Piers Morgan Uncensored - Donald Trump's Inauguration With Bill O’Reilly, Billy Bush, Ana Kasparian & More

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Donald Trump has now been sworn in as the 47th President of The United States, and with him comes a tsunami of patriotic zeal and joy for his supporters. At his inauguration Trump clearly relished the opportunity to publicly lambast his opponents for their failures and loudly profess that, for the next four years at least, America comes first. Now, the entire world waits to see if Trump really can bring about the golden era he always claims is just around the corner. To discuss what’s next for the ultimate comeback kid, Piers Morgan talks to a cavalcade of political mainstays. First he gets Bill O’Reilly’s thoughts on Trump plan for the next four years. He’s then joined by Republican spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko, host of the 'Social Contract with Joe Walsh' and former presidential candidate Joe Walsh, executive producer and host of The Young Turks Ana Kasparian, host of Extra and cousin of George W. Bush Billy Bush and host of 'Amanpour' on CNN International and PBS Christiane Amanpour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly. And nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun. That was an extraordinary bit of American history. I think that absolutely there was a Trump factor.

Everybody talks about it. The change in dynamic and the fact that Trump said, I want this done before I get into office, was very instrumental. I think he's the face of the end of wokeism. The American people are pissed off. So America went with the bad guy who they thought was at least listening to them. The Democrats tend to think that this strategy

of denying and pretending it doesn't happen or isn't happening is somehow a successful strategy. It clearly is not. Pierce, when I heard that Gail King clip, it just reminded me of how utterly out of touch Democrats are. I can't believe that on MLK day, let's count the number of the number of people.

count the number of people of color in a room and not about the content of people's character. Yes. What he is known for. That's what we all remember. Exactly. Every single... Right there is a massive problem for the Democrats. President Trump is now the 47th president of the United States. And today marks the formal beginning

of Trump 2.0. But history may ultimately judge this whole decade and beyond to be the age of MAGA. Joe Biden now looks like a blip, a forgettable and fleeting waypoint in a whole era. defined by Donald Trump. Two men couldn't be more different in style, but in substance, Biden's done little more than paved the road

for a man his entire presidency was intended to stop. Biden warned America that Trump was a dictator in waiting who threatened democracy itself. We didn't really believe it. Why else would he ride along the new president and first lady en route to the ceremony at the Capitol this morning? He ended his single term with dire warnings about an oligarchy of the ultra wealthy.

But he didn't see that as so much of a problem, when the Harris campaign was burning through its $1.5 billion. In order with Democrats' complain with the U.S. tech moguls, seated together at today's ceremony, right beside the incoming cabinet, were in lockstep with their agenda. That's for President Trump's comeback. The days of the dire warning are done.

Biden leaves with the lowest approval rating of any president in history. Trump begins with his own record high. And all of the polls show that a majority of Americans are now optimistic that Trump will make them richer and make the world and America a safer place. Iraq Obama was famously the Hope President. Nobody will ever forget that. But in defiant of all logic and against all odds,

Trump's even gone one better. Hope is the belief that things can improve. Optimism is the expectation that they will improve. Now it's over to President Trump to deliver on these great expectations. Has the golden age of America, as he put it, really just begun? Well, we're about to find out.

In a moment, we'll dissect an historic day with my all-star panel. But first, Bill O'Reilly, the author of confronting the presidents, returns to uncensored. Bill, great to see you on this day of history. No one knows more about American presidents than you. What did you make of a speech? It was not, didn't break any new ground. I liked it because it was short. A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with President Trump. How's that for name dropping there, Pierce? I had dinner with President Trump. And I said,

How long is the speech going to be? About 45 minutes. I said, you know, 45 minutes for you is an hour and a half. Because you rip. I said, keep it pithy, which is one of my slogans. But there wasn't anything new in the speech. But the headline would be this. So here you have President Biden sitting right to the side

of President Trump. And Trump just trashes Biden's whole administration. It would be like you right now. if I just trashed you, but you didn't have a mic. You couldn't say anything. And a two shot, and there's you. And that wouldn't be hard for me to do, Morgan. You know that.

I could do, I could riff 20 minutes and just cut your throat. And then you'd be there like this. So to me, that was an extraordinary moment in history. Yes. Because most presidents in their inaugural regret, they don't go in for the kill. Trump is the exception. He went in and he laid it out.

He said, didn't use the word disaster, but every paragraph was, these people screwed up, these people holled you, these people are weak, these people are corrupt, and these people are five feet away. That was an extraordinary bit of American history.

Well, let's take a little look at a bit of that. I'm just going to play it for the audience. Many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly incomplete disrepair. We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad. It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens, but provides. sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals. We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders, but refuses to defend American borders or, more importantly, its own people.

From this moment on, America's decline is over. And the whole time, like you say, not just Biden, actually, you had Kamala Harris. You had the whole, you had Bill Clinton behind them. Hillary Clinton, you had the whole democratic top tier watching this guy annihilating everything they stand for. One thing to struck me, Bill, really resonated with me was obviously he's going to deal with immigration, and he's made that very clear.

Obviously, he wants to get the cost of living crisis to a better place. Again, that was pretty clear. But it was his claim that he wants to have a revolution of common sense. I think that is one of the underrated elements to Trump's big win, is that many people came to the conclusion that the Democrats just almost denounce common sense and Trump was the response to it. Let's take a listen to what he said about that.

Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It's all about common sense. I think that's a great life. common sense. I mean, it's what you used to be all about, right? And still are. But it's like, and that's what I hope I try and be, a core of common sense, a revolution of common sense, in a world that increasingly has felt like it's gone completely nuts.

Well, there is no doubt, and the facts back it up, that President Biden was held captive, kind of like Patty Hurst by radical progressives in the White House. And common sense does not enter into their political point of view. They're in it to redefine American society. And people watching abroad need to know that. Not about problem solving for the radical left. It's about changing everything. From gender to immigration, to Green New Deal, change everything. And Biden was a captive to that, did not fight it one bit. And the result is that Joe Biden will go down in history as a second worst president in America

that we've ever had next to James Buchanan, the coward who was in office before Abraham Lincoln. But what Trump said today, and his inaugural address, was a litany of what got him elected. It didn't change anybody's mind on the left. You know, I'd say 40% of the American public hates Donald Trump. It's a lot. Didn't change their minds.

