Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Huw Edwards BBC Scandal, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

On tonight's episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, Piers speaks about Huw Edwards being the BBC Presenter at the centre of this latest scandal. Also Piers is joined in New York by Presidential candidate, Robert F Kennedy Jr. Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored at 8 pm on TalkTV on Sky 522, Virgin Media 606, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217. Listen on DAB+ and the app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight on Piersborg and Uncensored in New York City, the face and voice of Britain's national broadcaster Hugh Edwards is dramatically named as a suspended BBC presenter at the centre of the scandal of alleged sex images that gripped the country. Edward's wife, Vicki Flynn, released a statement tonight naming her husband and detailing his serious mental health issues, explaining his now receiving treatment and hospital. We'll have all the latest on this huge story. Plus, he's a Kennedy, a controversialist, now a candidate for President of the United States. RFK Jr has rattled the race for the White House but daring to say many things that nobody else will and a lot of people are supporting him but can he win? He joins me live. Live from New York, this is Pierce Morgan Uncensored.

Well, good evening and welcome from New York City to Pierce Morgan Uncensored. It's difficult to overstate how big of a deal that is back in Britain that Hugh Edwards, the face of British news, really, the face of BBC news has now been named as the presenter at the centre. of this huge scandal that's been raging in the last week.

In that esteem, he's the face of our state occasions, of royal events. He's the man who announced the death of the late Queen. He's rye, he's authoritative, and above all, he's always been trusted. By all accounts, the audiences love him. I know him personally. He's always seemed to be a very stand-up guy.

So today's news that he is the presenter behind the BBC sex picture scandal is a huge shock to everyone that knows him, maybe to his family, certainly to millions of people who are used to watching him on the news each night. Probably a shock to his colleagues at the BBC. The last five days, speculation has raged about the man at the heart of the crisis. Tonight, his wife, Vicky Flynn, a television producer, with whom he has five children, took the courageous decision to end all that speculation.

In a statement, she said, I'm doing this primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children. Hugh is suffering from serious mental health issues. As is well documented, he's been treated for severe depression in recent years. The events of the last few days are greatly worse than matters. He suffered another serious episode and is now receiving inpatient hospital care where he will stay for the foreseeable future. Once well enough to do so, he intends to respond to the stories that have been published.

She goes on to confirm that Edwards didn't know about any of his claims until last week. She made a call for privacy and she adds that Hugh is deeply sorry that so many colleagues had been impacted by the speculation. And that's a key point. The speculation was becoming completely unsustainable. many other male BBC presenters were being shamed and vilified on social media for something that had nothing to do with and had to in some cases publicly deny their involvement. Viewers were bound to notice that Hugh Edwards had vanished overnight from the nightly news bulletins. Clearly, Hugh Edwards is now in a very serious situation.

He probably feels like he's losing everything. Whatever the outcome of the investigations, it would be inhuman, not to think about the impact of all this on him, on his family, his mental health. All of those are important things to consider now. But now we can talk freely about who this is. It should also be clear of why it's been such a big story. The Met Police says it has no evidence of criminality, but what remains are allegations about a potentially serious abuse of power by a household name paid handsomely from the public purse,

accused originally of paying tens of thousands of pounds to a teenager with drug problems for indecent images. More claims about his behaviour have followed from three other people so far, including allegations made not just to the sun, but directly to the BBC. And the way the BBC has managed this complaint remains a matter of legitimate public interest and concern. We shouldn't forget the other people involved in this story because there are a lot.

Well, I'm joined now by my pact, the best-selling author of War of the West and columnist Douglas Murray, former Conservative MP Louise Munch, and the multi-millionaire investor, one of the sharks on the American-Rality tank, Kevin O'Leary. The former executive, Channel 5, and also worked at the BBC, David Elstein. But first, let me start by talking to the former

a BBC political correspondent and current Times radio presenter Carol Walker. Carol, thank you so much for joining me. This is an unbelievably complex and difficult story. Has been from the start because I'm sure you, like me and most people in the media, very quickly discovered that it was Hugh Edwards. But that name was not being made public. And as a result, there was this feeding frenzy of speculation driven by social media about who this could be. That was, of course, very damaging to all those concerned.

