On with Kara Swisher - Piers Morgan On Murdoch, Musk and – yes – Meghan Markle

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

What’s more toxic: Tabloids or Twitter? Piers Morgan may know – the outsized personality has been an outsized influence in both spheres for decades, since his start as show business editor at Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun.  In this interview, Morgan discusses his rise – and stumbles – and the return to Murdochland, where he now hosts the Fox Nation show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” We tackle characters with whom Morgan has beefed — from Donald Trump to Meghan Markle. And Kara asks Morgan, who is famous for stirring up debate, what part of him is authentic and what’s performance. “I think that when expressing my strongly held opinions, there's always a bit of theater to it.” You can find Kara Swisher and Nayeema Raza on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. If you struggle just to get your customers to notice you, Constant Contact has what you need to grab their attention. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform offers all the automation, integration, and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today.

Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is The Crown with 100% fewer royals. Just kidding. This is Kara Swisher and I'm Queen Kara Swisher. And I'm Neymar. Speak for yourself. I'm basically royalty. Pakistani royalty.

Are you? No. I'm glad we're not royals because we'd have to curtsy. No, you don't curtsy. You are curtsy too. Try to understand. But you also have to curtsy. Meghan had to curtsy to the queen. The queen, yes, as you go upwards. But if you curtsied, you'd be very short, Kara. It'd be hard to see you. I might step on you. I'm not a curtsy. I would bow, perhaps. I don't mind bowing. I make my children bow to me all the time. You do not. I do. I'm like, bow to your mom and say, hello, my beautiful mama. I make them do that.

Do they comply? Yes, they do. They want that cell phone, they do. We'll call social services after this. Anyway, how's it going? It's good. I've been in holiday party land, which you would hate wearing lots of sequins. No, thank you. But we're taping this episode on Wednesday and you have surgery tomorrow. Yeah. How are you feeling about it? Fine. It's going to be fine. I had a stroke 10 years ago and I have a hole in my heart. It's called a PFO, which I forget what it stands for, but it's a hole that everybody has that usually seals up. Mine didn't. A lot of people have it and don't even know it. I'm having it sealed up and it's now surgery. It used to be

open heart surgery and now it's going through your groin area, essentially a vein, and then it goes right up. It seals the hole and then it comes out. It's 20 minutes, supposedly. Are you scared? No. A little bit? No, not at all. I just would like to rest, which you don't let me do. No, we've got lots of things to do. Yeah. No, I'm excited. I don would like to rest, which you don't let me do. No, we've got lots of things to do. Yeah, no, we've got, I'm excited. I don't want to have a stroke again. I don't want to become disabled. Yeah.

And this is preventative medicine, really. And now it's easy to do. And so I'm very good on all those things, colonoscopies, dermatology, and things like that. I have a lot of kids. I want to live a long time. And I don't want to be disabled. So I do these things. So I'm not scared at all.

I'm glad your brother, Jeffrey Swisher, MD, will be with you. He will be. He doesn't rile you up the way I do or your mother does. Yes, all of you rile me up. But by the time people hear this, you'll have done it, and you'll be sprightly, we hope. Or our very last interview will be the one you had today. Oh, God. Would you like to go out on Piers Morgan?

Yes, why not? Why not? People will just be irritated because he's someone who irritates a lot of people. Why don't you talk about him? I will. Our guest today is Piers Morgan. In some ways, he's a continuation of a theme from our episode last week with Jeremy Peters from the New York Times because he also works in Rupert Murdoch land. He's got the Fox Nation show, Piers Morgan Uncensored. He started his career with Murdoch and he worked in the tabloids in the 90s and aughts. But in between, he did many things in the US. Yeah, he did.

He won Celebrity Apprentice in 2008, which I watched. He also hosted America's Got Talent. He had a CNN show between 2011, 2014, Piers Morgan Tonight. And he's worked everywhere, a lot like me. He's also incredibly controversial. He tends to try to be a bit of a blowhard. He says things that are obnoxious. He gets in

beefs with people. When I first was telling people I was doing this interview, many people were like, how did he get like that? And it wasn't meant in a nice way. He's kind of a version of me, slightly different, I find. I was going to ask, do you empathize with him or do you relate to him? I wouldn't say I empathize with him because sometimes I think he goes too far. I think his thing with Meghan Markle is now odd, but I get why he does it. But like relate to being a brand is my question. Yes, I do.

Like what it takes to keep a brand going. I do relate the idea of creating your own brand and moving on to the next thing after you fall down. I haven't fallen as much as he has, but I certainly do understand creating the brand around the figure. And I appreciate that. I understand, I can watch what he's doing and understand it very easily. And I do like that he takes stances, even if I don't agree with them. I get why people think he's toxic. I don't happen to be one of those people, although I've beefed with him on Twitter several times because I think he's being an asshole. He also has complimented you on Twitter. Yes, he has. We have a weird relationship. I think there's a difference between being... But you've never

interviewed or met him before, right? No, no. I think there's a difference between being really dangerous and being just sometimes an asshole. And sometimes he's like that. Sometimes I really like what he said. I think he's very funny. And so it'll be an interesting interview. Yeah. These days he's obsessed with Meghan Markle and this new Harry and Meghan docuseries on Netflix, which is crushing it apparently, very popular internationally. And number one in the UK, though every British person I've asked if they're watching it says, of course not, I'm English. Of course they are. You're kidding. Someone's lying.

Yeah. Piers Morgan actually wrote a review of this series, and I want you to read it. Yeah. Who are the world's biggest victims right now? You might think it's the poor people of Ukraine as their bomb shot and raped by Putin's invading barbarians, or those whose lives have been ruined by the COVID pandemic that continues to cause widespread death and long-term illness, or the millions battling crippling financial hardship in the devastating cost-of-living crisis that has swept the globe. But no, the world's biggest victims are, in fact, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, a pair of incredibly rich, stupendously privileged, horribly entitled narcissists. If you don't believe me, just ask them.

Tell us what you really think, Piers Morgan. He's a good writer. The English reviews are so funny. They're like, I couldn't stomach my lunch. Like, they're so polite. Did you watch? That was your homework last night. Did you watch an episode of... I tend to agree with them a little bit. I think I tend to agree with them. But you know, I see why people watch it. It's like, you can either hate watch it or popcorn. They're very interesting. It's nauseating because from moment one, they have these video selfies of two weeks after their last royal engagement. It's like, why are you recording that? They like attention. With what end game?

