Piers Morgan Uncensored - Trump Russia-Ukraine Talks + 'Sick' Hamas Press Conference | With Cenk Uygur & Dave Smith

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Both Ukraine and Russia have expressed an openness to, at the very least, a pause in hostilities, but the belligerents differ wildly on the exact terms. A further complication is President Trump’s demand that Ukraine sell its rare earth minerals to the US in exchange for continued support, putting the Ukrainians between a rock and a hard place. Meanwhile in Gaza, people were shocked by scenes of Hamas fighters taking pictures with the coffins of dead hostages. Worse still, it’s been reported that the remains in one of the coffins were apparently not of the hostage they said it was, which understandably enraged the Israelis. For a thorough analysis of these ongoing stories, Piers Morgan speaks to founder of The Young Turks Cenk Uygur, host of 'Part of the Problem' Dave Smith, columnist and author Batya Ungar-Sargon, host of 'Social Contract with Joe Walsh' and former presidential candidate Joe Walsh and former Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs General Mark Kimmitt. Uncensored is proudly independent and supported by: Beam: Visit https://ShopBeam.com/PIERS for up to 40% off 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.com/piers-morgan/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we're asking for rare earth and oil, anything we can get. He doesn't care about Russia or Ukraine. So this is a robbery now. Tesla has lithium go in its batteries. Elon wants that lithium. I do think it's kind of gangster to try to like strong-arm Ukraine into giving us what really isn't rightfully ours. NATO has generally been kind of a force for good, yeah?

No. I find it to be very immature thinking to say NATO's either good or bad. PRCU and Tucker had your argument about this, but if you want to say NATO's a defensive alliance, I mean, I guess, except for all of the times when it's not. There's no going back from a parade celebrating the mutilated, strangled bodies of babies. What Hamas did is so stupid, but are we ever going to talk about the 15,000 dead children that Israel slaughtered. There will never be peace in this region

as long as the Palestinian people do not believe Israel has a right to exist. When is it going to get through your sick heads that Palestine doesn't exist because of the murderous terrorist state of Israel? On the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Trump is clear about what he wants and enter the war. The US President has doubled down on his false claim

and President Zelensky is a dictator and that Ukraine started the conflict. Zelensky says he'll give up the presidency for peace and offered to do so immediately in exchange for membership of NATO. If it's about peace in Ukraine and you really want me to leave my position, I'm ready to do that. Secondly, I can exchange it for NATO membership if there is such an opportunity. I'll do it immediately without a long conversation about it.

I am focused on Ukraine's security today and not in 20 years. I don't plan to be in power for decades. Spoken like a true dictator, I'm sure we can all agree. Well, the US and Ukraine are also sparring over whether tens of billions in USAID, much of its spend in the US on US weapons will have to be paid back. Trump's coarse words have muddy the waters, but the negotiating stance is becoming clearer. The United States wants a share of Ukraine's vast mineral wealth,

and it also wants Europe, not Washington, D.C., to guarantee its security in future. And the President's personal attacks on Zelenskyy, maybe the uncomfortable cost of bringing Putin to the table. If he's not there, the war can't end. Trump said in a statement on Monday that the Minerals deal is an economic partnership to ensure the American people recouped tens of billions of dollars. He also said that he's now in serious discussions with Putin

about ending the war and the talks are proceeding very well. So far, so good. But dealing with devils carries risks, slay Baron the latest chilling scenes from Gaza. A mask turned the release of four dead hostages, two of them children, to a sick parade. One coffin contained the wrong remains. Others were stuffed with Hamas propaganda. Three empty commuter buses in Tel Aviv then exploded in a botched terror attack. You can believe in the art of

the deal, but not the people that the United States is dealing with. Well, the founder and CEO of the Young Turks, Czech Yuga, host of the part of the problem podcast, Dave Smith, free press writer and author of Second Class, how the elites betrayed America's working men and women, Batia Ungar Sargon, and the host of social contract and former Republican presidential candidate, Joe Walsh. all join me. I'm also joined by the retired US Army Brigadier and a former assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, General Mark Kimet. Well, welcome to all of you. I want to start by playing a clip from an interview I did

with the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. There is this weird disconnect by many in America, particularly on the conservative right, who do not share our view, who seem to think that Zelensky is the real villain here and that Putin was provoked into doing this to safeguard his own security because of NATO encroachment and so on. What do you say to that specific argument?

It's totally mad. It's totally mad. It's through the looking glass. It's the complete opposite. And by the way, to say that I had some role in persuading the Ukrainians to fight for their country is a great, it's obviously totally implausible. It's also a great big fat, steaming lie. Well, let me start with General Kim. on this, just from a pure military perspective, General. And thank you for joining me tonight.

Who started this war? Well, first of all, I think it's pretty clear that the Russians invaded in 2022. There's some questions, I'd say, historically, about what happened in 2014. But if you're talking about what happened three years ago, it was clearly the Russians. There was no warning about it. There was no provocation on the part of Zelensky. There was certainly no movement of Ukrainian forces to threaten the Russians in the east.

