Piers Morgan Uncensored - “Putin’s B*TCH” Trump Brands Zelensky a ‘Dictator’ With Dan Crenshaw

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia shook Europe’s belief in its own security architecture in a way not seen since the second world war - but even more surprising to the European mind is how the new US President views the conflict. Donald Trump has called President Zelensky a 'dictator' in a recent press conference, and for that, has earned widespread condemnation from America's closest allies. So is Trump really turning on Ukraine? Or could this be some kind of tactic pulled straight from 'The Art of the Deal'? To discuss, Piers Morgan brings Republican Congressman Rep Dan Crenshaw, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, host of 'Democracy-Ish' Wajahat Ali and host of 'System Update' Glenn Greenwald together on Uncensored. Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: ExpressVPN: Go to https://expressvpn.com/PIERS and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free! American Hartford Gold: Protect your wealth with precious metals! Call American Hartford Gold today & get up to $15,000 in free silver on your 1st order! Call 866-692-2474 or Text PIERS to 65532, or Click the link below: https://offers.americanhartfordgold.c... This paid promotion should not be construed as providing legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You need a deal that seems good to the West and to Ukrainians, but also that seems good enough to Putin that he goes home and propagandizes to his own people and says he won. That's how you deal with an insecure bully, which is exactly what Putin is. By giving Putin a war criminal all the concessions, without getting anything in return, he looks like, I'm sorry to say this, like Putin's bitch. The reality is Russia is winning the war or has won the war, and you can say, oh, you must be a Kremlin agent to say that. I mean, you've got so many facts wrong. It's hard to know where to even start. You've never fought anything.

You don't know anything about the military. I fought a lot of things. I fought a lot of things. I don't know. You get much more successful than Elon Musk. Taking a look at the books and taking a look to see whether or not there's ways to bring efficiency to government. It would have been refreshing if a Democratic president did something like that. You've slammed Elon Musk repeatedly as a South African immigrant.

And yet right behind you as your book go back to where you came from. President Trump, New Psych. tend to follow the five stages of grief. First is denial. No, he's dead wrong. Then comes anger. How dare he? Reasoning is when commented his search for the deeper subtext in his comments. Follow my sadness that he's going to get his way

in the end anyway. And finally, there's acceptance. He's the president at this time he's not pulling any punches. Let's take his notice comments on the Ukraine war. Today I heard, oh, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it.

You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land everything, almost all of the land and no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down but they chose not to do it that way

and President Biden in all fairness he doesn't have a clue what he was so bad Well I have minutes not months so we'll get through the stages quickly first he's wrong Russia started the war by invading Ukraine days after saying all talk of an invasion was hysteria. Ukraine and his allies would have every right to be angry if that was the president's

honestly held view. But here's the reasoning. Trump shoots on the hip. He blames the whole Western foreign policy apparatus for projecting weakness that Putin went on to exploit, and he's long made clear his view that the war wouldn't have started on his watch. It's incredibly sad that Ukraine will have to give up territory to end this war. It's incredibly sad that the price of peace is bringing Putin in from the cold with no retribution with the atrocities and war crimes he's affected on Ukraine. This was Republican Senate Armed So as a chairman, Senator Roger Wicker. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life,

if not executed, to violate the rule of law. I think that's what we can trust the Russians to do, is to not do anything to their advantage, to take temporary steps. But, Vladimir Putin has violated every tenet of international law. Well, he's right, isn't he?

But acceptance is admitting that the war must end and there is no diplomatic norm that Trump won't bulldoze to do exactly what he said he would do, end the killing. Well, to debate all this and more, I'm joined by Rob Begoovic, the former Democrat governor of Illinois, recently pardoned by President Trump,

the host of Democracy-ish, Wajah Ali, the host of System Update on Rumble, Glenn Greenwald, and I'll start my special guest in the uncensored studio, Republican Congressman Dan Crenchel Well, Dan, we've never actually met, so it's great to see you.

Thanks for coming in. You're in London at the moment. Donald Trump, as we literally have sat down, he's just come out and got into a war of words with Zelensky who had accused Trump of being trapped in a disinformation bubble when he said that Ukraine had effectively started this war and should have stopped it. Trump has responded by calling Zelensky a dictator without elections

and says he better move fast or he's not going to have a country left saying he's very unpopular, his country is in ruins, etc. He says at the end, Trump, I love Ukraine, but Zelensky's done a terrible job, his country's shattered, millions of unnecessarily died, and so it continues. He called Zelensky a moderately successful comedian and said he better move fast, like I said, or he won't have a country left. I mean, I don't agree with that characterization of Zelensky or Ukraine's position here. To me, it's quite clear who started this war, and it was Russia. But what do you make of what we're seeing here now with,

Trump and Zelensky now in open verbal conflict? Yeah, I mean, it's not great. You know, to put a nicer spin on it, Trump tends to talk that way to his friends. Yeah. It tends to talk nicer to his enemies. So if he's talking to you that way, it still means you're his friend.

I might, and I would always, of course, warn people like Zelensky, just don't get into it with Donald Trump. Don't get into it. What's the point? What's the point? We've been backing you this whole time. We will continue to back you. but there must be a paradigm shift.

And that's what President Trump brings to the table here is a paradigm shift. That's what they're attempting to do. There's been a lot of criticism over it. There's been a lot of hand-wringing. Oh, my God, are we going to give this away? Are you going to be too nice to Putin? We don't know yet.

That first meeting in Saudi Arabia was designed to just have more meetings to see if we could have more meetings. I think that's necessary for the Ukrainian people. I don't think from a human perspective, this work can continue on Ukraine's terms. So something has to change. Look, I want to be optimistic, and I'm going to fully back the president on this right now. Because if I don't, I mean, what choice do we have?

If we start undermining them right now, well, then it's definitely doomed to fail. And you'll definitely have to revert to fighting and then have that question again about how much longer do we keep supporting the fighting when I think there's a better path forward where you come to some kind of agreement. What that looks like is still pretty far off. We have yet to figure that out. So let's let this play out. I mean, I've talked to President Trump privately about this situation, and he conceded that it's very complicated,

certainly not possible to deal with him one day, as he kept saying. The difficulty, I suspect, in his head, is he will not want to give Vladimir Putin a big win. He's not the one to see Putin declaring victory, victory parade, and so on. The question is, how do you avoid him doing that and resolve this and bring the war to an end? I mean, do you see, with your military hat on, Do you see an easy way to resolve this?

It's extremely difficult because, first of all, a good deal is a subjective term. You need a deal that seems good to the West and to Ukrainians, but also that seems good enough to Putin that he goes home and propagandizes to his own people and says he won. So you're going to have to deal with that fact that he goes back home and propagandizes to his own people no matter what. So that's something we have to deal with ahead of time. But he says something very important,

and this is one reason I still have faith in the Trump team, nobody like Trump does not like being taken advantage of. He does not want to be perceived as being taken advantage of. And I don't think that's on their agenda right now. But the first thing they have to do is get Putin to the table. And what I would remind everyone is I think, I think, look, again, I'm putting an optimistic view on this because we have to, what choice do we have? But the optimistic view on this is that Trump is treating Putin exactly like he deserves to be treated,

which is a second rate former superpower who has insecurity issues. You know how you get them to the table? You flatter them. You tell them, oh, you're right. Well, listen. Oh, yes. All of your historical nonsense that our team has to deal with when they listen to the Russians about who started what. Fine.

