'Raging HYPOCRITES!' Should Sports & Politics Mix? With Luke Beasley & Joey Barton
Many people have been angered this week by the political statements of Team USA stars at the Winter Olympics. Asked about President Trump’s deportation crackdown, skier Hunter Hess said: “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the US.” Curling star Rich Ruohonen backed him up, saying: “What’s going on in Minneapolis is wrong,” Should sport and politics not mix? Or should athletes have the right to speak their minds? Piers Morgan debates the issue with YouTubers Luke Beasley and David Cone, former footballer and football manager Joey Barton and former athlete and Olympian and Times commentator Matthew Syed. Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: 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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Sport As Political Pantomime00:08:21
Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the US.
One, shut up and dribble, and two, Republicans buy sneakers too.
He's an Olympic athlete in many, many regards, live in a bubble and are detached from reality, as our pop stars vary to signal every time they get a chance.
You're Billy Eilish.
What are we doing, people?
We're just jerking each other off right now, talking about how, oh my god, some statements people have made about what is a woman's kind of rational.
Okay, cool, good.
We need a safety valve when they pump out anti-racism messages.
It's not that they don't care about racism, they want to take a break from it.
I thought that you weren't a big fan of things like taking the knee, the rainbow laces, and so on.
Because of that, rainbow laces, Piers?
You know that.
Many people have been angered this week by the political statements of Team USA stars at the Winter Olympics.
Asked about President Trump's deportation crackdown, skier Hunter Hess said, just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the US.
Curling star Rich Ruhonen has now backed him up.
What's going on in Minneapolis is wrong, he said.
There's no shades of grey.
Well, my reaction, like many Americans, was indignation.
Not about their views specifically, but about the fact they expressed them.
Sport and politics shouldn't mix.
And more's the point, there's no higher honor, surely, than representing your country at a major international sporting event.
You're there to represent the hopes and dreams of all of your compatriots.
You wear a flag and colours which stand for ideas and values spanning generations of history.
It's far bigger than grubby, ephemeral politics.
So for a few weeks at least, just shut up.
There is, however, always a tweet.
This is what courage looks like, said one Piers Morgan, as the Iranian national football team snubbed their national anthem in protest at the Qatar World Cup.
I've previously called for the England cricket team to take a political stand by boycotting matches against Afghanistan over the Taliban.
Once upon a time, I even supported the England football team for taking a knee.
And on that subject, there was a sustained campaign in the US which ordered NFL and NBA stars to shut up and dribble as they spoke out on racial issues.
The same people didn't seem to mind when players started doing the Trump YMCA dance after he was elected president.
So we're all probably a bit hypocritical about this.
Should athletes have the right to speak their minds?
Does it depend on what athlete, which country, which issue?
Or should they all just shut up and dribble or ski?
And like I said, are we all basically just raging hypocrites?
Well, joining me to debate this is a commentator with The Times of London and the former Olympian, Matthew Said, the former footballer and football manager, now host of Common Sex Podcast, Joey Barton, the host of Crane and Company, David Cohn, and host of the Luke Beasley show, Luke Beasley.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Matthew Saeed, my team very kindly found evidence of my rank hypocrisy about all this, which I kind of knew was probably lurking there.
I suspect most people are tinged with it, that inevitably, if it's a cause that you support, feel passionately about, or it involves, you know, a country like Iran, for example, the rules of don't speak out disappear quite quickly.
Do we need to be consistent or is it actually morally defensible to have one rule for that kind of situation and another for say free democratic societies?
Well, tragically, I agreed with almost everything you said in that intro, which is a slightly worrying prospect.
I mean, I'm massively into politics.
I stood for Parliament after the Olympic Games in Sydney, which was one of my last competitions for Tony Blair's Labour Party.
I write on politics.
I'm going on Newsnight later today to talk about British politics.
I'm so obsessed with it that I was at a dinner last night giving a talk with an audience, John Redwood, the former leadership contender for the Conservatives, Lord Lilly.
And I think it's great to be interested in politics, but I do believe that a healthy society needs an opportunity to switch off.
And sport for me, largely, is a safety valve.
You can relax, get away from the contention.
That's such a healthy thing to have in any society.
You know, if everything is politicized, sport, art, private lives, you're moving towards totalitarianism.
That's what really dictatorial societies had.
