Piers Morgan Uncensored - Mehdi Hasan v Piers

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Mehdi Hasan is a broadcaster with a big bite. His MSNBC show was abruptly cancelled at the end of last year. But not before his criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza had sparked plaudits, and protests, around the world. He’s best-known for his tongue-lashing monologues and probing interviews, which have made him a hit online. Now Mehdi’s joined the US Guardian, using his first column to call Israel’s offensive a “genocide.” He's also starting his own media company, Zeteo News. His New York Times bestseller “Win Every Argument” was notably written before he had appeared on this show. Now, Mehdi Hasan is Uncensored. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want you to imagine that you are the Prime Minister of Israel when that atrocity happens. What do you do? That's a great question. How else do you get rid of Hamas if you don't go about it in the blunt, brutal manner that Israel is doing? I don't accept the premise of your question that this is the way to defeat Hamas. I think your questions reflect a little bit of a naivity about what Israel is doing it. People do ask me, do you think Israel are terrorists? And I've said no.

But I have repeated it. Well, I have repeated it. Why? of interest, why? Because they were responding to an act of terrorism, so heinous, it demanded a massive military response. Now, Medi, it's not your show, it's mine. What we need to have is a consistent moral principle.

What we need to have is... Hang on, when did Israel kill 1,200 Palestinians? When did Israel kill hundreds of Palestinians of Indians? Were you fired by MSNBC because of what you said? Well, Mariah San is a broadcaster with a big bite. His MSNBC show is abruptly cancelled at end of last year, but not before his criticism of Israel's war in Gaza had sparked plaudits and protests around the world.

He's best known for his tongue-lashing monologues and probing interviews, which have made him a big hit online. There are also people that your government has killed. You accept that, right? You've killed children? Or do you deny that? No, I do not. I do not. December. Yes, you did, Vive.

This is awkward for you because you did. I've got the tax returns in front of my face. The former president of the United States today threatened America's Jews. Do you believe that if elections are held on time in October of this year, that your besieged party can still win and that you can still be

Prime Minister again? Surely that's a pipe dream now. I think it was not core to communism, no. So when Karl Marx was talking about religion being the opiate of the masses, that was just a throwaway line. That's fine. People can look at me in stage. Steve Rogers and the President can be a liar. There's no contradiction between those two statements.

Well, not many has joined the US Guardian using his first column to call Israel's offensive a genocide. Also started his own media company, Sateo News. his New York Times bestseller, win every argument, was noted to be written before he'd appeared on this show. And now Medi Hazan is uncensored. Medi, how are you?

I'm good. Thank you for that introduction, Pierce. We've had a few ding-dongs on X, formerly Twitter over the years. Recently, I've noticed a pattern where you've started a few tweets saying, I hate to admit this, but I agree with Pierce Morgan. Yeah, you've said some sensible things about the conference. conflict in the Middle East. You've said some sensible things about Islamophobia. I feel like you've matured over the years. I've been following what's happened with you with great interest. And as somebody who was at CNN and left there pretty abruptly myself a few years ago after

a series of very lively debates with members of the NRA about gun rights in America, you know, I could see what happened with you. And we'll come to that a little later. But first of all, How are you enjoying the freedom of your new life? Very much so. I'm someone, as you said, who likes to speak out. I'm known for speaking very freely. And look, it's great to have your own enterprise, start your own media company. I'm 44 years old.

I've worked for the BBC, for Sky, for Al Jazeera English, for NBC, for Huff Post. And it's good to actually be my own boss for a little while. And to be able to, especially at a time, peers, when the world is going through so much, You have the war in Gaza, you have an election in the US, you have the rise of fascism globally. It's a lot I want to speak about, both online and in my shows and in my writing. And, you know, it is good to be uncensored, including on this show. It certainly is. It's great to have you. Let me just take you back to October the 7th.

I want you to imagine, and it's a bit of a leap, I admit, but I want you to imagine that you are the Prime Minister of Israel when that atrocity happens in Israel. What do you do? That's a great question. So short answer is I resign because I'm responsible for that attack. I'm the one who botched security at the border.

I'm the one who propped up Hamas with money from Qatar over the years and allowed them to be propped up as a way to divide the Palestinian people. I'm the one who's had millions of my own people on the streets for months protesting against my authoritarian reforms to the judiciary. So I have some shame, I have some self-respect,

I have some honesty, and I say, I quit, let someone. else do this because I've failed for 20 years. OK, Netanyahu did not do that. And interestingly, although the majority of Israelis would like him to go, they also want him to finish the job in destroying Hamas. There's not much ambiguity in terms of how Israelis feel about the mission plan. But there's obviously a lot of concern mounting around the world about the scale of Israel's response.