You're right. Just come to the table. That's how you deal with an insecure bully, which is exactly what Putin is. And I would remind the Ukrainians that you're not the insecure bully in this. You're not. You were the ones who, who, against all odds, actually defied, again, a former super, And so let Trump carry this out. Let's see, let's support him in it instead of fighting along the way, which will make the outcome more difficult. Trump has made it clear. He thinks Europe has not stepped up big enough here. And you can certainly see that argument. I mean, the Americans have paid way more for this to Ukraine in terms of military

hardware and so on than the Europeans have. And many European countries are still not paying their NATO Jews, which is in comprehensive. to me, Trump is completely right about that. What should Europe be doing? Well, he's completely right about that. And then the Europeans would counter and say, no, it's about equal. And I say, let's assume that those numbers are correct. It's a little difficult to calculate.

But the entirety of Europe's European support is about equal to the entirety of American support. My message to Europeans is, why should it be? It should be double. It should be triple. It's your continent. Not only that, but we should be holding you back. like here's how this negotiation should go. And I want Europeans to imagine a scenario where, maybe it's General Kellogg, who's

in the, who's the lead negotiator here. Imagine he's in the room with the Russians, and behind him, the Europeans have decided to create the European army that Zelensky had mentioned. I would agree with that, by the way, and that they're amassing troops because they're so sick of this idea that the Russians might invade Europe. Now, what does that do? That all of a sudden gives the Americans the ability to, one, play good cop and also have a ton more leverage in that negotiation and have a ton more leverage on behalf of Ukrainians.

That's what Europeans need to do. They need to be uncomfortably aggressive. And I've said this many times. I think that's what the... You likened it to a bar room brawl scenario. Explain that. Well, international conflict and politics is the same as bar room conflict in politics, right? You have to win an escalation dominance. You have to out crazy the guy who's coming after you. And I would liken the Russians to someone, and this is actually how they are in real life, if you've have gotten to a bar fight with a random Russian. They're kind of skinny fat. You know, they're not really in shape.

But they act like they are. They act like they're really tough guys. And so you should treat them that way. They're their former superpower. They're insecure. And let them have their bluster. Let them have their bluffs. But in the end, Europe alone, if they really wanted to,

could easily win this. And I think Europeans need to remember that. Europeans need to remember that they alone could win this if they wanted to. They don't always need us to lead them everywhere. In fact, they should be leading us. That would be a nice change. And so I would go a step further than say, hey, pay your dues to NATO. Because, look, Germany, you increase your defense voting as a percent of GDP by 2 percent.

That's a 10-year investment, all right? That has no effect on the next couple of years. And it certainly has no effect on what we're going to see in Ukraine here in the next year. And you need to be uncomfortably aggressive. And I agree with you. And I can use an extreme example of, like, you start amassing troops. That's an extreme hypothetical. Don't get me wrong.

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has come out and said, yeah, we're going to put British troops in Ukraine as part of this. But we only have 72,000 troops left in our entire army. Ukraine had a million, million. and they've already been, you know, beaten up pretty comprehensively by Russia. I don't think we can even spare a few thousand troops the way that he's talking without further diminishing our defences. What we need to do is very rapidly, massively increase our defense spending, so we can do things like this. We've been caught napping as most European countries have.

And a lot of it is what you said. It's that reliance on America. Oh, well, America will always come and help us and take charge and bail everybody out. To which if I'm an American, I'm like, well, why should we have? to all the time. I totally get that. Particularly if you're not, if you're not spending even what you should do on your NATO use. This is what you get.

You get these uncomfortable conversations when you don't prepare ahead of time. But I would also remind the British, you don't have 70,000 troops. You have the entirety of Europe. This does need to be a European-led issue. And again, it's a lot more than defense spending. It's

being uncomfortably aggressive. And I'm not going to define that term. Again, you can go to a hypothetical of putting troops right there on the border, but that's, you know, and there's a lot in between doing nothing and doing that. Those details have to be worked out, but it's about leverage. And leverage is the same whether they're in a bar fight or whether they're in an international conflict. It's really that simple.

I do think Trump understands that inherently. This is one of the reasons, look, I think we should let this play out. He needs to draw in the Russians somehow. How else are you going to do? You know what? I totally agree. I think Trump, the one thing you cannot dispute about Trump, he's a brilliant dealmaker, whether he can pull off a good deal here,

where, as you say, both sides go away and don't feel that Ukraine's being completely destroyed and lost everything and Russia's won victory, or that Russia is in some way treated as having lost it, which may in itself be an inducement to them to do. That's how World War II started, right? A feeling of Germans feeling like they lost too much. It's got to be skillfully handed. Let's bring in the rest of the panel now. Glenn Greenwald, great to have you back on censored.

What do you make of this? I mean, Trump, at the very least, what he's done is immediately re-establish diplomatic. ties with Russia. Do you think that's a good move? I actually do think it's good for the two countries with the world's largest nuclear stockpiles that have come close to nuclear Armageddon in the past to actually speak to one another. I think one of the worst parts of the last decade in Washington, the Russiagate hopes and all of that was that it created a climate where it was almost criminal for American officials to speak to Russians, even during the Cold War. When we viewed each other as

existential threats. We had all sorts of open communication. The Russians would come to the United States. We would hear from their leaders. Our leaders would go over there and speak. Of course, these kinds of communications are vital. Trump deserves a lot of credit for opening that up. It's dangerous to the world when the Russians and the Americans don't speak. And I think we have to begin with, since we all love democracy here so much, we're all so eager to advance it around the world in between arming and propping up the Saudis and Egyptians. But in general, we're good people. We love democracy. We just had an election in 2020. in which the winning candidate, Donald Trump, went around saying not as an ancillary view,

but as central-dose campaign, it's time that we keep American money in the United States for American citizens. We have to stop funding all of these foreign wars where our country's not at risk, and specifically said he wants to end the war in Ukraine. The Biden-Kamla Harris view, the view of the Democratic Party was, no, we can't talk to the Russians. We have to fund Ukraine until the very last Ukrainian is dead in order to expel all Russian troops from Ukrainian soil, a complete pipe dream from the start, and Americans voted for the candidate who said he wanted to end U.S. involvement in the war. That should matter if we love democracy so much.

