Piers Morgan Uncensored - Dana White Interview Plus Washington Plane Crash & Trump Tariffs Debate

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

A flurry of newsworthy events are circling the Western world today, from President Trump’s plan to tariff the globe into US-friendly submission, to the horrific Washington DC air crash that claimed 67 American lives. The fallout from both stories is being viewed somewhat as a treatise on Trump’s policies. Will being economically aggressive get the results Donald wants? Did a lack of meritocracy and insidious DEI lead to the collision of the military helicopter and the passenger plane? The answers to these questions will matter very much to the American public that just elected a new president. So for a proper analysis, Piers Morgan speaks to founder of The Young Turks Cenk Uygur, co-host of Steve Bannon's War Room Natalie Winters, CNN anchor and aviation correspondent Richard Quest and candidate for DNC chair Marianne Williamson. Then, Piers turns to American businessman and UFC CEO Dana White for a constructive conversation on MMA, his close friendship with Trump and the 'Broligarchy'. Uncensored is supported by paid partnerships with: Tax Network USA: CALL 1-800-958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/PIERS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If he keeps digging and digging and we have an extended trade war with Canada, Mexico and China, then it's going to turn into a disaster and he'll spiral. He won't do that. But I hope he doesn't do that. Mainstream media is completely taking the bait on this. I'm sorry, the United States is an economic hegemon. We don't have to sit back and negotiate like losers. Now, you forget, it is an economics 101. The issue, Natalie, is not whether there will be an inflation rate of impact.

It is how big and how much people are prepared to withstand. Coming right out of the crash, minorities did it. And that's a terrible look. You didn't even investigate anything yet. And you're blaming dwarves? The American people are tired, and that's why people elected President Trump, because he called it out for what it is,

hiring dwarves and transgender people to direct airplanes. All right, Richard. No, no, no, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I told him stop so many times. The thing is, with trust, He believes in God. He believes that to his core, that God has spared his life to be the president and do the things that he's going to do over the next four years. President Trump campaigned on ending wars, but he quite clearly didn't have the economy in mind. This weekend, the U.S. slapped a 25% tariff on imports from Canada or Mexico, as well as a 10% levy on goods from China.

President Trump is betting that America's biggest trade partners will now rush to the negotiating table that American voters will put up with a whack to their wallets. have short-term some little pain, and people understand that, but long-term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world. We have deficits with almost every country, not every country, but almost. And we're going to change it. It's been unfair. That's why we owe $36 trillion. We have deficits with everybody. We help everybody. We've been helping everybody for years. And to be honest, I don't think they appreciate it. Well, it's been an immediate breakthrough. Mexico has now said that Trump has agreed to delay their tariff for a month after a good conversation. Reportedly, Mexico has agreed to assist a crackdown at the southern border by

putting 10,000 of their own troops there. Canada's Trudeau is due to talk to Trump better today as well. The new president is also keeping a close eye on the Senate this week, where three of his most contentious picks for the cabinet face tight confirmation votes. Cash Patel, the FBI director, RFK Jr., for Health Secretary, and Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intellectual. This is why snippets of information are often misleading and detrimental to this committee's advice and consent process. If you consent, I would love to have five hours of questions and then I could read the whole transcripts. You've got two minutes. Wow.

News reports have claimed that I'm anti-vaccine or any industry. I am neither. I am pro-safee. Scabbard is simple yes or no question. Do you still think Edward Snowden is brave? I do not agree with or support with all of the information. all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it.

Democrats this weekend lashed a president of what they called a stomach churning claim that diversity, equity and inclusion may have played a part in the DC air disaster. 67 people die when a US Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair with an American Airlines passenger jet. We now know that only one air traffic controller was managing both the helicopters and planes

for Reagan National Airport, a job normally done by two people. The control tower was understuff. and the DNC out of the Judgment Forum this weekend, as it looks to learn the lessons of its crushing defeat in the election. So far, it's not going very well. How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat?

Okay. So that's good. You all pass. They've learned nothing, have they? Well, put into debate with today's panel. I'm joined by the founder and CEO of the Young Turks, Czech Juga, co-host of Steve Bannon's Warham, Natalie Winters. And we begin with CNN anchor, super anchor, I like to call him, an aviation expert, Richard Quest.

Richard, great to have you back on Unsensored. Perfect to have you, actually, to debate these big issues, particularly Taris and the plane crash. I'll come to the plane crash in a few minutes. But on the Terrace, I've known Trump a long time, as you know, and I could have told everybody what was going on here. he was not intending to actually slap 25% tariffs on his neighbours. He wanted them to be scared into thinking he was,

so they do a deal to do something quite significant that he could claim was a victory in one of his election pledges, in this case securing the southern border, and that's what he appears to have got already out of Mexico. Now, why don't other people see this? I just see people immediately going into the old hysteria, of 2016 to 2020, where every single thing Trump did led to mass hysteria rather than understanding

a little bit better the character of the guy. He's a dealmaker. That's what he does. He's a trader. He's a transactional president who just basically says, if you don't do this, I'm going to do this. And you know what? It looks like it's words.

Now, am I wrong? No, you're not, and it kills me to say that. But the reality of peers, I was in Davos, and the standard rubric phrase that people use is, look at what he does, not what he says. He's a transactional dealmaker, etc., etc. But the speed with which he has acted on so many other things in the United States, domestic policy, all the things you've been talking about,

has led people to pause and think, well, maybe he's not just bluffing as a deal. And I think there's some valid justification. If we take the Columbia incident. Now, here we had the flights, rejection, the threat, the capitulation. So there is some justification for people saying, hang on, maybe he really does mean these threats in this way with the force of destruction that they would bring. And I'll go one bit further because to take your argument, which is he's a deal. make a transactional, etc.

Then President Chambam of Mexico had 10,000 troops in her back pocket that she was waiting and ready to offer up as necessary. When you start playing this, will he, won't he? Is it that way? Is it the game theory? You're in very dangerous territory. The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world and it's just stepped up enforcement for 2025.

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Their attorneys and negotiators have resolved over a billion dollars in tax debt. You can talk to one of their strategists about your case for free. So put your IRS troubles behind you once and for all. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com forward slash peers. That's P-I-E-R-S and that's TNUSA.com slash peers. Now on with the show. You're sort of, though, in the world of somebody who has negotiated his entire life as an adult. I mean, this is a guy for 50 years.

He's a real estate magnet and then him with television contracts and now in politics, he sees everything as negotiable. And by the way, I kind of agree with him. And in terms of the volume of stuff pouring out of the White House, a lot of people think it's chaotic and so on and ill thought through and so on. I don't really agree. I think he spent four years systematically planning and plotting to hit the ground if he got back in unbelievably hard. And I think that's what we're seeing. And no, again, I might be wrong, but I do believe that. Okay. Look, here, the system, and you can debate this amongst yourselves so your heart's content. But the system is not designed and cannot cope with this much going through it without having

severe disruption and unintended consequences. Now, that might be fine for those that want it like that. And that's not my position. It's not for me to take a position. But in the case of tariffs, is it, okay, and the other thing is, is it really good to have the Canadian Prime Minister, soon to be ex, standing in front of his people saying, hey, we thought we were friends.

This is not how you treat allies. Because in that scenario, fine, you won your deal. But what's your long-term damage? You know what? I think I watched Trudeau, sniffling and sniveling like he normally does. You know, he'll go down as one of the wokenest leaders of the country in the history of mankind. He wouldn't even allow me to say that phrase. He famously said to a bunch of students when they said, you know, mankind, one small step for mankind. It's one step for people kind, we say in Canada.

It's like he was ludicrous and ends up incredibly unpopular. He's on his way out. So for him to stand there and try and belatedly go out on a high whacking Trump, I'm like, I wonder what most Canadians are thinking because Trudeau is incredibly unpopular. I reckon, Richard, I reckon a lot of Canadians will be thinking, like a lot of Brits are now thinking, where we have a pretty weak, you know,

pretty socialist left-wing government now. It's incredibly unpopular very quickly. I reckon a lot of them are thinking, I wish we had a bit of this action going on. It may not all be right, but my God, there's a kind of vim and vigor to it all. Yes, I agree with you. God, this is getting deeply.

distressing for me. Why someone even? Yes, I think there is a section in Europe. Look in Germany, look in the UK, that is saying, hang on, why are they getting so much from their leaders, and we're getting stuff and nonsense? I worry about the long-term animus. If you think about it, Colombia, South Africa,

all the aid policies, the EU, the UK, Canada, Mexico, if these are your allies and that's how you treat them, and I don't see how you treat your enemies. Yeah, but I think a bit of tough, love. Let's bring Cheng Juga in here. You know, maybe it's because I know Trump so well. You know, I've read all his books, and I know how he operates. I know how he thinks.