So this one goes to... This one definitely goes to Putin. And in terms of where we are in this potential peace settlement, it seems to be more and more that the jungle drums are beating. I got this feeling from Boris Johnson. I got it actually from interviewing President Zelenskyy 10 days ago or so. There's a kind of general acceptance.

of various things, even if they're not being stated explicitly. But one is that Ukraine will not, as part of the settlement, get full membership of NATO. That seems to be completely off the table. Secondly, there's likely to be a freezing of the territorial lines where they are right now. In other words, where they barely moved in the last virtually a year, actually, that that kind of eastern slide, the 20% that Putin's taken, where things have been pretty well at a stalemate, that that will remain under Russian occupation,

but probably not without any sovereignty transfer to Russia. And that America will recoup some of the money it's put up to help protect Ukraine and to continue supplying protection, perhaps as part of the United Force, including Europeans going forward, by taking a chunk of Ukraine's mineral revenue going forward and minerals themselves.

That seems to be where we're heading here. Is that your reading of this? And how workable would that be? Well, if you're asking me, first of all, the battle lines have been at a stalemate for almost two years now. I wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal in July of 2022, predicting that we are going to see this World War I, Flandersfield, trench warfare.

So nothing has happened on the ground of any consequence. But I think you've outlined what the basic framework of the American position is. And I think it's important to understand that the view from the conservative right is that if we're going to support a country in Eastern Europe like Ukraine, there should be a return on that investment, that the American taxpayer shouldn't have a total cost to them. If there's a return on that investment, mineral wealth, I think that's where the business man Donald Trump comes in. I think he described it right. It will probably end up as a frozen

conflict. The Europeans right now are talking about not only a frozen conflict, but a situation where it could well be that peacekeepers are put into the Donbos so that both sides withdraw outside. So it looks much like, say, Kashmir or the area between North Korea and South Korea. But that has to be negotiated. I think we're a long way from a settlement before we actually see what the architecture of the deal looks like. Yeah, let me bring in some of the rest of the panel. Joe Walsh, I mean, I hoped and prayed that Ukraine could repel Russia, but my army brother, who I've cited a lot, but he was a colonel of the British Army,

forward in Iraq and Afghanistan, and knows more about these things than I do. He said from the very start, there is not a chance that Ukraine is going to be. Russia. They just do not have enough firepower to do this. And he said that steadfastly threw it to the point where I understood he's right. And I don't think anybody thinks that Ukraine can now win this war, which brings me to Donald Trump and his blunt instrument way of dealing with these things. We saw it in Gaza. We're seeing it again with Ukraine. I don't like the way he talks about President Zelensky. I don't know why he has to demonize him in all this. I think calling him a dictator when you're not calling Putin a dictator is ludicrous.

I think saying Ukraine started this is also ludicrous. However, if the bigger picture for Trump is taking a battering ram to an intransigent military scenario, just painted so well by General Kimet, where it's just going nowhere. And excuse me, I spoke to Trump on the phone a few weeks ago. And he told me about the reports he was getting about the killing on the ground. And he said it was exactly like World War I, just big open fields and both sides gunning. each other down thousands of casualties a day. And he said, this cannot go on.

So I think he genuinely wants to end this senseless slaughter. And I've not seen a better idea, frankly, to getting this sorted than the kind of scenario that Trump has laid out, which is we get minerals and we supply some security and the Europeans have to step up to and supply security. And that's how we move forward. Do you see a better way of resolving this? Pierce Morgan Unsensit is proudly independent. Our sponsors mean we can bring it to you for free.

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Now, on with the show. I don't know, Pierce, but even if you buy that benign view of Trump that he just wants to end the war, I still don't know how you explain what he's done and said in the past month. If you wanted to end the war, then why are you only? beating up on and bad mouthing and lying about the country that was invaded.

Lying about, lying, Pierce, that Ukraine started this war. I'm coming to you today, Pierce. The UN just passed the resolution earlier today on the three-year anniversary, calling on Russia to simply withdraw from sovereign Ukraine. the United States of America voted against that UN resolution. Think about that. The United States joined Russia and North Korea in voting against a simple resolution

that says Russia get out of sovereign Ukraine. Every freedom democratic country in the world voted for that resolution. You know why America has voted against it? It's because they know it's not going to happen. And they are trying, you know, Trump is trying, And I believe this, I think he is a guy who prefers peace to war. I think he proved that in his first term.

So regardless of the rhetoric, which I think is very unfortunate, I do think that the idea that America right now in this process is going to suddenly vote with the UN, which they feel is pretty discredited anyway, that they're going to vote with a UN resolution to kick Russia out, knowing it's not going to happen. How does that advance the calls of peace? It won't. It's a resolution, Pierce, honoring the third year anniversary. of Putin's invasion, for the United States to simply say on the third year anniversary that it was wrong for Putin to invade and he ought to withdraw,

that seems like a fairly easy thing for the United States of America to do. But Trump can't do that because he will not distance himself from Putin. Biden wouldn't have done it either. I think he would have. Really? I don't think he would have. I don't think so. Let me bring in Batia. I mean, Batia, look, this is, we're at a very febrile moment in this whole war, but we could also be at the beginning of the end of the war. And if that is what is going on here, and there's a recognition on all sides, it's got to come to an end, and we're now just trying to work out how that happens.