Americans, and I think that's what Trump, above everything, whether you disagree with him or agree with him, and I have both, is following through on what he promised he would do in the campaign, and that kind of responsiveness democratically in the United States is very rare to see. Yeah, I mean, I posted on X yesterday. Let me get this straight. are the world's liberals now enraged that a Republican president wants to stop two wars? And I don't think I've had a post that's blown up quite like that

in a long time, millions and millions of people interacting with it. Because it is a weird situation where historically, in the last 50, 60 years, the liberal positions have been, can Republican presidents please stop going to war everywhere? Now you've got a Republican president who openly hates war,

wants to stop it wherever, it starts. And all right, people may not like his tactics at the moment, but he is a negotiator. He often uses blunt, shocking tactics to negotiate, and he's bringing that tool, that skill set to both Ukraine and Israel. But let's talk about Ukraine for the purposes of this. What's your view of it? Are you instinctively, this is an outrage, or do you think it's quite good that Republican president wants to have peace, not war? Piers Morgan Unsensored is now proudly independent. If you like the show, we ask for only one thing.

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Now on with the show. So Donald Trump promoted America First. America First was not only to make America great again, but as Glenn said, yes, he also wants to invest in America. So what has he done with our allies? Well, let's see. He's open to using military force, his words, to get back what Greenland from Denmark,

even though Greenland does not belong to United States of America. He has said to our ally, Canada, I will make you the 51st state. He has the dumbest trade war in history, not my words, the words of Wall Street Journal against our allies, Mexico and Canada, also has pissed off Panama and South Africa. Also, he has now repeating Russian talking points

against our ally, Ukraine. Facts matter, Pierce, and I think you agree with me here. Ukraine was invaded by Vladimir Putin. Russia has invaded an occupied Crimea. Occupied people deserve the right to resist their occupation. In 2022, Russia had a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Right now, he is mocking Ukraine. He is mocking Europe.

He's being chummy with Russia, repeating Putin's talking points, oh, that Ukraine, you started the war. No, Russia started the war. Then he said, hey, you should have elections. Guess he hasn't told to have elections yet. Russia, Putin, free and fair elections. And then he promoted this lie. It's a total lie, nonsense.

Only 4% of Ukrainians like Zelensky. It's nonsense. Meanwhile, our allies in Europe are terrified right now, are planning a few. without United States as a potential ally, as this is happening, because by giving Putin a war criminal, all the concessions, without getting anything in return, he's meeting them in Saudi Arabia without Ukraine, without Europe, and America now, at least according to the world,

doesn't look like America first peers. It looks like America laughs, or at the very least, he looks like, I'm sorry to say this, like Putin's bitch. And I want Donald Trump to tell Putin to his face, get out of Ukraine. You get out of Ukraine, stop meddling in elections, have free and fair elections. And yes, I agree with the panel. Diplomacy is good, but not at the expense of giving up our sovereignty and giving up our allies and especially the Ukrainians who have every right to fight this occupation and invasion.

All right, let's just assume for a moment you get your moment and Trump says to Putin, get out of Ukraine, you bitch. Okay. He will never say that. He's never, ever ever said anything bad against you, Prudent. Hang on. And Putin just turns around and goes, or what? What are you going to do about it?

What is America going to do about it? This is the art of the deal. Both you and Dan said this is a brilliant dealmaker. I don't think he's a brilliant dealmaker. This is the art of the deal, folks. He is the most powerful man on earth. Who, Donald Trump, with the most powerful military. He has allies, European allies.

The last thing I would do is what Secretary of Defense Pete Hexat said, which then he had to walk back, remember that. Give Russia all of its concessions. What did Hexed say? Well, I don't think Ukraine will ever be a part of NATO. why are you conceding already? Stop conceding, stop repeating Russian talking points, make the threat, make the bluster.

As you said, I think Dan said this, I agree. Russia is actually much weaker than it actually performs, right? Europe is against Russia, and if the United States flexes just a little bit, if Donald Trump flexes just a little bit, Putin might actually think twice

about continuing this occupation and this evasion, which is also bleeding Putin and Ukraine. What you don't do in a deal is concede without getting anything in return and throw your allies under the bus. Come on, Pierce. I think you agree with me here. He's gone too far.

Actually, it's interesting because on the NATO point, obviously the whole point from Russia's point of view that Putin has said to them why he's been doing this is because he wanted to resist NATO encroachment. So the last thing, obviously, he's going to want to do is allow Ukraine to now, after three years, with Russia effectively slowly winning this war, to then become a full member of NATO.

But now you know why Ukraine wants to become a number of NATO, right? Because they're saying, oh, wow, look, we did nothing. Russia invaded. No, no, I get it. You and I agree about this. But there is a cold, I mean, bring Dan back in. There is a cold, hard reality to this, which is taking that off the table is a kind of meaningless thing either way. Because there is zero, there's less than zero chance that Putin is ever going to tolerate a settlement that involves Ukraine, getting the one thing, which is the reason why he said he went to war in the first place.

So, in response- It was going to see, Pierce. Well, hang on John, let Dan respond. One thing that's really important is there's no concessions that have been given yet. Yes. You know, we had one meeting, which is an agreement, to have more meetings. So that moment where Trump says, hey, you better get out of Ukraine, that could still be coming. It should still be coming.

Of course, I think we're in agreement that it should come. But you have to have a lot more leverage that is backing you up when you make that demand. And that's part of those talks. This is going to be a long process. And I think that oftentimes there's going to be moments where they just walk out of it. And there's no deal. That's possible as well. But to say that there's been concessions already, that that's just not factual.

And it's also not factual to say Ukrainians have been left out of it. Now, I met with Zelensky in Munich right after he'd met with our higher-level officials. I think a lot of the heartache and heartburn that maybe you're seeing publicly from a lot of world leaders, I don't see that privately. I think Ukrainians understand and what they definitely want more than anything else is security guarantees. That doesn't necessarily mean NATO membership.

Now should we be talking about all this openly right before negotiation? You can debate whether that's a good idea or not. But as Pierce said, it is pretty far-fetched. What is not far-fetched is the idea of security guarantees. That's going to be a key demand of Ukraine. And Ukraine is at the table. General Kellogg said this at the Munich Security Conference.

And he was asked point blank, who's going to have a seat at the table? Are the Ukrainians going to have a seat at the table? Is the EU going to have a seat of the table? He said, yes and no. He said, Ukraine will have a seat of the table. Absolutely. That's what Trump said. I mean, Trump was asked categorically.