They like some attention. So does Piers Morgan. So here we are. Or they knew where they were going with it. It's like in a documentary film, if you open the door and the camera's already inside, it gives it away. Look, they're all narcissists, every one of these people we're talking about. So, and so am I. So I'm definitely going to ask him about his relationship with Meghan Markle, which doesn't seem to be good. Is that your big question for him, Meghan Markle? I want to talk about Fox News and about, you know, his own performativeness. I think it's really interesting. Do you want to ask me my biggest question, Carrie? Oh, all right. What's your biggest question? Seem like you actually are interested in what I think since I do prepare questions for you. I know that. I know that. What are you most

interested in? How he picks, I guess. I have an answer. Come on. I have an answer. What I'm interested from him is less a question, more an answer. Come on. I have an answer. What I'm interested from him is less a question, more an understanding. Like, what's more toxic, tabloids or Twitter? Good question. Let's take a break

and we'll be back with the interview with Piers Morgan. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.

It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people. These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple.

We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. I'm surprised you agreed when we reached out.

Sometimes we have a back and forth on Twitter. We've had a few, although I've liked some of your stuff too. It's kind of, it's a mixed bag, but I really appreciate you doing this. What caused you to do so? Well, your podcast makes me laugh. I think that you're an interesting person in this space because I think you're pretty strident with your opinions as I am. I come from a position with all this, I think we've lost an ability to disagree with each other, but do it in a civil way. And I don't know why that's happened, or when that happened, or where it takes us. But I certainly think in any free democratic society, we should be able to go hammer and tongs at each other, and then go and have a pint or a cup of tea and i certainly do that with my friends but i find that there's a generational thing going on where young people and this is

my problem with this sort of more ultra woke movement for want of a better phrase is they seem to have lost the ability to want to engage in that kind of debate they seem to think that any anyone who contradicts their worldview is some kind of enemy, and there can be no middle ground, there can be no debate, no consensus. And I think that's a great shame, and I think that I openly admit to being highly opinionated. So let me ask you, though, do you think it applies equally to the right? Because I find them pureless. They get all mad and grieved, and they're mad about Dr. Seuss, I mean, honestly. Yeah, no question. I have exactly the same view of people who are on the extremities of the right and always have done.

My argument about the left at the moment is I wrote my book as somebody who skews more liberal than not. I used to run one of the liberal newspapers in Britain, the Daily Mirror. one of the liberal newspapers in Britain, the Daily Mirror. But I find that the left has moved into a kind of insane area where it's almost unrecognisable to the word liberal. In a way, the ultra-woke left have become a bit like the fascists they profess to hate most because they believe in cancelling things, censoring things, all the things which historically we would have looked at for the right and berated

them for it. It's almost like a friendly fire. I'm not coming at this from any position other than, yes, I agree they're a right-wing nutter. You're obviously an intelligent person, so I'd love you to do the same for the right, because I would agree on some cases, shutting people down and discussing things is ridiculous. If you have a good argument, make it. But what's been sort of happening on the right is this idea of constantly dunking, constant cruelty, constant grievance, victimization. This is what was done to me. I feel like I'm caught in a cycle of – there's a joke about local news here in the United States is that you could put anything and say it could happen to you out of fear and anger, which is mold. It could happen to you, killer bees. I love the way you're categorizing this as some

problem just for the right. And I do think I'm in a... No, I don't. I don't. But go ahead. I think it's a scourge on all the houses. I think that there is, and I blame social media a lot for this. I think it whips people up into tribalism you know i i sort of equate it to when we go back 2 000 years in in history and we lived in genuine tribes and we never ventured out of that tribe everyone in your tribe would look the same sound the same talk the same have the same attitudes tastes in food and so on and then when we edged out of our tribes finally and encountered other tribes who look different sounded different different, ate different, had different tastes, different opinions, both tribes concluded the only way to resolve matters was to kill each other. And I sort of feel that social media has whipped everybody back into that mindset where whether you're on the right or the left, the only solution is to eradicate your enemy for having the audacity to have a different opinion.

And I think that's completely wrong and dangerous and antithetical to a democratic society. All right. So let's have a real discussion. Let's start with your long career. I think it's as long as mine, I think. It started at Murdoch Enterprise. Your first job, I think, was at the tabloid The Sun. Is that correct?

Yeah, I was the co-business editor of The Sun. And then you worked for Murdoch, made you editor-in-chief of News of the World. You worked for Rivals and now Full Circus. You're back in Murdochville for about a year now. Talk about that, sort of that journey back to this and why the return. Yeah, I mean, I was 28 when Rupert Murdoch offered me the

editorship of the News of the World. It was his biggest selling newspaper in the world at the time. And I was extremely excited. It was an amazing opportunity. I'd only been a columnist, a show business columnist, and he showed extraordinary faith in me and was a brilliant proprietor to work for. Very fearless, obviously controversial to many people, but I always found him extremely straightforward to work for. He never told me what to put in the paper. He might give an opinion after I'd published something, if he agreed or disagreed, but he didn't ever try and force his views or anything like that into the paper. So I never understood that criticism of him. And I thoroughly enjoyed working for him. And then I actually quit and went and worked for one of the rival newspapers, the Daily Mirror, for 10 years

and competed against him. And that was fun too. And I think that he admired, I think he once said about me that my balls were bigger than my brains, which I thought was one of the more interesting quotes I've had about me. And for me, Rupert Murdoch is one of the great media titans of my lifetime. And I know he has a lot of people that criticize him, as I do, but I don't care. That's my opinion of him. Yeah. So, I also, I work for him and I actually had a similar experience. He never pushed anything on me at all. He had opinions for sure and he'd call in the middle of the night and talk about internet. He was quite troubled about that. That said, you know, some of the stuff he's presided over, I also have a problem with, right? The way they've sort of created sort of these anger bubbles.

Lots of media does this. It's not fresh, but he's very good at it. But at the time when I worked at the journal, he certainly wasn't meddlesome in any way whatsoever, and often even avuncular and charming. You know, my nickname for him, though, is Uncle Satan. But talk about why you returned. What was the thinking? Well, I was in a strange situation where I was presenting a show called Good Morning Britain. I was one of two of the main presenters. We were fantastically successful. In five years, we trebled the ratings. And by the time I departed, we were fantastically successful in five years we trebled the ratings um and by the time i departed we were probably the hottest show on british television and then came the mega markel prince harry interview with oprah winfrey and as i watched it um it aired on sunday night in america

i watched it very early monday morning before we went on air and i was just seething with rage at what I saw as a vicious and deluded and inaccurate takedown of our royal family as a bunch of callous racists. So I went on air, as I often did, and expressed my very strong opinions about this, which was I wouldn't believe Meghan Markle if she read me a weather report, which I still believe today. It was an honestly held opinion. And my co-host as she often did susanna reed uh said the complete opposite and said she completely believed them and felt very sorry for them and we had a spirited debate other guests came on and hammered me in the main actually and took a completely different view to mine that was the kind of show we had where it was very