I mean, my sport was table tennis, and the table tennis players from China were held up in the 50s as icons of revolutionary virtue.
They were playing for the regime.
And then during the Cultural Revolution, they were bastions of revisionism.
That's terribly unhealthy.
And I don't like the armbands and the laces and the taking of the knee.
All of these are politically contentious.
Even things that might seem politically neutral or something we can all support, like we're against racism.
But why not?
We're against sexism or we're against autocracy.
Whenever you make a choice about the slogan you're going to emblazon on a football match, it becomes political.
However, I have to confess to hypocrisy because as you were talking, Piers, I thought to myself, well, hang on.
I've written a number of columns saying that Russia should be thrown out of global sport because of the invasion of Ukraine.
So I think you're right.
When you're deeply passionate about an issue, and I think Russia's invasion and continuing onslaught in Ukraine is one of the great atrocities of the modern world, then, yeah, I think I feel like I should speak out.
But by and large, that importance of having some aspect of our culture as a way to get away from this deeply polarized political debate, I think is vital.
You know, it's interesting.
I remember the Qatar World Cup when Qatar were getting attacked because homosexuality, for example, is illegal in Qatar.
And there were a lot of people caught in the hypocrisy trap there, David Beckham and others who were big LGBT allies, supposedly, but then took millions to go and work for the Qatar government during the World Cup.
But the interesting fact pointed out to me was, actually, of the 32 countries that are in the finals, one in, I think, eight of them, so a quarter of all the countries, it was illegal to be homosexual, right?
Most of the African nations were competing and so on.
So, you know, you've got to be morally consistent here.
Oddly, you were sounding a little bit like Joey Barton with some of that, which is not something I ever thought I would discover on the airwaves.
Joey, good to see you.
You know, when I hear Matthew there, I kind of think he's right.
I mean, you've been on this thing about virtue signalism and so on for a long time.
Do you think there are any exceptions?
And if you're honest, have you yourself, have you ever, you know, found exceptions?
Have you ever, as a player or a manager, had a cause you've spoken up about?
Or have you been morally consistent and never spoken about any of this stuff?
Well, firstly, Pete, you'd be surprised to know that me and Matthew were once neighbours and spent a lot of time together.
So it's no coincidence.
We do share a lot of conversations and we've disagreed and agreed on many, many things.
And it's wonderful to see your face, Matthew, as well as the other guys on the panel.
Look, for me, I think sport is a huge part of certainly our country and a worldwide culture.
And, you know, when I think of being a kid, you know, all the different political messages that have, you know, been raised through me watching incredible athletes, whether it was the Olympics or, you know, sport in other countries, you know, raise awareness to it by, you know, taking a stand and saying what do you believe.
And I believe in a free, you know, democracy that we have to have the ability for people to showcase their beliefs.
You know, sunlight being the best disinfectant.
If people believe in something and they want to, you know, raise people's awareness to it, then I do think they should be allowed to do that.
Athletes Accepting Consequences00:02:26
I mean, it is difficult.
And I do agree with Matthew and how much and how little of it we allow through the gate.
You know, sport then becomes, you know, a bit of a pantomime towards the political motives.
But I do feel that if people feel really strongly like the athletes in the Winter Olympics, I don't agree with what they're protesting about because it looks like it's a hot topic in America.
But what I do agree with is their right to protest it and raise awareness to it because I've paid attention to it more now than I ever would have because of these athletes in America and the discourse and the discussion around my dinner table is about the rights and the wrongs and it does allow people to converse and conversations lead to, I think, better outcomes.
David Cohn, I mean, it struck me when I was watching the team USA athletes in the Winter Olympics, criticizing their country and trying to create a bit of a divide between them and what maybe some of their compatriots feel and so on.
That to me slightly crosses a line.
You know, I was thinking about if it were Team GB athletes, for example, in any Olympics and they began criticizing Britain on an international stage, representing their country with all the flags and all the patriotism that goes with that, I'd be pretty pissed off, I think.
I can understand why many Americans have been annoyed about this.
What's your view?
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Well, Pierce, thank you first for having me on.
You hit on some very important issues in your open there.
And I've had this discussion many times with my two co-hosts, Jake and Blaine Crane.
Moral Bullying In Sports00:08:25
And inevitably, two phrases come up.
One, shut up and dribble, which you brought up.