They're probably hating them more now than they did this morning. But Trump's mandate, and the only thing he cares about, is fulfilling his campaign promises. And you'll notice the most important line in the 30-minute inaugural address was on immigration. when he said he's now going to use the power of the federal and state governments to expel criminal migrant gangs. All of his expulsion today was under the criminal tent, not law-abiding people trying to make a life of themselves here. He did not say anything about them. And as I predicted six months ago, that is what's going to happen. It's not going to be a roundup of, you know, migrants who are working in hotels. That's not going to happen. It's going to be a very

targeted, focused. But I'll tell you, President Trump's going to bring a world of pain into the liberal precincts in this country. He will. Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. He's going to do exactly what he said he'd do. I also, I felt another powerful moment was when he talked about, and we'll play the clip actually, because it was, I thought it was very profound, when he talked about surviving the assassination attempt

and how he feels that's now empowered him. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago in a beautiful

Pennsylvania field and assassins. Both, it ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. It's a great line. I've got to say, I do think he means it and believes it. And I spoke to him a week after he got shot,

and we had quite a long conversation. It was the night he went back on another rally stage, and I was full of admiration for just the sheer guts in doing that. soon after he was nearly killed. And he talked a lot about how profound this moment had been for him. And I really have detected since, I've spoken to a number of times,

that he is a slightly changed man. He's not going to change the style, the rhetoric or that kind of thing. But I do think he feels like he's got another chance here, not just with the presidency, to do it better perhaps than first time round, but also for himself to actually leave a historic legacy. as a great president. I think he would love to do that.

Well, that's his goal. I mean, that's what he's obsessed with. So they had to get some emotion into the speech, and that was it. You know, you have to humanize the speaker, and that did it. But I can tell you with certainty, because I know this, because my role in America is reporter, analyst slash historian. Right. And on a number of occasions, President Trump has said,

is what do I need to do to get on at Mount Rushmore? I said, you're not going to get on. You'll have to buy your own mountain, and you can do that and put your face up there. But if you want to be in that crew, the top of the charge for presidents, you have to fulfill your campaign promises. You have to bring sanity back and get this woke stuff. And you'll notice he did the gender thing today.

Yeah. People underestimate around the world how pernicious. this woke DEI stuff has been on regular Americans, the folks, I call them. When you go for a job interview or for college admissions, and you're being judged on the color of your skin, that's what happened to African Americans at one time in our history. That is happening to Caucasian Americans now.

The fury of that has been underreported. under-analysed in this country. And Trump knows that. And he's obviously making a very, very strong statement, like, I'm going to stop this unfairness. So I don't know whether Donald Trump's going to succeed in the next four years. He has a pathway. He made an oblique reference to the Biden administration defending foreign borders,

i.e. Ukraine, but failing to defend American borders. That is huge. Yeah. And it's not that hard to stop it. It isn't that hard to stop it. And Trump has got Mexico now. He's got them. They can't fight him.

They have to do exactly what he says. Panama has to do what he says. Copenhagen has to do what he says. We're not going to absorb Canada who would want to. But countries fear him. And they should. Yeah. Do you think, Bill, finally,

that when we look back in four years time, Trump wants to have that legacy that we just discussed. Do you think he will achieve it? Do you think we could be talking in four years' time? As Trump, you know, you're the perfect person to ask with all the books you've done, has he got it in him, do you think, to become a truly great American president?

Possible to say, because there are going to be so many new things that arrive that nobody is anticipating, particularly in a technological range, this AI business. China is really his, that can derail him. Otherwise, Putin is going to make a deal in Ukraine. The Ukrainians aren't going to like it, but he'll calm it down. Iran is on the ropes.

Trump will take them out. But China, that could just unsettle the entire world. So I can't say with any kind of certainty what will happen. I'm a fact-based guy. I'm ahead of it. I'm watching it. I have access. And I will report it honestly.

And I appreciate you having me on the program, Peers. Thank you. Bill, I love having you on. You know that. You always talk a lot of common sense, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Well, join me now to discuss the inauguration day,

moment in history of cause, and the speech, Republican spokeswoman, Elizabeth Pipco, executive producer, and host at the Young Turks, and a Casparian. As a former Republican candidate for president and the host of Social Contract, Joe Walsh, and the host of Hot Mikes of Billy Bush, part of the Bush dynasty, and my old mate, Billy Bush. Let's start with you, Billy, because I've never interviewed you on this show.

I can't think of a more uncensored gentleman than Billy Bush. I can't believe this. I can't believe we're finally getting together. In the back of a van in a parking lot. This is very creepy. I'm just glad you're not in it. It feels suitably glamorous for you, Billy. Billy, look, everybody knows what happened with you and Trump in that leaked tape and so on. As I knew you would, you made a great comeback, you got a great new show, and you've had a lot of time to reflect on all of this. How do you feel watching Trump there, having done four years, very controversial, very polarising,

then he lost four years in the wilderness, at least two of which we all assumed he was dead and buried politically. and now after the most extraordinary year where people try and jail him, they try and kill him and so on, he emerges with this thumping victory and he's back there today becoming president again. What do you feel about this? Well, first of all, the throwing me out of the media establishment

is part of the repudiation that people have with what's been going on in America. It's why Trump is back. The establishment throws me out. for because they're so desperate to get him, right? And then that's just the beginning of Trump derangement syndrome and the beginning of crazy. And then it gets crazier to where we are now.

Trump sees this opportunity and he absolutely sticks his foot in it. I think people are relieved in a major way that Donald Trump stood up to what this giant wave of progressive liberalism that was killing us. People were becoming silent liars, Pierce. They were afraid to say how they truly felt because, you know what, you could get fired. You could lose your entire livelihood. Like anything can happen. It got that crazy.

And Trump is the first one to stop it. And I think he's the face of the end of wokeism. I feel very hopeful. I'm grateful that he did that. And now going forward, look, he's got some ideas that resonate with people. You never, Trump is a little bit erratic. you know, can he lead this merry band of soloists, solo artists he has? They're like Elon Musk and Bezos and all these guys in Vivek and if Vivek is still around.