And that's really what I guess my question was a little. I've been honest, I've said this a lot on my uncensored show that I felt a real moral quandary. You know, I can go back over tweets I've done back in 2014, where I said that Israel's response to provocation by Palestinians at the time was bordering on terrorism. You know, I've somebody who, when I was edited to the Daily Mirror, opposed the Iraq war before, during and after very vociferously. And I think that aged pretty well that campaign.

I'm somebody that when the Qatar World Cup happened. You know, I sprang to defense of Qatar's right to host the World Cup and exposed a lot of Western hypocrisy. And yet when it comes to this particular conflict, I feel genuinely conflicted, for one of a better phrase. And the point of my conflict is this really, is that the reason I asked you that question about if you were the Prime Minister of Israel,

it's very, very difficult to know how any Prime Minister of Israel could have responded in a particularly different manner to the way that Netanyahu did. Putting aside all the reasons that you say he should have resigned. And by the way, I broadly agree with them. So in terms of the Israel people, the prime minister at the time, the response to what happened that day was going to always have to be enormous, wasn't it? So you're right in terms of the emotional response. It was going to be

enormous. And I would take us back to 9-11, peers. You mentioned Iraq. After 9-11, there was an emotional response in the US that something had to be done, right? There's the famous yes-minister dialogue. Something has to be done. This is something. Let's do it. And we, invaded Afghanistan, which didn't solve the problem of terrorism, made it worse, punished innocent people who had nothing to do with 9-11. And you'll remember at the time, Pierce, both parties in the United States supported going into Afghanistan. Only one member of Congress, not Bernie Sanders, Barbara Lee of California, voted to oppose that war. Two decades on, many people would say she was vindicated, even though she was an isolated voice, and she was going against a tidal wave of opinion

from liberals and conservatives said, we have to do something. And I get that. After a trustee happens, people want to do something. But the best leader, the most strategic leaders, the most moral leaders, are the ones who can take a pause, take a breath and say, are we going to make the situation better or worse? Are we striking out strategically or just for the sake of vengeance and revenge? And you talk about Israeli prime ministers having to do this. Look, they didn't have to do it on this level. I think a lot of Israelis, despite supporting that, Naino, would argue it didn't have to be done like this. There are different ways to retaliate against Hamas. The irony is no Israeli government has done it like

this before. This is the greatest death toll for Palestinians of any war. in Israel's post-1948 history. So the fact that he did it like this was unique. I mean, look, the statistics speak for themselves. Pierce, you know them. You've said them on this show. The level of killing, the number of kids killed. You have one former UN official saying

this is the highest kill rate in the world since Rwanda, right, of any conflict since Rwanda. Do not tell me that the only response to a brutal attack on civilians in Israel on October the 7th was to produce a conflict that had a kill rate equivalent to Rwanda's. Sorry, I don't accept that. Here's what I would say playing devil's advocate, and you might think, I'm literally playing devil's advocate, but I'm going to play it anyway, which is all that is true, the death toll is horrific, the percentage of children being killed is horrific. But I would say as a caveat to this, if you think about it from the Israeli perspective, you've got 35,000 Hamas terrorists, and we'll come to whether you think they're terrorists or not in a moment, but you've got 35,000 Hamas soldiers, warriors, terrorists, whatever description you want to call them, depressive.

depending on whose side you're on. And they are embedded amongst a civilian population where half that population is under 18. How else do you get rid of Hamas if you don't go about it in the blunt, brutal manner that Israel is doing? And if you do it the way they're doing it, how do you avoid the kind of casualty rate

of people under 18, given that that's half the population? So three things very briefly. Number one, you do it by not. deliberately targeting civilian targets and schools and hospitals and cemeteries and mosques and universities and churches. You don't have snipers shooting at hospitals or Christian women inside a church. That's how you avoid the casualties. Number two, I don't accept the premise of your question that this is the way to defeat Hamas. I think even if I'm an Israeli hawk, I criticize Netanyahu and say, this is not the way to defeat Hamas. This is actually absurd to think you can

defeat Hamas in this way. We have countless episodes from history that show us this is not how you defeat a guerrilla movement, a resistance movement, a terror group, as you say, whatever words you want to use. In fact, you have Israeli general saying this can't be done in this way. And number three, look, the reality is Hamas is a symptom of the problem. As long as you treat Hamas as a problem, rather than as a symptom of the problem, you're never going to get rid of Hamas. Or if you do, by some fantasy means, get rid of Hamas, you'll just get another version

of Hamas because now you've got tens of thousands of orphans. You've got people who have lost their kids, their spouses, their siblings? What? You think they're not going to fight back in the years to come? You think they're not going to take revenge? It's how I feel. It's absolute madness to believe. I feel the same way.