But as somebody who knows Hugh Edwards well, what is your reaction to all this turn of events today? The police saying that they found no evidence on that initial story of any crime being committed. And secondly, his wife's decision to go public in naming him and revealing he's having these serious mental health issues in hospital. Well, I think to be honest, Piers, my first thoughts are for Hugh's family and for Hugh himself. He's clearly had a very serious mental health problem. he is being treated in hospital for that and it must have been an unbelievably difficult time for his wife and the rest of his family. She's clearly taken the decision that she had to speak out tonight. That can't have been easy. And I think that really we do have to respect and understand why she's now asking for some time for the rest of the family to try and ensure that he gets the right treatment and to get on with their own lives.

I think the other important thing to say here, Pears, is that, of course, none of the allegations about Hugh has actually been proven or established beyond any doubt. The police have now said that they are not going to carry out any sort of investigation. And I think that what we're left with here is, though there are clearly some questions about how the BBC may have handled this, it does underline the complexity of all of this. You know, I worked alongside Hugh when he was a rising star as a political correspondent, one of a number of very ambitious and talented BBC figures, including some of those like Jeremy Vine, who found themselves unfairly targeted. And I think that it does also just highlight that issue of how people

who are such huge public figures can also then find themselves targets, not just perhaps of some justified complaints, but also of such huge amounts of speculation and rumours, as we've seen over the past few days, swirling around on social media. Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't disagree with any of that. All I would say, though, is there seems to be a sort of growing criticism of the way the son has handled this, but to be clear, they didn't name him to start with,

and they didn't say that what he'd done was a criminal act. That was others, actually, that were commenting on this, potentially straying into the... area criminality. Also significantly, the BBC themselves have also been exposing their own stories from their own investigation into Hugh Urban's alleged inappropriate conduct. And in fact, today I think there were more revelations from the BBC about his allegedly inappropriate behaviour towards colleagues. So it's not just a tabloid or a sun-driven scandal in that sense. You've actually had the BBC themselves having journalists investigating and finding what they believe to be,

because they've reported it to be evidence of inappropriate conduct. Where does that leave Hugh Edwards, do you think, in terms of his future at the BBC? And what do you feel about the BBC actually in that situation, investigating him in that way? Well, look, I actually think that the BBC has done a pretty good job on reporting a story which is about one of its own very senior presenters. I think anyone who has watched the BBC coverage over the past few days must really accept and acknowledge that they've managed to treat this as another story.

I have worked at the BBC when there are stories about the BBC. I know how difficult it is, but I know that it's also a point of pride for the BBC that its journalists try to set aside the fact that it is one of their own that they're talking about and to treat this as another news story. Now, you and I both now work for competitors, but we'll know what the challenges are in the journalism of this sort of thing.

So I think Tim Davy himself, the Director General, has acknowledged that perhaps they need to look again at their complaints process, at the procedures when a complaint against a senior figure is red flagged as something that's very serious. I think there are perhaps some legitimate questions about whether they moved swiftly enough. But you have to balance that against the fact that, there are huge numbers of complaints made every week about BBC figures. Well, there are. I think just to pick you up on that, there are, but I don't think there would be many complaints of this severity against the face of BBC news would be my counter. I still think it's ridiculous. The BBC, in seven weeks after this was reported to them, by

the family directly about their concerns about what was happening with their son, that it took seven weeks and just one standard email and one phone call that didn't get connected. That was their attempt to following up what was obviously on the face of it, potentially extremely serious charges, as indeed Tim Davy, the Director General, the BBC, has conceded they were. So I wouldn't necessarily go along, I think, with your defence of the way the BBC handled it. I should think it's been a little bit shambolic. But let's just thank you for now, Cal. Can I just pick you up on that point, Pierce, because you should also bear in mind that

the young person at the centre of the very first allegation, the allegation that Hugh Edwards, as we now know it is, had paid money to someone for explicit images. The young person at the centre of that said the claims that were made and reported in the sun about this were rubbish and that there had been nothing illegal or improper that had taken place. So there are also two sides to that, and neither you or I nor anyone else knows the truth of that at the moment. Yeah, I don't have any inside knowledge of what the sun has in terms of evidence. But what I do know is this young man is clearly pretty damaged. He's apparently a crack cocaine addict.