But he's got all these incredibly oddball but really smart people in there. Can he lead them? I hope so. Yeah. Joe Walsh, everyone is billing this as the kind of the beginning of the end of wokeism. You know, Elon Musk actually announced, you know, that the woke-mind virus has now been cured and so on. It does feel like as you watch Trump railing there about everything from immigration to gender and so on and DEI, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sitting there stony-faced, that this election, it does represent, it seems, like a sort of extraordinary repudiation of all of that stuff. Do you accept that?

No, Pierce. I think it's just a course correction. Look, the far left has issues and the Democratic Party has issues. You know where I stand on Trump. He's an utterly horrible human being, one of the worst. But the fact that he won tells us the real issues the Democrats have. Yeah, the far left has issues with speech, political correctness. But guess what?

So does the far right. So does the MAGA right. So does Trump, who wants to sue people in newspapers who say mean things about him or sue polls that pollsters that deliver. polls that he doesn't like. Look, the reason Trump won is simple. The American people are pissed off with good reason about a lot of things. Trump's a demagogue and he lies to these people every single day, but the Democrats have ignored these folks who are pissed off. So America went with the bad guy who they thought was at least listening to them. You know, it's funny you say that on a day when

Joe Biden once again has done something that he vows. to the American people he would never do. He's just issued all these preemptive pardons for Dr. Fauci, to many others, and at the last second, he suddenly did the whole family. They all got preemptive pardons too, his siblings and their spouses and so on. This is exactly the kind of things, though, which unfortunately for the Democrats, it's all going to be used as an ongoing stick to beat the Democrats with. Biden in the end betrayed you, didn't he?

Well, you know what, Pierce, like five, six, seven, eight, nine years ago, I would have agreed with you. And I would have opposed this notion of these preemptive pardons. And Biden pardoned in his families. But I'm sorry, this is the world Trump has brought. We live in this world now. Trump breaks every rule there is. And any law he can break. So the Democrats decide, okay, I'm going to go down that road too.

I'm going to fight back. Donald Trump, Pierce, runs for office and says, I'm going to put my political opponents in jail. Well, that's fairly unprecedented. So I don't blame Biden for pardoning, hang on, hang on, hang on, sorry. Joe, Joe, just to be clear, just to be clear, in his speech today, Trump said he wasn't going to do that to his opponents, but he reminded the world that that's exactly what his Democrat opponents have spent the last year trying to do to him. Pierce, you and I, you and I will over alcohol. He said he was going to rebalance the Justice Department. We'll disagree with this until the cows come home.

Donald Trump tried to overthrow an American election. Do you not want our agencies to investigate that? Trump does bad things, and then we get mad at the departments that investigate them. That's a bunch of hooey. All right, let me bring in, Elizabeth. You've been pulling some great faces, I have to say, throughout Joe's statements there, which would suggest to me you don't entirely agree with them. Let's start with his claim that Trump's a very bad person, one of the worst people in the world.

I've got to say, I've known Donald Trump a long time. And I'm not claiming for a moment he's Mother Teresa reincarnated. But I do think that there's a lot of good about Donald Trump. He's a very loyal guy, as many people will attest. He can be very funny. He can be very human. He's a very good father from everything that I've ever witnessed to his kids,

a very good grandfather, and so on. There's a long list of things which, if you were being dispassionate about it and fair-minded, you would say actually Trump could be a pretty good guy. There's another side to him, which we all know, which can be more complicated. You know, he trash talks people in a way that people don't like. He does stuff which winds people up and so on and so on. And he has some policies which are awful, as all presidents do. How do you best describe him as to people who don't really get him?

You spend a lot of time around him. How do you see him? There's a lot to unpack there. Number one, my apologies for the faces. My husband always says I don't have a poker face. guess that is coming out right now. Look, to start, I have spent quite a bit of time with Donald Trump. I think the best way to describe him is authentic, right? He is a real human being, and with that comes jokes you may not like. You may witness a few actions you don't like, but he's also real.

He's honest. He tells the American people how he feels. He says it like it is. And despite when anyone thinks about him, the American people obviously disagree, right? Because he just became the president of the United States. So you can call him every name in the book, but millions of Americans, obviously disagree, and just decided he should be president of the United States. So I think that's where we can leave that. I think when it comes to claiming that Donald Trump

is going to go after his political opponents, it's laughable considering what we just witnessed for the last few years, considering what I have seen on the sidelines, happen to President Trump himself, happened to his family, who I know very well, happened to his staff, happened to people like me. I haven't talked about it. I've kept quiet waiting for today, right, waiting for Donald Trump to get sworn in. But they went after me too.

They went after my family, too. This DOJ wanted to crush any opposition that they had because they were so terrified of Donald Trump being as popular as they knew that he was and the moment that we all witnessed today, Donald Trump becoming president. Again, the fact is he stood there, said he would not go after his political opponents was sworn in today in front. of a crowd of people, many of which not only hoped that he would spend the remainder of his life in prison, but worked to make that happen. And he said he was not going to do the same thing. To anyone else, you can lie about it all you want. That is not what he said. And I cannot wait for him to prove everybody wrong and be the president, the American people deserve for the next four years.

Yeah, I mean, he couldn't have been clearer. And honestly, Joe, the irony of saying that this was all something that Trump's best, when he's literally being the victim of this for the last year in the most unprecedented manner. When you take a president of the United States, I'm going to say there's one more time. Through a criminal court for the first time ever that it's ever happened. And the reason you do it is because he may or may not have had a one-night stand with a porn star nearly 20 years ago and shuffled a bit of paper about it. It's a humiliating day for not just him and his family, but for America, for the American justice system, for the American presidential system. It was an absolute joke to drag Trump through a criminal court

for such a pathetic and petty case like that. And if that had happened to a Democrat, by the way, you'd have all led the charge of how outrageous it was. Let me bring in Anna Kasparian on this. I mean, Anna, the sense I got watching Trump today is the sense I've got from speaking to him quite a lot in the last few months. I've had five or six conversations with him

since he got shot. And I've definitely detected a man who is unbelievably grateful to be alive, that he genuinely understands that he came within half an inch of death and very nearly happened again a few weeks later in the golf course, which was another appalling failure by the Secret Service.

So he feels that very strongly, and I think that would affect any human being, anyone. But secondly, he feels the hand of history. He hasn't got a campaign anymore. All he's got left now is to deliver on his big promises, and if he does that, to leave a legacy is potentially one of the ones, of the great American presidents.