I know how he works, even though he can be, even to people who know him very well, very unpredictable. But I've watched all this tariffing go down. You know, I'm going to do 60% tariffs on China. No, he's not. But what he wants China to think is there's a leader in town who's not going to take any crap from us. And someone who, for 30 years has banged on about how China's been ripping off America. So we better take him more seriously than we've had to take Joe Biden

who didn't know what day it was. And I do think part of Trump's thinking, a strategy in this sort of ferocious first couple of weeks is to send the message America's woken up and you better all get used to it very quickly. Yeah. Look, as usual, I'm going to give a balanced answer here because that's the correct answer. But first, if you think the Canadians love this, you're totally wrong. They booed the American National Anthem in a hockey game.

A few of them did. because they're really... Yeah. Well, let's take a look. Let's take a look. There's a massive stadium for... You said they all booed him. Let's play the clip. Let's play the evidence.

They did. Let's hear this crescendo of booing, apparently. I got booed louder than that coming through Heathrow Airport the other day by a bunch of pro-Palestinians who recognized me. They were sort of semi-loughing as they did it. Okay. So, look, I don't think it was Canada rejecting Trump. I do think there are a lot of people in Canada, just what I'm seeing on social media,

who actually think, you know what, Trudeau, you've had your chance, you blew it, and actually we get this. It's called strong leadership. Okay, so far I've talked five seconds, but thank you for proving my point. They did definitely boo, and if you got booed louder, that's kind of on you. So this idea, this neocon idea of if we attack them, they'll love us, is ridiculous. No, they don't love us. Now, you say also, hey, Trump's been planning for four years. But when people said, hey, they're planning to do this project 2025 for four years,

the right wing flipped out and said, no way, that's not going to happen. No way. He's not planning at all. And then he gets in office and he's doing it pretty much exactly like Project 225 said. In fact, he put the author of Project 2025 as the head of the office of management and budget. And so they've done some things that I think are terrible, cutting USAID. now all of a sudden the donors are in charge of the Treasury, one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Now, having said that, I understand what's going on with the tariffs.

He's bluffing. Do you mean Musk? Oh, I mean Musk, and apparently a whole army of Silicon Valley CEOs have now been empowered to access all of the money of the American taxpayers? I love it. You know why? Okay, well, that's because, sorry, I was about to insult you. I'm pretty gravely.

To Rich's point, let's explain. Because that's a terrible idea. Okay, hey, you know what, Pierce? Let's put George Soros in charge. Let me explain. Let's give George Soros in the Treasury. Because that's the same thing. Let me explain.

Oh, donors are great if they're on my side. No, I hate the idea. It's not about who side the wrong. It's oligarchy to the max. All right, let me explain. Can I jump in? Let me explain what I mean. To Richard's point, yeah, I actually quite like

dismantling the status quo of how governments have operated in America for many, many decades. I think it's been largely to the detriment of the American people. So if you get a super brain like Elon Musk, who's a fraud character, don't get me wrong, but he's also got a super brain, gigantic-sized brain.

For example, in the UK, the National Health Service was a great treasured thing, which we all loved, and we still loved the principle of it, but it is literally creaking at the seams and falling apart because a big population now, it can't cope with it. I would love to have a brain like Elon Musk getting stuck into the spending on the NHS and restore it to glory,

as he's done to every one of his businesses. So I don't really agree with you. I quite like the idea of these guys ripping into American federal overspending. Why not? By the way, the American people seem to as well. They're loving all this. Peers. Peers.

They're loving it until they find a couple trillion dollars missing. And then they're going to go, oh, he had a big rain, but he didn't use it for us. He used it for himself. So you guys are asking us, and by the way, this is the least populous position on planet Earth. Trust the big brain billionaires. You know who else has a big brain? And the right wing would agree.

George Soros, not only one of the greatest investors of all time, but according to the right wing, has manipulated the American government to totally work for him for decades. If that's true, he has a giant brain. Should we put him in charge of the Treasury? No. Just because you're smart, if that's even true, doesn't necessarily mean that we should give you the keys to the kingdom. That is controlling all of the tax-fair money.

If they do something on their own behalf, which is a near guarantee, you're telling me all the Silicon Valley CEOs are angels, and they would never do anything for their own behalf. They only have all pure intentions for the American people. I'd love to see that. But back to the tariffs. And it relates to the same thing. $17 trillion in debt?

I mean, let's be honest, the conventional way of doing this hasn't been great, is it? but peers I'm against the conventional way of doing it so you're you know you're barking up the wrong tree there look the tariffs are a good example because Trump is Trump is clearly bluffing but at some point as I think I said on this show clearly working too that bluff is going to get called yeah so and and by the way I defended among Columbia because the Colombian president was wrong he changed his position mid flight his position was indefensible on the other hand with Canada and Mexico Trump is starting this over what I think is nonsensical claims I know fentanyl's coming

But the real problem is demand. It's not supply. We've tried this a thousand times, right? So now we've started a giant trade war because his bluff got called. Now the question is, is he going to adjust and at some point, which he does quite often, go, hey, you know what? I got a small concession out of them. And I'm going to claim that that's a giant concession. It was a big win. And then he turns around and calls it off. No problem. But if he keeps digging and digging, and we have an extended trade war with Canada, Mexico and China, then it's going to turn into a disaster.

He won't do that. But I hope he doesn't do that. He won't do that because Natalie, ultimately, Trump likes to be judged on the performance of the economy. It's the thing, you know, he's a billionaire. He's built himself into a billionaire because he pays attention to the economy.

And he likes to be, I mean, I always felt with him. He went slightly mad in that last year in his first term because the pandemic wrecked the economy. He just couldn't handle it. Because to him, this is the holy grail, being destroyed and he got into pretty good shape. You know, he is transactional.

He does do deals. I think the Mexico thing today is a classic example of Trump actually at his best for the American people because ultimately what's happened? The trade war didn't start. It's been delayed. And 10,000 more troops from Mexico are being put straight on that southern border.

No one can tell me that is not going to help in the war on fentanyl or illegal immigrants pouring through the border. I mean, it just obviously is going to help. So therefore, Trump is delivering on one of his promises. People may not agree with that, but that's why he won big. I reject the premise that this is a trade war that President Trump started. There's decades of abuses against American workers against the American economy

that has occurred at the hands of all of these countries, whether it's China and intellectual property theft, Mexico, and the depletion and absolute degradation of American workers' wages through illegal immigration, which they have helped facilitate. We can already see they had, what, 10,000 troops waiting on reserve? Why didn't they deploy them earlier? But look, the mainstream media is completely taking the bait on this. Okay, the same people, I'm sorry, who we sat by for four years who cared absolutely zero

about American consumers, American workers, they didn't even care to cover inflation. They lied about it. They lied about what Joe Biden was doing to the economy. Now all of a sudden, the only thing that they can pretend to care about is putting American workers first in American consumers pocketbooks because apparently tariffs, they're going to be stuck paying the cost. In reality, all of these Chamber of Commerce talking heads, these corporate media outlets are on the payroll of this sort of, I think, rules-based international order, the same international order that Marco Rubio called out in his confirmation hearings that

we don't have to sit through anymore. I think President Trump represents an actual ability to stand up to that. And you know what? I'm sorry. The United States is an economic Hedgeman. We don't have to sit back and negotiate like losers. We have economic power, and we can use that to bring about wins in a myriad of sectors and a myriad of ways. And what you're seeing today is the United States actually using that economic power to score wins on immigration. And again, like I said, I just reject the framing that the trade war was started by President Trump. The Chinese Communist Party has been abusing and manipulating American workers for so long. And by the way, these are the same people who've been championing the de-dollarization of the entire world, of the United States of America, of the United States dollar.

So spare me the performative activism about caring about American workers and consumers. Richard, you've been like a coiled cobra ready to spring throughout what Natalie just said. So spring away. Well, I'm not here to defend the entire Main Street media. But I'm also out for 40 years of covering inflation. I think I do understand perhaps arguably. a little bit more about it than most people, and certainly the measures of the last inflation.

You see, Natalie, you forget that, yes, the United States had inflation, but so did every other G7 and G20 country, and the inflation levels were the same, pretty much across all of them. So it is not a uniquely American prospect, for whatever the reason. I'm just giving you the facts. But the more important fact is,

this idea that somehow tariffs are not inflationary. I heard Howard Lucknick's confirmation hearing. I don't know where Howard has sort of changed his economic theories. But the Peterson Institute, just about everybody agrees, that there will be an inflationary effect of tariffs. It is an economics 101. The issue, Natalie, is not whether there will be an inflationary impact. It is how big and how much people are prepared to withstand that.

And that inflationary effect goes both sides. Now, I'll take your political points because I'm not qualified to answer them, But on the economic point, I think you're going to have to accept that there is an inflationary aspect. Is it also true, Richard? I mean, this is not even a political point. It's more of a performance marketing point, if you like. Yeah. The Joe Biden's running of the economy or the running of the economy in his premiership actually wasn't that bad.