So I'm not entirely sure that we should take everything he may be saying after this. I'd love to have him on the program and talk about it, but I don't think he can. So I think it's complicated. Let me go to David Elstein, top media executive, used to work at the BBC. David, from a corporate position, as a television executive, how do you think the BBC have handled this? And what do they do now about Hugh Edwards? Well, I think they've mishandled it, but for a completely different reason. I'm actually quite shocked to discover that the BBC has an internal investigations unit

which might inquire into its employees' private lives. I think that's wholly inappropriate. And I hope the first thing that happens is that that unit is shut down. Look, when the complainant first appeared, they said there has been no, according to the police whom they talked to, there has been no criminality. So what is the BBC meant to do? When someone says one of your employees has been sending my child a lot of money, it's not crime. where is the BBC's role in all of this? So to say that they were slow.

Let me pick you up on that. On that point, though, does it need to be a crime to still be inappropriate behaviour by the head of BBC news? Hang on a minute. How do we know there's inappropriate behaviour and is paying somebody £35,000 inappropriate? I mean, you can afford to pay someone

£35,000, I'm sure. Would Talk TV then fire you for doing so? I think there are lots of unanswered questions, I agree. But to my knowledge so far, there's been no denial of the payment of £35,000 to a young person who we know is apparently addicted to crack cocaine. That does seem to me to probably stray into the area if you're running the BBC of potentially inappropriate conduct by the head of their news division, doesn't it? Well, it's not the head of the news division, his daily presenter. Well, it's the face of it, yeah. Of course. But if the story, if the Sun publishes stuff, which definitively shows that Hugh Edwards did things which bring the BBC into disrepute, of course the BBC would then be entitled to say, you're in breach of contract, we suspend you, we don't renew your contract, we fire you, all of those things. But it's not for the BBC to be an arm of the police, to be an arm of the National Health Service, as was being.

suggested in the last panel discussion, you know, sending help to drug addicts. How do we know that this young person is a severely damaged crack cocaine addict? We only hear it through the son from his mother and stepmother, and he denies everything that they say. So if I were the BBC, I'd be no further off than the police have been in saying nothing to see here. So my view of this is the BBC were quite wrong to allow it to be turned into a BBC story. It was a story about a BBC employee.

A big story about a BBC employee, the chances are that he was going to be resigning or taking sick leave or whatever into course anyway. But the BBC to insert itself into the investigative process was inappropriate and wrong. David, thank you. Thank you, Carol. All right, let's come to my panel here in New York. Douglas, you've heard two people there and their views. What's your view about this story? My view is that, I mean, essentially, the British public have been watching on in recent months. It looks like a very bad time to be a television presenter in Britain at the moment, doesn't it?

And there's something sort of baffling, I think, for the general public about this. There have been these two massive scandals of two of the most prominent faces in television. Gofield and now Hugh Edwards. I do think, I think there are lots of things to take in mind. I agree with some of what's been said. I mean, effectively, we're back into the old problem of actually it's a problem at the BBC of oversight of BBC procedures. The BBC, of course, always quite understandably comes into the headlights and the firing line of everybody else because, you know, everybody's got criticism of the BBC. The BBC always tries to please every party, and very often it fails to please any party. So it seems to be it's something to do with BBC governance and oversight

that's the issue here. I'd say two other things. One is the whole thing of, you know, we have to go to mental health hospitals and all this sort of thing. You know, men are idiots, and men are idiots a lot. And I do think that the sort of pathologizing of men making mistakes into always having to be a mental health issue is, you know, maybe something to be discussed another day but it is a problem that the second thing I just add to that is that whenever we look at a case like this you know we've just got to remember that there are a lot of different agendas that are going to go on behind this there are going to be people who are going to come out with for team Hugh Edwards they're going to be not

that many at the moment there are going to be others that come out for you know the young man you just heard of the possibility of this young man is a well-adjusted crack cocaine right I don't think is very likely at all but but but you just But, you know, it's just a difficult, ugly and complex story. I don't look to newscasters for moral guidance. I don't look to them for good behavior or anything else. But much of the country just doesn't want to know about the private life of Hugh Edwards. It's now out there.

And for him, I'd have thought that that's just career-wise, a terrible place to be in. Louise, I think there's a lot of feelings you can have about this. You can feel sorry for Hugh Edwards, that he's in this awful. condition. He's in hospital. He's got he's a well-documented depressive. He's had problems with this before. On a human level, I know him a bit. I feel sorry for the situation he's in. But I also need to know more about what's been going on before you can, I think, make any broad, brush-stroke judgments about what he's done wrong and what the BBC should do in response to that, given that he is effectively the face of BBC news.