I mean, I hope your interpretation is correct. I mean, obviously, being the target of an assassination not once but twice is a traumatic situation to experience, and maybe it changed him to some extent. You know, but I do want to just quickly go back to the points made in regard to the investigations. I really hope that Trump doesn't waste his time in his last term, focusing on retaliation against his political opponents, so we're going to have to wait and see about that. I largely agree in regard to Alvin Bragg's prosecution of Donald Trump as it pertains to, you know, his extramarital affairs with adult actresses. I like that you're giving him the benefit of the doubt,

but don't be a chicky little devil you. Okay, you know that he had an affair. That's why the hush money payments were paid. But I think that that investigation and prosecution really paled in comparison to the classified documents case and the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. I think the timing of the prosecution by Democrats in those two cases were very much political, and that led to empathy toward Donald Trump and actually helped him garner more support for this election. But in regard to his speech, you know, I think that what Trump does really well is he actually listens to the concerns of the American people. Polling for years indicated that the majority of Americans were concerned about inflation, concerned about undefliction, concerned about undone, documented immigration. And while the Democrats tend to think that this strategy of denying and

pretending it doesn't happen or isn't happening is somehow a successful strategy, it clearly is not. He pays attention to what people are concerned about and he speaks to those issues. And I really hope that this is a teachable moment for the Democratic Party. So far I've seen them refuse to take any personal responsibility for their failures and for the course of the election cycle. Yeah, honestly, and I don't see any evidence so far that Democrats have learned a damn I really don't. I've been seeing some of the stuff you've been saying, which is the right way to go.

And Cheng Yuga as well has been saying similar stuff, which is, look, you have to recognize what's happened here, and you have to understand American people just did not buy into anything they were being sold by the Democrats. In fact, they just moved in big numbers from all democratic groups to Donald Trump. You have to start from that. Billy, I want to play a clip.

This is about Trump talking about DEI and sort of wokeism and the gender. debate and so on. Let's take a listen to this. This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private light. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. You know, Billy, I can imagine a lot of cheering around America

when they heard that. Just a bit of clarity on such an absurd debate. When we got to a stage where you had the President of the United States and his Vice President, Biden and Harris, both endorsing the obviously grotesquely unfair scenario of biological males who identify as trans women competing in women's sport

and then beginning to dominate women's sport. in a way they never did when they competed against men. And that alone, is someone like me who's basically more liberal than not, pretty much a centrist. But it was so ridiculously absurd to endorse such a ridiculous policy that when I heard Trump said, I wanted to punch the air. Great. We have some basic science-based clarity.

What did you feel? Well, I just feel like, you know, remember his commercial this past, you know, in the campaign was so powerful this fall. The one that said Kamala Harris is for they, them. Donald Trump is for you. I mean, that was the biggest. I think that moved the needle more than anything. And we're coming out of an era where people are afraid to say anything.

Trump is not afraid to say that. Most people are thinking it. You know, back to the point that was just made a second ago, that Democrats don't know what they're doing. They're still on their heels. Not really true. There's like, you know, Congressman Ricky Torres from New York, and you've got Elise Slotkin, the new senator from Michigan.

She talks heavily about these conversations about DEI and gender ideology and all these things. They're not happening in the middle of the country. They're happening in Los Angeles, in New York, and the coastal cities. And we, normal former Blue Dog Democrat type people, moderates, are letting it happen. The moderate that let it happen more than anything is Joe Biden. I mean, he came in a moderate his whole life. and then all of a sudden he's handed this agenda, he jumps right in. He's all in.

He's now at the forefront, and it's come back to Biden. But there are a lot of Democrats, I think, who are getting smart about it. And they need to wait a little bit because the Trump wave is right up here, but they'll have their moment to get normal again. Yeah, I mean, Joe, what was very interesting to me from the inauguration today was who got kind of pride of place and with their spouses, actually, compared to the Congress people that were there. with all the broligarchy, you know, Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, Elon Musk, obviously, from X, along with many other things, Jeff Bezos from Amazon.

These were guys who back in 2016, they were queuing up to whack Donald Trump, and their platforms were leading the resistance. Now you're seeing a complete role reversal where they're all going down to Kiss the Ring at Murillago before the election. They're all donating money. In Musk's case, he went full on Trump to get him elected with 200 million followers onto his own ex-account helping fuel that, which was incredibly significant, I think. You look at people like Joe Rogan and others as well and what they brought to the party here.

You're seeing a real, someone described it earlier, it's a cultural revolution in America where the people leading the culture debate, leading the wokeism, the DEI and all that stuff through the social media platforms have now done a screeching U-turn. And it really is. If you look at what Mark Zuckerberg said

three and four years ago, what he's saying now? It is literally night and day. Chalk and cheese. What do you feel about that? Well, none of these guys, Pierce, have any ideology, the oligarchy, the billionaires,

and I think every one of your guests should agree with me right now. Hopefully we all do. This is one thing both of these two political parties have. Both political parties, Donald Trump on the right and the Democrats on the left, they all bow down in kiss big moneyed interest. But, Pierce, you keep, look, this is a pendulum. We keep talking about some swing against wokeism. Most Americans are in the damn middle.

Whenever you bring up the transgender issue, Pierce, you bring up biological men playing in sports with biological women. I agree with you. Most Americans agree with you. common sense solutions, but you know what? Most Americans embrace the idea of our transgender brothers and sisters, loving, let them live, let them identify as they want to live. Okay, but here's what I would say to that. I agree.

Joe, Joe, don't give me wrong. Joe, no, no, no, no, let me finish. When it comes to sports and bathrooms, you're right. There are common sense solutions that the Democrats blew off, but you listen to the MAGA right on transgender Americans. It's a mental illness and they shouldn't, they don't even, exist. That's not where most America is. Okay, Elizabeth, on that, I mean, I've always been very supportive of trans people's rights

to fairness and equality, right to the point it erodes women's rights, right? And I think that is where common sense lies. But to Joe's point, it's not unreasonable. I have seen a lot of, you know, pretty blatant transphobic rhetoric being spewed by some people on the right. Not a lot, but some people. What is your message to those people? Because Trump spoke today, for example, about the importance of unity. He wants to be a peaceful president, one that propagates peace, not war, but also unity. Look, I actually think I do agree with Joe in a lot here, right?