And two, Republicans buy sneakers too.
Now, I have never been in the shut up and dribble camp.
I don't believe just because you are an athlete, you should shy away from voicing whatever opinion that you have, provided that you can accept the responsibility and whatever consequences may come from your employer or your family or your community.
Muhammad Ali was a world-class athlete.
He felt compelled to speak up on the Vietnam War and various other issues.
You know, where I take issue though, Pierce, is when we are forcing athletes to take a stance, okay?
And this really gets to what are you called in this life to do?
If you feel you are called by God to speak out on such an issue in addition to your athletic ability, then by all means pursue that.
But Michael Jordan was also a world-class athlete.
He didn't focus on anything but singularly being the greatest basketball player he could be.
He said, Republicans buy sneakers too, and I am not going to speak out on any issue that I am not an expert on.
And I think that most of us have room in our hearts to respect both approaches there, provided that they are done in a genuine, sincere, and quite honestly, a respectful manner.
It's interesting.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
Well, Matthew, I was going to actually ask you this, actually, because that's just reminded me of a good example of the kind of moral bullying that sometimes goes on to signal one's virtue in sport.
And the classic example to me, is it James MacLean, the footballer who refuses to wear a poppy, is that his name?
The Irish footballer, Northern Irish footballer.
And if people, you know, every year it's the same debate.
He won't wear a poppy in the run-up to Remembrance Day.
And his argument, if you actually listen to him, makes perfect sense.
He's from Derry in Northern Ireland, scene of the Bloody Sunday, one of the, you know, a real atrocity really committed by British troops against the people of Northern Ireland at the time.
And he comes from one of the very streets that was most caught up in this.
And it would be, in his eyes, a betrayal.
And as he pointed out, the poppy represents everyone who has served in the British Armed Forces.
It doesn't just mean World War I, World War II.
It's everybody, including the members of the parachute regiment who committed that atrocity on Bloody Sunday.
And so once I heard his long explanation, I thought, well, who are we to bully him morally into wearing a poppy when that is his reasoning for not wearing it?
And I felt the same way about, you know, for example, there have been football players who are committed Christians who, you know, have a problem with homosexuality.
I'm a Christian.
I don't happen to agree with them.
But they are, and it's a religious-based belief in their case.
Should they be bullied into wearing LGBT regalia, for example, when they're playing?
Even if it's in countries like Senegal, where the backlash against their families could be extreme, right, for doing that.
And again, I don't think players should be bullied in any sport into doing that kind of thing by governing bodies.
So that I think was a really interesting point by David.
What do you think, Matthew?
Well, I think the line here is Joey's talked about sports people having the right to express an opinion.
Of course they have a right to express an opinion.
They can do it on a substack or they can go onto a soapbox.
But leveraging the cultural collateral of sport using the sporting arena, the field of play, that's why I have a problem with it.
And when governing bodies support the rainbow laces or taking the knee, and then somebody doesn't want to get involved in that, they don't want to be political, that's when it becomes very difficult for them.
And one thing I would perhaps say in defense of the American athletes' peers that you mentioned is I think some of them were not expressing an opinion just after the race when a microphone is put in front of their mouth.
They did it in the press conferences after because they were asked specifically of their opinions by the journalists.
And then it becomes invidious for them because these are people who are good at hitting a ping pong ball over there or good at skiing down a slope.
They don't necessarily wish to offer an opinion on we do.
That's why we've come on the show.
But the thing I just wanted to briefly point out is when Michael Jordan was asked to support the campaign of a Democratic senator, I think, who was trying to unseat Jesse Helms, a Republican who was a bit notoriously on the right and perhaps mildly racist, he said, no, Republicans wear sneakers too.
That was a marketing decision.
He wanted to use the Knight brand to connect with as many consumers as possible.
And Tiger Woods used that too, never said anything controversial, stayed away from it, not because he wasn't political, because he thought that if he was a billboard for multinational brands, he didn't want to alienate any consumers, Republican or Democrat.
I think that has shifted.
Gary Lineker was a bit like that.
You know, he was a billboard for Walker's Crisps, and he was very non-political.
But I think the world has changed a bit.
And Colin Kopernick and others have leveraged politics in a way that I think makes it actually commercially viable to become quite political.
And it's a very interesting change that over the last 15, 20 years.