What is your feeling about the kind of settlement it looks like is on the table? So, Pierce, I so appreciate you being willing to admit this about Donald Trump, because you have been such a stalwart defender of the Ukraine, and yet you are 100% correct. Donald Trump hates war. He thinks it's totally wasteful. He thinks it's bad for business, and he wants this to end. You know, from the point of view of the American people,

there has never been widespread support for this. The American people have never understood why this is our job to fund this. And I think Donald Trump expected when he came into office to find Zelensky, the one eager to have this settled. and Putin, the one sort of holding off and being recalcitrant, and when he found the opposite, and when he found Zelensky totally unwilling to do the most basic act of gratitude

and give the United States a stake in these minerals, I think Trump got very angry about that. Now, I want to address something that I think, I agree with people. It doesn't see, it seems a little mysterious. I hear people saying this all the time, why is he, you know, demeaning Zelensky and building up Putin?

I think the answer to that is, is because Donald Trump is, Donald Trump is a dealmaker, and he does not view international relations the way that the liberal post-world order saw things. You know, the Obama administration, the Biden administration, they have this view of diplomacy that you need to sort of have two equals at the table or as equal as possible. And so if your ally is the one who is stronger, you got to bring them down a little. If the person that you're not dealing with is weak, you lift them up a little. You get people to an even playing field, and then you can make a deal. I think Donald Trump sees things in the exact opposite way.

He sees them from a real estate point of view. You're never going to get a deal if both sides have equal power. What you actually want is a power disparity because then the weaker party has more of an incentive to compromise. And the stronger party is going to compromise as well because they get to remain the stronger party. And I think he is playing Putin like a fiddle. He knows that if he goes out there and builds up Zelensky and makes Putin feel the exact, same fears about NATO not being that buffer zone and NATO, Ukraine not being a buffer zone, Ukraine being part of NATO, Putin will never come to the table. But if he says to Putin, I respect

where you're coming from. I don't care about the history. I just want this to end. Then that is what's going to get Putin to the table. And I think he assumed that because Ukraine has gotten $200 billion out of the American taxpayer, that they would be willing to come to the table too. And I think he's very upset that Zelensky has not turned out to be that way. Okay, Chang, you were laughing, but I mean, that could be entirely accurate. No, there's no chance that's accurate. Sorry about you. Okay, so look, at the beginning, this was a giant mystery. I didn't understand what was going on. I might have said this on your show, peers.

I was like, why would we be attacking our ally? Put aside the fact that there are our ally. It doesn't make any sense in negotiation. You want to put leverage on the opposing party, Russia so that they're willing to get to a deal that we could live with and our ally can live with. Putting pressure on your own ally who's in the weaker position makes no logical sense in a negotiation ever, ever. It's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do. So putting aside any feelings about Zelensky and Russia, this isn't about that. Just in sheer negotiation, it makes no sense. Okay, so, but now I've solved it because it's clear now what's happening. Because they want the mineral rights. So he's putting pressure on Zelensky because he doesn't give a damn

about what kind of deal Russia and Ukraine strike and how much land one keeps or the other. Do you know what's in the mineral? We keep calling it mineral rights. Titanium and lithium. Oh, what? Who needs lithium? Oh, right. Tesla has lithium go in its batteries. Elon wants that lithium. So the deal that that our Treasury Secretary pushed across the table to Zelensky when they were one-on-one and tried to bully him into signing was, we spent $100 or $200 billion in Ukraine's conflicting numbers. But look, we all want peace. We all want to stop spending that money. That's legitimate. The negotiations are perfectly legitimate. The drive for peace perfectly legitimate. He pushes across the deal for $500 billion in mineral rights. And here's the most important thing that American

voters have to understand. Those minerals do. do not go to us, the American taxpayers, the American citizens. They go to American corporations. We are going to get zero dollars out of that. But Elon Musk is going to get fabulously, even richer. He wants that lithium, and he doesn't care about Russia or Ukraine. So this is a robbery now. And that's why they're pressuring Zelensky instead of Putin.

Okay. Dave Smith, it's a robbery. Piers Morgan Unsensored is now proudly independent. If you like the show, we ask for only one thing. Subscribe on YouTube and follow Pierce Morgan Unsensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Now let's get straight to the point. Support for today's show comes from a business focused on a critical issue. Prosperity. US national debt is at crisis levels.