Breaking news, I think we all agree. It's ironic that people disagree with the concept that is Donald Trump because they hate him so much, but deep down, actually agree with him on almost every issue. The fact is a lot of people ran against Donald Trump in 16, who were a lot further, right? Said a lot of horrible things, by the way, about the LGBT community and lost.

Same thing happened again. in 2024. The fact is Donald Trump won. Donald Trump won being the first Republican or the first president at all, by the way, to go in supporting gay marriage. He has always said that he believes everyone should do what they want to do, whatever makes them happy until it infringes on somebody else in their life. He is very supportive of gay rights. I think, like you said, the sports issue, the bathroom issue, this is where most Americans agree. This is where Donald Trump agrees, and that's why he won. It's almost a non-issue here, right? The fact is he won the presidency against Kamala Harris and he won against a bunch of Republicans

who were a lot further than him, especially on this issue. The fact is you're 100% right. The majority of Americans agree. That's why Donald Trump is our president. That's why I think most of us here on this panel agree. Everyone should be treated fairly and with respect until it hurts somebody else. It's so basic.

It's a fundamental American value. I'm proud that Donald Trump is the Republican candidate right now and has said that from day one, despite the fact that many people don't give them credit for that. I mean, nothing could, to be honest, could support what you've just said more than the fact that what has become the most popular dance in the world, it is a dance by the group village people called YMCA,

which was literally a gay anthem. The band had tried to say it wasn't now, but the truth is, I remember when it came out. It was the gay anthem of the world. And last night, Donald Trump ended his final rally, for one of a better phrase, by literally having the original village people on and dancing to this anthem with them.

I mean, if you're a homophobe, you don't do that, Anna, do you? I don't think that Donald Trump is going to go after gay marriage. I don't think he's going to go after gay people. He didn't do in his first term. He didn't even attempt to in his first term. So there's no reason to believe that he will in his second term. I think the allegations of him being homophobic are kind of ridiculous. I do think that there is some fear that, you know, everyone keeps talking about how his reelection is the end of

wokeism, but it really depends on how Donald Trump governs, how he leads in the next four years, because if he does intend to go after vulnerable communities and literally do these mass deportations of people, including people who might have been here for decades and never committed any other crimes other than being here in the country illegally, I think that that will further empower people who want to focus on these identity issues, on that. So, that's simply point, I just think all the signals coming out of the Trump world, although that is not really where the targeting is going to be. I mean, I didn't realize until recently there's a million people.

There are a million illegal immigrants who have already been processed for deportation who just haven't been deported. And I suspect almost all Americans I know would be like, well, why are they still here? So he'll start with those, and then he'll move on to those who are criminals. I think most Americans I know,

from the ones I've talked to from any political persuasion, all agree that if you're a criminal, illegal immigrant, well, what are you doing in America? So there's plenty of people in those categories to start with, aren't there? Yeah, and to be fair, I mean, Tom Homan has been saying repeatedly that their so-called mass deportation is going to focus on the very individuals that you're referring to. So it really depends. And, you know, Donald Trump tends to say things that sound harsh,

that sound kind of hateful time to time, and that further empowers the wokeism. But the thing I really want to focus on, just briefly, if I may, is what you brought up in regard to the tech bros, the tech CEOs who are very present at this inauguration. You know, I am curious to see how this kind of unfolds in regard to the priorities of MAGA, the America First crowd, versus these tech bros. Because I agree with Joe Walsh. These are individuals who don't really have an ideology. They're not ideologues. They're just looking for cookies. They're corporate CEOs who are looking for favorable policies that will help them maximize profits. those are the policies that run counter to what America First MAGA voters want. I think the whole

debacle with the H-1B visas is a good example of that. So that's what I'm looking out for in this presidency. And I'm curious to see if the America First crowd holds Donald Trump accountable, if he engages in what I think he's really good at, which is a transactional type of presidency. You know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. These are people who funded his inauguration and his campaign to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. So we'll see how that plays out, and I think that's what people should be focused on. I think it's really interesting.

The whole thing was Steve Bannon on one side, railing against these guys. Elon Musk seemingly joined at the hit with Trump, all the others going down there today. It's a really interesting. It was certainly very different to what it was like in 2016-17, where it was all Bannon, Bannon, and Bannon. And these guys on the tech side all wanted to kill Trump.

Billy, I want to play a clip. This is from our world, previous world of television. Gail King, CBS, who only had one thought as she watched the inauguration today. Let's take a look. I have to say, I'm looking at this crowd. I do not see many people of color. Has anybody else besides me observe that? I'm fascinated by why that is.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the most notable and one of the most high-ranking is Justice Katanji Brown-Jackson. first black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, notably appointed by Joe Biden as he made, wanted to follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter and appointing a number of women and black women to the federal judgeships. You know, as I watched that clip, all I was thinking at the time was there, right there, is a massive problem for the Democrats,

where the only thought was how do we create some kind of race storm here? Even though there were a lot of people who were not white in that audience, by the way. Somebody tweeted a whole list of names of people from all ethnicities. But putting that aside, anyway, it shouldn't matter. That shouldn't be what your focus is on as you look at an inauguration. Should it? I mean, these are lawmakers in there, right? You've been elected officials.

I don't know. Why would you go down that road just when you've literally lost an election because people are sick and tired of the DEI woke mentality? Well, maybe she felt it was on her. She had to represent by saying that. But look, this is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And one of the stars of the entire inauguration was Lorenzo Sewell, the Detroit pastor who did the benediction. And he gave an unbelievable benediction.

I mean, with power, with emotion, with belief, it was religious, it was spiritual, it was high energy, it was fantastic. The other star, by the way, Carrie Underwood, when the audio equipment went out, and she stepped up to the mic and went Acapela after about an awkward 30 seconds. Lorenzo was great and did all the lifting on MLK Day that anyone could do. I mean, are you in L.A. at the moment, Billy? I am. There's a lot of sadness around me. Yeah, I've got to just mention that because I've got a house in L.A. Fortunately, not in an area which so far has been affected.

Although there are big new wins coming in tonight. and tomorrow, so no one's out of the woods yet with this thing. It's been unbelievably devastating. But again, it has raised a lot of debate about this whole thing of DEI, wokeism, and so on. When you look at people running the fire department, whose focus seems to be on diversity and inclusion over actually just saving people in fires, when they're releasing videos saying, don't you want to be rescued by someone who looks like me?