spirited very free with debate lots of lively opinion on all sides me normally expressing mine and everyone disagreeing with me which which is fine. That's what happens in democracy. And then, unbeknown to me, Meghan Markle wrote to the chief executive of ITV, Dame Carolyn McCall, on the Monday night. And the next day, I was told by my company, my employers, ITV, either I apologized for disbelieving Meghan Markle, or I had to leave. And I thought about it for not very long, actually, and decided I'd rather leave than apologize for a genuinely held opinion, which I believe now a lot of people hold. I mean, to be honest, Cara, it doesn't really matter if you agree or disagree or believe it or don't believe it or think Harry and Meghan are the

best things in sliced bread or the devil incarnate. It doesn't really matter. The principle for me was about free speech. Should I be allowed to articulate my honestly held opinion? And you also just, you did stomp off the set after a long argument with another co-anchor, correct? Well, that had nothing to do with why I left. So that was early in the show. That was on the Tuesday when our deputy stand-in weather guy decided to try and take me down on tv and that's entirely his prerogative i don't mind taking that from

guests in fact i had been taking it from guests pretty solidly for the previous 24 hours but i did object to it coming from one of my own team in the way that it was delivered so i thought i better go and have a little calm down so I went out for 10 minutes then I came back finished the show actually had a pretty good show that day we then we had record ratings highest ever ratings for the show for that Monday and as it turned out most British people agreed with my opinions and yet here was a media company telling me I wasn't entitled to have my opinion I think that's a debate about free speech it's got nothing to do really with what happened to me in terms of the individual details. It's just you should be allowed to express your opinion, particularly if it's one that involves the veracity of public statements,

many of which have been proven to be untrue. All right, we'll get back to it in a second, but I want to know why did you go back to Murdoch? What was the impetus? Your new focus? The reason I told the story about my departure was Rupert happened to be in England at the time. He watched this all go down. It was a huge firestorm in this country. And by the end of that week, my book, which had been sort of going out in the numbers, suddenly went to number one bestseller. It was selling by the bucket load. And I was the center of attention as a kind of flag bearer for free speech. And Rupert Murdoch, I think, whatever people think of him, he's always stood for free speech.

And he was watching all this go down. And he realized I was now available. And he'd been thinking about launching a new network in the UK. And so he made approaches. We got talking. a new network in the UK. And so he made approaches, we got talking, and we ended up with a pretty wide-ranging deal, including a new network in the UK called Talk TV. Right. Rupert always knows an opportunity when he sees it. How has News Corp changed between your departure in Rooms of the World and your return? How would you characterize it? I didn't think it had changed much at all,

but many of the same people were still there. And I got to say and this you know people can believe this or not but i find it a very friendly collegiate place to work everyone's very nice um when i was at cnn it could be a lot less friendly than fox a lot more backbiting um a lot more uh backstabbing actually in some cases don't want to mention names but anderson cooper knows where he is um and i found that the fox um i found that fox is a different atmosphere by contrast the way you look at how networks have changed what happened at cnn in the last few years was fascinating you know they went from being a completely non-partisan impartial uh non-political network to an outright open Trump-bashing entity, which I found extraordinary to watch having worked there because it would have been unthinkable when I was there. But I found that that was quite interesting that they are always the first to say that Fox is

biased and so on. Did Trump change Fox at all, Shirley? They've definitely leaned into it. And even I think they realize they've gone too far. They've certainly pulled back. And they're in the middle of this Dominion lawsuit. Let's take apart those. Had it changed Fox from your perspective, the involvement with Trump? Not from, I don't think so. I think it's just a reality check that Donald Trump was very good for the Republican Party when he won that dramatic election win. Fox, I think, embraced him once they realized that he was quite possibly going to win. And I think that they've gone cool on him now. It looks more like he's a loser. There's nothing particularly new about that, I don't think, for Fox or anybody else.

So it's just audience. They have gotten caught in this Dominion lawsuit. They did lean heavily into election denial. This is the lawsuit's allegations, obviously, but it's there. I know nothing about the details of it because I've not been involved at all. In my columns for New York Post and on Fox, I've been very clear about my position about the 2020 election, which is Donald Trump lost that election entirely, fairly and properly. And his constant whining about having it stolen from him. And I said this to his face in a rather inflammatory interview back in April.

His constant whining and trying to re-legislate it and say that it was stolen, the constant sort of big lie, for want of a better phrase, has come back to bite him. And, you know, most of his endorsement picks in the midterms got beaten, especially the ones who are continuing this nonsense. So I think that that's a wake-up call for Donald Trump. And I think that Fox, like me, and like a lot of people, think the future of the Republican Party is veering more to the likes of DeSantis than it is going back to Trump. Even this morning, they were touting him. I don't know if Rupert himself is a massive DeSantis fan or not. All I know is that I think DeSantis is the one to watch and is likely to be the nominee. And I think Trump's attempt at a comeback is going to end in ignominious failure and embarrassment for him.

And I wish he hadn't done it. Yeah. All right. So your new Fox Nation show is called Piers Morgan Uncensored. It's one of the favorite words of people, censor, censor, censor. Why is it in the title? Who's trying to censor you precisely? Well, I just told you the story of being removed from a job I loved on a very successful show because Meghan Markle demanded I be censored. It was a classic form of censorship. So in a way,

I was playing off what happened to me. Meghan Markle is certainly within her rights to write a letter to the editor or complain, correct? Sure, sure. But it's the apology that you refused, that your company, the organization demanded. Yeah. I don't think any journalist of any kind could ever accept an ultimatum where you're forced to apologize for something you believe or you leave the job. I mean, you could, but then you're just a, I don't know what you are.

You're not a journalist. Why not just say no, fire me. Good luck. I've done that many times. Well, that's effectively what they did by not apologizing. I was told I had to leave. And by six o'clock that evening, I was gone. So, you know, people will say, oh, but look at you now, Piers, you've got this massive platform you're doing there of course I have but I'm not doing the job that I love doing and that I was good at and I believe that is a form of censorship so when I see people saying there's no cancel culture I'm like well there's certainly a lot of people are much lower rungs of the ladder who are genuinely getting forced out of jobs well you never shut up I think what I say is a lot, like Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about cancelling and I'm like, you never shut up.