He clarified it. He said, to be clear, when it comes to the actual negotiations over resolving the war, of course, Ukraine will be at the table. What they've had in Saudi is the first time that the Russians and the Americans have got together. And actually, Ukraine was one of many things that they talked about. So, you know. I mean, we talk to you. Ukraine every single day. We have people there with them every single day. I just think we should

save our fury about whether Ukraine get included or not. But look like that's actually getting excluded. Can I can I can I just assert a little bit of realism into the conversation? Yes. Because I know Dan started off by saying, oh, Russia's this crappy little second rate power. We have to flatter them and make them think they matter. But they really don't. They're they're really weak. It's always a pretty weird contradiction to simultaneously say that. And then at the same time, Warren, that Russia is going to start invading Western Europe, this crappy little second-rate power. But the reality is, this is the reality, whether you like it or not, Russia has fought a war now for three years against unified NATO and the United States, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars and highly

sophisticated weapons into Ukraine. And the front line continues to move westward, not eastward, where the Russians are gaining more and more territory. More and more Ukrainians are being killed. There are fewer Ukrainian men left in that country who want to fight. They're being forcibly dragged in there and used as cannon fodder or they're fleeing and risking their lives to do it. The reality is Russia is winning the war or has won the war. And you can say, oh, you must be a Kremlin agent to say that. You know, you just got to know nothing about military information or tactics. That's what you have to do to say that. You just have to know nothing. So the idea that is clearly what you do. I mean, you've got you got so many facts wrong. It's hard

to know where to even start. You can, oh, you want it? You think Ukraine is winning the war? In which direction is the front line moved in? Has it moved westward? It depends on where you're looking at. It depends on where you're looking at. It depends on what you're looking at. And the ratios of Russian dust to Ukraine and death, it's like four to one. You just don't know what you're talking about. You never fought anything.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I fought a lot of things. I fought a lot of things. Just because you were in the military doesn't make you an expert. I'm sorry to say that Donald Trump's running election. Based on basic facts, I have all the briefings on. I don't think you do. Clearly Russia is winning the war.

The Ukrainians don't even want to go and fight this war any longer. It's a war of attrition with a stalemate. That's what we're looking at right now. That's the most honest way to look at it. I'm sorry to say. One of the things that I know that you don't actually have to go join the military to understand is that Russia is many, many, many times larger than Ukraine. And that's the reason why the most prescient geopolitical experts, people have been on this show.

I've interviewed them many times like John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs and Stephen Wald, all said since 2022, Ukraine will inevitably lose this war and Russia will win it. And I'll tell you why. This is the one point I want to make. When President Obama was on his way out of office in 2016, Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed him for a cover story on the Obama Foreign Policy Doctrine. And he criticized Obama for not standing up to Russia in Syria and in Ukraine.

And what Obama said was the reality is Ukraine is and always has been and always will be a vital interest to Russia because it's right on the other side of their border. And it has never been and never will be a vital interest to the United States. So the idea that we're going to confront Russia or go to war with Russia over who governs various provinces in eastern Ukraine is. absolute madness. And President Obama was absolutely right, and President Trump thinks that too.

All right. Yes. Quickly, it was not worth dealing with. Yeah, two things. Yeah, two things real quick, going back to the conversation, you and Dan, we're having, I will say this. Right now, Ukrainians, Zelensky, and Europe feel like they're left out. That's number one. That's how they feel what's happening right now with Russia and U.S. Secondly, I'm not going to be a cheerleader here for Russia and say they're winning a war. Ukrainians, having talked to them, having talked to the people are resisting. I will tell you this. I'll tell the world right now. Ukrainians to the last man, to the last elder, to the last kid, to the last one will fight. They will fight to the end for their independence.

Well, actually, as you've said that, as you said that. They're being dragged there. They're being dragged there. Well, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, guys. Let me just read, I want to read you some breaking news. You're sprinkling in, like, Glenn has sprinkling on some truth about the nature of the war, with some facts that are just incorrect. All right, I'm going to bring, I'm going to bring you.

Just lying to people. Let me bring, I'm going to bring Dan in it, and then others respond. Let me just read what the Ukraine foreign minister just said. The Ukrainian people and their president, Zelensky, refused to give into Putin's pressure. Nobody can force Ukraine to give up. We will defend our right to exist. Dan. Yeah, that seems like pretty consistent with what they've been saying.

Look, I mean, I'll agree with Glenn on one thing. Look, if you, if you, if you're without Western support, yes, Russia would eventually beat Ukraine. Now, I think people forget it on the geopolitical strategies of this. For America, even for Europeans, this isn't so much about Ukraine. It's about Russia. And yes, I'd hate to break it to you, but it's not a contradiction to say that they are second-rate power, but they would also invade Baltic states. That has long been part of Putin's grander plan for greater Russia. And they can do it if Europe and the United States lets them.

Yes, they can do it to a small state if they let them. This is kind of how World War II happened, if I may remind everyone, there is a domino effect here. And there is grander purpose by Putin, and he's said, you just have to listen to what he says. You don't have to take my word for it. To expand their sphere. They can say that they feel under threat by NATO. They're full of crap. We know for a fact they've never felt threatened by NATO, only to the extent that they don't like NATO because it means they can't conquer other countries and take their stuff.

Now, here's the biggest important part about geostrategic implications for the United States. This is why it's about Russia, not Ukraine. When you allow dictators to just conquer other countries and take their stuff, you have reverted us to a pre-World War II history. That's problematic. That was a time in history in the last of thousands of years when we didn't have a global economy. Life sucked. There was tens of millions dead in wars because it was normalized for dictators to invade others if they wanted to take their stuff. And for the last 80 years, America has let an order where we don't allow that. That's actually what's at stake for American interest. It's American deterrence for the next 50 years. Now, I'm with you. You have to talk to Russia. You have to end this somehow. The war of attrition cannot continue. I think we agree there. You have some weird facts about how what's going on on the battlefield that I think are just untrue. But we agree mainly on what needs to happen in the future.

Can all of us agree? Can all of us agree that we're anti-occupation peers? Can all of us agree that people have a right to resist an illegal occupation? What I don't understand is why Glenn is so pro-Russia or it seems pro-Russia and says, hey, it's inevitable. Ukraine, sorry. you're going to get gobbled up by Russia. Hey, let's back out. But at the same time, are you fine with Palestinians resisting their occupation right now? I mean, for a person who has spoken so much about Palestine, Palestinians who are being occupied by Israel, you have the complete opposite logic when it comes to Russia occupying Ukraine, then.

And I wonder why? Why are you so morally inconsistent right now? Why does every liberal sound like William Muff? Buckley? First, you cite the Wall Street Journal editorial page to guide your economic dogma. and now you're accusing everybody of being the Kremlin bitch and the Russian propagandist.

I've talked to be a political strategist. The fact, you use that. You said Putin's bitch for Donald Trump. You look at... Yeah, by Donald Trump, not you, don't project. You look at just the population size and what Ukrainian officials have been saying, which is that only Zelensky believes

that Ukraine can win this war. Even in Western capitals, they understand that there's no way to defeat Russia without deploying European troops in Europe doesn't have a credible army to go and do that. Kier Starmor threatened it, he felt strong for a day. And then he backtracked and said, well, actually, we can't do anything without American air support and American cover, which is the reality.

Western Europe does not have a credible military. Russia has a much more powerful military. And ultimately, one of the most important things that determines war is how willing people are to fight for it. And the reason the Russians are so willing to fight for it, you can go back and look at 2008 memos from people like William Burns who ran the CIA under Biden, in which he says, said that everybody in Russia, not just Putin and his allies, but everybody left-wing, opponents of Putin, Uber nationalist, who are to Putin's right, all agree that NATO membership for Ukraine

is an existential threat to Russia, and they will annex Crimea and invade eastern Ukraine if you try and do that. The United States government has a long, though, that's talking about we will be independent. We will fight for our independence, no matter what happens. The Ukrainians have every right to fight. The Ukrainians have every rights of fight. And I'm sorry, Glenn, one second. Just give me a second. Just give me a second.