The problem was he was woefully useless at communicating how well it was doing. And Trump has come in inherited a pretty good economy, actually. But because he's able to beat his job. chest like a 20-ton gorilla about it. The impression the public are getting is, wow, everything's changed in two weeks. Well, you and I know the economy can't change like that in two weeks. What's happened is the ability of the guy at the top to sell it. Completely. Absolutely. Absolutely. The US is the best economy performing economy at the moment

amongst all the major economies, period. Largely because of the Biden policies, the Fed's policies, the way things were structured, the inability of other countries to have anything like the dynamism of this US economy. It is by far the most exciting, vibrant, free economy in the world, period. So yes, the US economy did not need massive help in a sense. But I'll take Natalie's point. Yes, there are structural imbalances on trade that needed to be addressed. There are long-term infrastructure issues that need to be addressed,

as indeed do they need to be in Germany. But the US is way further aired than any EU country are dealing with all these things. Yeah, I mean, I listen, I remember interviewing Trump, I think, for the first time in about 2008, and he spent a lot of that interview banging on about China ripping off America. So this has been a thing,

this isn't something new since he became a politician. He's been doing this for a long time, and actually, he's not wrong. Let me switch gears to the plane crash. Chek, let me start with you here. Well, Pierce, I can't. I can't let you get away with saying that Joe Biden handled the economy extremely. No, I actually rephrased it, Natalie.

Hang on, Natalie, hang on, don't miss quote me. I refraith. I said the economy under his premiership, in other words, I took it away from him personally because I don't think you knew what day it was. But I do think the economy, the economy wasn't down to him because I don't think he knew what day it was. However, the truth is the economy was not performing badly comparative to most other of the wealthy countries in the world. In fact, the opposite. The problem was none of them knew how to sell a story to the public that was convincing, whereas Trump knows exactly how to do that.

I think the dozens of revisions about job employment numbers showing that actually I think most of them went to non-citizens, and I believe it was dozens of revisions downwards to just otherwise, but I think most importantly appears any presidential administration that oversaw an invasion of what, upwards of 10 to 15 million illegal aliens into this country, that is probably the single largest detrimental force to American workers' wages. So I don't think that you can say that that's a strong economy that Joe Biden created by allowing the most impactful. Well, that's a separate, yeah, but that's a separate, hang on, that's a separate. That's a separate.

Well, it is. It is. It is, in a sense, that's a separate story on which I agree with you. I think what happened at the southern border under Biden was lamentable. And the fact that they then picked Carmel Harris to take over from him in this weird coronation, despite knowing she was literally told she was the border czar. Then they had to lie about her being called the border czar. Then we had to show our million clips of people on MSNBC calling of the border czar.

And, of course, the truth is that once people knew, well, she was the one in charge of that, look how terrible it was, she was kind of dead in the water, I thought, from that moment. Never mind anything else. Anyway, look, I want to turn to the plane crash. Cheng, I want to play a clip of Trump talking about President Trump, talking about the appalling plane crash in Washington. I point out that various articles, that appeared prior to my entering office.

And here's one. The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in, and they want them. They can be air traffic controllers.

I don't think so. I've got to be honest, Chink, before you respond to that, I did not like that. I didn't like that. I just felt like there's a time and a place to do that kind of stuff and it's not in the immediate aftermath of a terrible crash with so many people killed. And before you really know anything about what's happened.

Now, it may well turn out, as often with Trump, that a lot of the stuff he's talking about in some way that there will be merit to the argument. But I just felt the timing to me was wrong. that if you're president of the United States and 60-odd people plus the people on board the helicopter, if they've all died in a horrific crash, actually your job in that moment is to be comforter in chief, not blame her in chief. Yeah. So I totally agree with you. First off, yes, I know the program that he's referring to,

and it doesn't help our side to deny reality. So there was a terrible DEI or diversity program about a decade ago. And it did absurd things like give you extra points if science was your worst class, right? So it was absurd. But that's been gone for over a decade now. And coming right out of the crash, when you start blaming DEI, what you're saying to your base is, oh, I'm not going to look into what went wrong here. Was it the plane? Was it the helicopter? Was it the miscommunication?

Overstaffing. Understaffing is not an issue. but understaffing, et cetera, right? You're coming out and going, minorities did it. And that's a terrible look. And you know, you could say, hey, you know what? Jake, you just told us that there were some DEI abuses.

That's right. And that's part of why they won the election. But if you then swing the pendulum so far that you blame minorities after every single incident, which is basically what looks like it's happening right now, you're going to turn off the country. You certainly turn me off. So, and then they'd realize, oh, wait, black voters are, coming towards us, so that's a bad idea.

So Jesse Waters goes on Fox News and goes, well, well, okay, okay, it wasn't black people. It was dwarves, the deaf, and transgender people. You didn't even investigate anything yet. And you're blaming dwarves? It's absurd. And it's gonna have the pendulum swing back against you. And the American people are gonna go,

I'm tired of you blaming minorities and women and dwarves for everything. This is absurd. Okay, Natalie? Well, look, I think that the American people have gotten tired of the inability to be able to just call a spade a spade, which is that prioritizing the hiring of people. Sure, maybe it was 10 years ago, but the Obama administration directly changed in 2013, the FAA hiring procedures to shift away from actual merit-based standardized testing,

accredited institutions to favor more, you know, cushy biodata metrics because people grew up in a difficult household or had a certain skin color. And you know what? There's lasting ramifications from that. And I think for so long, the American people have been called out as racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever for calling it out. But in reality, that's what the status quo is in terms of who people are hiring. And to say that people can't call it out for what it is, I think it's just a continual version of that gaslight. There's serious issues going on. And I think that in industries like at the FAA, things that have absolutely nothing to do with identity or anything related to ad hominem attacks on people. that the American people are tired,

and that's why people elected President Trump because he calls it out for what it is. I mean, this is not just run-of-the-mill, D-I. This is hiring dwarves and transgender people to direct airplanes. That is non-sensical. All right, Richard. No, no, no.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Natalie, I have a question for you, right? I have a question for you. Do you, forgive me, Piers. Sure. I know, please. I know a thing of two about doing this. Do you believe that,

any of those people, the mentally challenged, the dwarfs, any of those people that were substandard, in his view, were being employed under that policy for the purpose of being an air traffic controller. Not an administrator, not as an assistant. The fact that you can even ask me a question, if the United States is hiring dwarves and mentally challenged people to direct air traffic,

I think sort of proves that we're in a bit of a state of situation. No, with respect. Obviously, they're still investigating it. But what I'm saying is when the hiring process has been shifted not to be merit-based, then, yeah, I think that's worth looking into, and I think we should investigate it. But I can still call it out for what it is. There's still systemic issues going on with FAA hiring policies and procedures if the fact that you can actually ask me if a dwarf would have been in the control tower.

I don't know. People who are mentally challenged, they're probably not capable of doing that job. So I would like to live in a country where you don't have to worry about those people being in a control tower and you can't even ask me a question like that. Okay, okay. Except when you are looking at a plane crash, the normal standard of doing this is you say, let us find the facts first. Now, with respect, I do have some more experience of this than most people. I've covered every major plane crash in Slokabing. And P, as you'll remember, of course, MH370. My last seven weeks on air at CNN when I was your colleague, every night we did the missing plane. And you were my go-to expert.

You put in them domain those areas that maybe the public needed to think about, i.e. air traffic control, complexity, Reagan National, the flight paths. What you don't do is speculate, rampant, speculation. And that's what the President did. And to use his exact words, his exact words, I have some thoughts and opinions on this. That by any standard is what you don't do. You let the NTSB, as indeed we heard from the NTSB, we heard from her, the chair, say, let us get on with this. But no, he put in the domain a load of stuff that may be relevant in the future. But it's not the position of the President to say,

hey, let's have a speculation game. I mean, it's interesting because... Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, going back to the missing plane back in 2014 when CNN went wall to wall on this story about what had happened to this plane, and you and I were together every night to bed in. We did a lot of speculating.

I must be honest, we had a lot of people on who just speculated. Nobody knew what the hell that happened to this thing. We were blaming anyone we could think of each night trying to make the story... I mean, I felt that we were just trying to swing the story out as much as we could because it was doing big ratings. but there was a lot of speculation going on. I think the question I have...

Inappropriate speculation in many cases. Yeah, but my point is the media do that a lot, I think, on these plain stories. What Trump was doing, it's whether the President of the United States should be doing it, and whether he should be airing theories, which may in the end turn out to be completely lacking

in any connection to what happened here. We just don't know yet. I think that's a valid point, but I think he would probably say, look, every time there's one of these things happening, I turn on the media and there's everyone just speculating. Why shouldn't I? And, you know, people would not away and go, he's good point.