Well, no, I just want to be rescued by somebody who knows that I rescue people in a fire. When you look at the choice of mayor of Karen Bass, and you compare to Rick Caruso, who she beat, you know, I watched him on Bill Maher at the weekend. He was so impressive and has such a great track record in this very area, actually. And you think, again, why did she beat him? And it's probably because L.A., I've said this point, people don't like it. L.A.'s been doing it. Yeah. L.A.'s been doing things the same way forever. A bureaucrat is always going to go in there. It's just a default vote for so long. so were to run today, he would win. He's been talking about what we need to do to brace ourselves for natural disaster since 2022. He's a brilliant man. He's built more, more enterprise here in Los Angeles.

He knows the ins and outs of LADWP. Yeah, that was a giant miss. If they recall Karen Bass, I don't think he steps in. I think he's going to run for governor and defeat after Gavin Newsom is done. He may run against Kamala Harris, but I believe that would be his next move. L.A.'s done things the same way forever, and that might be changing. Yeah, I think it has to. I think Nusum as well.

I mean, Joe, you know, Nisome. It's San Francisco. Look, San Francisco elected a mayor just now. David Lurie, I believe, you know, finally a business person who's going to come in and do what they did at the school board level in San Francisco. So it started there.

It's coming to L.A. next, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I mean, Joe, what do you think? about that. I mean, in particular what Gail King said, she might feel she has to say something, but really, do you have to make it a race-baiting observation? Why do you have to do that? I mean, I remember Barack Obama, in the campaign towards the end, when he started lecturing other black Americans, you have to vote for Kamala Harris effectively because you're black and she's black. And they didn't like that. There was a big backlash to that.

You know, with Gail King, similarly, it's like, what do you want, Gail? You want just tokenism? You want people just put in there because of their skin color? Pierce, when I heard that Gail King clip, it just reminded me of how utterly out of touch Democrats are. And right away, I thought of, like, the migrant issue. And I think this issue got Trump elected, right? The migrant issue, it's a real problem in America. What does Trump do?

He lies about cats and dogs, and he uses the issue to skin. the hell out of people, but Pierce, Democrats weren't even aware that it was an issue because they were just so out of touch. Yeah, I think that's right. Elizabeth, Michelle Obama wasn't there, but she also wasn't at the Jimmy Carter funeral, which I found utterly extraordinary that Barack Obama's wife, as one of the only other two Democrat president still alive, that she would not want to be there. and apparently it's to do with her general antipathy towards Trump. Well, okay, but I always remember Michelle Obama. When they go low, we go high. But it seems actually the one who's gone lowest in the last few weeks is Michelle Obama. You know, it's strange to me.

Obviously, I don't know her. I feel strange commenting on her actions when we don't know for a fact why she wasn't there. I think in general skipping Carter's funeral actually is almost worse than the inauguration. We know how politicized this event has become. We know how the Obama's feel about Donald Trump and probably vice versa. But I actually was very uncomfortable with her skipping President Carter's funeral. I think that's a bigger problem. But again, I can't speak for her, and I'm sure she has a reason.

But I thought that was inappropriate, especially at a time when the country really needs to be brought together. I'd love to go back to the Gail King clip you played. I can't believe that on MLK Day, for example, we can bring up almost pretending that his message, let's count the number of people of color in a room and not about the content of people's character. That's what he's known for. That's what we all remember every single time we celebrate this day. I think it's disgraceful. And I don't think it's about Democrats versus Republicans.

I think it's people that just don't want to unify the country. I think they're comfortable, maybe disagreeing or hating those that vote differently than them. I think it's really gross. I think people are chasing money and news coverage and a lot of things that anger people, which unfortunately get people's blood pressure up and get clicks. And I think it's disgraceful. I think the country deserves better. But it is MLK Day.

and he is famous for really one message, one very unifying message that we're desperately missing, and it certainly is not let's count the number of people of color in every single. Do you know what? That's such a brilliant point. And, Anna, Trump, it seemed to me, A, it was quite a short speech. I was very surprised, way shorter than his last one,

and way shorter than I thought it would be. It says to me, something else I've been spotting with Trump in the last few months. He's a lot more disciplined second time round, I think, than he was first time round. and I think that that is going to really help him. Now, Joe's shaking his head because he doesn't think anything about Trump

is disciplined and it's all chaotic. But people in Trump world, I'm sure, would know what I mean, is that he just is more focused and disciplined than he was before. Because I think he realizes that last time, chaos is okay to a point before it becomes uncontrollable chaos. And I thought his speech was right on point

for what he needed to do for his people. Let's take a look at his last thought. here. From this day on, the United States of America will be a free, sovereign and independent nation. We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly. And nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun. Thank you. God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you. You know, he's, I wouldn't compare him to John F. Kennedy, although they have a lot of things in common, actually.

But I wouldn't, except that there was also a point when he talked about putting an American flag on Mars. I was like, if I was an American, great. And obviously, in Elon Musk, he's got someone who may actually better make that happen. But there was a general kind of tone of the golden age is coming back. America's going to be great again. We're going to put the flag on Mars.

We're going to make you better off. We're going to secure the border. we're going to get rid of woke bullshit and so on. And even though Joe will be saying he won't deliver any of these things, let me just take you back, Anna, too, just before the pandemic struck. Because right before the pandemic struck, actually Trump was heading towards, I believe, that year, a massive win in that election.

And it was the pandemic and the ruinous effect on the economy and his pretty poor handling of it, I have to say, that was his undoing in that year. But it's important to remember that after three and a half years of Trump, actually America was in a pretty good place. Not necessarily what came out of his mouth, but his policies were actually working, not least in the economy. I mean, America was in a good place relative to where we are today.

Certainly the personal finances of Americans have suffered as a result of supply chain disruptions and COVID and all of that. And, you know, I agree with you in regard to Donald Trump speech being a little more focused, shorter than what we would usually expect. He didn't really go off the cuff. You could tell he was, you know, reading from the prompter, and that allowed him to be more focused. And what he tapped into again and again in almost every sentence is this nostalgia that Americans have, not just for what the country was prior to COVID, but the golden age of America when there was innovation, when we were the first to land on the moon. And I think that was a smart thing to do in the context of his speech.