Then we agree. So, yeah, I think, broadly speaking, I do, because I think you can't kill the ideology. And in fact, all you will do is entrench the ideology. I think, and that's what I don't think Israel have thought through to a logical end game, which is you're not going to get rid of the thinking that inspired Hamas, because a lot of people will have suffered such appalling grief with their close family. But again, peers, they're going to want to get revenge. I think you're being a little too generous to the Israelis here.

And with the greater respect, I think your questions reflect a little bit of a naivety about what Israel's doing here. You're starting from the premise that Israel is trying to defeat Hamas. I don't accept that premise. I don't believe that's what Israel is trying to do. What do you think they're trying to do? They wouldn't be doing it this way. I think they're trying to take back Gaza. I think they're trying to erase the resistance in Gaza.

I think they're trying to get rid of the people from Gaza. I think this is their, you know, they've mowed the lawn, as they put it in previous wars. This time they're going in to erase the population. You know, there's a plausible genocide. Okay, but let me ask you that... Hold on, if you listen to Israeli officials, as you know, it's laid out in the South African petition, they are very genocidal in their approach to flattening and burning down Gaza. It's not about destroying Hamas.

And if it was about destroying Hamas, why has Netanyahu and Smok Trich and others talked about how Hamas is an asset to Israel? Why do they say that openly, peers? Well, he was clearly massively deluded, I think, Netanyahu about having anything to do with Hamas. I think the Netanyahu's plan was quite straightforward, which was to separate Hamas from, the Palestinian Authority and create a split in the Palestinians at an official level. And he thought that that was the best way of preserving security for Israel. You couldn't have been more wrong. I mean, the thing I do want to ask you, I don't think you've called Hamas terrorists.

In fact, you've gone out of your way to call them fighters. Do you still think that or do you accept that what they did on October the 7th was an act of terrorism on a heena scale and therefore you have to call them terrorists? So you're wrong, Pierce. In my very first MSNBC monologue after October 7th, I referred to what happened on October 7th as terrorism. In fact, when I was 16 years old, I wrote a letter to the independent newspaper condemning Hamas bus bombings in the mid-1990s.

So you're wrong on multiple levels. I don't expect you to know about my 16-year-old self, but clearly my MSNBC output is all there for anyone to see. So just to be clear, what happened on October 7th? It was an act of terrorism and Hamas are terrorists. That's your position. I think the Hamas fighters who went into Israel and killed civilians and kidnapped babies, certainly I would call them terrorists,

just as I call Israeli soldiers who kidnap children and kill children terrorists. I use the terrorist label more freely because otherwise it's just a politicized, empty phrase that we just apply to our enemies. What I would say, peers, is that I find it a problem, and you know this, you've joked about all the memes about you. This obsession with what we call Hamas, which is a question you pose, let's be honest, Pierce, to most of your pro-Palestinian brown guests. You don't ask your Israeli or Jewish or pro-Israeli guests

to condemn Israeli terrorism or Israeli war crimes at the start of an interview in the way you do with pro-Palestinians. I've been asked directly whether I think Israel are terrorists, and I've said no. So I don't think they are. I think they had a right to defend themselves. The question is the scale. That wasn't the point I made, Piers.

I said when you have Israeli guests on, hold on. Let me finish my sentence. Let me finish my sentence. No, Medi, it's not your show. So it's mine. I wanted to say that the whole interview, by the way. So we got that other way. It's a job. I'm joking. But the point I would make is I think that I asked all the pro-Palestinian guests who've come on that question quite quickly. Because I think it reveals a state of mind.

If like you, and I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had in that first piece of MSNBC done that. So I take back the suggestion you hadn't. And I'm glad that you have called them that. I don't think you can call them anything else. So the moment you have a pro-Palestinian guest who wants to avoid. calling what Hamas did an act of terrorism by terrorists, I think it's very revealing about their mindset. And I think it's the wrong mindset. Here's my problem with that. Why is that not applied to your Israeli guests? I would be fine, peers, if you had Palestinian guests and you

begin by asking them, do you condemn Hamas war crimes? Because what Hamas did on October 7th was a war crime. But then you should start with Israeli guests and pro-Israeli guests saying, do you condemn Israeli war crimes, which have been documented by the UN, every human rights group on the planet. You don't. You had Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli Prime Minister on a couple of weeks ago. I watched the interview. Your opening question was, how comfortable are you with the way Israel's prosecuting the war? A bit of a softball to start with. You didn't ask him to condemn Israeli terrorism, Israeli war crimes, Israeli genocide in Gaza. So a lot of people look at that and they say, they get your intention, but it comes across as a bit of a racist double standard.