You know the answer to that, because he is the head of the executive. He's the head of the assistant. He is supposed to follow the gold standard, if you will. And the gold standard is investigators are, otherwise the NTSB chair would do the same, and she didn't. I would also. Please. I would also point out, President Trump, said these comments while giving a press briefing in the James Brady press briefing room,

it wasn't like he was saying it in a capacity where he couldn't be challenged. No, but let me ask you, Natalie. But Natalie, but Natalie, let me ask you this. Yeah, but Natalie, let me ask you this. I felt for the first half of it, he was absolutely on point and he said all the right things. But if you were, for example, if you knew somebody on the plane or the helicopter, a family member, a friend, a work colleague, whoever it may be, how would you on a CFEL, Just be honest about what he then went into the line he then took,

where he was just airing having a go at Biden, having a go at Obama, having a go about DEI, all these things. I mean, I don't know about you, but I just felt on a human level, my criticism would have been wrong timing. Just don't do it there. Not the first time the president talks about it. I think I would have been infinitely more upset and more critical of the FAA and hiring policies and procedures that allowed for that crash to happen.

But you don't actually, but that's the point. You don't know that. But hang on, Natalie, you don't, here's the point. Natalie, you have no idea why that crash happened. None of us do. So when you say that, you're justifying what President Trump did. But you don't know any more than he did in that moment about what's happened here. We just have no idea.

It could have been anything. He did not directly outright blame it on DEI halt in the same way that we talked about. Yes, he did. Sorry. Go back and read the transcript. Go back. Yeah, he did. Go back and read the transcript.

factors. Decades of hiring unqualified people or less qualified people is going to lead to less qualified people running as they call the complex. If I've been him, if I've been him, honestly, if I've been President Trump, if I had already found out, and I don't know if he knew this in the moment or not, if I had found out that, for example, in that air traffic control room, normally at that time of night, there is somebody managing the helicopters and somebody managing the planes. And in that particular moment on that night, one person was doing both jobs. That fact alone, and I'll come to Richard for your more expert view of that,

but that fact alone raises massive alarm bells. And it plays to the general agreed feeling about this from all sides that air traffic control is under real pressure in terms of staffing. And that, it seems to me, might well turn out to be the most likely thing here, rather than DEI, which is a separate issue. I honestly, I hate DEI. I think it's become an awful thing that has been misused, mischaracterized, and actually abused in a way

which has promoted mediocrity over meritocracy, and I hate that. So just for the record, DEI sucks just generally as a concept, I think. However, there's no evidence DEI played any part here, but there is clear evidence now emerging of understaffing and potentially critical undersuffing, staffing where one person was doing two jobs on a busy night. And that's exactly what happened.

Richard, I'll come to you in one second. Just just get checked to respond to that. Yeah. Yeah. So listen, as we speculated as to what is more likely, I have dwarves as less likely. I have understaffing as far, far, far more likely. And so what happened here is that Congress, by the way, and almost no one's talking about this, and I'll tell you why in a second, ordered 50 more.

routes at an already incredibly crowded airway at Reagan National Airport. And that's because they wanted direct flights back to their states and districts. And let's be honest, probably their donors. So did they then increase the air traffic controllers at Reagan? No, they refused to fund that, but they said, you have to give us our direct flights. So that's the first place I would look for as to what went wrong because we definitely had understaffing. And if I'm a family member of someone who died, and someone's doing nonsense talk about dwarves and transgender people, instead of trying to figure out why my family member died and to make sure that we prevent that from happening again,

I would be furious. But why don't people talk about that? Well, because Republican and Democratic politicians voted that way. So it's not easy to say it's Trump's fault. It's DEI's fault. So it doesn't fall into the normal political and cultural wars. And one last thing on this, peers, Look, Trump's greatest strength and weakness is the same thing, marketing.

So when we're talking about earlier, he comes in, it's the same economy. He pretends that it changed overnight and went from terrible to amazing. But he beats his chest and marketing, marketing, marketing, and it works. And the Democrats never, ever defend themselves, can't make their case if they're life dependent. But on the other hand, Trump always takes it too far. And so here he comes in and goes, oh, all these people died. It's a great advantage to use my talking points against DEI. No, it isn't, brother.

And it's really sad for those families and disturbing. You're using them for a political tactic. And it's really terrible. It would be genuinely hilarious if it turned out you were Donald Trump's brother, just for the record. Let me bring Richard in here. Richard, I mean, I think the most likely, I mean, look, again, we're specular. Of course we are. We're doing exactly what we said Trump shouldn't do.

but we are different to Trump. We're allowed to speculate with the media. It does seem to me that the staff shortages that night in air traffic control might well turn out to be a contributory factor here. Is that your feeling? Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I spent my entire career.

You have to do this speculation, but it has to be, as you can see, we've got plenty of planes from various different areas of it all. The reality is, the job is this. You put in the domain those likely areas that it could have been, not by way of rampant speculation, but so you can help people understand the things that are going to be discussed in the future. As we get closer and closer, my job is to give you the realms of possibilities.

And so we will talk about staffing of air traffic controllers as you get a fact. You'll talk about the complexity of the various height levels. You can talk about the complexity of flying a helicopter at night with night vision. And the way in which at Reagan, the helicopters go like this, and the idea is the planes go over them like that. But of course, if the helicopter's too high and for whatever, that's how you get your accident. That is not speculation. That is putting into discussion things that can help people understand. In this case, I would say you're talking about a helicopter pilot is in the wrong place, for whatever reason, night vision, whatever it might be,

and an air traffic controller, staff from shortage that meant they did not. see what was about to happen and then collision avoidance systems on plane and helicopter that either didn't work weren't there or were too quiet that's how accidents happened in the air the Swiss cheese principle if if by the way and I hate to be the one to be most speculative if it was an accident we don't even know that right we don't well it was an accident in the sense of an accident what else would it be it could be it could be a non accident could have deliberate we don't know do we well i'm using accident with a small a no i'm just saying we have no idea whether that helicopter may or may not have deliberately crashed into the plane for whatever

reason we don't know the point is you're not going to rule anything out you've got to rule out the fact it may not have been an accident is you you're right you're right you do have to rule it you don't rule it out but at the same time you don't put something that is less likely You want me to give you an informed view on what is likely in the realm. All I know is watching the final clip, I think CNN had it actually, the really clear one, is extraordinary to watch. I mean, I've gone into that airport many times, and you're always aware of the military helicopters. There's loads of them go in there.

This is nothing unusual, but they just go at each other like a dart. It's the weirdest thing to watch. And you're just like, how on earth has a Black Hawk military helicopter? done that. I just don't, I don't, I can't get my head around it. So I don't think any theory should be ruled out personally. I just think that there's a time and a place for the president to air his own theories and it wasn't immediately afterwards in the first time he talked. That's just my view. Stay with me panel. I'm going to bring in Marianne Williamson, the former candidate for president of the United States, just lost out in the race to become the chair of a Democratic

National Committee at the weekend, lost out to Ken Martin, but looked to take the Democrat Party forwards after their thumping defeat in November election. Well, welcome to you, Mary Ann. Great to have you back on Uncensored. I just want to play that clip we played at the start of what happened at this little gathering of Democrats, because I found it quite startling. Let's take a look. I have a show of hands. How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat? Okay.

So that's good. House. Now, Marian, you put your hand up there. Carmela Harris, let me just put my, for my four penniesworth, as a Brit, a lot of Americans, so it's your country, your election, your candidate, obviously on the Democrat side, but Carmelma Harris lost because she was useless. It's as simple as that. I couldn't think of any redeeming qualities she had as a presidential candidate, least of all to beat Donald Trump, had nothing to do with her gender, her skin color, or anything. It was entirely down to her basic incompetence. So why would you and every single other person on that stage all raise your hands,

like you're part of some weird Mooney sect, to say the one thing guaranteed to turn off an electorate who've literally just voted against wokeism, DEI, and all these other things, because they think it's a load of nonsense. Why would you then all of you raise your hand and say the only reason Kamala Harris lost with sexism and racism and misogyny. Because nobody with the brain actually thinks that. With respect. Your response? Well, he did not say the only reason she lost.

His phrase was, played a role. I am an American woman, and so I know what misogyny does, particularly in the political realm. So his phrase was, do you think it played a role? Do I think it was the primary role? No, I actually don't. I think her lack of authenticity. I think the fact that she had been basically appointed,

the fact that there were poor beliefs that we did not discern. Those things were absolutely more major. But the question was, do you think it played a role? And I do. And racism played a role? There was racism in the United States, Paris. Now, we've had a black president. The American people.

Exactly. The American, yeah, the American president. And by the way, the reason that you've not had a woman president is you've had two dreadful candidates. Hillary Clinton was dreadful and incredibly unlikable, in my opinion. It's just my opinion. And Kamala Harris was one. worse, actually. She stood for nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you took her into the street and said

to the 100 members of the public in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, wherever you want to go and say, tell me five things she stands for. And I'll just say the same thing about Hillary Clinton. They wouldn't have been able to answer you. Trump, everybody knows what he stands for. He's the best political messenger or messenger that America's had in modern times. And that's why he wins. because the Democrats haven't got a candidate who can put up ideas that resonate with the American people. Carmire Harris did not lose

because she's a woman or black. I absolutely guarantee. I mean, how do you explain that the case that you had a record number of Latinos go and vote for Trump, who was being called a racist every two seconds? Or a much higher number of black Americans or more women or more Jews or more Muslims?