The one other thing that I'll note is I don't think Trump has been more disciplined because he's realized that he needs to be. I think that that is completely the influence of his incoming chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who helped him along with Lasavita to run a more disciplined campaign, a more professional campaign. And I think that she's going to be guarding him a little more closely in his second term and giving him less access or others less access. or others less access to him, certainly some of the more nefarious figures who I think hurt his public reputation. So we'll see how that all plays out. But he also made history in naming the first ever

female chief of staff. And so I think she's earned it. She's been involved in Republican politics since the late 1970s. And so we'll see how it all plays out. But I do think that she's had, for the most part, a positive influence on him in terms of being more disciplined and focused

in his campaign and now moving forward in his second term. Yeah, no question. I think she was an excellent appointment. Billy, I want to just finish with you because I want to read you a quote. You said Mr. Tucker Carlson this week, and I've known you a long time.

We've been mates a long time, done many things with you. And you said to Tucker, the day that Donald Trump walked in for his first day of work as President of the United States was the day that I walked in, turned in my phone

and checked in for nine days in a mental health retreat. And that really was a powerful revelation to me because I didn't know that. And the fact that you had these two parallel lines where Trump surged to the White House and you ended up having treatment

for serious mental health issues. You look to me and you sound to me like you've fully come out the other side of that long, dark tunnel. But how are you? Well, look, everyone's going to have something. Nobody goes unscathed in this world. The network that raised me for 15 years

decided that I was expendable that might meant that they could cancel me in the most spectacular way in order to get rid of Donald Trump as a candidate. It was the October surprise. They would do anything to do it. So the network that raised me, you know, leaked this tape to the Washington Post.

Trump blew it off with ease and went on to win and become president. They just, you know, they can do whatever they want. They were never held accountable. And it's just the beginning of the But everyone's going to have something like, you know, whatever it is. I don't know, my children are healthy.

You could have a sick child. Something's going to face you in life that is really hard. And cancellation, which is over now, it seems like, is a violent act on someone. And I think people are tired of it. And yeah, that was my thing. So I went in there. It's almost eight years to the day as we sit here. Is it really?

And in a much better place, I've launched my new show. Mikes with Billy Bush and I have still back in the mainstream. I made them take me back in the mainstream media just to set the record straight. And all's good, baby, but thanks for asking. Well, you're looking. Godspeed, Billy Bush. Godspeed, my friend. Yeah.

You know what, Billy? You're looking horribly youthful and handsome and that's always annoyed me about you. And that hasn't changed. I've had three facelifts. I've had three facelifts, which is one, you know, which, and they're all, they've seemed to hold here. Thank you. You know what? It's great to see you back, mate.

Hot mics with Billy Bush. It's great. I've caught some of the early ones. Really enjoyable. Hope to come on it soon. And you're welcome and uncensored any time. It's a great to see you. Thank you to my panel.

Elizabeth, you probably have some fancy balls to go to. Go and enjoy. Congratulations. What a day for you guys. Really a quite incredible win. An amazing day in history. The greatest comeback in the history of politics. I think anywhere in the world.

So take a bow. and go and enjoy the fruits of victory. Thank you all very much. Thanks, Pierce. The first time in more than a year, Palestinians in what remains of Gaza can sleep in silence and in safety. Deeply emotional images of freed Israeli hostages

have provided an historic backdrop to the first day of President Trump's second term and the new president wants to be in no doubt about who got the deal done. Perhaps most beautiful all this week, we achieved an epic ceasefire agreement as a first step toward lasting peace in the Middle East. And this agreement could only have happened

as a result of our historic victory in November. That was some victory. Was that that greatest? I don't even know which was greater. 2016 or this one. I think this one. Well, Americans expect Trump to make the world a safer and calmer place. So will he deliver? I'm joined by CNN's chief international anchor. Christian Amopold.

Great to see you. And it's very good to be. I'm an honor to have the queen of news in my studio. Fascinating historical day, a historical weekend in many ways. We were both listening to Trump there in his inauguration speech. Very predictable in many ways. He's going to do what he was told he should do by the electorate. What are your thoughts?

Well, look, certainly the polls are showing that people are very divided still about him, even those who vote of him, but they like his policies. They want to see mass deportation. They want to see the price of goods like everybody wants to see that come down. They don't care about tariffs. They don't know that it's going to be a tax against them. And they're not worried about, presumably, whether all of this economic plans that he's talking about

is going to cause more inflation, as many economists say. They don't want him to go into foreign wars. That's understandable as well. But I think we have a lot of discussion as to how he solves the current wars underway and what his worldview is. And I think the Middle East is a very good way. place to start. Yeah, I mean, look, his worldview is pretty crystal clear, America first,

but I do think he also understands you've got to have security around the world if you want to have a secure America. See, I'm not sure about that because he's very much, he is an isolationist. I mean, that's just a bottom line thing. He wasn't his first term. He is now. I think we should be ready for what we know. Past is prologue, you know, etc. I think that he's going to be all transactional all the time, that is Donald Trump. What's good for America is the only thing that I really care about, which is what he says and what he sort of started to do last time. The question is, if he does things like, again, pull out of a treaty like the Iran nuclear

deal, for instance, with nothing to replace it, and then see Iran, you know, like gallivanting towards enrichment, if he has some kind of so-called madman theory of going towards, let's say, Kim Jong-un, I covered both those summits. It came to, what, a big fat zero, because there was no follow-up after the photo-ops. If he decides that NATO is irrelevant or that Article 5 won't be implemented, then what does that mean for allies around the world?