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to 65532. All the details are in the description. Now on with the show. Well, look, I mean, look, I don't completely agree with Trump's proposal. I do think it's kind of gangster to try to like strong arm Ukraine into giving us what really isn't rightfully ours. And it's kind of rightfully the people of Ukraine's. By the way, I say this not like as a commie at all. So when I'm saying right, I don't mean like the people own it or something. I mean like whoever homesteaded it or something about Lockhean property rights. But, you know, there's been this major change in Donald Trump's rhetoric towards Zelensky. Through the campaign and through the very beginning of his administration,

he would always just say he had a great relationship with him and he thinks he can get a deal done. Something there has changed for sure. But in terms of the stuff, look, if you're trying to negotiate a piece to this and you accept that we're not going to get the Biden-Nancy Pelosi pipe dream, which was always a pipe dream. Your brother was correct about that, Pierce, that we were going to repel Vladimir Putin from Crimea. This was all just ridiculous,

and hundreds of thousands of people died in the pursuit of this unachievable policy. And if we can all accept that we're going to get some type of settlement here, that we're going to have to negotiate an end to this war, and that Ukraine isn't going to be able to defeat the Russians militarily, then obviously it makes absolutely no sense to sign on the war.

to these virtue signaling UN resolutions. It makes absolutely no sense for him to be just out there insulting Vladimir Putin, which seems to be the demand from so many progressive Democrats. Like, listen, it's not a question of whether you think Vladimir Putin is good or bad. And I would agree with you. I mean, me and you do not see eye to eye on this issue, Pierce, but I agree. It's not accurate to say Zelensky started the war.

There are many factors, but Vladimir Putin is the one who invaded the country. But the point is, if you have a hostage negotiation, If someone with a gun runs into a school and holds a bunch of kids hostage and you send in the negotiator, you don't start insulting the guy and just virtue signaling for no reason and talking about how terrible it is to hold kids hostage. And what a monster he is. And I'm such a better person than him. I would never do anything like that. And the truth is you do in some cases try to flatter the guy a little bit, try to get the best deal that you can get.

You're trying to save lives here. And I'm not going to speculate like jank did on, you know, I don't think this lithium is going to end. end up being turned over to Elon. And I think it's quite possible that Donald Trump does have some good motives here. And that the truth is that Joe Biden's policy with regard to Ukraine is the most reckless policy in the history of the modern American policy in general. To be on a proxy war with the two countries with 90% of the world's nuclear arsenal, to be in a proxy war over whether the Donbass region is ruled by Kiev or Moscow,

never made any sense whatsoever. And there have been close calls all throughout this thing. If you think about the Nord Stream pipeline where we made the attempt to blame that on Vladimir Putin, which was never true, if you think about those missiles that hit Poland, which were Ukrainian missiles, which Ukraine immediately said was Russia,

there were very close calls here. If you study the history of the Cold War, we came very close to nuclear war on a couple different occasions. And so I'm sorry, if Donald Trump is trying to bring an end to this war, then I think if he's successful, that it'll be the greatest accomplishment of his life and i'm all for trying to end this war okay general kimmett i mean i'm very that's not the question no he's misdirecting though that's not the question we all want the war to end and i don't need him to yell at uh pudin i don't need him to sign

anything i just need him to do rational negotiations so that everyone on here is happy and the war ends and i don't need like ukraine to win on every negotiating point i just want to get the peace if you You want to get to peace holding up Ukraine for a $500 billion robbery that is obviously going to go to help American corporations like Tesla who need that lithium. That makes no sense. And that hurts the cause that you care about, Dave, and that all of us care about. I'm not as convinced, Chek, this is all just some played by Elon. I mean, I think if America can do a deal that gets a lot of Ukraine's minerals in return for the substantial support America's given to Ukraine. then continue to give. It seems to me a pretty pragmatic deal, actually. My question for General Kim, it would be this, which is, I wouldn't trust Putin as far as I could throw him. And I think his actions in Georgia, in Crimea, now Ukraine, full Ukraine. All this suggests to me is the theory

that many people have about him, which is that he wishes the Soviet Union had never been broken up, that he is intent on expanding Russia's territory. And that if he gets away with, he, with keeping 20% of Ukraine, then he'll either come back for more, he'll try and get it somewhere else and try and expand Russia's power and territorial reach elsewhere. And I've got to say, I'm very cynical.

I think that's exactly what he'd like to do. Am I wrong to be cynical? No, I don't think you're wrong at all. Now, look, he's paid a pretty heavy price in terms of what he's lost in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of dead, probably 10 times that amount wounded. But you've got to understand that the Russians can take pain like nobody's business. What he has lost in Ukraine is a fraction of what they lost in World War II.

And he is testing NATO. There's no doubt about that. If he wanted to attack, he could continue this attack, not in Ukraine, but up in the Baltics, and take back that critical area up in the Baltics, it gives him access to the Atlantic and the North Atlantic. The only thing I think that is holding him back is that it's not a matter of what he would lose, it's a matter of the fact that he goes from fighting one country, Ukraine, to fighting 27 countries in NATO. So I do think that he is, he does not think for a moment about what he's lost in Ukraine and the effect it has on his population. That's the beauty of being an authoritarian leader.

But I do believe that he has those long-term aspirations, as so many Russian monarchs have had throughout history of expanding the Russian Empire well beyond where it is now. But I will tell you that I disagree with what Boris Johnson told you about, and to use your term, NATO expansion. The fact is that one could make a legitimate argument that the Russians have had a paranoia throughout history about the encroachment of the West. The word Ukraine means the frontier. The Russians have always wanted a frontier between themselves and the West.