I mean, he had everybody gravitated. to it. And that had nothing to do with skin color either. But it wasn't because he was white. It's because he was actually resonating with the public about the economy, about immigration, and about wokeism. That's why he won. So when I see the Democrats trying to move forward, and you're a leading light of this party, when I see you all dutifully put your hand up, trying to excuse this monumental defeat with racism and misogyny. I'm like, oh, come on, Marianne. You're definitely better than that. Well, once again, I'll just stop that.

He said played a role. I wanted to go kind of like that. It certainly did play a role. But what you just said was that President Trump is of the best messenger. A liar is not a good messenger. The president has lied about many things. The president is implementing an authoritarian agenda as we speak. So when you say he's the best messenger,

some of the worst figures in world's history, Some of the people who did the most damage as political leaders were charismatic messengers. The fact that someone is a charismatic messenger is separate from whether or not their messages ultimately will be the country. Okay, but let me give you two examples. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were brilliant messages, right?

They could communicate in a way that resonated with the public and you understood what they stood for. We had Tony Blair here, they did the same. Margaret Thatcher did the same. And we've also had some complete duds as leaders, as you have. But my point is, as Richard's had to leave us, by the way, he's got to go and do his day job working for CNN. We're very grateful to him.

But Marianne, just the image of that moment, of all of you just putting your hands up. Do you not think, looking back on that, it would have been great if one of you had just said, actually, you know what, that's not why we lost. I would have cheered you from the rooftops. Again, Pierce, you are twisting what happened there. He said, played a role.

As an American woman, there's no, and after what I have experienced, as a political candidate, there is no way I would minimize the role that misogyny plays in politics in the United States. Okay, let me ask. Not primary. I agree with you. It was not in any way the primary reason.

No, I don't think he was even in the top 100 reasons. Chink, just reacting to what Marion is saying there. I mean, I just groaned because I just thought the Democrats are never going to move on until they stop using these things as an excuse. It's just not the reason Kamala Harris lost. Yeah, so I agree. with Mary Ann, the problem is the question, not the answers. Because if you say, did it play a

role, well, did it play a 5% role, a 50% role, or a 95% role? And so what I'm a little afraid of is that the establishment Democrats and now the far left are beginning to say that it's a huge, like 75% of the reason that she lost. And that's cuckoo for cocoa buffs. So that's not remotely true. So the top two reasons are actually those guys. Number one is the establishment Democrats who bragged about, you know, she bragged that she had a letter from 90 corporate CEOs backing her. She bragged about how she militaristic she was. She bragged about having Dick Cheney support her. She ran an incipid, terrible campaign. And they've got to own up to that, but they can't because they're hooked on the donor money. And the donors don't want

good democratic policies like paid family leave, Medicare for all, higher wages, et cetera. They hate that kind of populism. So that's why the Democratic Party keeps making those mistakes. And then, unfortunately, the radical left also had some really unpopular policies that we got stuck with. But getting rid of those, that ideology is turned into a giant civil war within Democrats. But that needs to be resolved because if we're stuck defending those two very, very unpopular positions, it is not going to go well for us. And that's why K-Part's question was a disaster. Because if you think it had any role, 5% role, that's fair, and you'd raise your hand. But then you've got a whole room full of people.

It looks like, to your point, peers, doing nonsense excuses about why they lost the election and not dealing with the reality of what happened. Yeah, I mean, Natalie, it's a gift to the Republicans because you watch that and he go, well, that's great. If they're going to carry on saying this kind of thing, then we have nothing to worry about. Of course. I think everything that came out of the DNC was a gift and then some to the Republican Party. I think we're even kind of underselling the radicalism, whether it's, you know, David Hogg, new vice chairman who wants to, I believe, in his own words, abolish ICE, declare the NRA a terrorist organization thinks that the Second Amendment isn't actually a real thing and defund the police or the fact that they were what on stage,

pledging that they need to have more at-large transgender members or they need to, I mean, who even knows? the radical stuff that they were pushing instead of actually talking about. The issue is not just that I think Republicans have championed for a while, but more precisely, Trump's form of populism has really created a multi-ethnic, multiracial, working class coalition of voters that you saw just a few months prior. So I welcome this. I welcome Democrats to go down this, I think, very primrose path. But I think you guys are right.

The issue is that they're asking that question to begin with. You know Republicans are going to pounce on it. And frankly, you guys need to be having. I think very other minded discussions about the southern border, how you guys kind of reconcile your left-wing populism with kind of clamping doubt on illegal immigration, which sort of seems at odds. They don't know how you guys reconcile those world views,

but it just shows you how radical and really how fallen the Democratic Party has become, and I guess we welcome it with open arms. Okay, finally, Marianne, the problem it seems to be the Democrats have with Trump is that it's very different the atmosphere this time around to last time. Last time there was a mass immediate resistance, massive protest marches, so on and so on. This time has been none of that.

There's been a little bit of what I would call low-level squealing, but none of the kind of huge resistance to him last time. And his own personal popularity has never been higher in his eight years as a politician. So for all the Democrats say he's disgusting, he's this, he's this, he's this, actually the majority of Americans no longer care about anything

that the Democrats say about Trump personally. just think, well, he's what he is, but he's getting stuff done. That's going to be a real problem for the Democrats in trying to stop the winning again next time, isn't it? I don't think that's what's happening at all. I think people are in shock. I think many people, including Republicans, are taking this in, realizing the full-on authoritarian takeover that this man is now implementing in the United States, from his cutting funding that had been actually already authorized by Congress,

trying to basically nullify the role of Congress, nullifying the Constitution itself, what he's doing with economic warfare against countries that are not going to take it lying down. It's working. The fact that Musk and his... It's working. Well, you say it's working.

Mexico is literally sending 10,000 troops to the southern border as we speak, because Trump said, I'm going to slap 25% tariffs. They blinked, they're sending the troops, he's given them a month's grace to sort out other deals. That's a win for the American people. Well, what you see as a win for American people, I don't necessarily see as a win for American people. And that the American people believe that his threatening actions is economic warfare against Canada, against Panama, against Mexico, against all of these countries, particularly I'm concerned about Latin America, because these people are going to be more and more open to relationships with China.

He is actually magnetizing more and more activity of the Chinese in the Western Hemisphere. What this man is doing now, with Musk coming in, to take over basically government computers and hooking them up with Starling, this man is doing something that is actually changing the entire equation of the three co-equal branches of government. He is acting as though the Constitution shouldn't matter, the Congress shouldn't matter. It's basically whatever he wants. Meanwhile, he is clearly a pathological liar, and don't think that the American people are not registering this. The American people are, you know, a lot of times, in life. When the biggest things happen, Pierce, you don't automatically start jumping up and down. You say, I got to think about this. And I think that's where the American people are. The corruption is so deep, watching these appointments, watching who he put over at Secretary of Defense, watching what is happening right now with Cash Patel, what Cash Patel could do with the FBI. Do not underwrite us. You know, Churchill said, you can always count on the American people to do the right thing after they have exhausted every other option.

We are often, Europeans know this about us, people all over the world know this about us. Sometimes we're kind of slow to get there. But when we do get there, we'll slam it like nobody's business. And we are going to, what he is doing, this authoritarian who hostage taking over of the US government that this man is seeking to do right now will not stand. You know the problem?

We are righteous conservative. Marianne, it's a lovely speech. The problem you have is that your problem you have is that your guy, Joe Biden, exposed himself in the last few months of his office as not only unfit for office because he barely knew what day it was. He was also a liar throughout that last few months, a brazen liar actually about stuff he'd said before that he then just did. And he's also pretty corrupt, actually, because giving preemptive pardons to all your family over what could have been pretty serious allegations, actually that's corrupt in my eyes. So I'm afraid that Trump

may be all the things you say. But you're not. You know what he'd say? Well, at least I'm not Biden. Anyway, got to leave it there. Panel, thank you very much indeed. And Marianne, my only advise is you could definitely lead the Democrats. But don't make it about your gender or skin, killer. Just a word to the wise.

Thank you. Make it about your brilliance. Right now we can't afford to. Make it about your brilliance as a politician and your vision for America. You cannot compare the pardons that by the president of the 1600 people. All right, I've got to leave it there. You know what? You know what?

He made on the campaign. The truth is. You can't. We've got to leave it there. Sorry, Natalie. Sorry, guys. I've got to leave it there. Great panel.

Thank you all very much indeed. Nice to talk to you again. Marianne. Appreciate it. Well, Dana White is the CEO and president of USC. Currently, one of the fastest growing sports franchises on the planet. He's also just been appointed to the board of directors of META, giving him an influential stake in Mark Zuckerberg's pledge to restore free speech.

He's also a close personal friend of Donald Trump and was even invited on stage to speak at his victory rally. Well, USC was in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia this weekend. And I was there and spoke to Dana White. Right, backstage. Good to see you. Good to see you too. I'm never me. So this is a...