Well, I think that's a really interesting point.
Let me bring in Luke Beasley.
I want to play a mashup of the team USA athletes getting political at these Winter Olympics so that viewers who haven't seen it can see it in the proper context.
I'm really hoping to show up and represent my own values, values of inclusivity, values of diversity and kindness and sharing.
It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now, I think.
Yeah, it's definitely a tough time in our country right now.
And I think I just continue to represent my values.
Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S.
It's been a hard time for the community overall under this administration.
I think that as a country, we need to focus on respecting everybody's rights and making sure that we're treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect.
To Luke Beasley, what do you make of that?
Yeah, those are patriots.
That is so incredible that they chose to say that.
As was referenced, some of them, I think, got asked, or maybe all of them, and maybe were encouraged to share their view.
But we all as, or, you know, I'm American.
Americans just watched the world just watched the president come out in his administration and lie about people who had been shot during protests.
To me, I'm a little bit disoriented by this conversation because it's like all of this thought and stress and you're referencing.
I guess some people out there are upset that they're speaking out.
To me, I wish that outrage was channeled at the reasons that they feel the need on the world stage to speak out.
But I will say a lot of people are misrepresenting what they're saying.
It cracks me up because some of them go, I just think we should represent love and kindness and compassion to which MAGA reacts.
They must be attacking us, which no one even named Trump.
It didn't sound like, but was just speaking about the moment of division.
And then in many people's views, including mine, an authoritarian shift in the United States.
And to use your platform to do the most American thing in the world, which is represent your country and your people while being critical of your government, to me is the height of patriotism.
And lastly, I do agree.
How would you feel?
Okay.
How would you feel?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right, but Luke, how would you feel if it was a conservative voting athlete at the Summer Olympics during the Biden administration ripping into Joe Biden, for example?
In other words, if you're honest, if you have an intellectual honesty about this that is not based on partisan politics, it's easy to say, well, I love them whacking Trump or the Trump administration, but would you feel the same way?
You know, I had the same debate in an earlier debate about the Bad Bunny Super Bowl performance, right?
Everybody, it seemed to me, took politically partisan lines and a lot of it was ridiculous because they would have said the complete opposite had it been their gun.
In other words, if Kid Rock had been the halftime show, all of those saying bad bunnies are leftist activists and shouldn't be allowed to perform would have said, oh, great, we've got a right-wing activist.
That's fantastic.
So my question for you is, would you feel the same way if it was a conservative voting athlete whacking Biden?
No Backlash For Politicians00:11:19
For example.
Okay, hear this out.
Hear this out, okay?
I would not like it because they would be wrong.
And what is being said by the Olympians now is correct.
But the reason that I wouldn't like it is not because I don't support the fact that people can and even should, in many cases, if they feel compelled, use their platform and their influence to advocate for what they believe in.
So, actually, you can't go find any clips of me being like, shut up and dribble, or people shouldn't talk about politics in this space or that space.
I agree, we're all a little bit tired with everything being politicized, but in a sense, it's kind of one of those moments where you're called to.
So, for me, I am morally consistent on this because I think you absolutely have that right.
The reason that I'm critical of Nikki Minaj, for example, is not because I think she should just stick to music, it's just because I disagree with what she's saying.
And so, I'll critical or I'll criticize what she's saying and not the fact that she's saying something.
Okay, Joey Barton, I mean, I was quite surprised by your initial answer, actually, because I might be wrong, but I thought that you weren't a big fan of things like taking the knee, the rainbow laces, and so on.
Uh, I mean, just clarify that.
I started the rainbow laces, Piers, you know, that.
All right, so you've been very supportive of that.
No, I started it, so it was myself, Stonewall, and Paddy Power, the bookmakers in the UK.
Oh, I didn't know the idea, yeah, that had the idea.
And it was then taken on by the Premier League.
And why I was so advert, you know, so vocal in speaking out against it is because I felt I was the one who lowered the drawbridge.
And what it got taken into and how it became politicized, and the virtue signaling that exploded in our country, I felt it was used as a vehicle for that.
So, and obviously, you know, I believe in free speech, even if that is what you don't want to hear.
Now, when Mark Gay, the Crystal Palace, it's now Manchester City captain, was forced to wear the armband that was rainbow laces, and he wrote I Love Jesus on it, which he referenced earlier, and he was sanctioned for that.