I don't think we can muddy the waters here. There are two separate issues. One is he's depressed and he's been depressed for a long time. I'm very sorry for him for that. Genuinely, that's terrible. What he has done, allegedly, to these vulnerable young people, is something else altogether. And listening to your other guests, I wonder if we're reading the same story, because I heard absolutely nothing of concern for the alleged victims that have come forward so far. Also, let me just say right now, it's not true that these allegations, all of the allegations are unproven. The second accuser didn't go to the sun. They went directly to the sun. They went directly to the BBC and they said I didn't want to meet up offline he bullied me he threatened me

and the BBC themselves reported that they had checked Hugh Edwards as we now know phone and that yes indeed those threatening messages came from him so if everybody I think should stop feeling sorry for mr. Edwards in terms of what he allegedly did to these people that's not okay and I also do think that we have to draw a distinction between conduct that's illegal which the police say there's no evidence of conduct that's unethical and that's immoral. The BBC is funded by everybody in Britain through the licensed fee. If you pay TV, you have to pay the BBC.

We do have a right to ask its highest paid employees that maybe they should have some care for young people, not threaten them, not bully them, that we know factually did actually happen. Is that okay? Would it be okay in any other organisation? No, and it's interesting to me to see this sort of sunbashing that's going on against the sort of beastly tabloids doing all this. have now done two separate exposés a few Edwards in the last 48 hours about his alleged inappropriate behavior, including today, reportedly, towards colleagues at the BBC.

That's something to do with the Sun. That's to do with the BBC themselves unearthing stuff that they believe is worthy of reporting. So it's much more nuanced, I think, than people are trying to make out this is just the Sun invading his privacy. I don't think it's as simple as that at all. Kevin, he's sitting very patiently listening to all this. I guess your perspective to be interesting to me is from a purely business point of view, you've got a guy here, the BBC is a global brand. It's a global brand that really requires trust. It's paid for by the British taxpayer and that carries with it the brand of the BBC total trust. That's his great sort of calling card, if you like. When the face of BBC news, the person chosen to announce the death of the monarch, for example, when that person is seemed to have behaved in this alleged way in his private life,

even if it doesn't stray into criminality, and we still don't know that yet over all these allegations, would the behavior itself be inappropriate enough to justify the BBC firing him? And should they have handled this differently from the moment they first had the allegations come to them? It's the question, because I look at it from several verticals. The BBC as an institution and a brand in the financial markets worldwide is one of the three outlets that all of us listen to every day. because we look for five major stories to make financial decisions on daily. It starts in North America here at about five in the morning. And the BBC has a different spin on all of them that North American outlets have, or even Canadian.

There's an equivalent organization called the CBC in Canada, which is often listened to by New York financial managers as well for the North American continent. But this volatility in presenters and columnists on all sides of the pond, has been extreme in the last 12 months because we're trying to figure out how do you maintain the brand, as you've just spoke to the CBC, will this change in any way my viewership, which has now been 50 years?

I've been watching the BBC almost daily for 50 years. Have you really? 50 years. You lived in Cyprus for a while, Tunisia, Cambodia. The BBC is where we got our news. I was globe hopping for decades. And so in two weeks, will this make any... difference and the answer is no. This narrative in the next 24 hours are going to shift away from Hugh,

and I feel sorry as we all do, the pressure he must be under. But I'd add this to it. When you dedicate your life to be a presenter or a news reader, as we call them here in America, you have to give up certain things. And there's no question about this. If you have flaws in your personality, You're dealing with your own demon because there is no question 100% that one day they will cause your demise as a presenter or columnist because there is zero tolerance at the institutional level, whether it's BBC or any American network or streaming service. Today, zero tolerance. And the way you can measure this is look at the morality clauses that have made their way into every presenter's contract. Absolutely. That's changed. In the last 36 months, every network that puts a presenter on as a contributor, whether they're a columnist or a newsreader, has a morality clause in it so that you can pull that rip cord and to the extent that you can save the institution.

Because Hugh, there is no coming back from this, even if half of these allegations are true. But he, unfortunately, will not be part of the narrative in 24 hours. Right. Douglas, let me just ask you about the aspect of his sexuality. Here's a guy's married with five kids. He's talked about being a regular churchgoer and so on. And he appears to have been having some kind of relationship with young men. We don't know the exact nature of what that is,

but apparently he was exchanging for money for sexual explicit pictures and so on. That's one of the reasons why he wasn't named originally was because you can't out people in this day and age the media. and they were getting into big trouble if they did. So in a way, he was sort of oddly protected in that sense for a few days. As was Phillips Schofield? Well, for a while, yeah, and that is a concern. Should it matter?