I know, right? It's a historic moment for me, anyway. First time face to face. Yeah, it's great to see you. You too. We did a brilliant interview last time, but it wasn't in person. We're now meeting in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh. You've got a big weekend of UFC fighting.

Why has Saudi become such an amazing place for sport, do you think? Well, I think the Middle East has as a whole. And, you know, sure. Shake turkey is the reason that we are where we are here, but he's a super fan of combat sports. So, you know, boxing, UFC, WWE, slapping. I mean, everything is out here now. I met him this week. He's an incredibly charismatic, creative dynamo, isn't he?

Yeah, I like him, actually. You know, I didn't know what to expect when we first met, and I like him a lot. The sport itself, I mean, when you bought USC, what did you pay, $2 million or something? Famously, what is it, $12 billion business now? It's more now. What would you put a number of it? 17 or $18 billion. Is it really?

Yeah. Do you ever stop and think your mid-your-worldwind life? Do you ever stop and go, wow? Never. I'm always thinking about how do we beat last year, how do we beat last year, how do we make it bigger, how do we get the places we haven't been yet. I'm always trying to think of what's next. Why is UFC capture people's imagination, do you think?

Well, first of all, it is the most exciting live sporting event you will ever see. I mean, the live event is what really takes it to another level. And the other great thing about it is it's really good on television, too. So I'll give you an example. In the United States, there's nothing bigger than the NFL. And NFL on television is incredible. It's great to stay on and watch the NFL. I don't really like going live to the events.

I'm not a big football fan live. And I love the NBA, live. NBA is kind of boring on television. So the UFC has both. Plus, there's this thing about fighting. When somebody that looks like you, talks like you, and comes from where you come from, is looked at as the baddest man or woman on the planet,

everybody rallies around them. So fighting is global. It doesn't matter what color you are, what country you come from, what language you speak. We're all human beings. Fighting's in our DNA. We get it and we like it. Do you ever fight? Yeah. Now?

Yeah. No. No. No. I fight to get on a treadmill every day. You never actually get in a ring with anyone? You never spar? I'm 55 years old. I'm 59. Nobody should be sparring at 55 years old. I'm literally taking our boxing three weeks ago.

Yeah. We're all trying to stay alive in our 55, let alone. Yeah, but boxing as a workout is great. It's an amazing workout. It's a workout is great. But it's a young man's game. Who's the most dangerous fighter? dangerous fighter in UFC now. Well, John Jones is still one of the, you know, he's the best ever, the best of all time.

But we have tons of guys that are, I mean, Islam, who is now the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. I mean, the list goes on and on. Ilya is one of the best of all time. Max Holloway is still one of the nastiest guys on the planet. Lots and lots of really, really tough guys. If you get a choice of getting in a ring with Pete Mike Tyson, Pete John Jones, who are you going to choose? John Jones all day.

And I'm the biggest Tyson fan of all time. John Jones is... No, I mean, who would you least want to get in the ring with? Oh, who would I lease? Personally. I don't want to get the ring with anybody. Of course! I'm 55 years old.

Assume you're at your peak, Dana. But I mean, what I mean is, if you could get in a ring with one of those two, Pete Mike Tyson, Pete John Jones, who would you least want to get in the ring with? Otherwise, who would have been more dangerous? The answer is neither. I'm not getting in the ring with... In my prime when I was young and You don't want to mess with either one.

John Jones and Mike Tyson are two of the nastiest human beings ever. I interviewed Tom Aspinall in London. Another one. He wants to fight John Jones. He wants to fight everybody, man. He thinks he'll beat John Jones. Yes, he does. I love it.

I love that. And a young, aggressive, talented heavyweight, that he actually wants to fight all the best. The problem in this business is you have guys that say a lot of things publicly, but behind the curtains don't mean it. You know, don't really want these fights. Tom Aspinall is not that guy. Tom Aspinall wants to fight all the best in the world and I love that. How good is he? Very good. We're going to find out though, you know, we make this John Jones fight and obviously a fight like that for a young talented heavyweight, you know, if he can win and he can beat John Jones, it's life-changing.

He's got an amazing self-confidence. I mean, he just exudes calm, almost chilling self-confidence. If you're a fighter, you better have that. Yeah. have to have. You want to be one of the all-time greats, that's exactly what you have to have. He said John Jones doesn't deserve to be the graceful time because of the drugs issue in his past. That I disagree with 100%. What you deserve and what you go out and get are two totally different things. When you think about John Jones and how good he really is, then you think about the lifestyle he was living outside of the octagon. It actually makes it more impressive.

There was an amazing moment after Donald Trump won back to presidency when they all went to Madison Square Garden to watch John Jones. And he won, and he leapt out, and he had his belt, and he gave it to President Trump. You were there, I think Joe Rogel. I mean, everyone was there. What did you make of that moment for you personally? That was quite something, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, the entire night as a whole was awesome. He had just won the election.

You know, he walks into the place, the place erupts and goes crazy. You know, this standing loud ovation for, however long it lasted. And then all the fighters that night showing respect to the president and then John Jones, you know, the whole belt thing and yeah, it was a good night. You've known Trump a long time.

I've known him a long time. I've spoken to a lot in the last few months since he got shot. I've detected, he's a bit of a changed guy that he, surviving the assassination, winning back the president in such emphatic style, seems to have given him, I wouldn't say a new lease of life,

but certainly a new energy to do it. try and cement his legacy. Are you picking up that kind of vital? Listen, I've been through it all with him, the ups, the downs, and everything in between. We talk about what it means to be a fighter. Nobody embodies that more than President Trump. I mean, if you look at what that guy's been through,

and not just at some point in a life, we all go through, you know, hard times, ups and downs and all. assassination attempt. I mean, this guy was this close to being assassinated. And the way he fought through that and bounced back from it is just. And then a few weeks later, the guy hiding in the bush at the golf court.

And he came within four minutes of being killed then. And they're trying to imprison him throughout that last year. There's a lot going on, isn't there? And yet, the iconic image of that whole campaign was when he got shot standing up and saying, fight, fight, fight. When you saw that, what did you think? That's it. won the election.

I didn't think that. You know, I look at him as a friend. You know, I called him. I was flying to Italy when that happened. My wife woke me up and said they just shot President Trump. I was freaking out, texting the family. And when I landed, I called him and he was already home from the hospital. And unfazed.

I mean, unfazed. And everybody wants to talk smack. And I was actually Batista. The old wrestler did this skit on Trump being weak and all this stuff that I thought was disgusting and gross and let me tell you what Batista and anybody else out there the way that Trump reacted to that assassination attempt every man hopes that that's the way you would react if you reacted this much of how Trump reacted to that thing you'd be happy. It was one of the most solid.

You want to talk about who you want to be the president of a country is the way that Trump reacted to that assassination attempt. When you spoke to him that night, what did you say to him? Why are you doing this? Stop. Did you? Yeah. Give it up. I told him stop so many times.

It's just like you have such a good life. And you can do all these other things. But the thing is with President Trump is, he believes in God. And he's a very, you know, he's very religious. No, he told me he thinks God must have had a plan for me. He wanted me to survive that bullet. He said that to him. He believes that to his core, that God has spared his life to be the president

and do the things that he's going to do over the next four years. It's hard to disagree when you see how close he came. I mean, it was such a bit... Me and Rogan have talked about this. So me and Rogan, I guess you would say, are not spiritual. And if you had to put me on a platform to debate that there wasn't some type of divine intervention, I'd literally have no ammo to debate that. It's pretty crazy.

It gives me the goosebumps. It's, yeah, but Trump believes it to his core. When you said to just give it up, what did you say to you? You can't. I can't quit. You don't ever quit. You never quit. He's the most resilient.

human being I've ever met my life. I love the guy. He's got extraordinary mental strength. I mean, I will say he's got the thinnest skin ever. He'll react to everything. But he also has the thickest skin ever in that he can soak stuff up that would just finish off almost any other public figure. He definitely does not have thin skin.

His skin is as thick as it gets. He's very combative. That's his thing. The thing in the terms of he reacts to everything. Yes. Probably not even a thin skin. It's more like his natural thing is to be. His natural thing is to be a pugilist.

He's combative. In his books, he was always like, someone punches him, you punch them ten times back. It's his DNA, right? So true. But you're right, I mean, even you can say that. You can trash talk, you can write it, you can think it about yourself,

until that bullet flies and it grazes your ear and it kills someone sitting behind you. You don't know how you're going to react. And I talked to him a week later, and he'd just gone back on a rally stage. And I said, that takes something, too. I said, you're worried 20,000? people again, what would be thinking?

He said, I knew if I didn't get back out there quickly, I might not get back out there. And that again, that resilient, that mental strength. Pierce, I talked to him when I landed that night and he had just got back from the hospital. And the next day, he went to Milwaukee for the RNC. Yeah. The next day.

