Piers Morgan hosts Maria Carina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who previously gave her medal to Trump, discussing the necessity of US military raids on Venezuelan drug boats to dismantle Maduro's criminal regime and achieve genuine electoral freedom. The episode then shifts to a heated panel debate with Christopher Ruffo, Joe Walsh, Gavin McInnes, and Brian Shapiro regarding rising political violence, where they clash over data showing left-wing plots outnumbering right-wing ones in 2025, the justification of fighting Antifa, and whether media outlets create permission structures for radicals. Ultimately, the discussion highlights deep divisions on accountability for inflammatory rhetoric from both sides while acknowledging that improved language is essential to de-escalate the current climate. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Freedom Manifesto and Venezuela00:15:23
We're not Nazis.
We don't want blacks to die.
We don't deny the Holocaust.
Those are lunatics.
Your guys are your friends.
Cole Allen is your pal.
You're in bed with your radicals.
Our radicals, we don't even know them.
They're freaks.
Cole Allen's manifesto sounded like your show.
Why is it that all these MAGA Republicans, in unison, an hour or two after this incident, were talking about building a ballroom?
You see this great derangement over the past 10 years because of Trump.
This money was going to informers so that we could.
Wrong.
Catch the real bad guys and bring them to justice.
Catch the real bad guys and bring them to justice?
What are you, eight years old?
You very generously offered to give Donald Trump your Nobel Peace Prize.
In light of the subsequent attack on Iran, would you still make that offer?
Well, coming up, we'll turn our attention to a fraught but important debate about political violence in the United States.
We'll begin with one of the many issues which appears to have inspired the gunman's attack on the White House correspondence dinner.
Executed without trial was on a list of aggrieved parties in his so called manifesto, a clear reference to the attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug boats.
It's easy to forget amid the breakneck speed of the Trump presidency, but the year began with that daring raid and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Many of our guests recently have cited the Venezuela model as a blueprint for the Iran war.
They argue that the regime can remain in place as long as it's dancing to the U.S. president's tune.
The problem in that scenario is that the people who apparently need liberating get little benefit.
Well, Maria Carina Machado is widely expected to lead a new Venezuela if the U.S. ever went through with its intervention.
But while Maduro awaits trial in the U.S. prison, it's his own like minded vice president who's now in charge.
Well, Maria Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for unifying the Venezuelan opposition.
A month before the Iran war, she gave her medal to President Trump.
So I now welcome her to Uncensor.
Welcome to you, Maria Machado.
My pleasure.
Thank you very much.
You're in DC where this appalling attack happened at the weekend.
I guess my first question to you would be you very generously offered to give Donald Trump your Nobel Peace Prize.
In light of the subsequent attack on Iran in conjunction with Israel, would you still make that offer?
Well, we did that because we believe that President Trump made a unique And courageous movement towards transition to democracy and freedom in Venezuela.
Actually, it's the only chief of state that has actually risked the lives of some of their citizens for the freedom of Venezuela.
And we're moving ahead, not there yet, because as you are aware, Delcy Rodriguez is part of the regime that previously destroyed our institutions and forced a third of our population to flee the country, that has tortured, persecuted, and killed thousands of Venezuelans.
Fighting for freedom.
But we have started this path towards transition and democracy, which is something that we desperately demand.
But do you support the war in Iran?
Are you behind the Americans and Israelis in this war?
I support the people of Iran that demand freedom and dignity and the possibility to reunite their families.
I can speak from the Venezuelan perspective, Piers, and that is.
Absolutely, devastation that these regimes have brought to our people.
And of course, we have denounced for years the very clear link between the regime in Iran and the regime in Venezuela.
They actually turn our country into a safe haven for the operation of Russian agents, Iranian agents, Hezbollah, Hamas, as well as other criminal structures from the guerrilla and the international narcotrafficking networks.
They all operate freely in Venezuela with the support of Nicolas Maduro, Delcy Rodriguez, and others are still in power in my country.
So, when this shooter at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, When in his list of grievances justifying his actions, he said, I'm not the fisherman executed without trial.
That is being taken to allude to the Venezuelan drug boats, as President Trump has called them, that have been taken out by the US military.
You know, there are people who believe that they were just containing innocent fishermen.
Are those people deluded?
I mean, are you comfortable and confident that the boats that were struck by American military were drug boats?
I am confident that justice will arrive at the truth, but I do believe that the resources that were coming from drug trafficking for years and years were used to sustain and increase the horrible crimes Maduro and his regime were doing on the Venezuelan people.
As any criminal structure, the way to stop it is to cut the income.
From criminal activities, in this case, narco trafficking, but many others.
The trafficking of gold, minerals, arms, and even human trafficking.
For years, we were asking the world to act because we, the Venezuelan people, for freedom, had done everything we could.
Not only protests, demonstrations where thousands were shot, innocent people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed, but also we went through more than 30, 30 electoral processes.
All were rigged, all were scam elections until finally, on 2024, July 28th, we were able to win under extreme conditions and prove our victory.
I do believe that was the moral ground that gave legitimacy to further action against Nicolas Maduro, who is certainly the head of this criminal structure.
Still in Venezuela, as we speak, there is fear, there is terror.
But at the same time, there is hope.
And after January 3rd, for the first time, we're starting to see people coming out, first to churches, then to universities and schools.
Now we're seeing union leaders and workers demanding their rights and speaking freely for the first time in many years.
There are some parallels between what happened in Venezuela and what we've seen in Iran, notably the belief that if you decapitate the leadership, you take out the The leader of the country, in Venezuela's case, Maduro, in Iran's case, the supreme leader, that you can affect regime change organically from within.
But we haven't seen that in Venezuela, and we're not seeing it in Iran.
You know, is the reality, I mean, I know that you get on well with Donald Trump, but were you disappointed that when it came to replacing Maduro, rather than trying to effect a genuine regime change, the president of the United States has allowed?