Well, look, I don't think it's a racist double standard. And I think that nobody has given pro-Palestinian voices a bigger platform more consistently since October the 7th than me. You have. And if you go back and look at those interviews, you know, I think clips get taken out of context and people assume they know what I've said. And often is completely misleading. I've tried to be fair-minded about it. People do ask me, do you think Israel are terrorists? And I've said, no, I don't think they are.

But I have repeated... Why? Why? Because I think they... Out of interest. Why? Because they were responding to an act of terrorism so heinous, it demanded a massive military response. The question for me that calls me a moral quandary is what is an acceptably... proportionate level of response.

And I don't know the answer. But I don't think you can call people responding to an act of terror on that scale terrorists for responding. What you can do is hold them to account. The problem is if you go to Gaza, if you go to Gaza peers and you talk to Palestinians, they will say that Hamas were responding.

If we play, though, who started it game, we go back many decades. What we need to have is a consistent moral principle. What we need to have is, when did Israel kill 1,200 Palestinians? When did they kill 800 of Palestinians? When did they kill 800? of Palestinian civilians in one

few hour period, right, in the way that Hamas killed those Israelis. But that's not the definition of terrorism, how many hours you do it in. I can mention many Israeli massacres going back to Sabra and Chitla, which they oversaw, going back to Kibiya and Ariel Sharon, going back to Dear Yassin, where rape and violence happened. The point is not to compare atrocities.

The point peers is to have a consistent moral principle, which is to say, if you kill civilians for a political cause, you are a terrorist. On that basis, Hamas have committed acts of terror and Israel have committed acts of terror. I think that's only fair to say that. Yeah, listen, you're perfectly entitled to say it. Of course you are. At the Oscars on Sunday, Jonathan Glazer won on a war for Best International Film for the Zone of Interest,

a movie about the Holocaust. And he's the director. He said this when he was on stage. Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this due humanization, how do we resist? Now that prompted a lot of reaction, as you'd imagine.

New York Post columnist John Potter said on X, Jonathan Glazer, you can go bleep yourself and stuff your Oscar up your bleep, to which you replied, cry more. Ben Shapiro, wrote an ex in Jonathan Glazer's zone. of interest, you don't see one Jew. These are the best Jews, according to Glazer, the faceless victim screaming in a distance. Ironically, he's the villain, picking up awards in the bodies of these anonymous dead Jews while ignoring the living ones, getting slaughtered in the Gaza envelope by genocidal murderers. Listen, you've seen the way that debate played out.

Interestingly, to me, before we get to what Glazer said, been really struck by the fact that throughout the entire Hollywood award season, be it movies, television, music, I don't think it's been a single statement by a big star about the Israel, Hamas, which is pretty well unprecedented for the biggest bunch of virtue sigillers in the world. A, what do you read into that? And secondly, on Glazer's speech, was that the right time and place to say it? And what do you think of the reaction from prominent Jews to what he said? Well, let's work backwards.

Yes, it was the right time to say it. Why not? And I've been depressed to see that the award ceremony season has not seen anyone mention an ongoing genocide in the Middle East, in which 12,500 children minimum have been killed in the space of a few months. So I'm happy he did it. I find the controversy to be manufactured. I find it deeply dishonest. You have people like Megan McCain and others tweeting that he said he refutes his Jewishness. Just flat false. I'm glad you posted and played the whole clip here's because a lot of people have been very sneaky in posting a portion of his statement to make it sound like he was refuting his own Jewishness. What he said, as we all saw, is he refutes his

Jewishness being hijacked by the occupation, which is how a lot of Jewish people, a lot of young Jewish people, especially in the United States, feel. And that's why so many of us who are critics of Israel say, let us disentangle the political ideology of Zionism being pushed in the occupied territories from Judaism, one of the world's great religions, which is not responsible for the crimes of Benjamin Nanyahu or Bizarol Smotrich. So I think he's been completely smeared, and I hope he sue some of these people. Number two, in terms of Hollywood, for four years of Trump, Hollywood's celebrity spoke out against fascism, authoritarianism, human rights abuses at the border. And now suddenly they've all lost their voices, which tells you a great deal about how this

issue is so censored in the US, to use a phrase that you like. It's not unscensored. We know that people in Hollywood, in the media, in politics, elsewhere, do feel a pressure not to speak out on this. Do get worried about losing career opportunities. My good friend, Mark Ruffalo was up for an Oscar. I was hoping he'd win because he's one of those bold folks who does speak about Gaza and Palestinians. I know he would have devoted his speech. to it. Sadly, he lost to his fellow Marvel character, Robert Downey Jr. But look, it's a real problem that in Hollywood, there is so much censorship at a time when people talk about free speech and artists for free speech. And I'm glad Annie Lennox spoke out. I'm glad Jonathan Glazer spoke out.