I thought that that's just where it overstepped.
It was something that was used to raise awareness, which I think sport can do brilliantly.
I disagree with the guys that you should just play football and shut up, or play basketball and shut up.
The world's changed.
That's the old world.
You know, everybody now is a business on their own.
They've got their own social media.
They've got their own, you know, business beyond.
Do you think players should be right?
But should but should sportsmen and women be compelled to do it.
In other words, if a sporting-it should be a team decision, shouldn't it?
If you vote as a team, if you say as a team, right, we're going to wear that or we're not going to wear it.
I think you should have the ability, you know, based on religion and whatever man in the sky people believe, you should have an opt-out.
And it shouldn't, you know, James McLean, point in case you made a great point.
He obviously doesn't align himself with the poppy.
Lots of people in Britain do.
He doesn't.
He's an Irishman.
And he, you know, some Irishman, Roy Keene, for instance, will wear the poppy on when he does his punditry on sky sports, but James won't.
And obviously, there were atrocities in Cork in the Troubles and with the British Empire.
And, you know, obviously, you know, the Latter Day one that James takes umbrage to because he knows people in court directly in that prop in the problem there and how it affected their lives.
He rightly opts out of the poppy.
And I totally agree with his stance on it.
There should be no sanction.
He shouldn't get the authorities or anybody looking badly on him for it.
And that's where we have to be careful with it because sport, I remember all across my journey, certainly being influenced by sportsman, Robbie Fowler wearing the Docker's t-shirt.
You know, many, many different ones, as we spoke about, the athletes at the Olympics, where they held up, you know, the hand with the black glove.
You know, the historic moments where sportsman Muhammad Ali, the greatest sportsman ever, you know, gave up his career to stand up for people.
He says, you know, I haven't been called a bad word by anybody from kind of Vietnam.
And I'm not going to go there and kill those yellow people or whatever he said at the time.
They've done nothing to me.
And when you think about the impact that had, it would have been easier for them to say nothing.
And if all sportsmen say nothing, and you know, whether you disagree with it, I don't agree with this, what these guys are saying.
You know, when you look at the Winter Olympics, it's already a niche population of freestyle skiers from Colorado or Espan men.
So they aren't going to like some of the policies that are hurting the working people of America.
You know, these Olympic athletes, in many, many regards, live in a bubble and are detached from reality, as are pop stars, as we've seen at the Grammys or movie stars, as we see.
You know, virtue signaling when every time they get a chance, you know, Billy Eilish living in a house that's on native land or whatever.
So that's where it's wrong.
But I do believe, you know, we should allow the sunlight of that to be the best disinfectant and show people how to be hypocrites.
And there's also other people, like in our country, for instance, Kevin Simfield, who should have got a knighthood.
And we've got MPs getting knighthoods and Kevin Simfield's just gone and done the business for his friend, raised loads of awareness.
And that's the way to do it.
That's the sportsman using this platform correctly.
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Said, you've essentially pointed out it's now being commercially sorry, Piers.
Sorry, I was involved.
When I played, I got behind that Hillsborough petition, which I think you joined along like that, which helped get the families, the names read out in Parliament.
And that's where the sport, you know, that's just one thing.
But sports can be huge for that.
And I think we've got to protect people's right to express their opinion.
That is, even if you disagree with it, even if you don't agree with where they do it or how they do it, you know, footballers used to lift the tops up and have something written on the top and jump into the fans.
And they've sanitized all that because they don't like where it goes and it might hurt viewers and it might hurt money getting made and sponsorship and the right look.
Well, the right look is not allowing these atrocities to take place.
They don't have to worry about it.
Right, so that's essentially players.
Right.
Well, Matthew, you touched on this when you said that it's become commercially viable for people to take positions now.
I was struck by Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, because I was a little bit cynical.
I love Pep Guardiola, but he came out with an extraordinary political rant the other day.
Let's just take a look at it first.
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When I see the image, I see the image, I'm sorry, it hurts.
It hurts to me.
That's why in every position, I can help speaking up to be a better society.
I'm not, I want to change anything, but I try.
I will be there.
Look what happened in the United States of America.
We were good and Alex Pruti.
So have been killed.
One in an informer and NHS.
Imagine NHS, you know, five, six people around him.
Go on the grass, ten shots.