No, I don't think it's necessarily about being told you can't speak, but it is about being forced out of jobs, perhaps that you love doing because people no longer honour or respect free speech. And I think that is a form of rather insidious cancel culture. And I do think it's a form of censorship, hence the name of my show, which is whatever

happens to me on this show, you know, Mr. Murdoch may get rid of me for bad ratings or he may get rid of me for other reasons to do with whatever he chooses to get rid of me for. But it won't be for having an opinion. And that I can be sure of. What I think part of it is, is that like Elon Musk just took Elon Jet off of Twitter. As someone who follows his Jet things, it's public information that this guy is doing, took him off. So what happens is a lot of the free speech absolutists tend to make choices

like everybody else does, which I call editing. You decide it's my platform, I overpaid for it by a factor of 10. I'm going to put on whatever i want uh and and then yells about council culture that that seems to be irritating and to me for sure the elon musk jet thing i've not seen that but it may well be a security issue is it so that i mean i don't want i'd have to hear what is it's public not it's public information no sure but i'd have to hear what his explanation was first before i would judge him. I would say that he's not an absolutist because we've seen with Kanye West that when Kanye West, or Ye, as he calls himself now, then immediately responded to being allowed back onto Twitter by posting a photograph of, you know, a swastika and a Star of David,

then that crossed the line for Elon Musk and he removed him from the platform. He's not a complete then that crossed the line for Elon Musk, and he removed him from the platform. He's not a complete absolutist. He doesn't believe everything goes. But he is, I think, quite correct in saying that there has been a ludicrous situation on social media platforms like Twitter where you end up in a situation where a very woke, skewed workforce think it's perfectly reasonable to suppress a story like the New York Post scoop on Hunter Biden's laptop okay well let me just finish and and they think it's perfectly reasonable to suppress that story to the extent they remove the New York Post Twitter

account in the run-up to an American election a story which could and I say could could have impacted the result of that election. That is a malevolent suppression and censorship of free speech and of First Amendment rights of media publications. Now, in that case, I'm going to interject. To left or right? Yeah. If you look at the actual debate among and between people in that company, it was a great debate. And there were a lot of people who didn't think they should have taken it down. The decision was made. And then they reversed it a day later. Like these are the kind of struggles that these companies have. Well, they didn't reverse it a day later.

The New York Post account wasn't back up for another two weeks. The story wasn't back up for two weeks. Jack Dorsey right away said it was a total mistake and reversed it. No, no, that's not what happened. If you go and check it, the New York Post was not allowed a Twitter account for two weeks. So that was two weeks in the month before the election. I think that's completely outrageous. But do you acknowledge that within the company, it wasn't just one group of people moving like this ridiculous hive mind. It was a real debate going on internally that one group lost and one did not. And you're correct about the two weeks. I'm talking about Dorsey immediately saying it was a mistake. But go ahead. Let me just say, if it had been Donald Trump

Jr.'s laptop, do you think the same decision would have been taken? I don't think it would have been suppressed. The New York Post would not have been prevented from promoting their scoop, and it would have been followed up with enormous enthusiasm by social media platforms and mainstream media, making a conscious decision to protect Joe Biden and to do something they wouldn't have afforded Donald Trump. And that, to me, is where the problem starts, about if you start to do that kind of thing, then I think you're having a really bad impact on democracy. There was an acknowledgement. The system did work over time. We're getting all these Twitter files, not as salacious and excited as sometimes the all-cap tweets suggest, but a company truly struggling

with an impossible problem of doing this. Now, the second part of that, and you can respond to this, is it's not a public square. It's a private company. They can do whatever they damn well please. And for some reason, people have decided everybody owns this platform when, in fact, it's owned only by rich people, whoever they happen to be at the moment. I agree. That's entirely true. And it is a private company. And Elon Musk now can do what the hell he likes with it. town hall, if you like, or town square, where at least the people who are constantly being silenced are not all from the same political persuasion, which is what has been happening. And we used to

write about this, about the double standards. And I always made the point, it will come back and haunt you. If you try and tamper with free speech and democracy in this way, it will always come back and bite you. And I don't think Elon Musk is off to a perfect start. He's throwing a lot of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. He's trying to work it out. I do support him in the general aspiration to bring people back to the platform and give them a chance to show they understand that there are limits. And he's shown that with Kanye West, if you cross the line again, then he will remove you. So he's working that out for himself. I also think he happens to be a genius who, whether it's SpaceX or Tesla, has actually always been a force for good, actually, in Tesla and SpaceX. So he may be public enemy number one

now to the woke brigade, but I think he's right to take them off. Come on, he's behaving like the Paul Pelosi thing. I get he gets the right to say it, but why do that? Why, if you're talking about misinformation, do you then post something that is untrue? He needlessly dunks on people. The thing he did around Yoel Roth, he backed him, and suddenly the guy left, and he suddenly is calling him a pedophile. That's irresponsible and weird and performative. It's literally the greatest hits of the right wing, which is Fauci, woke, mind virus, trans. It goes through. He's sort of a wanderer. A lot of it I would agree with him about,

and the rest of it I would say he's entitled to have his opinions. Certainly, certainly. If he believes that Fauci should be prosecuted, he's entitled to that view. I get it. You may not like it. You don't like it, but he also has to reap the consequences of what he says, too. No matter what you say, something controversial. One of the things that you've made your career at

and I have to an extent is saying things that are that cause people to pay attention to them. And you can call them controversial. Do you think that's one of your staying powers? What do you imagine your biggest staying power is? And I'm not doing this like what kind of tree would you be? can call them controversial. Do you think that's one of your staying powers? What do you imagine your biggest staying power is? And I'm not doing this like, what kind of tree would you be? I'm not trying to, it's not meant to be. No, no, I get it. Listen, I love opinions. I like expressing opinions. I like stirring up debate. I like arguing with people. I like it if people challenge me and take me on. You know, I used to get thrown out of my local billy's pub on a Friday night for getting drunk and boisterous and arguing too much. Nothing's really changed, other than I've never been suspended from Twitter, quite miraculously. So, look, I do like a debate. I like an argument.

I like to express my opinions. But last time I checked, that is actually allowed in a democracy. Sure. But do you do it performatively? Sometimes I'm like, is he kidding? Is it just, is it fake? Sometimes, yeah. You just want to cause trouble. called Gregg's in the UK releases a vegan sausage roll, which I made into a huge furore, which led to, I think, I think Gregg's claim they sold a billion pounds worth of sausage rolls off the back of my fury. Is that a valuable use of my time? Probably not. Was it quite fun? Yes. Was that underpinning it? A belief by me that vegan and vegetarian companies, as they're banned from

doing in France, by the way, should not be allowed to use meat language to promote their products. Yes. So there was a point there, which I do believe in, but it was also quite good fun having a running battle with vegans on Twitter, because the one thing about vegans is... Well, isn't that free speech to call it meat? They can call it meat if they want, as far as I'm concerned. Well, actually, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Because to me, it's duplicitous. And in France, they banned it. It's a new meaning of meat.

It's a new meaning of meat. But I'm just interested. But when you do this... Well, it's not, though, is it? Hang on, hang on. It's like when you redefine things, you've got to be extremely careful. Meat is meat. Vegan sausage rolls are not sausage rolls.