And if you want to make that argument that there was some legitimacy of this concern of NATO enlargement and try to dismiss it, I would remind Americans about the Monroe Doctrine. ballistic when foreign countries get anywhere near the United States, as we've done in the past. We invaded Grenada, that great existential threat to America. We invaded Panama, yet another threat to the freedom and liberty of Americans. And the only time we really had a legitimate reason for doing that was in 62 when the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles on Cuba. But let's be honest. Americans have the same paranoia about encroachment. into our hemisphere, as Putin does, into his, what he believes is his hemisphere as well.

Yeah, I do get that argument. I know it's the one that he peddles loudest with his own people, but I think the paranoia stroke desire to not see any impending encroachment as they see it on their border. It probably be real. It doesn't mean their right to do what they did. It just means the paranoia is you can understand why some of them, if I'm a lot of it all that way. If I could just quickly add, right?

Because I think sometimes, and even in your question to Boris Johnson, sometimes people go like all or nothing with this, right? I agree. It's more nuanced. Was Vladimir Putin provoked? And therefore, if he was provoked, he's a great guy and he was justified to invade the country. Like, those second two parts don't follow. But the point is, and I would highly recommend just to back up

what was just said here, if anyone wants to go read, because the CIA director, for all four years of Joe Biden's administration, who was the CIA director while this entire war was going on, Burns, right? He is the one who authored the Niet means-knit memo that was sent to Condoleezza Rice, and this was not for the public. We only know about this because Julian Assange leaked it, but he said he was at the time he was the ambassador to Russia, and he put up this entire document where he was like,

look, these plans of including Ukraine in NATO, is going to be a disaster. And I've been over here talking with everybody in Russia, not just Vladimir Putin, even as sharpest liberal critics, they all agree that this is the brightest of red lines for them. They will not tolerate Ukraine being a part of America's military alliance. And I just don't understand why no, of course we would not tolerate that either. If China or Russia wanted to bring Mexico into their military alliance,

and then just announced, as they did two months after this memo at the Bucharest Summit, that they were going forward with that. And then there was, and then they poured tens, maybe over a hundred, million dollars into a street protest which overthrew the democratically elected president of Mexico who was going to make a deal with us and then when in the other we would have the exact and i don't think washington dc would be above invading Mexico if that's what they needed to do we would never tolerate that and we could recognize that vladimir putt putt in no angel and also understand that the west put him into a situation where he reasonably could claim i cannot

tolerate what your plans are here what's the point of us doing this it makes no sense sense. It's not in our interest. Yeah. I mean, Joe Walsh, the other part of... And one thing I would add, as well, Bill, yeah, what I would add as well is Bill Burns was working for James Baker, when James Baker told Genscher as part of the reunification of Germany that we would not seek to expand NATO to the East. Again, wise people like Bill Burns, James Baker, understood this basic, perhaps unfounded,

but genetic predisposition, closing the approachment of NATO, Ukraine, their frontier. Yeah. Joe Walsh, I mean, the other part of this that I think is significant is we've got the British Prime Minister going to the White House on Thursday. Emmanuel Macron was there Monday. And Trump is quite right, in my opinion. about the disparity between what America contributes to NATO in terms of resource, money, weaponry, and so on,

compared to the European countries. And through his own hectoring about this, many of the other NATO countries are now paying a lot more money than they were before into NATO. But he's also right that ultimately Europe should be moving quickly to be able to secure itself collectively from people like Vladimir Putin. And I don't understand why there's any kickback to that.

I think the what the UK spends about 2.3% of GDP on defense. It's nowhere near enough. We live in dangerous times. And I think that Trump is very, very accurate in saying Europe is not punching his weight and needs to do that. And people dismiss it as America first, isolation, and so on. Well, yeah, but it doesn't mean to say he's not right. You know, I do think that many European countries need to wake up.

Well, and Pierce, and they have. And they have the last four years, while Trump wasn't in the White House, European nations dramatically increased their share to NATO. Europe has contributed more to Ukraine than the United States did. But Pierce, to this notion of this notion of encroachment of NATO. Yeah. Excuse me. You either believe NATO's a good thing or a bad thing. There's a reason why countries like Finland and so many other European, other European, countries want to be in NATO. It's a good thing. It's a defensive alliance for freedom-loving

democratic nations encroaching upon Russia. NATO's a good thing, Pierce. It makes all the sense in the world. But what about the point? Yeah, but what about the point Dei Smith made, which is surely correct. If it was America and there was a country doing this, I think America would respond very aggressively to what they would perceive as an encroachment. Well, again, that aside for one second, what are we to do? Finland wanted to join NATO. Finland now shares almost a thousand miles of border with Russia. And Putin screamed the high heavens that if Finland joined NATO, there'd be held to pay.

Nothing's happened. What do we do, Pierce? What do we do, Pierce, if peace-loving nations of Europe wanted to get out of NATO? Look, Joe, I mean, look, aside from this, I mean, it's, I got to say, I just, I find it to be very immature thinking to say NATO's either good or bad. Like, I don't think that's ever how you should analyze the world. And, and, you know, you can say, I know you and Pierce, you and Tucker had your argument about this, but if you want to say NATO's a defensive alliance, I mean, I guess, except for all of the times when it's not, you know, except for Syria, excuse me, except for Serbia and Libya and Afghanistan. okay, if you want to claim NATO as a defensive alliance, look, what we should do is not expand it. And I'm sorry, but who cares if other countries desire to join NATO?