I mean, there are people who have been shot at and not killed that won't leave their house. And then there's PTSD. and lots of different things that can happen to you mentally. He's one of the strongest, if not the strongest, mentally tough guys that I've ever met. Really, more than any of the fighters? No, there's no doubt about it.

Really, interesting. Bullets just misses your head. I know. Turned his head in a weird direction. And that's his whole thing. His thing is he was looking up at the screen at a PowerPoint that they had up there. His immigration shot.

That he knows inside and out, has seen it a million times. And why did he turn his head at that moment to look at something that he already knows and didn't need to look at? It's just, when you break it down, I'm sure in his mind he's thought about this a million times. And he's a fascinating guy. Yeah, he really is. Yeah. You know, you talk to him a lot. I've talked to him a lot.

I say to people, you've got to understand he's very funny. I mean, never mind anything else. He's one of the funniest people I know. So, privately, if you talk to him, he makes me how well laughed. If you go to dinner with Donald Trump, right? And I've done it. I brought people to dinner with him. You laugh, if it's an hour dinner, you'll laugh for 45 minutes of it.

He's hilarious. He's a good guy. He's a stand-up guy. If Donald Trump tells you he's going to do something, he does it. He keeps his word, and he's one of the most stand-up guys I've ever known. You've backed him when a lot of people ran for the hills and either dropped him, disappeared from his world, didn't want to publicly support him. You were rock-solid throughout the whole thing. Did you worry, I mean, you're billionaire in charge of this incredible brand now.

Did you worry about any residual damage to you by doing that? No. Ever cross your mind? He's my friend. I don't think like that. He's my friend. I don't care what other people think. I know who Donald Trump is.

I've known him for a long time. I know who he is. I know what he stands for. And he's a good person. He's not a bad person. I would never back somebody that I thought, You know, when you look at how the mainstream media tries to paint him, if that's really who that guy was, I would never stand behind him. I would never in a million years.

That's not who he is. It's all, it's unbelievable that you can go out and lie publicly about somebody like that, nonstop, and get, and people actually believe it. When did you first meet him? I met him in New Jersey. We did our first fight in New Jersey with him. I want to say it was probably 2001. 2001 or 2002 is when he and I first met. Do you remember the first time?

Oh, yeah. Because if you think about back then, the Trump brand was here, the UFC brand was, you know, and he got it. He understood the sport. He thought it could be big. And we did the Taj twice. He showed up to the first fight of the night and stayed till the last fight of the night,

just like he does now. He's a huge fight fan. He saw this thing coming. And every good thing after that, I first met him, that happened to me in my career, he was the first one to reach out and say, congratulations. He's incredibly loyal, if you're loyal to him. I've got a million notes with his sharpie pen style, right?

100%. But most people don't do that. I remember when I left CNN and went back to the UK, I could count on one hand a number of American high-profile people who bothered to stay in touch. He used to ring me like every three, four weeks. How are you doing? How can I help? What can I do for you? That is exactly who Donald Trump is.

He is, once you become a friend, he is a good friend. He is a good human being. I can't say enough good things about it. And you want to talk about loyalty? He's been so loyal to me and such a good friend of me. And I'm wired the same way. When you speak at these rallies, as you have done a few times now, you've never dipped your toes so publicly into the political arena before. Did you worry about doing that?

Did you just not care? Did you enjoy it? Listen, everybody thinks because I support Trump, I'm some far right or I'm some hardcore Republican. I'm not. I'm right down the middle. And when I look at what, if you look at how divided the world is right now, especially politically, when you break it down,

we all want the same things. It's not like we don't all want the same thing. So anytime I speak, whether it's at the RNC or anything else that Trump has me go to, my speeches are right down the middle. I'm like, who is the best guy for the job right now? And in this last election, it was never easier. There was never a doubt on who was best for the job.

You weren't going to vote for Kamala? Huh? You weren't going to vote for Kamala? She was in so deep over her head. And she was completely not competent for the job. And no matter what side you're on, it was very clear. And nobody could debate that. And then the election just proved it.

I mean, how much you think he talked on the night he won about the reason that so many people came and voted for this time from all sorts of groups, Latinos, black Americans, Jews, Muslims, women, men. And he said it's because I represent a core of common sense, particularly with all the woke mind virus, as Elon calls it. But do you agree with that? Do you think that played a big part that people looked at the two

parties and thought the Democrats have gone so woke left? They've lost sense of everyone. reality and that Trump was basically like, look, of course you can't have biological men in women's sport. Of course he can't. I'm going to bat it. And they were like, yeah, he's right. It's like it's common sense. A hundred percent. A common sense prevailed in this election. And I think that even on the left, everybody was tired of the media tried. So think about this. The picture that the media painted, how much money they spent, you know, over a billion dollar or a billion five, you know, war chest against Trump and he's still won in a landslide.

And the male black vote, Latino, men and women, and the list goes on and on. It was all about common sense and everybody's tired of all the BS. People have talked about the broligarchy. You, Elon, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson to a degree, RFK. The interesting thing about almost all of you is, I mean, none of you, I don't think, would say you are Republicans by the definition of of that, most of been on the Democrat side at one stage. What do you think that's about? I mean, I'll be seeing a kind of weird, like, change here where because the left went so

bonkers, a lot of people that were maybe liberal in their sensibility. No doubt about it. I'm now saying, you know what? Actually, I'm probably, by this definition, I'm slightly right of center then. Okay. But there's a shift. You nailed it right on the head, absolutely. And people, I considered myself liberal.

and Democrat not long ago. But more than being right, you nailed it. You said, we're all on the side of common sense. This was a common sense election. And, you know, when they talk about the brosphere or whatever they call it, no, we were just the people that weren't afraid to stand up and say, this is ridiculous.

We support Trump and whatever else at that time. I mean, I've been through, I went through COVID. You know what I mean? I ran my business through COVID. COVID never made sense to me. If this thing is that dangerous and it's going to kill as many people as they're saying it's going to kill or is killing it at the time, I guess we're all done. Right? I mean, and I'm not going to go out hiding in my house. It's just not the way I'm wired. And that's not how Americans are wired. So, yeah, nothing ever. Everything that I do is based on common sense. One of the biggest converts to Donald Trump in the last month or so, Martin Zuckerberg, obviously who owns and runs META, he's just hired you as one of his board directors. Why? And why have you accepted?

Well, first of all, if you were to ask me a year ago, would you ever be on a board of directors? I would have told you no, you know, if Citibanker, you know, something. But meta, I believe that social media and AI are the future. I've been all in with social media since Twitter started. So to be able to get inside, learn more about the business and about the platforms, and obviously AI, the future of AI, I'm very interested in that. My first met a board meeting is I fly from here to Sydney, from my fight in Sydney, Australia, then I fly back to Vegas,

and then my first board meeting is like a week later in person. You know, I've done a lot of work on the phone and on Zoom. And what do you think your role is? I think, I don't think. I know my role is when tough decisions are going to be made on do we stand up to, you know, from what I understand about the way that this business works for them right now is the right thinks they're being suppressed. The left thinks that social media and the internet is too dangerous and needs to be policed more. The only place where there is freedom of speech is in America, and the rest of the world tries to extort them on a daily basis. So my role in this whole thing is going to be, you know, when do we stand up for ourselves?

And when do we, you know, I think that I think differently than most of the other board members do. and I'm not afraid to... I'm not afraid to... Lock horns. Yeah. And stand up and say, you're not doing this stuff. There was a stage when it looked like

Martin Zuckerberg, who was going to fight Elon and you were going to stage this, possibly in the Coliseum in Rome from memory. Is there any chance that's back on? Now you're on the board? I doubt it. But I will admit,

that was one of the funest times of my career. I've had these moments in my career that were fun. Every night when I'd go home, I was out in my backyard on the phone talking to those two. And I really serious? I talked to the people that run the Coliseum in Rome. I literally was having calls with them.

We were literally going to put this thing on in the Coliseum. And the way that they were looking at in Italy is, yeah, this will generate so much revenue. And they were going to put it toward the restoration of, you know, these places in Italy, including, you know, the Coliseum itself. And it didn't happen because. I think Zuckerberg got an injury. Is that right? No, no, no.

I can't remember why it fell apart at the time. But he was the official life, wasn't it? Mark, you know, said, yes, I'll do this, yes, I'll do that. I think Elon at one point wanted to take the whole thing over himself, and I'll put it on and we'll do it, you know. Is he dead or is it simmering? No, it was. Doesn't I mean now?

No, it's dead. Really? It's dead, yeah. It'd be a massive fight, though, wouldn't it? I would have loved to. Do you still dream about it? It's not like I dream about it, but it was just negotiating the deal itself was fun, but if we would actually pull it off, it would have been, you know, this is the way that

I look at. Whenever we have a fight that comes together, you know, things will happen in the moment. You have to jump on it as soon as it's a bit like when Connor McGregor versus Floyd Mayweather got to the peak, you know, everybody was excited. I couldn't go anywhere without anybody talking about it. I kept saying, I'll never do this fight. I'll never do this fight. Then it got to a point where it's like,

you have to. We need to do this fight. I was there. I went to it. And you know how massive it was, right? It was fascinating. I should have watched, wasn't it? So when you get two people that are as globally famous,

as rich and powerful, and you can actually put on a fight, and you're going to do it in the Coliseum in Rome, it would have been the biggest fight of all time. It would have been impossible to break the record on pay-per-view and sales and everything else. So yes, if I could have pulled it off in the moment, it would have been unbelievable. I don't even think about it anymore.