The regime to remain intact with Maduro's former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, as the country's interim leader.
Many felt that you should have been the person that should leave the country, there should have been an election, and that America could have forced that hand.
What do you feel about that?
Do you feel disappointed that that hasn't happened?
Well, the president and the secretary of state have talked about a three stage process that started with stabilizing and dismantling the repressive structures and the corruption mechanisms that exist in Venezuela.
When everything comes out, when the truth is learned, we'll see that Venezuela has been the largest stolen process of stealing the resources of a nation, bringing a nation to ruins.
This is huge.
So, putting controls on the regime is a good step.
And Elsie Rodriguez is following instructions to start dismantling this repressive structure.
But the third stage is clear, and you mentioned it it's an electoral process that will bring our society back.
Together to re legitimize our institutions.
Remember, we won by a landslide, Pierce, under extreme conditions.
We organized a legion of over one million volunteers.
That's how so much we Venezuelans want freedom and dignity.
We know that the only way our children will come back home is when we have a future of certainty, of democracy, of justice for all.
And that's also when big investments will come into Venezuela.
Venezuela is currently in the last place globally in terms of rule of law.
Last place.
So we need to bring certainty, strengthen our institutions so that a country will bring back together with force, with strength, and take a route in which, a path in which we can solve the increasing horrible economic and social situation we're living in.
As we speak, Venezuela faces the largest.
Inflation rate in the world, the largest, over 600% annually.
Our children go only twice a week to public schools because teachers earn $1 a day.
We have over 86% of poverty in the country that has the largest oil proven reserves in the world.
The only way we can have true economic development is also having democratic.
And that's why, yes, we demand to have an electoral calendar and a date so that all these increasing social tensions can be peacefully channeled towards that process.
And if there is an election, will you run for president and do you expect to win if you do?
Fair conditions.
I don't think any other society in the world would have accepted those terms by a landslide with almost 70 percent.
They don't even let our diaspora, a third of our population, to vote.
Now we're going to have a free and fair electoral process with international observance.
And that will mean that not only it's going to be that 70 percent, it's going to be much higher.
Certainly, I will offer myself and I hope many others so that the Venezuelan people can choose freely what we want.
The values, the purpose that bring us together.
But I want to assure you something.
Some people worried or are concerned if an electoral process could bring stability or violence to our country.
It's quite the opposite.
These social tensions, because of the economic hard, super hard conditions that are growing, and the fear that because of the regime still in power, can only be channeled peacefully, civically, if we have an electoral process.
The Venezuelan society is organized, is determined.
Is united.
And at this moment, I want to let you know that we have a new expression, a new manifesto.
You were talking about manifesto.
This is called the Freedom Manifesto.
That is the voices of Venezuelan people that I invite you to share and read because it is the determination of our will to be free peers.
Nothing will stop us.
We will never give up.
Venezuela will be free.
We will bring our children back home and we will turn our country into a land of hope, of respect, and justice.
You're a remarkable woman, Miriam Machado, and you have enormous support around the world.
And many people hope that you do end up the president of Venezuela.
Let me ask you just finally about political violence.
You touched on it there.
Donald Trump has had several attempts on his life.
This looked like a third one.
At the weekend, with another maniac who was armed and trying to kill him and his team.
I presume you've had a lot of death threats.
You're no longer living at the moment in Venezuela.
You're in DC at the moment.
But how do you view the threats against you?
You obviously have a family.
You know, for people who haven't been in this position, like you or Donald Trump or whoever it may be, what is that feeling like to live with the reality that there are people out there that want to try and kill you?
Well, in our case, the government institutions.
You know, one of the things that it's been hard for me to understand, Pierce, when I went to Oslo, now that I was in Madrid and we had this huge rally of over 40,000 Venezuelans, is that actually the police was on our side.
The police was defending the people.
That's a totally new experience for me.
I had been banned from leaving Venezuela for over 12 years.
I had my face broken because I was hit.
In the middle of a session of a National Assembly when I was a member of parliament.
And as you said, thousands in Venezuela have been killed, persecuted, hit.
Our families have suffered so much, and we have to send them away.
But at the same time, you understand that it's precisely because you love freedom that you need to work for democracy and for the unity of a nation around a purpose.
And that's precisely what we did.
We turned down the barriers they had built.
To divide our society.
And we united around purpose.
That's why I'm going back to Venezuela soon to accompany our people in this last stage on our very long journey for freedom.
And we will turn Venezuela from the criminal hub of America's peers into not only the hub of energy and technology, but also prosperity and freedom.
Turning Venezuela Into Prosperity00:03:38
And I look forward to inviting you.
To this proud country that will be an example for the rest of the world.
I would love to take you up on that offer.
In January, Donald Trump said you were a very nice woman, but that you lacked respect within Venezuela, and that's why he was backing Maduro's former vice president.
What is your response to that charge that maybe you're too nice?
Well, let's have the Venezuelan people speak about it and make their own decision.
Let's have free and fair elections where anybody that wants to run has the chance to do it, that everyone that has the right to vote is allowed to do it, and then the Venezuelan people will decide.
What the future they want for themselves and their families.
And that's going to happen, Piers.
That is going to happen.
Nothing will stop us, and we will never give up.
Venezuela will be free.
There's almost a Churchillian tone to your voice there, Maria Machado.
Your new book, The Freedom Manifesto, is out now.
It's a great read.
I think you're a great lady.
I wish you all the very best.
Thank you very much indeed for coming on Uncensored.
Thank you very much.
Well, two striking points have emerged in the fallout from this weekend's attack on the White House correspondence dinner.
The first is that both sides of the aisle are furiously blaming each other for the political violence crisis in the U.S.
The second is that so many people think it was a hoax, a staged event to rekindle affection for an increasingly unpopular president.
Claims it was all an elaborate setup have come from the hard left as well as the hard right online.