That's not how we should be making these decisions. Of course, lots of countries would love to join NATO. I'm sure of a huge majority of them because, yeah, you get your defense subsidized and you get protection from the most powerful government in the history of the world, the United States of America. But that's not the question. The point is, why would we want to expand NATO? right up to Vladimir Putin's borders. And look, the truth is that.

It's already expanded. It's already expanded right up to Vladimir Putin's border. And if you can't, David, but Dave, again, every time I'm on with you, you accuse me of immature thinking. Granted, nothing is totally black and white. But would you not say generally over the course of history, here we go again, NATO has generally been kind of a force for good? Yeah. No. No, you can't say that. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. No, I don't agree with that. I don't believe that NATO has been a force for good. I believe it's the exact type, it's the exact type of entangling alliance that our founders were unanimous in recommending that we don't get involved in. And, Jank, you can, you can say I'm wrong, but dude, you're as anti-war as I am. So why are you standing up for the European wing of the American Empire? Hold on. Hold on what this is, Tank.

Davey Shane, we're both- No, hold on. So listen, listen, you're both wrong and you're both right. So, listen, I love, first of all, just quick side note here that nobody can tell who's left or right anymore. This is beautiful American politics. That's exactly what I was thinking. The whole political pendulum has completely gone crazy, where if you, if we had this debate 20 years ago, everyone would have known who the right are and who the left are. It is impossible anymore to define people in the way. that we used to. And I like that.

I love it. I love it because we're now using our minds and independent judgment and actually talking about policy rather than strict ideology on either side. So now, look, I agree with Joe. The UN is very important. I know I'm a lone voice here these days in American media, but I 100% believe in the world working together. I think NATO is very important. I'm very supportive of NATO and I think it has definitely been a force for good and has protected the alliance. Having said that, Dave is right just because you like NATO doesn't mean that NATO has to get closer and closer to Russia. I mean, Joe, you were saying that if you like NATO, then you should be for NATO expansion. How about if NATO said, okay, we'd like to expand into Chechnya

in the middle of Russia? That's mental. That doesn't help the alliance. It hurts the alliance. It makes our job of defending both Europe and America harder and not easier. If we go and randomly put Taiwan and NATO, that makes no sense. So we've got to be judicious about who we put into NATO. And then now when we get back to, okay, NATO and America and Russia, the opposite side, have to get to an agreement. And that's good. We're all going to save money. We're all going to get to peace.

We're going to save lives. We have to get to an agreement. But back to the negotiation, if two companies are having trouble getting to an agreement, and they bring me in as a mediator, and then instead of helping them get to an agreement, I go, now I want money for my company. Well, that doesn't help the negotiations at all. It makes the mediation and the negotiation much more difficult,

because now you've entered a third party in there that had no business there, and he's demanding some outrageous number, and then he starts attacking the people who brought him into the negotiation. Just so, look, we all want to get the peace protect NATO without encroaching on Russia. But, Jake, it's not it. makes no sense to see America as the neutral negotiator in that. Like, we're not coming into a deal to mock, to broker a piece. We are the other side of the negotiating table.

Ukraine would have had to do whatever Russia wanted to do if we didn't give them a blank check. So it's just not exactly analogous. I mean, look, again, I think it's kind of strange. But then why are we attacking our own ally? That doesn't make any sense at all. Other than the middle rights, lithium is in the batteries in Tesla. in case you don't know. Well, this is, well, also, I mean, never underestimate the fact that we are dealing with Donald Trump here.

And if you said something to piss him off, he is petty enough to then go around and attack you for a couple weeks over it. You know what? On that very point, there was a report. It's about the money. Well, there was a report in the Financial Times actually overnight right to that point, Dave, which was that apparently Zelensky, when it was first told that the Americans wanted half a, you know, $500 billion worth of minerals, lost his rag so spectacularly with whichever American official was relaying this information that you could hear his voice apparently

screaming down the corridors and that presumably got relayed to Trump who already has a bit of a bad feeling about Zelensky going right back to when he first came into power and the whole thing with Hunter Biden and Trump is he does take stuff very personally I always say he's got the thickest skin

of anyone I've ever seen in public life soaking up stuff that would kill anybody else but he also has the thinnest and he harbors grudges and he will use that again. I mean, I think there's a lot of what's going on with Zelensky. I think he took against him personally. But that doesn't mean that ultimately, at the end of all this, there might not be the best possible deal that Ukraine right now could probably be hopeful,

which may involve a bit of transaction on minerals, but ultimately may bring the war to an end that's killing so many of their people. Anyway, look, I want to change just briefly to the other war, which you mustn't forget, which is the war, between Israel and Hamas. And Batsi, I'll start with you on this. Netanyahu has suspended the release of Palestinian prisoners because of the, as he puts it, the repeated violations by Hamas

involving the ceremonies, which he says have been dishonoring the Israeli hostages, cynically using them for propaganda. So he's now delayed the release of the 600, I think it was, Palestinians that were due to be released in exchange. Now, that's obviously a ratcheting up of tensions here, but I've got to say just watching this from a distance, these scenes of Hamas in full force with all their regalia,

putting coffins of babies underneath pictures of Netanyahu looking like the devil, beaming that to the world, sending back the wrong remains of that poor woman whose children were also murdered, etc. Forcing one of the released hostages, it seems like that. to kiss Hamas terrorist standing there. I'll show you that clip, actually, before we discussed that.