Tell me how you can defend that.
Now, what was the reason I was slightly cynical is I don't think he ever does that when Manchester City are winning everything.
I think he it may have been a distraction tool.
I'm not saying for a moment he doesn't believe it, but it kind of plays into what you were saying, that there's no kind of big backlash now when someone like Guardiola does that, for example.
Well, and also, there's hypocrisy there because he earns his money from a regime that uses labor who have their human rights abused.
And whenever, I mean, the thing that I think is perhaps interesting as a former sports person is that we often deify these people.
They're heroes because of their athletic prowess in the way that singers are heroes because they're wonderful artists.
That doesn't mean their opinions on politics are going to be even mildly cogent.
You mentioned the singer who said at the Grammys the other night, this is stolen land.
I just couldn't help thinking, you know, she probably lives in a huge pile.
And having said it, she does.
What's going to stop people coming and taking it from her?
These are the things that aren't.
Well, they have.
They've actually been round.
They've been round to Billy Yalish's mansion in California and said, well, if it's stolen, we're having it.
I mean, one thing it does give you the opportunity is to puncture the rank hypocrisy of many people who leverage a system to accrue wealth and then they turn on the system, not realizing that if they did so and their arguments were followed to its logical conclusion, they would lose everything.
But on the issue that Joe said about we mustn't sanitize sport, we must keep sanity.
Some of us go to sport.
I go to Brentford, Premier League club, to escape.
We need to get away from politics.
That doesn't mean we're non-political.
It's because we care about politics.
We need a safety valve.
Most of the fans I talk to at Brentford, when they pump out anti-racism messages, it's not that they don't care about racism or geopolitics or the level of interest rates.
They want to take a break from it.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That is a healthy thing.
Sure, these people can go and express an opinion, as I say, on Substack or if they get an invitation to Newsnight, but not on the field of play.
We are going to watch them play football, not to give us their political opinions.
And that distinction, I think, must be missed.
I do agree with that.
I want to bring Dave.
Let me bring David back in because just before we...
Well, hang on a sec, Luke.
I want to bring David back in.
I wanted to switch gears to another story before we finish.
And this is the ongoing story of transgender athletes in women's sport and the revelation where mission by Iman Khalif, the Algerian boxer who, of course, won an Olympic gold medal competing in women's boxing at the Paris Olympics, having been banned from the world championships for having male chromosomes.
In an interview with French magazine L'Keep, Khalif has now admitted to having not just a female phenotype, but also the SRY gene, which is essentially the start button of male development.
And she said, yes, and it's natural to have female hormones.
People don't know this, but I've already lowered my testosterone levels for competitions.
But has resolutely so far refused to have a sex test and plans to defend the title in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
She said, or she, he, whatever you want to call Iman Khalif, says for the next games, if I have to take a test, I will.
I've no problem with that.
But surely the easiest way around this is just to take a sex test.
If there's any doubt, as there clearly is about Iman Khalif, just take the test and make the result public.
Sure.
Authoritarianism Degrading Society00:10:36
And to ensure competitive fairness there in the headline that you're talking about that came out a week or two ago, that was the least surprising headline that I've ever seen.
And this is why, you know, we've befended Riley Gaines and we've tried to give her a platform on our show.
And I know that you have done the same.
And I will say, I just wanted to follow up quickly too.
As an American, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage for not knowing the poppy armband situation.
But Pierce, it does sound similar to an issue here with Jonathan, Jonathan Isaacs, the NBA player, who had become famous for just going about his normal routine when everyone else is making a point to take a knee or to make a cultural statement.
I think it was Dolly Parton who said, I don't touch on hot button issues because when I do, half the people will hate me and the other half thought that I already agreed with them.
And so this idea that this new age mentality that we always have to speak out, I do think that that's wrong.
And as far as, you know, when it comes to America, specifically at the Olympic Games, I do take issue with the fact that America's imperfections are being used as reasoning for ripping down the entire foundation of our civil our civilization.
There is no nation, there is no community which is absolutely perfect.
So of course you could critique it, but it seems like America is a country so great, even the people who hate it won't leave.
Wait, you're saying Luke Beasa, you're shaking your head there.
Why?
Yeah.
Yeah, you're saying people criticizing the Trump government is causing the foundation of our society to collapse.
I would say him violating a bunch of constitutional principles is way more degrading to the foundation of our system.