I mean, if you're Hugh Webb was in you're presenting the news, should it matter if you have a confused sexuality, if you're leading a double life, whatever, does that actually matter to your ability to read the news and be trusted to do so? Well, I don't think so. I mean, as I say, I think there's a problem, always a problem in the BBC about oversight.

The BBC always gets into trouble because it tries to cover things over. You know, that's been the case historically. And it is a tax fair-funded institution. It's different from other media. And so perhaps it's right to have a different set of expectations. But as for the sort of, as it were, morality thing. As I said before, I don't look to news readers for morality. But there's something very strange that is going on in Britain at the moment.

I've actually written my column about this and a spectator this week, is the public behave in a different way to the expectations we have. have of a lot of public figures. I mean, a lot of the public are on dating apps for instance. If it's true that Hugh Edwards was on a dating app and nothing illegal happened, do we expect... Well, then he's really only accountable, isn't he, Louise, to his wife and family? Exactly. He's accountable to that. Ultimately, I mean...

Absolutely, but here's where I object to people saying this is about Hugh Edwards' private life. No, it isn't. If Hugh Edwards had just had a boyfriend, a male lover, and everything was free and equal between them, And then it's none of our beeswax, absolutely, and the BBC shouldn't be looking into it. Those aren't the allegations. It's not an allegation about Hugh Edwards' private life. It's an allegation of causing harm to others, bullying, threatening, and so forth. That's where it steps out of your private life, whatever your sexuality. And again, just to repeat, all those allegations are coming from the BBC themselves and their own independent investigations into their star presenter.

And I think when the media trial starts, as it already is, yeah, fine, if you want to try and criticised the son who never named him, but the BBC have been in their own reporting and unearthing material they believe is worthy of reporting of his alleged inappropriate behaviour, including to BBC colleagues. The BBC should thank the son for doing the job that they themselves so woefully failed to do. The second accuser who came directly to the BBC wouldn't have come forward if the first story hadn't broken from the son. Thank you to my panel. Great to see you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I appreciate you pivoting to this big story coming out of our but as you say, you've been a BBC view over 50 years,

so probably nobody more expert to talk about it. So I appreciate you joining us today, and thank you to Douglas and to Louise. I appreciate it. Well, Unsensett next, RFK Jr. has been called the Black Sheep of America's most famous political dynasty. He's also, though, shaking up the race for the White House. And he joins me live.

Can he be the next president of the United States? We'll find out after the break. Welcome back to Piers Morgan Unsensit, live from New York City. I'm thinking of a Statue of Liberty there. And, of course, that is the symbol of free of freedom. and democracy in the United States. And nothing symbolizes that more than the presidential race. My next guest is shaking up the race for the White House.

He's come from pretty well nowhere to be an insurgent challenger to President Biden. And when he speaks, people are listening. He's a Kennedy, a controversialist, and now a candidate for President of the United States. RFK Jr., seen by some as the black sheep of America's most famous political dynasty, both his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and his father, Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Robert Jr. blames the CIA. Congress found that, yeah, it was a plot.

It was a conspiracy. Just as he blames vaccines for autism and Wi-Fi for cancer. Wi-Fi radiation is, does all kinds of bad things, including causing cancer. But while some cried conspiracy, many simply see a leader is ready to rot the establishment, and is paying off. 49% of respondents say,

say Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is viewed favorably by voters higher than President Biden. The wannabe podcast president is winning over liberals tired of Biden and Republicans tired of Trump. But is this ripped renegade really ready to be president? Well, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins me now. Great to see you. Great to meet you. I interviewed you a few weeks ago at the very start of all this. I've got to say you're having a great race. I mean, this is really for you. I would say if all the candidates on either side, you're the one getting most attention. Yeah, I mean, it's been so far so good. I think me and my whole team are very happy with how things are going.

We're getting tremendous traction all over the country. Our polling data shows, you know, me surging. So we're happy. Let me ask you, because viewers were asking me last time, what's up with his voice? They didn't know, they didn't know you, they hadn't heard you speak before. Let's talk about that. What is the issue with your voice? I had a very, very, very strong voice until I was 42 years old.