One second. And also, as you know, since you're so brilliant and you know a lot about Russia and Putin, Putin believes that EU, NATO, European allies, United States is the enemy. You know that Putin's goal has always been to recreate the USSR. He says the greatest defeat, the greatest tragedy that he witnessed in his lifetime was the collapse of the USSR. And he wants to make Russia great again. So it's not just Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine is just a chess piece for Putin's ambitions to regain control, to get more territory, to make Russia great again. And we have a chance right here. As no matter how flawed we are, we are flawed, I agree with you, the hypocrisy of the flaws. Yes. But nonetheless, a post-World War II order that at the very least, in some way, promotes democracy. I hope free and fair elections. I hope in some way liberalism says, enough. We're going to stand up to dictators, a brutal war criminal, which is Putin, who is against American interests, against European interests, and we're going to make sure you don't.

don't do this to any other country. It stops right here at Ukraine. But you say, roll over for Putin. I wonder why. I mean, I would say I'm a Dicti-to-point. Probably because I'm a Kremlin agent. Probably because I'm a paid agent of the Kremlin, which is what you're implying. The reason that I think the Ukrainians have the right to fight for as long as the reason the Ukrainians have a right, the Ukrainians have the right to fight all they want. The question is whether or not the United States is duty-bound and whether American workers are duty-bound to finance that war. And Americans made very clear in this election. as well that they don't want to.

Just to jump in, Glenn, on that point, though, about your apparent inconsistency, what is the difference in your head between the situation in Gaza and the situation in Ukraine? I think the Palestinians have the right to resist the occupation. I think the Ukrainians have the right to fight the Russians as well. I don't have any inconsistencies all. I'm not advocating that the United States arm the people of Gaza to fight against the Israeli occupation, just like I'm not advocating that the United States arm the people of Ukraine.

So should Israel be allowed to keep landing Gaza then? No, but they're going to because it's the reality, even though I don't like it. It's the reality that the Israelis are vastly stronger. So my point is, what is the difference? If you think that they should not be allowed to keep land in Gaza, having attacked it, but you think that Russia,

I don't put words in your mouth, but do you think that Russia should be allowed to keep the land they've taken, to go with the land they took in Crimea? I mean, do you think they should be allowed to? No, I don't, I don't think it's right, but I recognize the reality that the Israeli Jews are not going anywhere. They're going to stay in Israel.

They're going to end up annexing the West Bank. Miriam Adelson paid for that to make sure. And they're going to continue to do whatever they want in Gaza and Syria and Lebanon occupying the parts of those countries. They're occupying. That's just the reality, even though I don't think they should. The reality is that Russia is a much stronger country than Ukraine and is going to end up protecting the ethnic Russian population in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, whether we like it or not. And this is something the U.S. government has known for many years, They just referenced that Bill Burns Mammell and a lot of other documents that ended up emerging showed that the U.S. government knew that.

The problem with Glenn, it's not so much that he's inconsistent. I think he just, he fundamentally disagrees or doesn't understand what I laid out about the geopolitics of the last 80 years. That's one problem. Second problem is, I think if Glenn's buddy was getting his butt kicked at the local bar, he would let him because he would say, well, I have no chance of winning. So forget it. I mean, that's another problem. That's a moral and ethical issue, and you don't have to care about that. But I think on the geopolitical issue of the world order for the last 80 years that America has largely benefited from,

massively, actually, you have to take that new account when you deal with global players that want to engage in the first global, like war of conquest since World War II. That's a pretty big deal. Yeah. Let's bring in Rod.

No, no. Hang on, hang on, Glenn. Can I just address it? Hang on, Glenn. We've been joined by Rod Begloivich. bring him in because he'd be waiting patiently. Rod, good to have you back on our sense. That you've been pardoned since I last spoke to you.

First of all, your reaction to that pardon. Well, last time I talked to you, Pierce, I was a convicted felon. I'm no longer that. I never should have been one because none of those things were criminal. But of course, it's everlasting great gratitude to President Trump for doing for a Democratic governor. Something that, you know, he didn't really have to do. It doesn't help him politically at all.

He saw something that was wrong and he ended it. And I'm grateful to him. And very excited about the new beginning that I've been given and have had, frankly, for the last five years since he pulled me out of prison after eight years. So it's great to be back as no longer a felon. And I will continue to still fight to expose the truth of what was a corrupt prosecution against me by corrupt prosecutors who've turned themselves under political weapons and political hitmen. Okay. That's dealt with. And good to interview as no longer a convicted felon for the first time.

Let me ask you about... Let me ask you about this Ukraine situation. I think anyone who thinks this is easy to resolve is living in Cloud Kuku land. And I do fundamentally believe, having known Trump 20 years, that he is not going to want Putin to just walk away with a big win. But it's very tricky to see how he navigates this in a way. I interviewed Zelensky last week, and he made it clear. I mean, he pretty much conceded he wasn't going to get NATO membership.

What he wants in return for not surrendering the sovereignty of the land that's been taken, but for basically freezing the war on the current geographic lines, is that he wants enough security guarantees from NATO and from the rest of Europe to ensure that Putin doesn't attack again. And that in itself is complicated because Britain's already said, we'll put troops on the ground. We don't have many troops. We've got 72,000 left in the British Army.

We are woefully depleted, even to defend ourselves. Never mind giving a chunk of those over to Ukraine for an indeterminate period. So that's not going to be easy. But what do you think, Rod, about where we are with this and where we may end up? Well, I think of President Trump and I think of President Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, who was the last president in American history to actually intervene in a war that Russia was involved in. It was the Russo-Japanese War. And Teddy Roosevelt got a Nobel Peace Prize because he intervened and brought peace.

He negotiated a settlement between the two sides. And I think President Trump is attempting to do the same thing, and I'm confident in his abilities that if anybody can do it, he can do it. When it comes to the security guarantees that the Ukrainian people are correctly concerned about and ought to have, I would suggest that they took a look at recent history and look at the situation with the former Yugoslavia and how they were able to ultimately, through the Dayton Accords and the UN peacekeepers to solidify the agreements that were made there. I would suggest that perhaps, in this particular case, Russia, Ukraine, UN peacekeepers should be in there.

The Russians aren't going to trust NATO or any British troops or American troops to be peacekeepers there. It'll have to be third parties that are really unconnected and don't have geopolitical interests involved in that part of the world. So I would suggest UN peacekeepers. And I think there's historical precedent for that. And that's why we have a United Nations to do just that sort of thing. There was a time when every conservative in America would be utterly united in wanting to kick a Russian dictator out of a sovereign, democratic, European country. He had illegally invaded. Very different now.