Let's just watch that moment. Now, you heard the deafening rules of approval there for what appears to be a consideratory kiss by this hostage, Omar Shemtov. But his father's come out and said he did it under duress. He was forced to do it. We don't know yet. We want to hear it from him.

But it certainly looked that way. Somebody goes out to him, talks to him, and the next thing he's doing that for the cameras. And it's obviously a huge propaganda moment for Hamas. So, I mean, Batia, it's all messy. It's all horrible. But the overriding imagery is that Hamas haven't gone anywhere. This war was supposed to be the end of Hamas.

They don't look like they're over. And they look like they have a lot of popularity still with Palestinian people in Gaza. You know, it says in Genesis, God tells Abraham, whoever blesses you will be blessed and whoever curses you will be cursed and I keep thinking of this as the perfect metaphor for those scenes from that parade because of course to attend a parade in which the bodies of babies which have been strangled and mutilated are celebrated is accursed right to bring a child to a parade celebrating the strangling and mutilation of babies body is cursed. To live under a barbaric rule like Hamas that would put on a show like that is to be cursed, to be so morally depraved is its own punishment. And I think that is the point

here, Pierce. This is the beginning of the end, not just of Hamas, but of the left that defended them. Because, you know, the left thinks Israel is the Palestinians curse. It is the left who have cursed the Palestinians with their support because they are prolonging the moral depravity that has earned the disgust of Israel of every good human being on planet earth. And I am so grateful that my government, Donald Trump, the United States of America, stands with the Jewish people against such pure, absolute evil because it truly is going to be a new era. There is no going back from a parade celebrating the mutilated, strangled bodies of babies.

Okay, Chang? Yeah, so what Hamas did is so stupid, and I totally agree that it's immoral. But are we ever going to talk about the 15,000 dead children that Israel slaughtered? You want to talk about cursed? If you think the Palestinians are cursed because of 36 children killed during our October 7th, how cursed is Israel for the 15,000 children that they slaughtered, they crushed their skulls, they lit them on fire, they destroyed and killed so tens of thousands of children. And now you're saying, oh my God, because I see one with my own eyes, that's Israeli. Oh, the Israeli lives are worth what, 10,000 Palestinian children, 100,000 Palestinian, is there

any number of Palestinian children that you would have any sympathy for? So screw Hamas. But that does not justify Israel. Slaughter after slaughter after slaughter after slaughter. And go, oh, yeah, Hamas made me do it. Hamas didn't make you do it. Israel is reveling in it. It is now a terrorist state.

It's rolling tanks into the West Bank. They've taken Trump's ridiculous plan in Gaza as a green light. And of course, this was all raised ahead of time. That's why Net and Yahoo supported Trump. That's why Trump got $337 million from the Aedelson fan. So now they're rolling tanks into the West Bank to slaughter more Palestinian children. So I hate that both sides are doing this and I hate that Israel is doing it 10,000, no, 15,000 times more, because that's how many more babies they've killed and children that they've killed than the one that the entire U.S. and Western media is focused on.

Can we not see that when it's in Israeli babies, that the whole world is like, this is the most important thing in the world. But I don't mind that 1%. But then don't tell them. But then don't tell me that 15,000 Palestinians are not important. How many parades were there in Israel celebrating the casualties in Gaza? I mean, how many parades were there of Israelis celebrating the dead children? All right, let me bring in, all right, let me bring in Dave Smith. Let me bring in Dave.

Well, because I actually think, listen, but first off, let me just say, I almost, look, that was sickening that video, the reports of what was done to these hostages. and I don't know that all this evidence has actually been released and we'll maybe find out at some point. But it's all sickening and horrible. And I hate to even use it to then try to win a political argument after it. I mean, it's just it is, look, there is no questioning. It is sickening to see like a big crowd celebrating these things. I do think, like, Batchit, you make a fair point.

It's like, yeah, okay, we don't exactly see the same type of kind of primitive brutality on the Israel. Israeli side. There is this tremendous bias, though, I think, toward, I don't know exactly how to say this. It's like a more, an anti-baric bias. So when, if Hamas runs in and is just gunning down random people, there's something where we, that triggers a certain reaction out of something, whereas, you know, collateral damage or targeted strikes, don't trigger that same response from people. The thing is that like, if it's your kid on the side of that collateral damage, it probably feels awfully similar. And so when you ask like, oh, are there parades where, you know, for say like Israeli hostages or prisoners or whatever they want to call them? No, I have seen Israeli politicians as well as American politicians signing the bombs, including Nikki Haley, before they get launched into Gaza. I don't know. I mean, I find that pretty sickening also. And like to Jenks point, there is just like a certain, don't get me wrong, okay? I'm trying to like be as charitable to you as I can, I would rather be next door neighbors with like an IDF soldier

than a Hamas militant. Okay, like there is a difference between the two. But when you're talking about the level of human suffering that Israel has inflicted on the people who were not members of Hamas, who were probably more victims of Hamas than anyone in Israel was, on larger numbers at least. There is just like, I'm sorry, it does seem after a while, like a lot, as I say, all the time, a lot of the people on the pro-Israel side just value Israeli life more than they do Palestinian life. And that is your right. That is your right. You know, there is, I understand, I value my children's life more than I value other children's lives.