In 1996, I had an injury that caused a neurological disorder called spasmodic dystonia. And it makes my voice like this. I cannot listen to my voice. When I go home, I will not listen to this program. I can't do it. And I feel sorry for the people. in your audience who have to listen to me, but this is the best I've got right now.

But I am, you know, I went over with my wife, Cheryl Hines, to do a surgery in Kyoto in Japan about eight months ago, and it made my voice a lot more reliable. And now I'm doing a bunch of alternative sort of therapies that make it, I think, are they're making it a lot stronger.

So we'll see what happens. Because you must be, when you're on the trail like this, you're doing so many interviews and stumpings and so on. You use your voice all the time. Does it worry you that it may just sort of pack up? No, because my voice actually doesn't get weaker when I use it. It gets stronger. Really?

Yeah, because it's not tissue injury. So my, you know, my vocal cords are very, very strong. It's just the neurological signals that are being sent to them are telling them to tighten up all the time and it makes my voice gravelly. But I can talk 20 hours a day and my voice won't. wear out, so I'm not worried about that. I don't like the way it sounds, and I, you know, I apologize to everybody.

I don't think any apologies necessarily. I think people are just curious. And actually, it's what comes out of your voice. It's more interesting and more relevant to the fact that you want to be president. You come from American royalty, the Kennedy family. Obviously, they've had a president. They've had others who were running for president. Why do you want to be president?

What's your burning focus here as to why you want? I was, I did not spend my lifetime or thinking about someday I'm going to run for president. A bunch of things happened, particularly since COVID. Over the last 18 years, I've been subject to a lot of censorship on the issue of vaccines. So most people, you know, people call me anti-vaccine, but I'm not anti-vaccine. And I'm called that in order to silence me. And I've been silenced in, you know, many, many ways for the last 18 years, but particularly since COVID, when there was blanket censorship around the country and in the UK and everywhere,

people, you know, doctors who were reporting injuries and their patients from the vaccines or reporting success from early treatments like ivermectin and hydroxyclarkin were all silenced because that was not part of the political narrative. And the frustration, that censorship. And now, you know, there was a case that 155 page opinion that was issued earlier this week. by a judge in Missouri about enjoining the White House from censoring people anymore. And a large part of that decision is about the censorship of me by the Biden White House. I was the first person censored. So Biden came into office on January 21st, 2021, and on January 23rd, Twitter and the other social media sites refused or received.

orders from the White House to de-platform me. And then three- I certainly think that a lot of the censorship that went on during COVID on many fronts was completely wrong, looking back over it, and shouldn't have been happening. Let me just ask you, have you ever had a vaccine for anything? Have I had vaccines? I was fully compliant.

What have you had in your life? I mean, vaccines were. Well, I had all the vaccines. You know, when I was a kid, I took the three vaccines with that were then required. Now my kids' generation, there are 72 vaccines required in this country, 72 doses of 16 vaccines. But I was traveling a lot as a kid.

I went to Africa, Latin American, everything, so I received that entire battery that you used to receive. So I probably received more vaccines than most people, my generation. And your kids have all had vaccines? My kids were all fully vaccinated now. So you're not intrinsically anti-vaccine? No, I was never anti-vaccine.

All I want is the safety science. I think that we should have placebo-controlled trials, which are required for every other medical product prior to licensing vaccines. And unfortunately, vaccines are exempt from those. They're the only medicine or medical product that are exempt from pre-licensing safety trials. And therefore, we do not know

what the risk profile for any of these products are, and we do not know for any particular of those 72 doses whether they are averting more problems than they're causing. And I just think we ought to know that. I also don't believe that we should have mandates. I think, you know, the government should not be made. Well, I certainly think once it was established that you could transmit the virus, COVID, whether you've been vaccinated or not, then it becomes a personal choice.

I think that once that was established, to me, that argument about mandated was nonsensical. Let's take a short break. I don't want to spend the whole interview talking about vaccines. You tend to do that a lot, probably not through choice. Not through choice. Not through choice. So we've done that. Let's come back and talk about you.

I know you're a falconer, you like whitewater rafting, you like a thrill and a danger in your life. I want to get into that after the break. More from Robert Kennedy, Jr. But his hawks and his whitewater rafting. Welcome back to Pittsburgh and our sensitive, live from New York City. I'm with my guest, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. What was the best and worst thing about being a Kennedy?