There are a lot of conservatives, Republicans in America, who do not share that view, who do not think that America should continue to support Ukraine in this. What do you think has changed here? Well, the world is a very different place today. It's a post-Cold War international stage now. My father came from Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, after World War II, and he was an ardent anti-communist. He wouldn't go back to his country after having fought the Nazis for four years. And so a lot of the Eastern Europeans, like my dad,

who came across the Atlantic after World War II, were ardent cold warriors. They were very much against the Soviet Union and the fear of the encroachment of communism and the aggressive nature of international communism. but that's no longer the challenge. It's a very different world, the politics, the geopolitics is very different today. And it's really, I think, goes back to Roosevelt and Churchill and Stalin at Yalta

and the discussion of spheres of influence when we consider what this new post-Cold War world is like. And I would suggest that we remember history, and in both world wars, I know we don't like the Russians, but in both world wars, Russia was on our side. And I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that maybe we think about the Russian point of view and their concerns about the encroachment of the West going east and the mistrust in particular historically with what they've had to face with Germany. So look, I think the opportunity for peace is here because President Trump has determined to do it. It's been three years of a war

of attrition. And whether the Ukrainians are winning or losing or the Russians are winning or losing, blessed are the peacemakers. And if there's a way to be able to stop this war and save lives and there's a way to negotiate security guarantees and have third parties guarantee that those things happen. I think all power to President Trump and what he's trying to do. Okay. Let's just switch gears for the rest of this debate to Doge, this new word that everyone's talking about. I was watching Sean Hannity interview Donald Trump and Elon Musk together last night. It's very interesting, actually. I want to play a clip from that where Trump talks about people aged 300 years old getting Social Security payments.

We have millions and millions of people over 100 years old. Everybody knows that's not so. We have a very corrupt country, very corrupt country, and it's a sad thing to say, but we're figuring it out. Now, the good thing about Social Security and what I read is if you take all of those numbers off, because they're obviously fraudulent or incompetent, but if you take it, take all of those millions of people off social security. All of a sudden we have a very powerful social security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200. That was actually from a press conference to give. He expanded on it with Sean Hannity and went on to say that, you know, there are people 100, 200, even 300-year-old getting benefits because of the way the system is

failing. People to stay on there, they're put on the wrong age and so on. And he like, and he Musk expanded on it as well. And I'll start with you with Jahe here. You know, Elon Musk has become a bit of a bogey man to the left in all this. But I got to say, when I hear him talking about getting all these brilliant young minds he's got to basically go through with algorithms, all the federal spending, the stuff they're finding. If I was American, I'd be like, well, good. Get stuck in.

Find me more of this ridiculous abuse. Do you have a problem with it? Yeah. So your producer should update to you with facts. with that Social Security nonsense. They didn't know how to read the data. People who are 200 years old and 150 years old aren't getting Social Security benefits, right?

According to their own data, apparently 86% of recipients are fraudulent. No, they're misreading the data. This is why you don't have 19 to 25-year-olds without any experience. Now you're having access to our tax documents, to our Social Security numbers, to our Treasury Department.

This is why you have to have oversight. Also, another piece of news that came out today. Doe said that they say, $8 billion. Guess what? Math matters. They misread a couple of numbers. Eight million. Guess what also we found out, that these brilliant 19 to 25-year-olds, these teenagers, who we have no idea about their expertise, their experience, no accountability, no oversight, they accidentally fired hundreds of federal employees who look over our nuclear weapon stockpile, and now they're desperately trying to rehire them. You know what? What they also did,

these brilliant people? Because apparently, according to Stephen Miller and And according to government filings, right, that lawsuit, Elon Musk does not run Doge. So we still don't know who actually runs Doge, which should be pretty important, who runs Doge. But also what we found out is they're desperately trying to rehire the people overseeing bird flu. So they're firing people trying to rehire them.

And right now in America, peers, there are several people not involved in our FAA. Right now, according to the Rolling Stone yesterday, an FAA member said there are five people in our federal aviation agency doing the work of 14 people. And if you've seen in the past month, airplanes are going down in America. So tell me how this is making it's great again.

Are you not worried? I'm worried. The last question I want to ask, and maybe the Republican here, Dan Crenshaw, knows the answer, who's running Doge, number one? And what is actually Elon Musk's role? Because yesterday, when Donald Trump was asked, he said, you can call him whatever you want. He's a patriot.

That is concerning to me. Okay. Time. I'm part of the legislative branch, not the executive, so you can ask that to the administration. But look, anybody who works for the executive, I'm giving you an answer. Everybody who works for the executive works for the executive. What Elon Musk has done is he's put a much more famous face to it. So I think it's created this boogeyman effect.

In the end, this is the kind of thing that would happen with an incoming Republican administration no matter what. There's a desire to cut waste. There's a desire to go into it. I wasn't sure what Doge was going to do. I've been somewhat impressed with what niche they've actually found, which is data analytics. Now, are they going to make mistakes along the way, misinterpret some things? yes, but we live in a transparent and open society, and then those things get corrected, which is what's happening. You literally describe some problems that happen, and then the corrections

that are being made. I'm okay with that, because something has to happen with the bloat of the federal government. I think there's going to be speed bumps. There's going to be speed bumps, but I think the broader intent here is noble. Yes, you have to look at the data correctly, but nobody has even bothered to try. And you know, with, again, and you do need those young software engineers to be able to do that. And then you do need. people who are seasoned policymakers who understand exactly how the system works to figure out what the policy is. I don't think it's fair to say that Doge fires people. The executive fires people who work for the executive. And that's how it should be. Dan, be honest, how would you have felt if it was a Democrat administration

and they brought in, say, Mark Zuckerberg in his previous incarnation as a liberal? And he was doing what Elon Musk is doing. Would you feel uncomfortable about it? I was very uncomfortable when the last Democrat administration was working with social media companies to censor people online. Right. So, I mean, yeah, but like, that's also apples and oranges. You're talking about firing federal employees to work for the federal government. Having a multi-billionaire tech bro in there with any administration, is it right? A lot of their cabinet secretaries are people who are just really rich people who donate to their campaign. This is nothing new.

And look, and if somebody has a history of going into organizations and making them more efficient, Elon Musk does have that history, you know, remains to be seen whether it works with the bureaucracy. That's why I didn't know what they were going to do. I have been impressed with the niche they found, which is purely data analytics. Now, they need to interpret that data correctly and then figure out what policy measures take place after that. They're not in charge of the policy measures, and I think that's what a lot of left wing media gets wrong. If somebody gets fired at DOE, talk to the Secretary of Energy. On the FAA thing, I mean, Sean Duffy, just pieces of Secretary of Transportation, just put out,

look, everybody calmed down. FAA has 45,000 employees. They fired about 400, all of which were on probationary periods, less than a year at the FAA. Everybody calm down. Plays are going down in a lot of places, but actually, if you start looking at a map, it's not in America. And there's a lot of reasons for that. It's not because of Doge in the FAA.

Look, look, if you can make a causal connection between that employee being fired and a place, going down, be my guess, but you can't. Okay. I can. I'm right here at DCA. Right here 20 minutes away from me, right? There was no head of FAA because Elon Musk fired the FAA chief. There was no head of TSA.

Oh, come on. So you think that ground controllers all of a sudden have no idea what to do? Is that what you think? Do you think pilots all of a sudden lose their training because there's no head of the FAA? I bet you, I'll bet you right now. Most pilots don't even know who the head of the FAA is. Just let me finish. There was a firing free.