But what's different this time is that plenty of apparently very normal people seem to think it too.
And in the weeks leading up to the attack, a right-wing conspiracy theory that Butler was staged became sufficiently popular that both CNN and Wired felt compelled to cover it.
For his part, President Trump tied the latest incident to the scandal about the Southern Poverty Law Center, accused of funding extremist groups in order to say it was fighting them.
I see these no kings, which are funded just like the Southern Law was funded.
You saw all that.
Southern Law is financing the KKK and lots of other radical, terrible groups.
And then they go out and they say, oh, we've got to stop the KKK.
And yet they give them hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.
They want to.
It's a total scam run by the Democrats.
It shows you that, like Charlottesville, Charlottesville was all funded by the Southern law.
That was a Southern law deal, too.
And it was done to make me look bad, and it turned out to be a total fake.
It basically was a rigged election.
Well, we'll debate all this in a moment.
My take would simply be that if everybody repeatedly blames each other and nobody really believes anything, it's going to be a lot worse before it gets better.
Joining me on the panel is Christopher Ruffo, he's a senior fellow, Manhattan Institute.
Joe Walsh, the former Republican congressman and host of The Social Contract.
Gavin McInnes.
Founder of the Proud Boys and Censored TV host, and Brian Shapiro, host of No Limits.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Brian Shapiro, let me start with you because you've been on many debates on this show, and they often follow attacks by people on the right, attacks by people on the left.
To me, it's a kind of stain on everyone's houses, right?
The level of violent rhetoric and violent action in American political discourse and American politics is completely out of hand.
It's out of control, and nobody seems to want to put a control valve in.
Each time there's an incident, everyone expresses their outrage, but at the same time, seems to want to pin the blame on everybody but themselves.
Violence on Both Sides00:08:56
You know, I would ask you maybe a difficult question.
Do you think you look at your own rhetoric in the last 10 years?
Can you point to times when you yourself maybe have used rhetoric that you now wish you hadn't?
What is the answer here to dialing the temperature down collectively?
Well, Pierce, good to see you.
Thank you for having me on again.
I would say no.
I would say different standards for different people.
I would say when you're the president of the United States, you're supposed to be lowering the temperature and the rhetoric.
I would say after this incident that took place the other day, what we should be talking about is mental health.
We should be talking about gun control.
We should be talking about security breaches.
How did this person get to that area?
And, you know, I don't like to blame one side of the aisle, but I want both sides to come together.
I don't condone violence on any side.
But I also need to bring up the fact that it was the president of the United States just several months ago that was calling for the execution of six elected Democrats.
So there has to be some responsibility there.
And I would also say about the conspiracy theories that you brought up, Pierce.
Why is it that all these MAGA Republicans in unison, an hour or two after this incident, were talking about building a ballroom and why positives were put down about we need to build this ballroom?
That's not going to help anybody.
I don't like attacks, people blaming just the left and just the right.
I think it's unfair.
And I think we need to figure out ways to stop these incidents from happening.
Of course, this was a real incident.
I mean, I would say, I would say, Brian, well, on that point, yeah, that's the point I was about to make, which is, I accept it was clearly a coordinated campaign to get the ballroom promoted and so on, which seemed a bit tasteless.
And also, it's not like the White House correspondence dinner could even be in the new ballroom, because the new ballroom only has 999 seats available, and the White House correspondence dinner is 2,500 people.
So I don't even understand that argument.
It's like, what's the point?
I actually have no problem with a bigger ballroom at the White House.
It's fine.
I don't see why everything should always have to stay the same.
We have adjustments to our number 10 Downing Street all the time.
Nobody cares.
It's become a big political potato.
But in relation to the final point you made, I saw a similar coordinated campaign about the thing being staged at the weekend.
And it just blew up online.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Pierce, let me just unequivocally say this.
Those people are idiots.
I don't care whether you're on the left or the right.
This wasn't a staged incident.
But, Pierce, the point that I was trying to make, and I think we agree on this, is that when you have all these right wing grifters, some with large accounts on social media in unison, all talking about the positives of building a ballroom, there's going to be some people in this country that are thinking, That this was all staged.
Now, I'm not one of those people.
I don't think you're very intelligent if you think that this was a staged event.
Obviously, it wasn't Pierce, but I don't think people on the right are helping themselves any with some of the statements they've made on social media either, if that makes sense.
Christopher Ruffo, you know, what's interesting is you actually get into the weeds about political violence over the last, say, 30 years.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies reported in September.
It said in recent years, The United States has seen an increase in the number of left wing terrorism attacks and plots, although such violence has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right wing and jihadist attackers.
But they note that 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right.
And I think that is a pertinent point, which is if you go back in the last 30, 40 years, you'll see there's been A lot of violence on the right, a lot of violence on the left.
But there's now a noticeable uptick in violence on the left.
And many people, and I would be one of them, would apportion that, I think, to the ridiculously over the top rhetoric that's often used about Donald Trump and his administration, calling him Hitler, calling them a bunch of Nazis, and so on.
You know, as I made the point many times on this show, if you keep saying that people are Hitler and the Nazis, a deranged mind is going to compute that as a direct incentive.
To perform a public duty, a service to the country by removing Hitler and the Nazis and expect to be applauded for it.
And that's the problem.
If you over egg the rhetorical souffle in that way, you are going to make impressionable minds think this is a good thing to be doing.
Would you agree?
Yeah, I'd absolutely agree.
And we're seeing really an explosion of decentralized left wing violence that is being fueled, at least in part, by social media sites like Blue Sky.
And in this individual case, it seems that the shooter was radicalized on Blue Sky, in particular by people like Will Stancil, a lawyer who has endorsed.
Political violence.
And this is now becoming mainstream.
You see this great derangement over the past 10 years because of Trump.
There have been, of course, three assassination attempts against the president.
One came within an inch of being a successful assassination.