Are they? No. Why not? Because they're gruel. They're not meat. All right. But I'm curious how you got on this. I mean, when is it performance, which I think this absolutely is, versus not? And when is performance important from your perspective? I think that a lot of it is what I would call theatrical. I think that when I'm uh expressing my strongly held opinions there's always a bit of theater to it you know i think that that it goes with the territory of social media it goes with

the territory of i i think being on television it's all performative to a degree uh podcasts can be performative but underpinning it the question really is do i say things i don't believe no do i say some things knowing it's trivial and just designed to wind people up yeah sometimes for fun um i wasn't aware that that was against the rules either so i don't really mind if people think i'm being performative well fine i don't care is there something you've regretted uh doing that going too far on anything um uh i never really regret it it's a high profile person having a pop at me and i've a pop back i've got no sympathy for people who then play the victim if they start it by being abusive about me but if i see a troll saying something particularly vile

and i in a moment of intemperate weakness respond in a sort of personally abusive way whatever it may be you know mocking their haircut or something um to give myself a cheap laugh but then i remember i've got eight million followers on twitter and then i see the pile on that happens to this troll who might have 50 followers and has ever been exposed to this kind of thing that does make me think and that has made me think over the last few years in particular, that if you're going to punch on social media, at least punch at your own level or up. But don't punch down to people who perhaps just cannot handle that kind of attention. You might talk to Elon Musk about that, calling people pedophiles and the impact that might have with crazy people.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think there are a lot of people who are on the sort of periphery of social media who now have access to people like me and you who can express vile opinions and we're supposed to just suck it up and take it and actually elon musk is you know he often responds to them and he can be quite intemperate himself but i quite like the honesty of that because that's how we all feel but i do think sometimes you have to be aware of the impact of putting something in front of eight million people in or in his case, whatever it is, 100 million now followers, that it can have a very large impact on the person that you're talking to. And I think it's just better to keep the punching up or sideways than down. Well, that's very social justice warrior of you.

But let me talk about things that have had trouble because you have been fired a few times. I have been fired. I've actually only been fired once. Once. Okay, the Mirror. This is 2004. The Mirror, yeah. This is when you published what turned out to be fake photos showing Iraqi prisoners being abused.

Allegedly fake photographs. The Queen's Lancaster Regiment proved the pictures of its soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners were staged and launched a strong campaign denouncing. Well, hang on. They didn't prove anything. They said that and it was accepted. What did you learn from that experience? I learned that the old rule that if you survive 11 days of a scandal, you'll be okay, isn't true because I was fired on day 12. So that was the first thing I learned secondly I learned that you can never ask enough questions you know in that case we were given a series of photographs by two people who were who they said

they were attached to a regiment that had been fighting in Iraq and the Iraq war in the British army and they purported to show British troops abusing Iraqi civilians. And we held those pictures for two months. And we were debating and checking and debating and checking. And then the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in America with those horrendous pictures. And I had members of my team come to me and say we now had a moral duty to reveal what we knew about what our troops had also been doing. And then we published the story after giving it to the Ministry of Defence at midday. They didn't come back with any denial.

And in fact, denials only happened about a day and a half later. It was the first time the veracity of the pictures was questioned by anyone in authority. And that was a heart-stopping moment, obviously, for me. And it led to my departure. Interestingly, none of the stories that we published around the pictures, and for the next two weeks were ever denied, and are accepted to be true, i.e. the abuse was happening. The only question became, were those pictures genuine or not? And we still, to my satisfaction, we still don't know. So, you know, it's a murky one. I

don't think it was as clear cut as people felt. So what did you learn? What did you learn from this experience? I learned that I have a very thick skin. I have an ability to bounce back from adversity. I subscribe to the Rocky Balboa mantra, which is life's pretty tough. And it's not about how many punches you can throw. It's how many you can take and get back up and keep moving forward it was a very you know bruising time for me professionally i was you know leading the news over here and around the world and it was you know an uncomfortable time but uh i always felt that over time my whole position about the iraq war would be vindicated i was editor of a newspaper which violently opposed that war

and tried to stop it happening. And I also exposed abuse, which was happening. All right. A decade later, you didn't have your contract on CNN renewed because of ratings. I think that was what they said. One of the issues you pushed for was what one might consider a liberal one, gun control. In 2013, you had a big debate, I would say a screaming match on your show, and he deserves it, with Alex Jones. You were for gun control after Sandy Hook, and he thought you wanted to take his guns away. Let's play a clip really quickly. Let me just ask you a second. That's right. How many gun murders were there in Britain? How many great white sharks kill people every year, but they're scared to swim? Right. How many gun murders were there in Britain? A many great white sharks kill people every year, but they're scared to swim?

Right. How many gun murders were there in Britain? A very low amount. I already went over those statistics. How many, do you know? All right. So that was some moments. Actually, I don't quite know what I would have done in that situation.

So was this worth losing some of your American audience? Did you think about that? You know, the best conversation I had about it was with Jay Leno, actually, when I did The Tonight Show, and he came in with a cup of tea with me in my dressing room. He said, a lot of smart people in America agree with you, particularly those on the East and West Coast, and they'll be cheering you on. But there will be many millions of Americans, particularly in the middle of America, who will see you as the reincarnation of George III. And of course, we got rid of George III and the red coats with guns. And he said, the irony will not be lost on them.

And he said, the truth is, I don't want to hear it from a British guy with your accent. And I don't want to hear it from you. And he said, it'd be like you going to Germany and lecturing the Germans on television every night about speeding too fast on the autobahn. And I thought that was very smart analysis. And if I had my time again again i would be less inflammatory and less confrontational and i would probably try and frame the debate away from gun control and make it more about gun safety because i think the word control to many americans is complete anathema whereas

the word safety is a an altogether different debate so america does stand by guns um but turned a bit on jones obviously do you validated, vindicated by what's happening with him? Well, I thought he was a, you know, a shock jock, performance shock jock at the time. You know, it's quite an interesting thing because he launched a petition to have me deported. It reached the threshold. It was a White House petition site, reached the threshold where the president, it was then President Obama, had to intervene and make a decision about my deportation or not. And he allowed me to stay, which was very good of him.

And I thought then at the time that the problem with Alex Jones was increasingly, for purely financial reasons, he would tell deliberate, horrible, terrible lies, which brought misery and put people's lives at risk who were already going through unrelenting misery. And I'm talking about the Sandy Hook families who'd already lost their children to a maniac, then having people making death threats against them because they believed Alex Jones when he said they'd staged the whole thing. And so he's now got his comeuppance. He'll be wiped out financially. But more importantly, he shouldn't be on the airways. I mean, you talk about cancel culture. There are people who should not be given platforms, and he's one of them.