There was a temporary freeze on FAA air control. and in DCA where the plane collided, where it was the most dangerous airplane casually on the ground in 16 years where nearly 70 people died, there was one person manning two air controllers. That's a job of two people. And we know, we know that that was pilot error. Right now, those are the facts.

Right now in the FAA, they're saying there are five people doing the job of 14 people, and Axios just did a poll where Americans are terrified of flying. It's terrible for American business, terrible for American flyers, and we've never seen this many crashes

this many crashes and collisions ever in the first month of any presidency, and it coincides with Elon Musk and Doge. The FAA has 45,000 employees. I don't know what you're talking about, this 14 versus 5 or 2. Let me ask, Glenn, the truth about the plane crashes,

we don't actually know how any of them have happened yet. We haven't had the final results on this. It looks more and more like it was pilot error that caused the crash in D.C., for example. And that's just what it is. it is. Probably nothing to do with FAA, although it exposed the fact that they're not as well-staffed as perhaps they should be, but that's been going on for years, clearly under the Democrats. 45,000 employees. If they're not well-staffed, then they're not using their staff very well.

Right, which may well be the case. So we just don't know yet. And it appears there was no head of FAA while it was happening because... That would have no effect on a flight. Let me bring in Glenn. Go ahead, go ahead. Glenn, on a wider point, we'll come to the plane there, but on a wider point, This whole Doge thing is proving very popular with the American people. This is what Trump said he was going to do. He's doing it. And the thing I was struck by with the interview with Elon Musk he did with Fox was that actually you've got a guy in Trump who has the big picture vision for this stuff, what he wants to do, cut waste.

He brings in all these executive orders. And unusually, compared to many executive orders that never get implemented, he's got somebody in Musk who can get stuff done and get it done very quickly. And that is what's happening. And it's unnerving people, but isn't necessarily wrong. I think that is the important point is that you look at every election for, say, the last 40 years, and the winning candidate makes all kinds of promises to induce people to vote for them. They get into office, and very little of it happens, either through lack of conviction, lack of effort, or just bureaucratic inertia.

And here you have this flurry of actions, most of which are, in fact, consistent with what Trump said he was going to do, including cutting government waste and government spending and the like. I think there's a lot of hysteria on both sides. Elon Musk is finding some wasteful things that, of course, is going to happen in the government of the sides and exaggerating the importance of it. On the other side, you have people disgustingly trying to exploit tragedies like a plane falling out of the sky to blame it on Elon Musk and Trump,

even though they have absolutely no sense at all, whether there's any relationship between the two. But at the end of the day, it's fine to get rid of waste. It's fine to get rid of fraud. Of course, everybody's in favor of that. the reality is you're never going to make a meaningful dent in government spending in the United States unless you go and really attack frontally two different aspects. Either you go across the botamic, as Steve Bannon put it, and you go to the Pentagon, or you go into Social Security and other

entitlements. And until you do either of those, you're kind of just trimming out the margins. And I think the biggest benefit of what Doge has done so far is brought transparency to this kind of administrative state that really believes it has the right to rule on its own. Like, USA, people show up at their door and they say, who are you to come here? Well, we're the elected government. We're actually the elected representatives who are supposed to set policy. Do you have this whole deep state, this whole administrative state

that runs things on their own? And that's a big part of why nothing gets done in Washington, even after elections. Okay. Rod, what do you feel about Doge? I mean, again, I'll ask you the same question. If this was the Democrats and it was, you know, Joe Biden, I think a lot of the people who are defending it, if it was Zuckerberg in there and his previous inquiry,

with the Democrat administration, would probably be saying the complete opposite. But putting the politics aside, the principle of having a very, very, the richest guy, most successful guy in America, actually pouring over federal government overspending and exposing it in a very transparent way, albeit making mistakes, and then admitting we've made a mistake.

He's quite open about that. But what do you feel about the principle of this happening given his unelected official? Well, no, I think it's absolutely necessary, actually, that you have somebody from the outside, a successful businessman like him. I mean, I don't know that you can get much more successful than Elon Musk, taking a look at the books and taking a look to see whether or not there's ways

to bring efficiency to government and protect the taxpayer dollars. It would have been refreshing if a Democratic president did something like that. Being a Democratic governor, I know when I became the governor of Illinois, I was shocked when they gave me the keys to the office to find all the kinds of waste in inefficiencies and special interest spending that was not near any of the price. that would have actually helped people. So I would suspect, without knowing the details of the federal budget,

that Elon Musk and Doge is going to find all kinds of waste. And I would agree with Glenn Greenwald when he talks about, you know, the margins and the need to look at places like the Pentagon. And I do think that there's all kinds of places in the Pentagon, having served on the House Armed Services Committee for six years, where they'll find a chock full of opportunities to cut wasteful spending and protect taxpayers' dollars. Right, well, Jaha, you were grinning away there in a rather sinister way, so what are you grinning about?

I was having fun, you know, Rod, allegedly, well, he was convicted of trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat, and now he's talking about, oh, he would have loved to, you know, take out waste and fraud. That was funny to me. But real quick, I want to ask you a question, Pearson, this is a sincere question. And you know, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. I never have been, but he is the President of the United States. I saw an image last week that really disturbed me. It was Donald Trump sitting at his desk quietly as Elon Musk, who was unelected, and as of yesterday, he's not the head of Doge, according to the Trump administration, and we still don't know what he does, a South African immigrant billionaire who gave $290 million to Trump addressing the press from the Oval Office. His son picked his nose, wiped it on the Oval Office desk, and then he told Donald Trump, shush your mouth.

And then we saw yesterday Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, a South African immigrant billionaire who gave $290 million. We don't know his role, sitting next to Donald Trump addressing the press. This, to me, Pierce, is not normal. And seeing Donald Trump quietly sit there as Elon Musk addressed the press was really shameful for me. I thought that was a bad look for America. And I agree with you. I think you're leaning in this direction that if any other president did this, Republican or Democrat, I think would be very concerned. I mean, did you give the same criticisms of Biden every time somebody else had to pull him off the stage?

It's not that weird when somebody who works for the president is delivering a press conference. I don't know. It happens every day. It's the press secretary, for instance. I'm not sure I understand what. I think if there's one person who's not getting taken advantage of or overshadowed, it's going to be Donald Trump. I have a lot of faith that he's not, that he wouldn't let that happen. I do think that he's in control.

If you don't like people being fired from the executive branch, look to the executive. I don't, and look, and by the way, I think it should be a lot easier to fire people from the executive branch. Doesn't it look like weakness? And I'm no fan of Donald Trump. It looked like weakness to me. I'm like, I don't like this man. I'm being honest with you. I do not like Donald Trump, but he is still the president.