And you didn't see this under President Obama.
You didn't see this under President Biden.
And while, of course, there's left wing violence and right wing violence, the vast majority of violent incidents and political violence in particular since Black Lives Matter, since the ascension of Trump to the presidency.
Has been almost entirely on the left.
And I don't see the left dialing back its rhetoric.
I don't see the left calling back some of its troops.
But in fact, it seems like it's going to only increase from here.
And maybe it's looking like a reprise of the late 60s and early 70s when you would have mass amounts of left wing violence.
In some years, up to more than 2,000 bombing attacks per year.
If you read Days of Rage, it's a great book about this.
That's my fear, is that we're going into an internet decentralized new version of the Days of Rage.
From the late 60s and early 70s.
Yeah, Joe Walsh, that's my fear.
And I think AI is going to make this a lot worse because it'll become increasingly hard to be able to tell reality from fiction.
And so people will have their natural political bias sort of cemented and fermented by AI in a way that I think is going to get increasingly dangerous.
What do you feel about this, Joe?
Again, you've been on the show many times.
We've talked about all sorts of incidents.
People naturally gravitate to their own political bias most of the time.
But the rise in the volume of these incidents, the tone of the rhetoric.
I mean, for Donald Trump, you know, I think what happened at the weekend was disgusting and appalling.
And the twisted manifesto of his suitor was repellent to read.
And he'd clearly been whipped up into thinking he had to attack Trump and his top people because of what he'd seen and heard from people deliberately using inflammatory rhetoric, which is wrong.
But at the same time, it's only a week or so since Donald Trump was brazenly posting on X about wanting to annihilate 90 million Iranians, right?
You know, at what point do we accept that the rhetoric on all sides about almost everything has got out of control?
Pierce, I think you nailed it at the top and you just nailed it again right there.
It is out of control and it is a both sides, all sides, all of us.
It feels every day like we are a nation at each other's throats.
And I think the data backs that up.
We're at a point in American history now where, and it didn't always used to be this way, we hate.
I mean, hate the people we disagree with.
Way too many of us do.
And the destination, when you're on that road of hate, like you hate the people you disagree with, the final destination, Pierce, there is violence.
And that's where we are right now.
Again, at each other's throats, plenty of blame to go on both sides.
Whenever something like what happened Saturday night happens, Pierce, right away we go to our partisan corners.
I think about the night, the very night that Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
The very night Donald Trump and so many others went on TV that night and blamed half the country for the murder, the entire left for the murder.
Trump's not the only one that does that.
We've got to stop doing that because this is really, really dangerous.
And look, I know Chris Ruffo is so expert on a lot of this data, but Pierce, right wing violence over the last 20 to 30 years has typically outweighed left wing violence.
We've seen a spike since Trump got elected in 24.
I think a reaction to Trump, and it's got to be called out by everybody.
January 6th Cop Beating Claims00:08:45
Okay.
Gavin McInnes, you're an interesting person to have on for this debate because I think, by your own admission, when you were setting up the Proud Boys, you said a lot of stuff which you've now regretted saying.
I think you use a lot of incendiary rhetoric about all manner of things.
No.
You haven't regretted it?
Everything I said that sounded violent was a reaction to violence, but the SPLC and the ADL would take these quotes out of context and say, oh, he's a Nazi calling for random violence.
We don't call for random violence.
All the times I've said, punch someone in the face, it's been a reaction to Antifa punching us in the face.
I mean, I don't think a lot of the pundits out there have been outside.
In 2015, 2016, we were getting attacked on a regular basis.
I was getting jumped, and I always said, fight back.
I never called for random violence.
No one on the right calls for random violence.
That's a myth.
This whole, like, whoa, both sides are flawed.
No, the left is flawed.
And right wing violence is a myth.
All of this stuff about, oh, there was a shooting at Dollar General, that guy's a nut.
That's a Nazi who wants all blacks to die and go back to Africa, deny the Holocaust.
That's not our guys.
We eschew our radicals.
The left embraces their radicals, they embrace the trans.
They even embrace jihad, where they go global intifada.
So we're the good guys, they're the bad guys.
It's not an even keel here.
All right, Brian Shapiro, we massively misunderstood the Proud Boys.
They are a force for peace and harmony.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, first of all, what an imbecile to bring up trans people.
We're talking about violence.
What the hell does trans have to do with what we're talking about right now?
That's number one.
Trans people are being killed.
I'm not done yet.
First of all, committing the most mass shootings of any Democratic.
I didn't interrupt you.
Got to let me talk.
First of all, of all the mass shootings in this country, we're going years and years.
Less than 1%, less than a fraction of them have been mass shooters.
So you guys are lying, number one.
Number two, was that Antifa on January 6th, Mr. Proud Boy member?
Was that Antifa that was responsible for January 6th when 140 officers were beaten?
Was that Antifa?
They were beaten for shooting at protesters.
They were beaten for five drinks.
People were going, stop, stop.
Two Patriots died that day.
Guess what?
It wasn't boiling the SC back then.
Your cops, your Capitol Police, your affirmative action hires killed Patriots that day.
Hold on a second.
Stand back and stand by for one moment.
Let me just finish this for a moment, sir.
Okay?
It has been proven in a court.
Yeah, yeah.
It was proven in a court of law.
There were over 700 people that were convicted.
They had the opportunity to defend themselves.
Those were rightfully convicted.
The same court of law that gave Enrique Borough complete suits for not being there?
Enrique Tario is an imbecile.
If that's the hill that you're going to die on, then you have a problem, sir.
32 years.
Yeah.
He was convicted of seditious conspiracy and dumped.
Let me ask you a question.
If you beat a cop on January 6th, are you a hostage and a patriot?
Yes or no?
They didn't beat cops.
Cops were shooting flashbang grenades into the crowd.
They were going, stop, stop starting a riot.
Wait, wait, wait, hold on.