And who should decide that, though? I would agree with you, but who should? I have a shorter fuse on that. Go ahead. Yeah, listen, I think it's a good debate to be had, and we have to have the debate vigorously, and we have to work it out. Elon Musk is putting together this kind of collection of people from all walks of life to try and determine where that line is. The truth is, you'll never get... Not yet. He's really just making... appears he's making the decisions himself late at night,

probably. But I think he will, when it all settles down, I'm sure he will have a team of people, and they will try and work out the fair way to resolve these things. You know, I do think it's very difficult. I know Jack Dorsey quite well, and I've always had huge admiration for him. I think it's very, very difficult to control something like Twitter in a way that also defends free speech. Where is that line and who decides it are really important questions. But I do think it's been skewed too far politically against one side. And I think it's good that that's been restored back to a middle ground. And then you have to work out what is

acceptable. I would hope that people on all sides of the political divide would all agree that what Alex Jones did crossed a line that should not be allowed. And he should not be given a platform to compound the misery of grieving families by telling wicked lies, which put their lives at risk. All right. Speaking of lies, what about Donald Trump and what happened to him? Is that different? I think they made a big mistake. and i think it's quite obvious why because actually all you did was play into the idea that twitter was politically partisan because they still allowed the supreme leader of iran to have a twitter account no i get that they're always pointing something i want you just to i want you just to cross donald trump because jack dorsey thinks it was the right decision. Look, you're allowed to lie in public in America.

You are allowed to lie in public in the UK. The question is, what is the purpose of those lies? If your purpose is to put people's lives at risk, and there's a whole debate about January the 6th and his culpability, and we'll see how that plays out. But I think that in the end did donald trump cross the line that twitter had in place to justify his removal from a platform given his status as president of united states given his status as president that's you have to add that because any other person would have been but it's the criteria it's the criteria they use for

allowing people like putin the taliban and the Supreme Leader of Iran to have accounts. So they make an exception for world leaders who they believe there's a historical importance to their public utterances. I think most people recognize it was just a mistake. Trump should have been allowed a platform. Now, if he then uses it to tweet, I want you all to attack the Capitol in a brazen, direct manner like that, that crosses the line of all Twitter's rules, and he would be suspended quite rightly, and he would face criminal charges. But as we sit here now, we haven't reached that stage with Trump and January the 6th. We need to get to the results of this. Interestingly, Dorsey does think he made the right decision there. I

think my issue was with it, was that it was the right decision, but made by only a few people. And that was my issue is it should have been i would say you're gonna make the decision you then got to be consistent and you got to remove iran russia and all the others i think at the moment in time i think they none of them wanted to be handmaidens to sedition that's how they looked at it they thought themselves oh no this is this is we've let him go on for so long, which they did. He filed on their rule stuff. He violated almost continually. But they gave him the out because he was president.

And I think that they I think they just said, that's enough. We can't that we don't know what's happening here. And in that case, caution might have been a better thing than anything else. Just for the moment, even a temporary. Well, I mean, I don't I don't agree. And I said so at the time. even a temporary thing. I mean, I don't agree.

And I said so at the time. I think that no platforming an American president has ridiculous consequences then for what you really are going to allow on your platform. So I think it was a wrong decision. I also think it empowered Trump. I think it had the opposite effect to what they thought. I think it made him a martyr. It made it look like there was one rule for him

and one rule for Republicans or one rule for everybody else. I don't think that helps political discourse in America. I think it pours fuel onto the fire. So I think for all those reasons, I'd have made a different decision. But I don't pretend these decisions are easy. They're difficult. We'll be back in a minute. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees?

And it takes forever to build a campaign? Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. I want to get into Meghan Markle actually and this documentary because I'll let you go to town on this. In 2017, you called her a friend and congratulated Harry on the engagement.

More recently, though, you tweeted, called the pair, this is yesterday, California mudslingers, which I've never heard of that expression. You wrote a scathing review of their new Netflix series. Talk about two things. What went south and why her? You're not quite at the Megyn Kelly level

of hating on her, but you're right near. Oh, hang on. I think I resent that. I think I am. Okay. I don't even hate Megyn Markle or Prince Harry. I hate what they're doing to the royal family.

Okay. I was brought up a monarchist. But the truth is I knew her a bit before she met Harry, and then like a lot of people in her orbit uh never heard from her again after that which is perfectly her choice in fact I carried on after that writing very nice things about her right to the point of the wedding actually 18 months later but the coverage was I mean universally popular everyone in Britain was thrilled about this biracial wedding of what it said about the royal family and everything else everyone loved it and then after the wedding there was a series of missteps which i think uh caused the problem with them and the media and

then the subsequent fallout and it can be brought down to one thing i think hypocrisy they began to see it as their role to preach to people about carbon footprint for example but also wanted to carry on using george clooney and Elton John's private planes like a cab service. They preached about poverty on the day that Meghan Markle threw a $500,000 baby shower in New York. They preached about privacy, and then would pop up doing interviews. And so this went on and on and on. And each time they did it, they would be criticized, as any royal would have been if they'd also been hypocritical by the media and the media got increasingly critical and they got increasingly angry with the media and they also got increasingly angry with the royal family who they thought

weren't protecting them enough but i can tell you from 30 years working in the british media mega markle didn't get anything like the treatment princess diana got kate got exactly the same treatment when she first got together with William. And then over time, because she behaved herself and did her duty and smiled nicely and didn't attack everyone all the time, everyone began to love and respect her. And that's just the way it is with the royals. They're the biggest stars in our world. And they all get the full media treatment.

So my question really about megan markle is fine you think the royal family are a bunch of callous racists who deny your suicidal thoughts you can say these things to oprah winfrey you can say them on netflix in your droopy documentary but at some point you are actually going to have to produce some hard factual evidence because the damage you're doing to reputation of this institution and the family is incalculable. So I get that, but one of the things is their own victimization from the tabloid culture, which is out of control in Britain compared to here. I think we can't really quite understand it. Simply not true. The American tabloid culture is just the same as the UK one. It's vibrant.

It's aggressive. It's opinionated. It challenges people. It criticizes people. It's exactly the same. And by the way, so it is around most of Europe. This idea that the Brits are somehow worse than the others is nonsense. All right, but that's low bar argument.

You're saying it's the same. Well, it depends if you like it. It depends if you like tabloid culture. I love tabloid culture. Right. Do you find it dangerous? Do you think it was a big part of the Princess Diana tragedy? I mean, it was so... Well, not really, because, I mean,

Princess Diana used to ring me up and give me stories. And she used to get people to ring me and tell me her movements so that she could be photographed on certain dates. You know, when Camilla Parker Bowles had her big, famous coming out with Prince Charles, Diana was with Mohamed Al-Fayed on a boat in the south of france and she got fired to call me and make sure i had a photographer on the beach at nine o'clock on the morning of the party so we could get pictures of her doing a handstand in a in a leopard skin bikini um so i'm afraid i'm rather cynical about all this because i've been on the receiving end of people like princess dinah

who i loved using the media when it suited her and And I've seen Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, who profess to hate the media. But by God, do they use the media a lot? Whether it's Oprah Winfrey, James Corden, Netflix series, books, you name it, podcasts, they are pretty aggressively using a media they profess to hate. you do the idea that the british press was or is racist when it comes to her there were columns like the one in the daily mail written by boris johnson's sister rachel who wrote if there is issue from her alleged union with prince harry the windsors will thicken their watery thin blue blood and spencer pale skin and ginger hair with some rich exotic dna and wrote of megan's mother that she is a dreadlocked

african-american lady from the wrong side of the tracks who lives in la she later disavowed that column do you think it did go over the line with her in any way honestly i think there were probably a hundred thousand articles minimum maybe double that i don't know in the period for when mega markle's relationship with har Harry was announced to the wedding. And of that, I would say 99.999% did not have a single comment in them or headline which could even be construed as vaguely linked to any form of racist intent. I think there was one headline about straight out of Compton, which I thought was a wrong headline. And the truth is Meghan Markle was brought up about seven miles from Compton, and Compton was where Venus was.