So there's that issue. Then there's the other issue. For the first time I read it this weekend, it was actually Michael Ignatyev in the Financial Times, talking about Canada, you know, the 51st state and the Gulf of America and all that kind of nonsense. He said, look, perhaps Trump and the trumpets think in terms of manifest destiny, in terms of the Monroe doctrine, in terms of spheres of influence,

perhaps he thinks that all the Americas in the Western Hemisphere are legitimately America's area of influence, right? So Greenland, hey, why don't we take Greenland? Why don't we mine the minerals? Why don't we do that? Why do we control the Panama Canal and keep the Chinese out? I mean, all of that kind of stuff. But that then begs the question. Is he wrong about all this stuff? Well, of course he is, because we're now in a globalized world, because what it then means is, so maybe he doesn't care about Russia versus Ukraine

because if he wants a sphere of interest, it means he will accept, according to this theory, that Xi Jinping has a sphere of interest. So does America care about the independence of Taiwan? Does America care about the independence of a sovereign democratic country in Central Europe called Ukraine? Maybe not. And that's what I, as a foreign correspondent and a person who follows the world,

I'm going to be looking at for the next four. You've also, of course, covered the Middle East for decades. Yes. When you look at what happened this weekend, a lot of jostling for claim of credit now. But is there a much doubt that Trump, in the end, through his Middle East envoy, seems to have accelerated this to the point of a deal? I think that absolutely there was a Trump factor. Everybody talks about it.

been on a conference call with the Hamas political leaders. I've listened to the Israeli leaders. I've listened to the Americans. I interviewed Anthony Blinken as his last interviewer as Secretary of State. Thank you. And they all say that, of course, the change in dynamic and the fact that Trump said, I want this done before I get into office is, you know, was very instrumental. But of course, you know that the details of this ceasefire were done by the Biden administration

in May. Hamas and the Israelis rejected it, you know, this way or that way. And as you know, also the far-right extremists in Israel, Ben Gavir, gave an interview to the Times of Israel in which he said that for a whole year, he and Smotrich and the others had, quote, successfully prevented any ceasefire idea. In other words, successfully, an Israeli minister

that props up the current government was boasting about preventing their hostages coming home. That's where they stand. But Trump wants this done. So the Hamas and Israel, they don't know if there's going to be a second phase to this. Is it just going to be a ceasefire that brings back 33 or so Israeli hostages and surges some much-needed aid into Gaza? Or is it a six-week period in order to solve the crisis

so that there are never again any October 7th? What happens here, Christian, for 75 years? Yeah. This region, Israel, Palestine has been at war in different phases for 75 years. This has been the worst, arguably, escalation of it. How does any of this actually, in the end, get resolved? Well, clearly the Israelis who attacked so viciously on October 7th believe this is the worst and potentially is,

the worst one-day massacre and loss of life and taking of hostages since the Holocaust. And so they are a traumatized nation. But their trauma is being fed by a government and its allies who don't want a peaceful settlement. I'm not saying that. They say it. They don't want a settlement, a political settlement, that would once and for all have a real chance of having a secure, safe, independent Israel as a Jewish state,

alongside a secure, safe, independent Palestinian state with all the rights. Now, that's what the Biden administration says should happen. That's what all the American administrations previously have said. That's what the UN says. That's what the international, you know, the EU and all, Russia, China, all them, They just happened to all believe in one thing. So the question here is, this is now Trump's crisis. From today, it is Trump's crisis.

So what will he do? Last time we saw him give everything to BB, everything that he wanted in terms of moving the embassy, in terms of talking about recognizing annexation, recognizing parts of the settlements and the occupation, the people who he's nominated say the same thing, but Steve Whitkoff, his envoy, did go there and did knock heads together and say, Trump wants this first phase done.

So the question is, what does Trump want and care about a second phase? How important is Saudi Arabia? Because they've been relatively quiet about this, which makes me think they still actually would like to try and progress normalization. They've got to be very careful, obviously, with the rest of the region about how they do that and what they say. but Trump has a very good relationship with Mahmah bin Salman, the Crown Prince. It's no doubt to me they're going to try and do that.

Can you see that happening? Well, look, I think Hamas for sure, given what we've been listening to in their conference calls since the ceasefire was announced, they didn't want this happening without the Palestinian question being addressed, as they say. Now, they took, you know, an unprecedented and illegal, and many would say unprovoked and certainly undisputed, and certainly undetected by Israel's military or its intelligence step that was really savage. I mean, it was savage what happened on October 7th. Babies were taken as hostage, you know.

It was savage. But of course, the ensuing war of a just war tipped over into a savagery in which tens of thousands of people, including children, thousands and thousands of women and children have been killed, and there's pockets of starvation, and there's besiegment, and there's all the things that are not, that are not allowed, but that's the question. Clearly Saudi Arabia has now outed itself as saying publicly

without movement on a Palestinian state. We cannot, we will not agree to normalization. But clearly they want it. Of course they want it. But they won't do it now without a real movement on the two days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the Americans who try to pull back, you know, even under President Obama's from the Middle East.

I mean, Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor outgoing, famously said it's all quiet in the Middle East a few days before October 7th. So this is a huge, huge issue. And the question is, does Trump care about what happens to the Palestinians? Does he get on with BB Netanyahu or not? Some people say, no, not anymore. But I think we really do have to wait and see,

but I think the consensus is that without a political resolution, this is just a sleeping dragon and it'll happen again. Quickly, Ukraine, I've always thought that is a much harder thing, actually, even than Israel, Palestine, for Trump to quickly try and resolve. Yeah, but nothing is quick. He's even brought back his deadline because, you know, he said 24 hours, it's now 100 days. Right, so how does he do a deal that doesn't actually involve Putin just keeping what he's taken? He has to be tough.

I mean, if you read outgoing defense secretary and secretary of state, Austin and Blinken, they outlined what their administration did. and said, look, this is leverage for you, President Trump and your group. We have got you to hear. And now, if you surrender or encourage Ukraine to surrender to Putin, all of that will have gone to waste. So if somebody who wants to make America great again or doesn't want to waste money, that would be a big waste of money,

a bad business deal. Can a good deal involve Ukraine getting NATO membership, or is that never going to happen? I mean, it absolutely has to and should happen. But before that, they need a massive and solid security. guarantee because they will have to give up territory. I mean, that's obvious. Even Zelensky has accepted that.

But who knows for how long and what, and is it just to live out Putin? I don't know. But Putin doesn't want any deal that allows an independent, sovereign, non-neutral Ukraine. He wants, like Trump wants a sphere of influence, apparently. He wants imperial Russia again. He doesn't believe Ukraine exists. No, totally. It's just a footnote in Russian history.

But in order for the world to be safe, in my humble opinion, Putin needs to be socked back in the nose, in the words of French President Hollande or his former defense minister Kozir. He only understands strength. So that's Trump's challenge. Yeah, and they're big challenges. Christian, great to have you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.