I just wish more people were. Were you fired by MSNBC, cancelled by them, because of what you said about the Israel-Hamas war? As many people think you were. So just to clarify, I was not fired. I chose to quit after they cancelled my shows. They did cancel my shows, yes, and I was disappointed. Who wouldn't be to lose my two shows? You'd have to ask them why they cancelled the shows. They never said it was about Israel, Palestine.

People can speculate. I then decided that, look, it's an election year. I've got a lot I want to say, and I asked to leave. And they very graciously allowed me to exit my contract. You know about cable news contracts, peers. But could it have been, many? The reason I'm asking is, could you have been a victim of the very thing you're talking about, which is a censorship driven by big media companies in America,

most of whose tentacles end up in Hollywood? I appreciate your questions, Piers, but you're going to have to ask MSNBC, get them on and grill them. I might do that. You also said about Joe Biden, that he was the most impressive president of my lifetime. As a Guardian, a calendar year ago. Do you stand by that? So, quick bit of caveat, there. I was asked by the interviewer.

That's not a yes, Meddy. You know, how do you consider? No, no, I will clarify. At the time I was asked, is he the great, I said he's the best, I'm surprised he's the most impressive president of my lifetime. And then the next line, which is in the piece, was, but then again, who's he up against? Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr., Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Not great competition.

The bar is very low. But he exceeded that bar. I mean, Barack Obama's probably the only person who comes close. I think he's better than Obama in domestic politics. I was talking very much about his domestic record, and I stand by that. Biden's domestic record is the most impressive domestic record since LBJ. You look at the list, P, as you know it, American Rescue Plan, inflation reduction act, the bipartisan infrastructure agreement,

the gun control legislation, the Chips Act, the Pact Act, we could go on and on, record low unemployment. It's a great domestic record. Having said that, obviously, the butt is October the 7th. Obviously what he's done on the foreign policy level in enabling Israel's genocide in Gaza, in arming Israel over 100 times, according to the Post, since October the 7th, in giving a blank check to some of the worst fascists in Israel, that will be a stain on his record, on his career, on his presidency for many decades to come. And it's a real problem

for a lot of people in this country who supported Biden up until October 7th. I meet many Biden voters. I meet Biden donors who say we cannot vote for him in November. And that is a real problem. So yes, I stand by that headline from last year in domestic policy terms. But overall, I would never say that statement again, because he's been so disappointing. on the biggest moral issue of our time. I also thought the withdrawal from Afghanistan was absolutely disgraceful. And what that did to...

Well, we disagree on that. I think it was one of the best things he did. But the way that it was carried out means that basically millions of Afghan women got thrown back to the Taliban walls. How can that be good for them? Unfortunately, there were no good options in Afghanistan. It was America's longest war. We had failed to quell terrorism

or defeat the Taliban in those 20 years, as Barbara Lee warned back in 2001. And our presence there was not making things better, if in many ways it was making things worse. Look, the withdrawal was not great, shambolic in many ways. But I'm not sure there was a way to withdraw that wouldn't have been chaotic. If they'd given lots of notice, there probably would have been an increasing killings. And let's not forget, this was Donald Trump's plan that Biden executed. I'm glad he executed it.

I'm glad that Donald Trump promised to pull out of Afghanistan. But Joe Biden did it. He ended America's longest war. He ended America's drone war. He did a lot of good things on foreign policy until October the 7th. But abandoning Afghan women to the Taliban wouldn't be categorized in my list of good things for an American president today. There's zero evidence that our presence there would have helped Afghan women in the long term. In fact, Afghan women continued to be killed, maimed and have their lives destroyed while America was on the ground Afghanistan.

The question you have to ask is, how long were we going to stay there? Another 100 years, 200 years? Sometimes you have to stay somewhere a long time to prevent the people who you displaced coming back. The biggest war in American history. Yeah, but the Taliban seized power literally in days, and they immediately dragged those millions of women back to the medieval ages. I mean, things got immeasurably worse very, very quickly for Afghan women, whether it was school or being allowed out and so on.

So that, to me, is a calculation. If you're an American president, you've got to make that calculation. Does keeping a few thousand troops in a place like Afghanistan, prevent the Taliban doing what they've inevitably done from the moment they've got power again. I think the few thousand troops were not having an impact. If you look at the stats, peers, civilian casualties were up. The level of drug production was up. The level of territory controlled by the Taliban was up.