I, you know what? I think the good vastly outweighs the bad. I don't see anything to complain about, honestly. You know, I think there's been so many, I feel so blessed. I feel a privilege to be a member of this family. And, you know, not only because of sort of the cash and prize, the connections that you have and the access and the education. And then it's, you know, I have 11 brothers and sisters and 29 cousins.

And we all love each other. And you argue a lot, right? Oh, yeah, we were trained to argue, and my grandfather did that with his nine kids. It would make them, you know, every night at the dinner table, take opposite positions. Yeah, I'll do that with my kids. I think it's healthy. Yeah, I think it is, too. And I, you know, I think you need to, we need to learn to talk with each other, dispute, have conversation and discourse without hating each other. I totally agree. This, this, you know, I came from an era when I was young. You go down the point. and you'd have an argument and you'd buy each other a pint. And that was it. You didn't fall out with people because you disagree with them.

Well, you know, my uncle, Teddy Kennedy, who is in a Senate for 50 years, and he has more legislation attached to his name than any senator in United States history. And the reason for that is he had so many friends on the Republican side of the aisle. He'd come home on weekends to the Cape where we all live in kind of a communal group. and he'd bring Orrin Hatch, who is, you know, to us kind of a right-wing Darth Vader. And we'd spend the weekend on a boat with him and, you know, to see Teddy laughing with him and really just enjoying and loving the skies. That's how it should be.

It's how it should be. And he never compromises values. Right. But you don't have to, but you can certainly have your views challenged by people that don't agree without losing your mind. Let me ask you, Robert, you were nine when your uncle John F. Kennedy was assassinated. You were 14 when your father was assassinated. They're very formative years. I've got three sons who both, you know, all three of them came through those ages. Very formative years for such cataclysmic things to happen. What impact do you think those two huge events had on your life?

Well, you know, I think they were national traumas and they were part of the national traumas. You know, they were basically kind of five or six traumas. Martin Luther King's death. with my uncle and my father, the Vietnam War, and 9-11 and COVID, that pushed our country in a bad direction down the road to be the military industrial complex and to become a gun of the surveillance state at home. But from my own personal point of view,

you know, my mom told us something when we were really, told me something on one of my brother's side. And I said to her, does that there's the hole that they leave in you when they done. does that ever get any smaller? And she said, no, it never gets any smaller. But our job is to grow ourselves bigger around the whole,

like taking the best parts of that, the best virtues of that person who died, and trying to incorporate them into your own life, into your own character as part of the morning process. And that builds you bigger as a person, so the whole proportionally gets smaller. And I think all of us and my family tried to do that. family tried to do that we were also schooled from we were very little to never

complain you know that my mother would say to us there are kids in Harlem and Watts and in Compton who lose their mother and their father and they don't have the family we have and they don't have the educational opportunities and you know everybody takes their licks in life and you know they you have to have a mission and you have to keep moving take the best parts of that person let me ask you about your father then Do you feel, I mean, he was, for many people, the greatest president, America, sadly, never had. My uncle.

Oh, my father. Your father, your father. What do you think you've gained from him? And do you feel his spirit guiding you now as you run for president? Yeah, I mean, I've spent a lot of time. I think unlike other members of my family who are, many of them are so shattered, even to this day, that they can't really think about my dad's, you know, death or my family. my Uncle Jack. But I've spent a lot of time kind of reading all the literature and studying their lives. And I'm constantly delighted and surprised by how much of their values have stood, have withstood the test of time.

And I think, you know, my campaign right now is about recalling America to those values. And what are they? Summarize them. Well, you know, all of the kind of traditional values of the Democratic Party, which are free speech, you know, a love for the Constitution, a protecting the environment, the Purple Mountains majesty for our children, protecting that government has a role, protect the rights of minorities, and for people who are underrepresented in the political process, women's right, bodily autonomy, you know, that has. that smaller government is, and more freedom is always better. The word liberal means freedom. And this idea, that democracy and that freedom from a totalitarian system fosters human growth

and human creativity. So a love of the arts, which is the highest aspiration of democracy. My uncle used to say that nobody really remembers the generals and the Peloponnesian wars and the battles, you know. But everybody remembers the poems of Escalis and the plays of Sophocles and the art and the sculpture and the, you know, in the literature, the beauty of the of the architecture of ancient Greece. And that that really is the ultimate aspiration of a democratic society to create things that are enduring

and that elevate the human spirit. take a short break, come back and talk about what arts you're good at then, because I know it involves whitewater kayaking and falconry. What else do you do, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We'll find out after the break. Welcome back to Pittsburgh on the Sensitive, looking at the Empire State Building here in Manhattan, in New York, and I'm still with the presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Well, we left the viewers on a cliffhanger. What are your artistic bents? Where do you find your cultural solace? Well, what do you mean?