Yes, but you understand what the implication was. I got it that people took it, but I think people exaggerated what the intention was of these, of very occasional one headline here, one little piece in there. So I think the answer is, the British media were not racist. And, you know, I went back and read my own piece on the day of the wedding. It couldn't have been more ecstatic about this biracial union. So I just don't accept it. Britain is a very, very tolerant multicultural country. And the idea that we're a racist country who drove her out with our bigotry is just completely untrue.

And do they go too far the tabloids obviously diana was chased by paparazzi which some people think led to the accident although there's one that was killed by a drink driver you know let's be quite clear yes but he was in the midst of yes yeah but again she you know that's because she'd renounced her right to use royal Protection Office's security. But there's the 2011 phone hacking scandal that rocked the Murdoch media empire. There's this idea that Meghan was treated differently. Do you think the tabloids are too far? You obviously don't.

I don't. I honestly don't. And if I thought that, I would say it. I wouldn't defend them irrationally. But the tabloids are far, far less aggressive now in this country than they used to be in the Diana years. I think we did learn lessons from what happened with Diana. And you don't think you're overdoing it with her in any way? No, absolutely not. In fact, I think the people who are overdoing it are her and Harry, who are on a relentless assault of trashing their families. All right. So let's move on to someone else who likes a lot of attention, Donald Trump. You had

a long relationship with him. You were on The Apprentice. You won that show in 2008. He was your first interview for The Murdoch Show. The promo showed a lot of confrontation of Trump ultimately walking out. Here's a clip. A former president in denial. I'll be completely straight with you to your face. I think I'm a very honest man. Much more honest than you, actually. Really? Yeah.

It was a free and fair match. He lost. Only a fool would think that. You think I'm a fool? I do now, yeah. With respect. Excuse me. Okay, with respect.

The legislature. It's the hard evidence. Excuse me. The most explosive interview of the year. I don't think you're real. I realize that I'm not like. Very disheartened. Let's finish up the interview.

Morgan versus Trump. Turn the camera off. Morgan versus Trump. Expl the camera off. Morgan versus Trump. Explosive. All right. Trump's team countered saying it wasn't like that at all. You had a friendship with him and one of the previous interviews with him had been described as a love fest. Do you think it was a hardball interview with him?

Yeah. I mean, it was friendly and then it was horrible. It was 70 minutes. I think, actually, the interviews I've done with Trump since he ran for office and won the presidency and post-presidency have been the toughest he's done, actually. If you go back and watch them all in their entirety, you might be pleasantly surprised that they weren't the softball that people thought they were.

And this last one was the best of the lot, in which we had a lot of fun exchanges, and then we had the hardball stuff when it got around to the the big lie about the 2020 election being stolen which he repeatedly calls me a fool he tries to walk off he then comes back and it's just a general you know carnage going on but that's fine that's trump you know he's a he's a performer too and he doesn't like people who say i don't agree with you you and I'm quite happy to occasionally take him on but I'm also quite happy as somebody who builds a relationship with him and interviewed him many

many times I spoke to many many times to use that relationship to try and get interviews with him and I think I've done that pretty successfully it's a hard line because everyone on the right if you criticize them about anything they take the pieces on social media. And on the left, unless you're clubbing him literally with a iron bar repeatedly for an hour, it's never going to be hard enough. So it's about striking the right balance. I would hold my last interview with Trump up with any he's ever given and say that was the toughest interview he's done. And what's your relationship with him right now? Well, it was pretty frosty after that. He issued four statements from his office denouncing the interview, whilst also saying he got great ratings.

So rather mixed messaging. And then interesting thawing of the ice came when our queen died. And he'd always been extremely fond of the queen. And I wrote to his office and said, look, I'd love to talk to the president just about the death of the queen. Nothing else. If he's interested, let me know. And I didn't hear anything. And then I, about three, four weeks later, what Trump does, he doesn't use email, but he gets,

your emails get printed out and he writes on them with a Sharpie and that gets scanned and sent back. And I got my email request sent back and he just put, Piers, she was great, yours, Donald, which wasn't the longest interview i've had with him but it was a an indication that the ice has thawed and so do you expect to talk to him another interview i would absolutely interview him again there's a lot there's a lot to talk about you have said he's a loser rather publicly compared to most well the problem is before the last interview was that somebody sent him about three pages of all the most critical things i said about him in the previous 12 months, including calling him a mob boss, a gangster, and saying he should never be allowed to run for office again. And that was one of the reasons why he was slightly tetchy on air.

So I think he knows I'm critical of him. And would he take your call right now? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he is. Do you want to call him? You know what? No, not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he is. Do you want to call him? You know what?

No, not right now. But I certainly would like to interview him, and I don't think. You know what? He's a fascinating interviewer, and you'd find it a fascinating experience because his technique is to try and make you agree with everything he says. He would say, Cara, as you know, I'm the kindest man. I am aware of all his tricks. I'm quite, I watch him.

I study him very carefully. I don't think it would work as well with me as others. Anyway, speaking of that, of problems he's had with this campaign, he had dinner with Kanye West and a well-known neo-Nazi. I think we can safely say that. In October, you interviewed West for an hour and 40 minutes, an extensive interview. He likes to talk, for sure. You spoke to him after his anti-Semitic post or before Adidas cut ties with him. I'm not a fan of not giving people a platform, but why did you do this interview? Well, I felt that with Kanye West, that after the initial tweet where he talked about going death con three on Jewish people, there was still an element of doubt about what he meant by this. What was he referring to? And he certainly seemed to be suggesting it had been misconstrued and misinterpreted. I felt under those circumstances, it was right and perfectly appropriate to interview him at length and try and get to the bottom of what his views are. Are they anti-Semitic?

Did he regret what he'd said? And it was a fascinating experience, you know, and I don't think there's any journalistic reason why I shouldn't have done it. The interesting question now is would I do another one with him? He's been trying to get me to do another one, and I don't think I would now. I think he's crossed the line. This man is now being blatantly, blatantly anti-Semitic. It's indefensible.