Him going after media outlets that he doesn't like, locking up journalists, people being killed in the streets and then smeared afterwards.
His actions in degrading by turning the DOJ into just a political weapon and on and on and on we go.
That's what's degrading the foundation of our system.
I think people calling that out is the most American thing ever.
And I see that as a matter of fact, I think this issue is so much bigger than just one administration.
Again, we're going as far back as talking about Michael Jordan in the 90s.
We're talking about Muhammad Ali in the 60s.
This is so much bigger than just one single administration.
Quite frankly, I don't think it would matter who is in the office right now.
But how?
We are pressuring so many athletes to speak out.
If you don't speak out on whatever the imperfection is, again, not administration, but whatever there is imperfect about America as a system, if you don't do it, it means you don't care.
I think that is...
Yeah, you just that's a different claim.
I totally agree.
If you don't want to speak out, you don't need to speak out and people can react however they like.
You made a claim that sounded like if people choose to speak out or if there's a culture of calling out what is this insane authoritarianism that we're witnessing, then that itself is a degrading agent to the foundation of our society.
That is what you laid out.
Okay.
Cool.
No, that's why I mentioned that.
Oh, hang on.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Luke, on the separate issue of transgender athletes in women's sports.
Yes.
What is your view of that?
Do whatever is going to keep fairness and transports this and transports that.
Got it.
Good.
Well, what is your view, though?
Should they?
Take the sex test, damn it.
Well, why not?
No, I said take it.
No, but what do you actually believe?
I believe that.
I'm agreeing with you.
Take the sex test.
So just to be clear, you think that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women's sport?
I mean, yeah, I think that would be fine if leagues decide to add that restriction.
And then if you have a certain way, then if you transition this far, their advantage goes away.
I'm fine with that too.
Whatever is going to allow for the most fairness is good with me.
Okay.
I mean, Joey Barton, it seems to me we're going to look back at this period in people will think we lost our minds about this issue because it's so obviously unfair and unsafe, as we saw with Imam Khalif.
I mean, you know, she fought an Italian woman boxer who quit after 40 seconds because she'd never been hit so hard in her life.
We're literally going to have people killed if we're not careful.
Yeah, Angela, Karino, but you've got to think the other side of that when the guys were talking.
You've got to remember, a lot of people, a lot of players now have like a PR team around them.
And they'll, you know, when they get so big, they'll, you know, whether it was you've seen with Sir David, it was a mission to get a knighthood and they'll have, you know, Marcus Rashford used his campaign.
Now, how many of these guys are actually, if you meet them and talk to them, not disrespect to footballers, but they're not capable of strategizing how to grow their PR machine, how to grow their brand.
And in the midst of that, use, you know, some of the topics, hot topics of the time to kind of navigate that field.
So, you know, sometimes athletes really, certainly now in the modern era of content, content, content, they've got to be seen to be saying things.
Now, the problem you've got is it's almost, you know, there's something crazy happening on an almost weekly basis here.
You know, Iman Khalifa shouldn't have happened.
Let's be honest.
If there's any doubt about whether somebody is, you know, a female, then they shouldn't be in a physical combat sport where, you know, broken bones and lives can be taken.
So I thought that was dangerous.
And you said, will we look back, Piers, and think we've lost our mind?
I think there'll be no doubt about it.
When people look back at us, they will be convinced.
You know, we couldn't make the simplest of decisions.
I mean, our current prime minister, whether he's in the role by the time this program finishes or not, I'm not sure.
But our current prime minister said that 99% of transgender people or whatever, he left a huge window open.
Well, you said 99% of women don't have penises.
I was like, well, who are the other ones?
That's our second in-command, David, David Lamy, say women, men can have grower cervix or something.
So, you know, it's crazy times, no doubt, that the future generations will look back at us and realize that we did lose our minds.
Let me jump in real quick.
You know, we had people putting masks on whilst they were driving alone in a car.
You know, it was a strange time for humanity.
What are we doing, people?
We have an assault on our democratic republic like we haven't seen in generations.
And we're still talking, we're just like jerking each other off right now, talking about how, oh my gosh, trans, some statements people have made about what is a woman is kind of irrational.
Okay, cool, good.
We've established that point.
People should be more clear about the difference between biological sex and your gender identity.