That's okay, that's my right. It's not reasonable for me to require the law or politicians to value my children's life more than other children's lives. And I think that's the essence of all. Let me bring in. I want to ask General Kimman. Can I just respond very briefly? Hang on. Hang on.

Well, very quickly. Very quickly. Very quickly. Very quickly. Dave, the whole of our civilization is based on the difference between barbaric physical violence inflicted by one human against another. And the kind of collateral damage that tragically happens from justified war. as long as it is proportionate. Now, we could debate that.

We have debated the question of proportionate. But the entire Western civilization is based on that distinction. No, it's not. I have, from the start of this war, hang on what I said? Hang on, I have said from the start of this war, there were two things that really concern me. One was proportionality. We know that 1,200 people were killed on October the 7th

and another 7,000 were wounded. But 1,200 would kill, of whom a small, relatively smallish number were children. What we've seen, and obviously 250 more were kidnapped, including horrendously a baby and other children, and that was all horrific. And anyone who thinks otherwise I have no time for. But I always said one or two things.

Well, what is proportionate? And it seemed to me about the middle of last year, I began to sense that this was just getting grotesquely disproportionate. But mainly because I didn't see that the end game was going to be successful. The end game was supposed to be the eradication. of Hamas, a terror group. There is no sign that they are eradicated. And in fact, US intelligence,

and I'll come to General Kimet here, about this, the US intelligence reports about a week ago suggested that for every Hamas terrorist has been killed, they've already been replaced by people with similar ideology. So my fear was always that a disproportionate response by Israel would actually fuel the ideology behind Hamas, make them more popular, not less.

And in the process, we've seen as Chang said, 15,000 children reported now to be killed. And that's just, whatever you try and say by justification, it is unjustified to kill that number of children. It just is, isn't it? Well, I think we're having a little bit of historical myopia here. Maybe I'm just kind of all to remember the fact that we had 3,000 Americans killed on December 7th, 1941 by the Japanese.

and by the end of the war, we dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I suspect there were probably about 150 to 250,000 children that were incinerated in that attack alone. So I think that we are perhaps forgetting our own history and what we have done in a scenario of total war for the United States, for Great Britain, and for Western Europe. And candidly, I think it was the right thing to do because it was total war to destroy the Japanese leadership in the Japanese empire. The Jewish state, Israel, believes they're at total war with those terrorist groups. But you're absolutely right, peers. Not only was Hamas celebrating that, but remember today, Hezbollah was celebrating the death of Hassan Nisrala.

And it sure looked like there were a lot of Hezbollah operators. still fighting. It's the terrorist calculus. Kill one, create two. But in terms of the notion of number one, the Israeli response to the Hamas attack on October 7th, they see it as total war. They are fighting as if it is total war, the same way America did the same in 1941 to 1945 against the Japanese alone. We lost 3,000. They lost a million. We dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan. Yeah, you make very good points. Joe Woolch, final word to you? I don't think so. Okay, we run out of time study, but Joe, final word to you. Just real quickly, I agree, but the ideology, the hatred of Jews was there before October 7. The belief that Israel does not

have a right to exist was there before October 7. It didn't need October 7th to go off the charts. There will never be peace in this region as long as the Palestinian people, the Palestinian people, Pierce, not just Hamas, do not believe Israel has a right to exist, period. But there will also never be. It's just nonsense. Palestine doesn't exist. When is it going to get through your thickheads that Palestine doesn't exist because of the murderous terrorist terrorism? state of Israel? How many slaughtered children do you need before

you say, oh, right, the Palestinians don't exist? And are the Palestinians in the middle of that slaughter as 15,000 of their children were lit on fire by Israel? Are they supposed to love Israel? Is that the ludicrous insane demand? Oh, you don't love us enough. We're going to kill more of your children. No.

This is, all of, that's just propaganda. I think the bottom line is, the Mongols killed 800,000 people in Baghdad because it was all out war. That doesn't mean Israel should do it. That doesn't mean the U.S. should do it today. You only get to peace when the Palestinian people have the same rights, human rights, as everybody else around them. And that has been the running sore in this conflict. And you can make a great argument for both sides throughout the 75 years.

But the one, to me, unarguable point is that Palestinians in Gaza in particular have been living with diminished human rights to their neighbors. and that cannot be allowed to continue going forward. And it's going to be incredibly difficult to get to any lasting peace, incredibly difficult to get to a two-state solution. Everybody knows that. But ultimately, you've got to afford the Palestinian people the same basic human rights that we all enjoy. And until that happens, I don't see this ever, ever ending.

Anyway, we've got to leave it there. Fascinating debate by all of you. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Piers Morgan Unscensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Unsensored on Spotify and Apple Podcast. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain.

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