Not Elon Musk. Why is Elon Musk an unelected South African billier addressing the press in the Oval Office as his kid? Because Donald Trump lets him. Because President Trump lets him. Because Trump is secure. Because he's secure in his position. Trump knows that he could get rid of Elon Musk right now

and his supporters would still back him. And I think that's true. Also, Elon Musk, I don't know why you just referred to him as a South African. He's actually an American citizen, and it actually counts, even if you're not born in the United States, and you become an... Yeah, it wasn't a big as big a little of you there, but you'll have, as anybody. And also, the Democratic Party uses billionaires for all sorts of things all the time. Who do you think shepherded the United States through the 2008 financial crisis for President Obama? He had a whole row of billionaires, many of whom had donated huge amounts to the Democratic Party in his campaign

to try and help the United States get out of the financial crisis, and lo and behold, they end the... up helping the Wall Street Barons who caused it because that's who had Obama's ear. This is, it's not like only Trump has a billionaire. The only thing, the only thing that Elon Musk can do, as Dan said, is whatever Trump empowers him to do, just like cabinet secretary, is just like the entire executive branch, which is unelected, but relies on the executive brand, the executive, the elected president, to do what to fulfill the authority he gives them. Ryan, can I just ask you, with Joe Ha, Wajah, you've slammed Elon Musk repeatedly as a South

African immigrant, and yet right behind you in our camera view of where you are, is your book go back to where you came from. Would you like to apologize for your smear of an American citizen? It was factual. He is a South African American immigrant, and I think it's interesting that it's a Republican citizen, dear? Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. South African American. But you keep calling him South African immigrant as if somehow that's a stick to beat him with. I'm proud. I'm a I'm a proud son of immigrants. What I was making a point of is pretty interesting. Republicans, Republicans blame immigrants for taking away their jobs.

Republicans blame immigrants for taking away Social Security benefits. But right now, you're perfectly fine with an American citizen who, by the way, is originally from South Africa, coming in, unelected, firing people, firing a federal worker. You seem very hostile about somebody coming from South Africa to become one hostile. To become one of America's most successful ever business people, employing hundreds of thousands of Americans. They're poisoning the blood. That's Donald Trump. That's the guy who said that immigrants poisoning the blood.

Your rhetoric is sounding very, well, if I may say so. I mean, you know, you're making it like a choir boy. If my rhetoric is sounding like that, I should be in the Trump administration. I don't know. You want the viewers to keep thinking of him as a South African immigrant as if somehow that's a slur. The bigger problem here is that it's really hard to fire federal workers. I can fire my workers in the legislative branch. they're technically federal workers.

I can fire them right now. They can't do that in a lot of these agencies. In Britain, for instance, you have the same exact problem, if not worse. It's a real problem. It probably takes legislative solutions. I'm glad this administration is doing it, and it's this sort of shock and awe campaign because it needs to go to the courts,

and we need to figure out what we can do. You cannot have these, there's a lot of people that don't have very productive jobs in the federal government that cannot be a shock to anybody. And so I don't mind a little bit of shock in awe, with some speed bumps along the way, and then a scalpel at the end that actually solves it.

I agree. I agree. I want to finish. Hang on, hang on. Hang on. Hang on. I don't want to give you another chance to say he's a South African immigrant.

Sure, sure. I just want to play a clip from John Stewart, who I thought said something really interesting, given his liberal bent, obviously. And he was talking about the way his liberal friends talk about Trump and the use of the F word. Let's take a look. I think if you cry,

fascism at every administrative overreach, you will find yourself out of fascism bullets. There's John Stewart, Rod, basically saying what I've been saying for a long time, which is if you keep calling everyone to do with Trump, including Trump, a bunch of fascists, a bunch of Nazis, whatever you want to call them, because you're massively over-egging the souffle of your insult, actually it doesn't work. In fact, it has the opposite effect, as we've seen.

Trump got re-elected this time with a... massive, massive majorities. Well, I know something about being lied about, and I would say to your guest, the anti-Trump guy, that he should take a look at the facts on my case. July of 2015, that so-called sale of the Senate seat was reversed by the appellate court. It was never a crime.

They called it nothing more than routine political log rolling. Having gotten that out of the way, no, I think that's exactly what happened. I think the American people, to quote Bill Clinton, almost always get it right, and they got it right this election because they're sick and tired of being lied to. They no longer believe the information that they're getting

from these people who speak in hyperbole rather than actually give reasoned arguments why their position may or may not be right. The American people don't trust, you know, the media anymore. They don't, they've never trusted politicians, understandably so. They've lost trust and faith in a lot of the institutions, including the court system and the Department of Justice. Look what the court system did that Donald Trump in this last election. It's no doubt in my mind. Those are Democratic prosecutors and Democratic before Democratic judges and Democratic jurisdictions prosecuting someone for non-crimes in a political.

campaign. It's so obvious. So what John Stewart has to say about the overplaying of their hand and the hyperbole, people are smart. They get it. And they saw through the bologna. And it's among the reasons why President Trump won by is big of a margin that he won by. Yeah. And Glenn, I think it's quite refreshing to see leading liberals like John Stewart. We've had George Clooney as well separately saying he wishes Trump success, which is that's what every American should do. They should say, look, whoever wins, we want the president to be successful, because then we all win. But what did you make, just quickly, we're running out of time,

but what did you make in what John Stewart said there? Yeah, I think the reason why it didn't work, even though the entire media united with the Democratic Party to say, it was because people watched with their own eyes. Trump was president for four years. He didn't look or act like a Nazi. I think some of the most repressive things were trying to put Trump in prison to prevent him from winning the election.

That's a deviation from American tradition, and then directing and coercing, big tech companies to censor dissent online. These are incredibly anti-American things. That was done not by Trump, but by the Democratic Party. And people just got sick of the rhetoric because they didn't align with what they were observing on their own. I mean, you've used the F word, quite liberally in your time.

What do you think of what John Stewart said? I'm just going to quote Donald Trump. I know we're running out of time. Here's Donald Trump, February 15th. He who saves his country does not violate any law. I'm going to quote Trump again. I will terminate the Constitution. I will quote Donald Trump one more time.

I want to be dictator for a day. And because Glenn Barred Nazis, my final quote, this is Donald Trump right before the election. He quoted Hitler. He's going to go after the, quote, enemy from within. And he's the only president, Republican or Democrat, who has threatened to unleash the military and national guard on his critics. Dan, your final response.

Actions speak a lot louder than words. We have the same hyperbole or, I guess, hyperventilating when Trump was first elected. Now we have four years to look at, and those four years were pretty good. All right, there was no, there was no fascistic dictators. Now, again, Glenn had pointed out some key examples of the left being fascistic,

and I could keep going on that list, by the way. They have far more fascistic tendencies as far as censoring speech, demanding that you be silenced, demanding that you be deplatformed. These are fascistic tendencies. Donald Trump is not going to send the National Guard in on his

own people. It's just not, like, I don't know where that came from. You can overinterpret a lot of those tweets however you want. You can ask him about it. I'm not his spokesperson. I can't explain each one. But I know how he governs. And the way he governs tends to be pretty decent for America, and I think I would leave it there.

He pardoned insurrectionist, including people who attack cops. Gentlemen, we're going to leave it there. But thank you all very much. Very interesting debate. I appreciate it. Pierce Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we'll ask only one simple thing.

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