We should have fairness in sports.
Good.
And now let's get back to the people.
You said someone could die.
You know what?
We're going to wait.
You know what we're going to look back on?
When we look at this moment in history, we're going to think about how ridiculous it was that people were blowing out of proportion, random culture war issues, instead of talking about the people who are actually dying, not the potential to die, the people who are actually dying at the hands of our government as people with masks are roaming our streets and ripping citizens out of their cars.
And we're talking about, for 30 minutes, we're talking about how should people speak out at sporting events or not?
And then trans sports.
It's mind-bending.
The trend.
So you're taking people out of your country and bringing it into your country.
We'll let Matthew respond to that.
Sorry, imagine that people who don't recognize the absolute outrage about woke overreach.
I already told you I disagree with woke overreach.
What are we doing?
As culture war trivia, look at the campaign slogan that Trump pumped out relentlessly in the last month of the last presidential election.
Camelo is for they, them.
Trump is for you.
I don't like Trump at all.
Most of my columns absolutely despise the drift towards authoritarianism.
But the reason Trump had the platform, the reason he won the election is because of these culture war issues.
A huge number of people in America were completely by the pronoun sport.
So don't disagree this.
Talking about is very, is the impetus behind the drift that we're seeing.
Okay, so now that we've established we agree on that, isn't it, especially within the context of Olympians speaking out as we were talking about before, would you not agree that people overemphasizing things?
It's not that you shouldn't talk about them, it's that putting overemphasis as to distract from like you talked about in the 2024 campaign.
Do you know why it was so important for Trump to scare people about an issue that most likely wasn't going to affect them?
Kamala's for they them and you play some clip where she has already tried to clarify that she didn't mean trans prisoner blah blah blah.
That was so necessary for his campaign.
It's because if Americans weren't so distracted by certain programs to focus on those types of issues so much, not that they shouldn't at all, but so much, if they can get them to focus on that, if they were focusing on the more important issues, there's no way they would have supported Trump, who we knew before the election was going to do all of this.
It was his plan.
He specified his economic agenda, was looked at by a bunch of other people.
Luke, this is bad.
The problem, Luke is the same.
You're the problem, Piers.
Luke, Luke, Luke, here's the problem.
Just kidding.
Love you.
Is that you had four years of Donald Trump and people like you were shouting away for four years about how he's the new Hitler?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Never said that.
Then you had four years without, well, then you had four years without Trump.
And after four years without Trump, more of you in America voted for Trump to come back than voted for him originally.
So whilst you may not like it, and it's very clear that you have a very clear idea of the issues that are important to you, actually they weren't shared by a majority of your fellow Americans at the last election.
They cared about other things, including the absurd woke agenda, including immigration, including foreign wars and so on.
You may not like it or agree with it, but you are one of the reasons Donald Trump got re-elected.
Well, guess what?
You were fighting that front.
You might not like that friend.
And everybody else was talking about that front.
Listen, more Americans believe Biden now, based on recent polls, was doing better as president than Trump currently is.
So Americans really.
Biden was a zombie.
Biden was right and you were wrong.
Biden was a zombie.
You didn't respond to what I said.
Polling reveals Americans are feeling that I was right and you were wrong.
They actually are regretful over electing Trump.
And it would have been a sedile situation last night.
I've not expressed a view about whether it was right or wrong or not.
Uncensored Final Statement00:01:50
I'm not going to leave on the subject.
What I do know is that Luke, hang on.
What I do know is that the left in America, for three years of Biden's four years in power, lied to themselves and to the world about the cognitive disrepair of their leader.
The guy was Gaga by the end.
And the fact that he was even contemplating running again was an insult to democracy of the kind you should abhor.
But you don't, because it was your guy.
And that's part of the problem with the way that politics.
Do you watch my show, Piers?
If it's your guy, it's fine.
If it's the other guy, boom.
That's the problem.
Anyway, fascinating debate.
By the way, I've made my final statement.
The beauty of having my own show is I can make a final statement and not invite anyone to respond.
So thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
And Matthew, all I'd say to you as a Brentford fan is that by the time this airs on Friday, it may be you wished you'd been talking about politics on Thursday night because you're playing Arsenal and we're going to absolutely batter you.
And yes, this will age well.
So guys, thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
We've lost Luke.
He's gone.
This is probably just as well.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
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