We're going under Nancy Pelosi's instructions?
Wait, I want you to say this on Piers Morgan's show right now on the record.
Are you saying cops were not beaten on January 6th?
Yes or no?
I'm saying cops started a riot and in a melee, people get hurt.
I don't care what you're up to.
Were cops beaten on January 6th?
Yes or no?
I'm just curious you won't answer the question.
On cops.
Can I just answer the question?
You don't know what happened.
You don't get outside.
I'm out there.
I'm there.
I'm on the streets.
I see this virus.
I'm not outside.
Let me bring in.
All right.
Hang on.
Time out.
Let me bring in Joe Walsh.
Let me bring in Joe Walsh.
I just want to say one thing.
And this is our problem.
That clip right there between Gavin and Brian will go viral.
And Chris and I just sort of sitting here, and maybe we're going to talk about crime stats and compare data.
Nobody will pay attention to that.
But the argument and the fight right there, Pierce, between Brian and Gavin will explode because so many people tune into shows like this.
And Pierce, I think you do a great job.
I really do.
Of trying to have conversations.
But so many people tune into shows like this to see the fights, the fights, the fights, the viral clips.
And then away we go down that road where we hate each other and violence.
What do you think the American Revolution was?
You know, it was a fight.
This country was founded on fights.
They're healthy.
I've got no problem, Gavin, with good political infighting.
Yes.
I've got no problem with it.
That's what we're doing.
The country is founded on that.
Okay, I agree.
So, Joe, I agree with what you just said.
Go ahead, Pierce.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, go on, Brian.
I was just saying, listen, I respect Joe Walsh so much, and I agree with what he just said.
The only point that I was trying to make to Gavin is that there's violence in all different places, right?
But if you're going to tell us that cops weren't beaten on January 6th, and some people, not all, not even the majority, But some people committed some very violent acts and they were convicted in a court of law.
And Gavin can't just admit that some of those people are not convicted for killing Ashley Bell.
Hold on a second.
We have one riot every 100 years.
You have a riot a year for 100 years.
And we have to keep hearing about January 6th, January 6th.
Oh, I know you don't want to hear that riot that ended the world.
I can tell you right now, Gavin, here's the difference.
Black Lives Matter, let's talk about that for a moment because I know you love talking about that.
Anybody who beat anybody killed 10,000 people.
Gavin, Gavin, let me finish.
Anybody during a Black Lives Matter protest, That committed any violent acts.
It's wrong, and I want them held to the highest extent of the law.
I don't blame our court system.
I don't blame anybody but the people who committed those violent acts.
Why won't you say the same about January 6th?
Because BLM started the fight.
Patriots did not start January 6th.
BLM and Antifa started a two year fight that burned down this country, caused $3 billion worth of damage, and cost 25 plus lives.
The only major deaths, the only deaths on January 6th were Capitol Police killing patriots.
Not true.
Yet we have to hear about this.
Why aren't I hearing about the jihadist deaths of the past 10 years or the trans shooting of the past 10 years?
We are on this scrutiny where we go through conservative behavior with a fine tooth comb.
That's a quick point I want to make.
It's a quick point I want to make.
It's nailed to the cross for January 6th.
Yet you guys get away with an assassination attempt from two days ago.
All right, hold on.
The whole Ellie manifesto sounded like your show.
You guys are in bed with your extremists.
We eschew ours.
No, you're not.
Gavin, quick point I just want to make to the panel.
I love synagogue shootings.
I'm totally down with that.
Gavin, just be quiet for 20 seconds.
I just want to make a quick point here.
So, guys, this is what Joe was just talking about.
Joe, I don't speak for you, but I'm calling out all violence, whether it be Black Lives Matter or January 6th.
Gavin, once again, called, no, you're not.
You just called everybody patriots on January 6th, you idiot.
That's what you just said.
You just called all the people, some of them.
Pick a fight with me.
You're an idiot.
All right.
Well, good luck at your Klan rally tonight, Mr. Grand Wizard.
Perfect.
I actually think, let me jump in there.
That is so good.
Let me jump in there.
Perfect.
I don't understand.
Surely, the intellectually honest position.
Let me come back to Chris Ruffer.
The intellectually honest position on this is surely that you should be able to condemn, whoever, whatever party you have an allegiance to, whatever, you should be able to condemn unreservedly all violence against police on January 6th and all violence against police or civilians or stores or whatever during any of the BLM riots.
To me, That is an intellectually honest position.
The moment you start saying, Well, that side were terrible.
When they rioted, it was acceptable.
When they did it, it is unacceptable.
The moment you start doing that, you're being intellectually, to me, dishonest.
Chris?
Exactly.
Yeah, I mean, look, I agree.
I said it on the day of, and I continue to believe it.
People who went to the Capitol on January 6th with the intention to riot, to destroy property, to fight with police, were wrong.
It was not something you should do.
Unacceptable Capitol Riot Scenes00:05:25
And moreover, even on the practical consequences, Caused a lot of problems for those of us on the political right who want to just have good policy, fight the good fight, and go for democratic changes.
But January 6th is not in any way a valid point of comparison for terrorism, violence, and assassination that we've seen since that time and really since 2020.
And so we have a wave of political assassination that seems to be this blue sky ideology, seems to be associated with transgender ideology.
And it seems to be associated with mainstream anti Trump ideology.
The last of which to me is the most important because the shooter for the White House correspondence dinner, if you read the manifesto, it's not a highly technical or ideological statement.
It could be something that you'd read on the Washington Post or on Blue Sky at the Bulwark or on the Twitter account of someone like Will Stancil, a mild mannered lawyer in the Midwest who had been retweeted by this individual.
Mainstream leftist anti Trump, no kings ideology seems to be driving a wave of political violence.
And that doesn't mean that everyone who's posting those kind of ideas is responsible for it.
Obviously, the shooters are responsible for their actions.
