You don't have to believe me.
You can listen to them.
Listen to what they're saying.
Starvation plans.
If they were, they could have killed the two million people immediately.
The head of the massage.
The head of the massage.
If they wanted.
You know what?
I actually think, if I could jump in, Crystal, if I can jump in, I actually think, Clay, when you listen to what Smodric said three weeks ago on camera, he made it absolutely clear what he wants, which is to, in his words, cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.
I now watch them pushing the Palestinian population into a smaller and smaller part of the Gaza Strip.
They've demolished 70% of it, making it uninhabitable.
I think it is crystal clear now that there is a movement in the Israeli government to get rid of the Palestinians from Gaza and move them into neighboring Arab countries.
And some of them are saying it openly.
And the actions on the ground suggest that is exactly what they want to do.
And I say that something.
When people said this was the real plan all along, I used to immediately want to get the Palestinians out of Gaza now.
And if they do that, it is a war crime and it's ethnic cleansing.
Anyway, we've debated Gaza.
Let's just move on quickly to something a lot lighter, I hope, although it may be contentious in its own way.
Are you a golfer, Clay?
A poor one, but yes, I love to golf.
Well, let's take a look at Donald Trump golfing in Scotland and see if he's spotting a thing untoward.
Now, what you actually saw there was the second caddy dropping a ball out of his pocket.
Let's have a look at it again now that we know that.
You see him there.
He's the guy in the red there.
Now, watch.
Out comes the ball and down it drops.
So Trump then plays the ball dropped by the caddy.
Now, a lot of people have said clear evidence that President Trump cheats at golf.
I have a different perspective on this.
He, when he's not playing competitive golf, i.e. at his club or whatever, he tends to go around in about two hours.
As a golfer for many years, you can only do that if you're basically doing what Trump is doing there.
And I'm told that what he does when he's playing for fun with friends or his kids or whatever is that the caddies carry the balls.
If he's in a bad position in the rough, in a bunk or whatever, to save time, they just drop a ball nearby and he plays on, which I don't have a problem with if that's what he's doing.
What do you think?
Look, I love when I'm out on the golf course.
There has never been a time where I've been on the 11th or 12th hole and not thought, I wish this round was over.
18 holes of golf takes an interminable amount of time if you're playing every ball where it lies, if you're recording every shot.
Look, if it's the open in Britain, if it's the US Open, if it's the Masters, yes, assiduously record every shot.
That rough, if you hit it in the rough, you could spend, you know, this, 30 minutes looking for your ball, or you can just say, Well, it roughly went in here.
Let's just play one here, and we'll go ahead and hit it.
Everybody has played with a guy that refuses to just drop, and it's miserable because you all have to go look for his ball.
And then it's like, oh no, that I did title is three.
Oh, that's a title is one.
That's not me.
Buddy, it's not the U.S. Open.
Let's go ahead and keep this train moving.
Trump plays fast.
He plays rapid.
I think that's the best way to play golf.
Frankly, 18 holes is too long.
They should, everybody should just play nine or 12 and call it a day.
So I got no issues here.
And Crystal, I would imagine you would be delighted that the President of the United States, as he approaches 80, is getting two hours of healthy living and fresh air, but isn't taking the usual four hours for a round of golf, which would mean he would spend too long not working for the American people.
You must be thrilled by that.
Listen, I am old enough to remember when Trump himself would criticize Obama for being away from the office on the golf course at all.
I haven't looked at the stats, but the number of days that Trump is, although to be honest with you, you know what?
I would rather Trump be away and not like locking people up in Seacot.
So go ahead, play some golf.
And I just will say I am also a golfer and a bad one.
And I also cheat all the time because I'm not hitting it out of some form of a situation.
Nobody has time for all of that.
But we ought to look at his record and his how he suddenly he somehow always wins his own club championships, but not on other courses.
It's a little suspicious, Pierce.
That's all I'm saying.
Well, I know a few golfers, Rory McElroy, amongst others, who played with Trump and said he was very good and played to a six-handicap and no cheating.
So I take people who like Rory who've played with him who said that.
But I haven't played with Trump.
I want to play golf with him that I can announce to the world what really goes on.
Thank you both very much indeed for your time.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
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