It's appalling. He's associating with people like Fuentes who are, you know, just awful, awful human beings. Trump should have been nowhere near them at that dinner. And I wouldn't interview Kanye West again. By the end of my interview, he did apologize for upsetting people with it, which was the first recognition he thought he'd done something wrong. But, you know, I've had text messages from Kanye West since then, where he gets extremely homophobic anti-semitic again you know and it's very unpleasant to read so whether he's going through a uh some sort of bipolar episode as some people think or whether he's just got a malevolent streak in him now where

he doesn't care and we're seeing the true colors of him I don't know but I would not feel comfortable interviewing him I don't think I would I think he's a stone cold anti-Semite. I just, it's so clear. And when Elon brought him back on, I'm like, you're going to kick him off in a week. It's just, sorry. Which to be fair, he did. And I think that was right.

So do you have a line generally? Is there a line or not? Or do you feel like almost anybody? Is there someone you would not interview right now? Besides Kanye West? Yeah, I think, yeah. I would not interview Nick Fuentes. I wouldn't give someone like him a platform. I don't think you should give people platforms when it's very obvious that they are hateful,

violence-encouraging, racist, anti-Semites. You know, anyone who's targeting people with a view to causing them harm should not be given platforms. Interesting. I would certainly interview Trump. I think I wouldn't, for example, interview Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think she's a spewer of, I understand her power. I do, her increasing power, but it seems like the only thing you could do is argue with her. And she has a streak that is very obviously problematic when it comes to Jewish people and others. Yeah, I agree.

Would you interview her? I think you're right. I mean, I think, you know, probably not. I think you're giving a platform to people who are, I think, you know, they're dangerous people with dangerous views. And I think where that danger strays into blatant anti-Semitism or racism or bigotry, where it endangers the lives of the people it's being spewed about, that's a line that should not be crossed.

And how do you feel then about Elon Musk tweeting that thing about Paul Pelosi was so obviously homophobic, or the pedo thing about a man who was gay, E.L. Roth, for example? You mentioned homophobia and Kanye West. Yeah, look, I don't think that anyone should tweet stuff like that. And he, you know, he deleted them. I think he sometimes gets sucked into people sending him stuff, which he doesn't really give a big enough forensic eye to. And he's learning the hard way that when you own the company, then it's very, it's a much more difficult position when you do that when

you're just an individual having fun on twitter and i think he's learning that and he will learn that um but you know he is a guy who who shoots from a hip and he'll just say stuff and sometimes he regrets it and then i've noticed he does delete it and sometimes sometimes he didn't delete the pedophile thing about yoel roth who was a gay man who was now had to move from his home. I mean, there are consequences, as you said, when you're a powerful person with that big a platform. I'm not here to answer for Elon Musk. Yeah, no, no, you're not. So I have time for one more question. Meghan Markle, would you like to interview her? Absolutely. You can tell her my studio awaits. And it won't be quite like the interview she normally gives where the question goes something like, Meghan, how long have you been treated so badly by the beastly royals what would

be your first question my question would be something like hey megan why are you such a shameless hypocrite have you got any evidence for any of these lies you keep spewing oh well there you have it i don't think she's coming for an interview period okay in any case thank you so much and it's a really interesting to, to understand how you think about things. Thank you, Cara. I enjoyed it. He was game. I guess he lives up to that Rocky Balboa mantra. Meaning what? I was willing to take the punches and willing to come back and try again.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that's surprising, people really, just like with a lot of people who are loud and have a point of view, people like to dunk on him a lot and they really hate him. I don't particularly hate him. I think he can be a horse's ass. I think he'd be a blowhard. I also think he's quite a good interviewer. There's no way around that. Yeah, he is. It's a very similar feeling I have with Bill Maher. Part of me likes him and part of me thinks, what has happened to you? Will you stop? Stop with the cancel culture. Stop with the victimization. Stop with this and that. The Meghan Markle obsession, stop with that. I see why he's doing it. It's good for ratings. I hate to say it. He loves the late queen.

He does. He does. And I think that's genuine. I think he genuinely. It's good for ratings. I hate to say it. He loves the late queen. He does. He does. And I think that's genuine. I think he genuinely. I think that is genuine. I don't think it's performative, actually. I think it's genuine. People will be mad at me because I treated him with respect.

And that's just the way it's going to be. A lot of stuff he does, I find vile. And I've said so when it is. I don't think we have to lump everybody together. I think he's 100% right about tribalism. That said, I disagree with him about Elon. I think he's 100% right about tribalism. That said, I disagree with him about Elon. I think Elon's taken a really ugly turn. And there's a difference between being obstreperous and being, as I think Piers Morgan loves to be, and being just cruel,

needlessly cruel. Yeah. It's funny. He came in thinking you were of a certain ilk and that you had a certain thing, but he was still willing to engage, which was his point. He does protest a lot, like on the mirror pictures with the government, but I was surprised he was so quick to acknowledge that he is sometimes performative. Do you think you're a theatrical evercare? All the time. All the time. All the time. And I... When are you performative? Just sometimes I like to like smack at people, but it's genuine. I think that's what really, that's what resonated with me

is everything I say is what I think, but sometimes I go over the top. And I would agree responding to trolls is stupid. And it always takes from me and makes me lesser. And I would agree with that. And it's hard not to when you're getting smacked, but you should expect it as being a public figure. Yeah, that seemed to be his kind of line. Don't punch down, punch up or sideways. And that makes

a lot of sense to me. Why then? Because he came up in tabloids and tabloids are punching at celebrities and powerful people. But the reason he said for not wanting to punch down was that it can have a disproportionate impact on a certain individual, your scale, your power. He understood that. But tabloids have that too. I think that's the thing. Like they have that. And just because that person's a celebrity doesn't mean,

like look at Britney Spears. But he made the point, Britney Spears is calling the press all the time. So is Princess Diana. They all call the press when they want the attention. And I think that's, it's a very, I find the whole thing ugly. I stopped reading all those things many years ago.

I don't really engage in that. I used to read like people, the rest of them and all the TMZ. And I just do not. It's not good. It's just not good. But how do you know who Harry Styles is dating, Cara? I don't care. Good thing that's in mainstream these days.

You can read about that everywhere. Do not give a fuck. I like to listen to his music and that's that. Oh, you cared when he dated Olivia Wilde. You were excited. Did not. You were excited. No, I don't care.

We're like, let's book Olivia Wilde. That's not why I wanted to book him. I think he's a great artist. But anyway, let's move on. Let's move on to the credits. Yes. Today's show, if I do them really loudly,

will it make it more performative? Yeah, do that. Do that. No, no, I'm not going to do that. Today's show was produced by Naima Raza, Blake Neshek, Christian that. No, no, I'm not going to do that. Today's show was produced by Naeem Araza, Blake Neshek, Christian Castro-Rossell, Rafaela Seward, and Claire Tai. Special thanks to Andrea Lopez-Gruzado

and Jyoti DeZor. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you get tea and biscuits. If not, you can still get a cookie. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us.

We'll be back on Thursday for more.