But this should cause deep concern because it's unpredictable, it's decentralized.
We saw it take the life of my friend Charlie Kirk.
We saw it nearly take the life of our president.
And I don't think that just saying, well, January 6th, well, January 6th, well, January 6th, Is really sufficient in any way.
So, Chris, can I just address Chris right away?
So, Chris, I appreciate it.
Well, Joe, hang on, hang on.
Let me bring in Joe Walsh.
I mean, the one that really incensed me, Charlie Kirk really incensed me.
Many things have really incensed me.
January the 6th really incensed me, actually, for the scenes it sent around the world about this attack on democracy at the heart of American democracy.
It was awful.
And anyone who tries to pretend to me this was a great patriotic act is just talking nonsense.
But the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, Shot brazenly in the streets of New York, where I currently am.
And the lionization by many on the left, especially younger members of the left, of his killer, Luigi Magione, the idea he was some kind of modern day Robin Hood hero for murdering a husband, a father, a son in the way that that was done.
The reaction was almost as appalling as the murder itself.
It's like this guy's not a hero, he's a cold blooded assassin.
Of the kind that we used to be able to all agree should be condemned by everybody, but that didn't happen.
And this is my problem I think, Joe, that people's reactions, they're sensitive.
We're getting numbed to this stuff to the degree that people think it's perfectly okay to say, you know what?
He had a point, that man Gione.
And by the way, he's good looking, isn't he?
What?
What?
You know what I mean?
No, Pierce, I'm with you 100%.
It's appalling, it's disgusting.
And it is every bit as appalling and disgusting as the actual act.
But it goes to this point, we're so effing tribal that when there's an act of political violence, it's never the responsibility of the person who did it.
It's always the entire right.
It's every Trump supporter or it's the entire left.
I go back to the white supremacist who shot 10 black people in the grocery store in Buffalo back in 22.
Not everybody on the right killed.
Those black people.
That white supremacist did.
But so many on the left castigated the whole white, the whole right wing as racist.
And the left does that as well.
Again, the entire left didn't kill Charlie Kirk.
A 22 year old man from Utah did.
And one quick point on the data and Chris, I love following Chris on the data, but there's been a spike in the last year or two.
But as you said, Pierce, Up until 2025, I mean, 2025 was the first year since 1994 that left wing violence, plots, and attacks outweighed right wing violence.
Back since 2001, right wing violence has been more prevalent and deadlier than left wing violence.
We've seen an uptick, but I don't want it.
To me, the data doesn't support a 10 year uptick.
It didn't tick up during Trump's first term.
Something has gone on in the last year or so.
I give you that.
Yeah, let me just say something.
First of all, the data that you're referring to has been debunked over and over and over again.
And so I don't think it's reliable for those who have really looked into it.
Why is Brian skipping the game here?
Here's the critical point.
The difference between the shooter that you're talking about that killed 10 people in the grocery store is that nobody on the right, nobody in a position of authority in media, in politics, anywhere else, celebrated that person, lauded that person.
Debunked Data on Uptick00:06:47
Tried to justify the actions of that person.
Whereas with Luigi Mangione, with Tyler, the shooter of Charlie Kirk, you have not only people online on the left celebrating it, justifying, rationalizing it, but in the case of the Luigi Mangione killing, you have the New York Times platforming an entire conversation, rationalizing it, and justifying it.
And so, look, I'm not saying the entire left is responsible for left wing inspired violence, but what I am saying is that.
Those people in positions of authority and responsibility, people like the editors of the New York Times, should have a little bit of hesitation before they bring on people who celebrate that kind of violence because that has consequences.
That gives a permission structure to radicals, to lone wolves, to psychopaths.
And they're saying, I might become popular in the New York Times if I just pulled the trigger.
And I think that is the responsibility of all those people in positions of power and authority on the left.
Let me bring back.
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
I want to bring Gavin back in.
This whole scandal involving the SPLC, you said the government's indictment is a huge vindication.
And you say the group were creating Nazis from scratch.
The SPLC was living off fake propaganda and destroying lives in the process.
Now, the SPLC designated the Proud Boys as a hate group for their bigoted rhetoric targeting women, Muslims, and other groups.
You say you were targeted by them and sued them in 2019.
You lost a defamation suit against them.
But notwithstanding that.
It's still going.
So you've got a history with them.
It's still going.
But you've got a history with them as.
It's still going.
OK.
I accept that clarification.
The point I would make is this.
If we were talking about a report which came out which said that the FBI had been, as we know they do, had been funneling cash to members of drug cartels, mafia, whatever it may be, with a view to getting informants who would give information leading to.
Mass arrests of these people and incarceration.
I presume you wouldn't have had a problem with that.
So when I see the defense that's being put up by them, which is, yeah, this money was going to these groups to inform us so that we could catch the real bad guys and bring them to justice.
Is that not a reasonable argument if you think about FBI and so on?
Catch the real bad guys and bring them to justice.
What are you, eight years old?
Are you playing cowboys and Indians?
The SPLC was creating Nazis from scratch.
They weren't garnering information.
I'll prove it to you right now.
Go to the SPL site.
What are the scoops they're getting?
What is this?
They're going to rob a bank on Friday.
There was no unique information at the SPL site.
It was all just this is the group, this is what they do, all Googleable.
They weren't paying them for info.
They weren't paying them to stop crimes.
They weren't paying for inside tips.
They were paying them to exist.
They weren't paid for information.
They were paid for agitation.
And they did it.
The SPLC makes money on photographs of Charlottesville with a tiki torch.
They made $30 million from that photograph.
And it's just like this right.
Wing violence, left wing violence thing.
You look up a bunch of deranged Nazis with Hispanic names, by the way, and you go, that's your side.
This is our side.
No, that's not our side.
We're not Nazis.
We don't want blacks to die.
We don't deny the Holocaust.