But why is it dead? I mean, they're still there? Listen, at the end of the day, how do we open this interview? You and I are old and we shouldn't be fighting and everything else. You know, Mark isn't, Elon's older. Who would have won? Who the hell knows? What do you think, based on their skills?

Well, I can tell you this. Zuckerberg trains. People don't realize what a great athlete he is. not just an MMA Jiu-Jitsu and everything else. He surfs. He foils. I mean, he's a legit athlete. And then, as we got into this thing, I learned from Elon that Elon actually grew up doing judo.

You know? So then you look at Zuckerberg, younger, great athlete all around, whatever. Then you look at Musk actually has a judo background, bigger, you know, bigger as far as size goes. Who knows? It's interesting. I would have loved to have sold that fight. I would have loved to have done it in the Coliseum, but didn't happen, isn't happening. I think it could happen.

And whether there's a will, there's a way. Come on, Don't you're the epitome of that. Come on. Give the public what they want. Those two going at each other would be unbelievable. It would have been unbelievable. I agree. Elon's, to many people as I brought back free speech to the platform that was Twitter, now X.

There's certainly no doubt that conservatives and people on the right are getting a much fairer crack of the whip from that platform than they were before. four. You've been interesting on this. You had a real test actually just yesterday when one of your fighters, Bryce Mitchell, came out on this podcast with some outrageous comments about Adolf Hitler being a good guy and Holocaust denial and so on. A lot of people in the last few years would have said, that's it, cancelled, not working with this guy again. You just sort of said, you know what? They were stupid comments, dumb comments. But I believe in free speech. he can have his views, we carry on. What's interesting to me is that people

sort of shrug their shoulders and go on, okay. In other words, there hasn't been this mob, onslaught, demanding you cancel this guy forever. What do you think of the way it's played out? Well, to start, let me give him his props here. Elon Musk was the superhero of this election. You know, going in and buying Twitter

and exposing all these things that, you know, people were We're calling conspiracy theorists. What he's done for America and the world is unbelievable. And I tell Elon every time I see him, you're literally a superhero. And going to Bryce Mitchell, what I said was, what he said was disgusting. And you have to be an absolute moron to think

that Adolf Hitler was a good guy. And you look at World War II and how many people were killed, how many civilians were killed, because of Adolf Hitler. The fact that he tried to annihilate an entire group of people is disgusting for anybody to speak remotely good about Hitler. But I do believe in free speech. And even though I don't like what he said, and even though what he said makes me sick, free speech is real. It lives and exists and we have to protect free speech. Is there any limit to that for you?

No, I think probably the most important free speech. to protect his hate speech. I mean, because when a government or a certain person can come out and determine, say this is hate speech, it's a very slippery slope and it's dangerous, in my opinion. Is it, in terms of behavior with all your fighters, you can make or break these guys' careers, obviously. Is there any line for you in terms of behavior where it's like, have you exercised that line? Not necessarily about speech, but just about behavior? I think early on in building the sport and the company, there was more of it.

But the world has lost its mind. And I've been in the middle of this battle. Like I said, when I was going through COVID, the media was trying to destroy me when I was going through COVID. To sit down and tell you what we went through as a company. Me and this guy that's standing right over here. He's a lawyer. We're in the office every day battling to go through COVID

and trying to figure out ways to succeed through this thing. And we did. We did. We figured it out. And all the craziness that's happened in the world, I'm in this weird position now where you have to do what's right, but you have to fight these, I don't know if you would call it woke, nutty, you know, people that try to do all these things. I actually thought Elon calling them the woke mind virus suffers. I mean, that's pretty much what it was.

It was like a contagion. They got infected with this set of views, which A, was not based often on reality or science or even biology, it turned out. But if you didn't then go along with that, if you didn't use personal pronouns, if you didn't do this, this, this, this and this, they would destroy you. Right. And they normally have a hashtag, be kind in their profile. It's like, you're the least kind people I've ever met in my life. You're vicious, horrible people. Despicable human beings.

I could not agree with you more. And these are the, listen, I'm American. I was born and grew up in America. I believe in the American dream. I believe in free speech. I believe in all these things. You can't just say it and not live it. I believe that we should be able to battle through COVID

and figure out ways to not lay off all my employees and not destroy people's lives and not destroy this business that I've built for the last, you know, 30 years. But on the other side, even though you've got guys that pop up like Bryce Mitchell that say ignorant, stupid things, and I will exercise my right for free speech to say that I don't agree with what he says. But he can say what he wants to say. We don't have to agree with it or believe in what he says, but he has the right to say it in America. You're so right about

But it's actually your ability to tolerate hateful speech from people where you completely vehemently disagree. If you can tolerate that, actually, it's probably what free speech really means. It's very easy to tolerate speech you agree with or opinions you like or approve of, right? Yep. It's the disgusting, despicable things like what he said yesterday that truly defines what free speech is. People call you a genius.

I would say the evidence for that. No, I think you are. You're a marketing genius. You understand the sports so brilliantly that you've made one of the biggest sports in the world. It's now fourth biggest sport in America. It's displaced hockey now, ice hockey. The reason I know you're a genius is you've taken something that I didn't think could possibly ever be popular, let alone become a global thing. Power slapping.

I ended up interviewing this guy, the Hungarian hurricane. Fantastic character. But the idea of people slapping each other becoming a global sport that's generating gazillions of dollars, anyone that could see that and make it work is a genius. You, Dana-I are a genius. Well, thank you. Did you know power slapping was good? Or was it basically a bit of a throw-over dice?

So everything for me is based on gut. So when I first saw it, and the first guy I ever saw was dumpling. The guy who actually in this arena last night won the championship. And what fascinated me was when I first watched it, I was like, I stayed on and kept watching because I wanted to see who won. And I was like, God, I think this could work. You know, last night we did an event here. It did four million viewers last night.

Four million people watched it last night. Watch power slapping? Yeah. That's incredible. Isn't that crazy? Four million people. And, you know, when I first started it, there were so many people that were going after it negatively. That was when I knew it.

I had it. I knew it. When people started to... There's outrage. I knew it. I knew it. And especially the mainstream media. If the mainstream media hates something, it's going to be extremely popular.

Because they have no clue on what's going on in the real world. So your dream headline is kind of New York Times. This is the most disgusting thing we've ever watched. Boom. Huge. Super. successful. Are you in that sense?

Are you the Trump of sport now? I don't know about that, but... Same attitude, right? Yeah, I just, I... What I would say is I know combat sports. And here's the thing. There's always going to be a segment of the population that doesn't like something. Doesn't matter.

No. There's 8 billion people on Earth. Yes! I only need... All I need is a percentage of them. And when you look at 8 billion people on Earth, power slap happened here last night in this arena. and 4 million people watched it live. But Elon Musk is bringing in humanoid robots,

optimists, they called. They can do everything, he says. You're looking forward to the first humanoid robot fight? No. No, I'm not. You know, AI is going to be a problem. It's going to be a huge disruption to a lot of different businesses and a lot of different things.

Like, for instance, already with some AI that they put out, you don't know what's real and what's not. No, no. I watched an interview with me and Elon Musk yesterday that somebody sent me online. It's 30 minutes long. It's completely convincing to the point where I wasn't even sure if I hadn't done it. I've never interviewed Elon. I want to. But I was like, wow. Okay, that's creepy. creepy, spooky, scary. Because actually, it's like, if you can do that. Right. And yeah, it's going to be, AI is going to be a big problem for a lot of different reasons. So no robots.

You're not having robots. No, I think that the one thing that AI can't replace is live sports, with humans playing live sports. But it's going to be interesting. You know what they're going to do? They're going to make humans part robot because they're going to better repair broken limbs or stuff that might be an ACL or whatever, whatever the serious potentially career-threatening injury is.

You're going to start getting robotic replacements. I don't disagree. You're going to have someone like Cristiana Ronaldo will be living to like 80, still playing in the World Cup, because you'll love it. Yeah, it's interesting. No, it's like when we were growing up, the Bionic Man. Yes, it's going to go that way, I think.

Part human, part robot. Yeah. That might be where you go. Crazy. Final question. If Tom Aspinall fights John Jones, he's promised me I can walk in with him with the union jack draped around me, I just need to make sure I've got ringside ticket. Am I good for that?

Done. Thanks, Dan. Yeah, that's it easy. boy is going to knock him out. I love it. And become the world champion. I love it. I look forward to watching it. And we're going to rule the sport for years. I love it. The Brits are coming, Dana. I love it. Love it. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.