I mean, I, you know, I'm not particularly talented as an artist. Let me put that out there. That's not a big disappointment for people. But, you know, I love, like, I have eclectic taste in music, and I love art and art history and going to museums. And, you know, so, but I, I admire it, but I'm not very good at me. But falconry is a big thing in your life. Yeah, I.

What do you get from falconry? I have always had an affinity for the outdoors and for nature and for me. I read when my uncle was in that White House, there's a lot of people talking about Camelot, and I read T.H. White's book, The Once in Future King, is a British falconer and an incredible writer. And it's about the story of young King Arthur. And there was a chapter there on falconry, on training hawks,

which was a very popular, you know, the middle ages, it was the most popular sport. And when I read that chapter, I fell in love with it, and I became obsessed with it. And as it turned out, there was a guy who lived about a mile from my house, who was one of the great pioneers of American falconry. His name was Alvin I, and my father knew about him.

He was designing jets for the Pentagon, but my father knew about him, because the State Department, whenever they were visiting Arab dignitaries, They would send them to this guy's house because the Arabs are crazy for falconry. And so I was able, because my father's contact with them, I was able to apprentice under him and I learned falconry beginning when I was nine years old. What's it given you, falconry?

It's like being, you're with a predatory bird and you're hunting in the wild. Usually I hunt with two birds at a time. And it's like being allowed. They don't change their behavior, any, any, they're doing nothing that they wouldn't do in the wild. Right. But you're observing them close up, so it's like being allowed to hunt with a wolf pack, you know, where, and who wouldn't want to do that? And do you see an analogy to what you're doing now to the other Democratic candidates? Not really.

Are you hunting Joe Biden down like a wolf pack? No, but, you know, I do, preserving the environment and giving other kids the opportunity to, to enjoy the richness of those kind of experience of the outdoors is one of the, I'd say, the spirit of my campaign that we need to, you know. Well, the other spirit of your campaign is your youthful vigor, and we've seen some tremendous videos of you here in action, working out here, which has got everyone going. I mean, obviously, we look at this and we see a man in peak physical condition. Congratulations. But we also are reminded of President Biden's, let's put it kindly, lack of competition. comparative physical condition.

How concerned are you, never mind the race, but how concerned are you when you see President Biden now in public, the sheer volume of missteps, both verbal and physical? Does it concern you as an American that the president seems to be? No, I don't really think that I have any additional wisdom to contribute to that debate. I think that I haven't seen President Biden in a couple of years, And I don't know. You know, I saw him trip on the stage, but, you know, anybody can, as you know, anybody can trip on a stage.

And so I don't really know what his condition is. There are worrying, you know, videos and stuff. But do you sense that he may not actually run in 2024 when he comes to it? And is that why you think you actually have a real chance of potentially becoming the Democrat nominee? I think I have a chance of becoming the Democratic nominee because my numbers are better at beating Republicans than him. And I think that's what the Democratic Party make him stand aside for you. Well, I, you know, that's, first of all, that's not going to happen. But doesn't that have to happen to let you beat him?

No, no. I mean, I have to win some primaries. And you think you can actually beat him in primaries? Yeah, I think I can beat him in the primaries. I mean, it would be incredible. I mean, pretty much unprecedented if you do. that right to an incumbent president it's uh i i think didn't i think ragan did that against uh gerald ford right oh but um yeah i mean it's unusual but you know my father ran against an incumbent president and he would have won um and uh you know my uncle teddy ran against incumbent president

carter and and do you actually believe he won uh he won something like 37 states You actually believe that in 2024, when you get to December, January, you will be the person on inauguration day addressing the American people. Okay, I'm going to be very objective about this. I'm telling you that... We have a few seconds left. If I had to put money and bet on any candidate, I would put it on me. That's good enough. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

A great pleasure to meet you. I was a gambling man. Well, I'm a gambling man. I'm either pot myself. Good to see you. Whatever you're up to. Keep it uncensored. Good night.