No serious military observer thinks that we were winning in Afghanistan. Should the Democrats win the election in November if Joe Biden insists on being the candidate? I don't quite understand the question. I was going to ask you, do you think he'll win? But the more interesting question is, should he win? I mean, is it good for America? If a guy who is literally almost incapable now of speaking a sentence without making a gaffe

or staying on his two feet, should he be the candidate, would that be such a bad thing for America for the next five years that it should render the Democrats so disqualified? So I'm going to agree with you from a different direction. I'm going to say that morally,

he probably shouldn't be the candidate for president, given what's happened in Israel. A lot of people would prefer he stand aside given the horrific record over the last few months and the way in which he has, as I say, written a blank check to Netanyahu while Netanyahu has carried out what the top court in the world calls a plausible genocide.

I think there is a lot of blood on his hands, and it would be better for Democrats given you've seen the uncommitted vote. Peers in Michigan, in Minnesota, in some of these states, could end up costing the Democrats to presidency, so strategically and morally he probably should step aside. But he's not going to. He is the candidate, whether we like it or not.

And the reality is the other candidate is Donald J. Trump, your old friend, And if we're going to talk about mental unfitness, we can't start by talking about Biden. We have to talk about the most mentally unfit person ever to run for any office in the United States, and that is Donald J. Trump. Well, listen, you're perfectly entitled to your view of him,

but the reality is that after four years of Donald Trump's administration... Sure you don't disagree, Pierce. Well, I'm going to explain to you... Sure you don't disagree. I'm going to give you some facts about Donald Trump, which are, I think, quite startling, given what you've just said. One is that in 2020,

nearly 10 million more Americans voted for Trump the first time round after looking at him as president for four years. That would suggest that a lot of Americans simply don't agree with you. Secondly, this time round, he's now got Muslim and Arab voters migrating away from the Democrats because of Joe Biden towards Donald Trump. And when it comes to the black vote in America, even more extraordinary, according to a New York Times-Syna poll released at the beginning of this month, the support among black voters for Trump is now 23%,

which is a 19 percentage point increase since the same poll in October 2020. So for the guy who many like you would say is an appalling racist, it seems a lot of non-white people in America rather like what they see and want him back in the wires. Why? Why?

So, I mean, you said, you're going to deal with some facts. You didn't give me any facts about Trump. You gave me some facts about Trump supporters. Do I deny he has support? Of course not. I spent the last eight years documenting the crazy high levels of support for Trump.

And in 2020, it was deeply shocking to see people voting for him after everything they'd seen over the previous four years. And it is very worrying about the trends in American society. And it is a fact that he's a racist. I want to say, I think he's a race. He's a racist by any definition of the term. And, you know, you said you're going to give me some facts about Trump. Let me give you some actual facts about Trump and mental fitness. Let's just talk factually.

Donald Trump recently confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley. He claimed he ran against Barack Obama in 2016. He ran against Hillary Clinton. He thought that we're about to enter World War II. We've actually had World War II. If we enter another World War, it'll be World War III. He thinks you can stop a hurricane with a nuclear weapon. He thinks you need ID to buy cereal.

He thinks you can buy Greenland from Denmark. He thinks England and Great Britain are the same thing. He thinks that stealth bombers are literally invisible. He thinks that you can beat COVID by injecting disinfectant into your veins. The idea that this man should be allowed near a school board is absurd. The idea that he should be allowed near the White House again after everything we know about him. Madness. And in fact, I believe you called him mad after January.

January the 6th and I was very critical. I've been very critical of him on many occasions when I felt he deserved it. But I've also tried to understand why so many Americans gravitate towards him. And I think what's stark at the moment, if you look at the polling for Biden, his approval ratings are shockingly low given who his opponent is likely to be, but also particularly amongst Democrats, two-thirds of Democrats don't think you should run again. And they cite his age and physical and mental incompetence as the main reason.

I mean, that's the reality. This is why I think for the Democrats, there's a really sharp ticking clock coming here, isn't there, where I do think if they persist in having Biden as the nominee, which relies on him, you know, standing down, which I don't think he'll do. I think that's how they lose.

I think you put almost anybody else in there against Trump, for all the reasons you've just cited, they'd have a much better chance. But you see, here's a problem, Eddie. Joe Biden could not list the things you just listed. And remember them himself. So, you know, when he tries to talk about Trump's mental incompetence, he forgets halfway through what he's supposed to be saying. That's the problem.