Those are lunatics.
Your guys are your friends.
Cole Allen is your pal.
The Zizians, they have the same politics as you.
You're in bed with your radicals.
Our radicals, we don't even know them.
They're freaks.
And the SPLC and the ADL have spent hundreds of millions of dollars.
Amalgamating us with our radicals, which is a total myth.
Meanwhile, you guys warmly embrace your radicals.
That is the difference.
You're the ones saying, My relatives can't be with me on Thanksgiving because they support Trump.
We're the ones going, You're a crazy ex girlfriend.
I'm so done with your crap.
Okay, but what about some of the things you've said?
You said you don't regret any of the comments you've made, but you told the New York Times in 2002 I love being white.
I think it's something to be proud of.
Fine.
I don't want our culture diluted.
We need to close the borders now.
And let everyone assimilate to a Western, white, English speaking way of life.
You said that most women would be happier at home.
You previously dressed as a Nazi skinhead at a press interview.
You've used the words retarded and faggots.
You've said on violence, can you call for violence generally?
Because I am.
Fighting souls everything.
We need more violence from the Trump people.
Trump supporters choke a motherfucker.
I mean, how does any of that, taken in totality?
And that's just a fragment of what you've said on violence.
This is SPLC.
This is right in the SPLC book.
Hang on, Gavin.
Hang on, Gavin.
You go back 20 years, you've been picking quotes devoid of context.
Gavin.
I'm out here.
I'm in the cell phone.
No, it's not the.
Right now, I fought a guy this morning at the gym.
This is what we do.
Allow me to ask you a question about your comments, which is simply at the start of when I first introduced you, I said my understanding was that you now regretted things that you said, and you vehemently said, No, I don't.
I've just read to you a number of your positions on things and comments, which many people would find pretty reprehensible.
So I'm just thinking, in the context of your initial vehement denial that you regret anything, do you regret any of the incendiary?
What kind of discussion is this, Piers?
You bring up 13 quotes that go back to 2004, and you go, defend yourself.
Do you agree with that?
You're a violent person to me.
That's what the SPLC does.
Do you want to get specific?
Yes, I said that women would be happier at home.
They would.
Every time I've called for violence, it's in the context of Antifa beating the crap out of us.
In 2015 and 2016, they were jumping us on the streets.
They vandalized my home, they vandalized my car, they spit in your face.
I got pepper sprayed at NYU.
I'm constantly getting jumped, and I'm saying, fight back.
I mean, it got so bad that Joe Walsh back then switched from right to left to save himself.
It was a war zone.
And yeah, I said, fight back.
And fighting solves everything, by the way, is at every boxing gym in the country.
It's a working class slogan.
You puffs.
Okay.
You upper middle class palms.
Look, I remember those days in 2015, 2016, here in the Pacific Northwest.
You'd have Antifa on one side, the Proud Boys on the other.
And in a way, it was the.
Kind of mutual combat.
They would go to the same place, they would fist fight, they might pepper spray one another.
But there was a sense that it was something where both sides had a mutual interest in fighting.
Mutual Combat Between Groups00:09:27
And that really can't be compared to a kind of unprovoked and unannounced assassination of right wing political figures like Charlie Kirk or a right wing president like President Trump.
And so, look, I personally don't want to fight anyone.
I wish that the Proud Boys in Antifa would stay home.
I don't think it's really healthy.
But at the same time, I think what we're talking about now, between 2020 and now 2026, we're talking about a new form of violence that is almost entirely one sided, that seeks not just mutual combat, but seeks the death of political opponents.
And it's coming almost entirely from one direction.
We have entered a new phase that is very dangerous, that is being fomented online and digital sites, and is going to cause more deaths.
And we can't have people making excuses for it.
And we need to have those in positions of authority on the left, including left wing media, start to figure out how to get their own radicals in line and stop celebrating them after they kill.
All right.
I want to address Chris real quick.
So, Chris, first of all, let me just say this.
I'm very sorry for the loss of your friend, Charlie Kirk.
What happened to him was horrible.
Even though I wasn't a fan of Charlie Kirk's, he didn't deserve that.
His family didn't deserve that.
And I've called out everyone on the left that has celebrated his death.
It doesn't mean you have to celebrate his life, but celebrating his death is despicable.
But with that being said, Chris, you want people held to account.
I rarely hear you talking about Donald Trump.
Why don't we hold him to account as well?
He just called on the execution of six Democrat elected officials several months ago.
The buck should stop with him.
He's the leader of the free world.
Listen, I don't agree with anybody on social media celebrating any form of violence on either side.
But there is a difference between somebody with 20 followers on social media saying horrible things about what happened to Charlie Kirk, which I don't condone, and then the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, who doesn't tone down the rhetoric.
Even at his rallies, he said, I'd like to rough that guy up, and I'll pay for you guys and I'll pay for your legal fees.
So it has to start from the top all the way down, Chris.
I'm with you.
I don't want anybody endorsing any violence at Any time.
I'm with you 150%.
But I also want to remind you that the first assassination attempt of Donald Trump was, luckily, it wasn't executed.
But the first bullet that went towards Donald Trump was done by a registered Republican.
The second guy that on the assassination attempt was a guy that he once voted for Donald Trump.
So in 2016, will you also call out Donald Trump?
I hear you calling out one side of your argument that Donald Trump is responsible for the assassination attempts against him.
I didn't say that.
I didn't say that.
I didn't.
Let me clarify.
Just own your words, pussy.
Chris.
Chris.
Okay.
This guy's not serious.
He's going to call me a pussy.
Just be quiet.
You call me an idiot.
What's the difference?
Adult.
Adult.
Let's talk to the adults in the room.
Okay.
I'm going to talk to you.
Idiot is mature.
Pussy is juvenile.
Okay.
I'm addressing Chris right now.
Okay.
So, Chris, I know.
I'm mocking you as you do.