Is Biden gaff prone? Yes, he's been gaff prone for a while. Has it become worse? Clearly, he's old. No one's debating he's old. I think he's trying to lean into his age now. If you look at some of the ads, you look at a state of the union. He did a very good state of the union, by the way, with the exception of Gaza. It was a very strong and energetic performance. I don't think anyone can deny that. The issue, of course, is we have a media that's singularly unable to cover Trump properly. That's one part of the problem. And of course, the age issue on the Biden front is a, I've never denied that's a problem. It is a problem. But the reality is when you say the Democrats make it, he can't be made to stand out. He's winning primaries. It's a democratic process and he's winning.

If people want to run against him, they can, they didn't. And I'm not sure I agree with you when you say another Democrat could beat Trump. If you look at the polling, other Democrats and through the vice president fair. Well, not according to the polls. The polls suggest people like Vice President Harris lose much bigger to Trump. I'm not talking about her. Joe Biden is the one Democrat who's beaten Trump. He did beat Trump. You mentioned 10 million more votes for Trump.

He beat Trump by over 8 million votes, I think it was, if memory serves me correctly, in 2020. In fact, Donald Trump has never won a popular vote against a Democrat. He lost to Hillary and he lost to Joe Biden. Talking of votes at the Oscars, Barbie got flatlined by Oppenheimer. You said on MSNBC last summer, these are grown men losing their minds over a moving. about a doll. What has happened

to conservative movement? There was a time when conservatives talked about taxes, regulation, defense, foreign policy, but now it's just Barbie this, doctors use that, Bud Light, Mr. Potato Head, it's childish, ridiculous, pretty pathetic, actually. Now, I would take issue with that because I'm not a conservative, but this whole culture war stuff,

I think it's very real. Well, no, I'll tell you what, I would say. On the pendulum, historically, I've been slightly left to center. I was edited to the Daily Mirror here for 10 years in the UK. you know, having come from these fine shores. Come on, peers. It's a Labour supporting newspaper, right?

But what's happened is the woke left has got so... You also edited the news of the world. One of the most right-wing publications around. Actually, not under me. But we can... Because that was, if you may remember, that was an era leading up to Blair. And we were all part of the Blair success story at the time.

Tony Blair, that famous leftist. Yeah, exactly. But the point of the mate, though, is that I think the woke left, and I've heard Bill Marce had the same thing and others who consider themselves like me to have been liberals, right? Is that the woke left's got so insane that actually people like me and Bill Maher

start to sound like we're vaguely conservative. When I don't really have conservative ideology at all, but what I would say is I'm definitely feel more at home with people slightly right or center than I ever will with the woke left. And this cultural stuff is driven and fueled by the woke left doing bonkers things. Like, for example...

That's BS. Well, let me give you an example. Let me give an example. when you allow biological males, trans women, to compete against biological females at sport at elite level, what you are doing is effectively licensing a form of cheating just as deadly and devastating to the integrity of women's sport as doping. There's no denying it, because if you have a biological physiology,

you have a natural advantage. It's unfair. But that's not what we're talking about. It is what I'm talking about. I'm sorry, I'm not going to let you. No, no, no, because, no, you didn't. You just quoted me talking about Bud Light and all the nonsense. If you want to say there's a debate to be had about transgender rights, about bathroom issues, about sports, about where we go,

that's a legitimate debate. I've never said you can't have a legitimate debate about that. What I am saying, though, is when, hold on, hold on, what I am saying, though, listen, what I am saying, Piers, is that when you have Fox and when you have your old, you know, your man Rupert Murdoch and his minions, pushing these fake cultural wars to divide up America. They're not fake culture. We have millions of Americans.

They're not. Well, they are peers. Hold on, let me finish a sentence. They're actually very real. Can I finish the sentence? Sure. Well, let me finish the sentence. I'll tell you why they're not.

You should answer my question. When millions of Americans are living, oh, I am, if you let me finish a sentence. Millions of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. The climate crisis is destroying the planet, and you think we should spend loads of hours on Fox, on cable, debating the green M&M's boots. Do you think that's a legitimate time-consuming debate?

Yeah, I thought that was a scandalous state of affairs. actually. But more importantly, people are starving, people are losing their jobs. People don't have health care. The climate is on fire. If you were interviews if you were interviewing yourself, the green M&M is proper journalism. If you were interviewing yourself, what you would now be saying is

Medellin, you have single-handedly refused to answer the original question, which is, do you support... You said the woke left. You said the woke left. Let me ask you the question again, because you obviously didn't hear me. Would you do you support trans women competing in women's sport? Do I support

Yes, under the correct set of rules, yes, I do. And I'm not an expert on this subject. My understanding is that people could possibly be correct. Because I believe that the sports bodies who investigate this stuff actually look at, for example, in swimming, what the levels are, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not an expert on this, but I will tell you this. If you want to have a debate about transgender rights, that's fine. You should have a transgender guest on to discuss it.

It's not my expertise. But let me just be very clear. That's not what you asked. You started the question saying you and Bill Maher are not, your old lefties who became conservative. You're not, let's be honest. Bill Maher is an old white guy who'd have a history of bigotry. He was never on the left. And therefore, I do see a lot of old white men who are very uncomfortable with people of color and people who don't look or sound like them, asking for rights, asking for space, asking for freedom. And that is the backlash. If you really cared about free speech,

you would be going on about the silencing of pro-Palestinian speech on campus, the banning of books in Florida. Not the green M&M or Dr. Seuss or all these Fox Murdoch-generated fake controversies. But they're not Fox Murdoch generated controversies. They're generated by the woke life. Yes, they are here. They literally start on Fox. No, they literally start on Fox, Piers. You haven't been living here for the last few years.

I'm telling you, I'll send you a long list afterwards. They start with somebody on the woke left. Well, I'll give you a long list after the show's over. I would say they start with somebody on the woke left doing something nuts and playing right into the hands of people on the right. Some random person who's amplified by Fox. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis gets a pass from you and other journalists for bringing in authoritarian rules in Florida. If you're really worried about freedom, focus on the fascists

who are getting rid of our freedom. Right, but I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, I think, I think, I think, I think the wokeery is a form of fascism. I've said this many times. It's about silencing people that don't agree with you.

It's about in the trans debate, if all the trans debate was about was a right to fairness and equality of a trans people, I'm a fully signed up member. Hold, hold on, I just want to be clear here. I want to be clear. You think, you are, I'm going to be clear.

As I said, I believe we should be able to have a debate about transgender rights, about access, about safe spaces. Believe that. But are you suggesting that transgender people, one of the most demonized minorities, facing high rates of violence, are fascists, are a fascist threat to America? At a time when your friend Donald Trump is an actual fascist,

I'm going to be a dictator. You're misquoting me. I said that when the woke left behave like fascists, which I think they do regularly, because they silence any debate. For example, what we're talking about the woke left now. Do you think Donald Trump behaves like a fascist? We've already talked about Donald Trump.

Why? Why do you not talk about Donald Trump's fashion? I have talked to him. You told me how popular he is. I've talked about him. I've talked about him. I noticed you didn't condemn him. I've condemned many things Donald Trump's done. But you cited one of them earlier?

You cited one of them earlier. It's fascism. I don't think Trump is a fascist. No. No. Wow, but the left transgender activists are fascists. Trump actually. Trump who says I'm going to be dictator for a day.

I'm talking about why when the woke left wants to suppress free speech, they behave like fascists. When they want everyone to conform to their narrow world view, and when they want everyone to conform to their narrow world view. And when they want to shout down and silence and suppress debate about, for example, trans athletes competing in women's sport and wrecking it.

Who's been banning books in America, peers, the woke left or the Republican Party? I think that's a form of fascism. Who's been banning books in America peers, the woke left or the Republican Party? Actually, historically both. No, right now, who is banning books across America according to every human rights group of civilism?

I think a Republican Party or the woke left. Well, it comes, but this comes down to another issue, which is whether you think that children are school. Can't answer a simple question? I'm about to answer. Which group of people are banning single? question. I think that when it comes to kids at school, I'm a father of four

kids. I actually don't want them exposed to graphic stuff in books of school. I don't. And not do I want them exposed to critical race theory, or any of these other things that you think are the purview of Fox and the right way. I think books about MLK and Rosa Parks should be banned. I think it's

fascism. As a parent, I don't think is right. I don't think is right. Sorry? I think we should be able to have books about MLK and Rosa Parks, not banned. Absolutely. It's pretty fascist to ban. Absolutely. But kids should not have critical race theory preached out them when they're young. I don't agree with it. Well, there's no critical race theory in American schools.

Oh, well, there is, and you know there is. No, there isn't. You're wrong. You're wrong. Critical race theory is not taught in K through 12 schools in America. You know this. It's a university law course. As you well know, there are many teachers in American schools who are teaching critical race theory.

And that's been a big problem in American society. They're also teaching... You'd have to point to me. I also think... Peirz, any time. I'm on... I'm on Twitter. You follow me. Please post me which teacher is teaching critical research here.

I'll be happy to see that. I'll do that after this interview. Medi, I can talk to you for a long time. I'm great to see you back on the airwaves. Great to see you uncensored. Living up to the name on the tin. I wish you all the best with your new media empire. And come back soon.

I enjoyed it. Thank you so much. It's called Zateo, and I appreciate the opportunity, Pierce. Cheers, Manny. All the best.