I'm not blaming Donald Trump for his assassination attempts.
All I'm calling out and asking for respectfully is people like you to call out Donald Trump for also.
Making the temperature a little bit higher than it should be.
I will call out any violence on any side of the aisle and I hold them to account first.
But it also would do a lot of justice to the country.
If Donald Trump didn't call for executions of elected officials, if Donald Trump didn't say, I'd like to rough that guy up, if Donald Trump every single day didn't attack half the country, there is an opportunity for Donald Trump to bring the country together.
My problem, Chris, is I don't think the guy who you support is capable of doing that.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think you're talking about a false equivalence.
Should Trump moderate his rhetoric?
Fine.
Yeah, in some instances, I think that's probably true.
But I don't think that that's equivalent to people that are setting up in a sniper position and shooting at conservative commentators, shooting at an American president.
And I don't think that it's fair to say that the assassination attempts against Donald Trump were somehow part of right wing political violence.
Obviously, when you're trying to shoot a conservative president, you could easily categorize that as.
An anti right or pro left method of violence.
And so I think you're trying to muddy the waters because you probably have the sneaking suspicion that your side is, in fact, the one that's out of control.
Hey, Pierce, let me defend Ryan just for a sec.
Chris, I think you continue to downplay this factor of Trump.
Pierce, we've never had a president who so engages in it's part of who he is divisive, cruel, and hateful language.
When all the Trump supporters the last day or two said, we got to tone down the rhetoric, and yet they don't talk about his rhetoric, Chris, his rhetoric is despicable.
You and I can argue about how despicable, but I think he's been the most divisive public figure in the country the last 15 years.
You may disagree, but my God, man, it's not enough to say, okay, fine, he needs to be better.
The stuff that Donald Trump says about people and annihilate the entire civilization, it wasn't just the six members of Congress.
Trump called for General Milley to be publicly executed.
Remember, he sent out that image of a President Joe Biden hogtied in the back of a pickup truck?
Chris, this stuff needs to be condemned by you and yourself.
Okay, I've got it.
Okay, Joe, I'm going to leave it there.
What I would say about that is I don't disagree with you.
I think some of Trump's rhetoric goes way too far.
I thought some of the stuff against the Iranians was appalling for the President of the United States.
Agreed.
Borderline criminal.
He was talking about the regime.
He doesn't want to accept Oliver Reagan, obviously.
Well, that's what he said.
So if he doesn't mean it, don't say it.
You know he was talking about the regime.
You think he wants to kill a bunch of kids?
No, no.
He didn't say regime.
Be honest with yourself.
He didn't say you.
And the Ayatollah.
Sorry, you be.
No, actually, Gavin, you be honest with yourself because I read exactly what he said and he did not specify Trump wants to destroy every human being in Iran.
You honestly believe that.
It's civilization.
Yeah, let's just say that.
I think if he doesn't believe that, he shouldn't.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
I think if he doesn't believe it, he shouldn't say it.
Well, if you willfully agree with what the man says, then what's he going to do?
Identifying some of the rhetoric about Iran was completely out of control.
I have no trouble saying that.
I certainly wouldn't say it.
I wish the president wouldn't say it.
But again, we're talking about the bullets flying through the air, and they seem to be flying for the most part in one direction.
And so I'm happy to say, hey, Trump, don't support this particular instance of rhetoric, but that's not equivalent to the bullets going through the bodies that are coming from mostly one direction.
Well, yeah, I agree.
And the point I was going to make was yes, I agree that Trump should tone his own rhetoric down, but I think a lot of the rhetoric from the left against Trump is absolutely outrageous and disgusting, too.
You know, when you continually call a man a Hitler, a rapist, a pedophile, all these things he got called on, you know, by 60 Minutes, which I thought was disgraceful for Nora O'Donnell to say that because she would never have repeated what was in that maniac's manifesto.
It would have been Obama sitting there or Biden.
She wouldn't have done.
Can I disagree with you a little bit there, Pierce?
So Donald Trump is a liable sexual abuser.
Now, whether you don't believe whether he's a rapist or not, I don't have your opinion.
I understand.
I understand.
He's not doing it.
All I would say, all right, Brian, all I would say is I've spoken to David Boyes, who represented Virginia Dufresne and many of the Epstein victims, who's seen all the files and said he has seen no evidence of criminality against Donald Trump.
There is against other men who may well be known to Trump, which may explain why he's so keen to shut everything down.
So is he a pedophile protector?
Is he a pedophile?
Is he protecting them?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know, but I do know that in the manifesto this warped shooter had, he didn't say alleged or protector.
He said he was a pedophile and was a rapist.
And CBS 60 Minutes then repeated that as if it didn't matter.
But actually, it does matter.
And then for Nora O'Donnell to say, oh, well, you know, you think he meant you?
Of course she knew who the guy was talking about.
Of course she knew it was highly defamatory.
Of course she knew it was incredibly abusive to Trump to do that in an interview for 60 Minutes.
And Trump understandably lost his rag.
So I do think it's a two way street.
There is a double standard about the way that many on the left and the media, which is very left skewed, I'm sorry.
It is in America.
Double Standard for Trump00:01:21
I see it all the time.
I've worked in it long enough to see it.
And there is a double standard about the way Trump gets treated compared to anybody else.
And should he temper his rhetoric?
Absolutely.
Should the others look at themselves and think, are we partly to blame for the mindset of an apparently genius level guy who was an award winning teacher, no sign of any violence, suddenly deciding to get on a train from California to work to plan a massacre?
How has that happened?
I don't know the answer, but I do know the language that he repeated in that manifesto was very similar to a lot of the bullshit language I hear about Trump.
All the time from the left.
And that has to change too.
So, like I say, there are issues on all sides here.
I've got to leave it there, guys.
I'm sorry, we've run out of time.
It was a really good debate.
A really interesting debate.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you, Pierce.
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