TRIGGERnometry - Piers Morgan: Why I Don't Care About My Critics

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

SPONSORED BY: ATHLETIC GREENS. Get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athleticgreens.com/triggernometry SPONSORED BY: easyDNS - domain name registrar provider and web host. Use special code: TRIGGERED for 50% off when you visit https://easydns.com/triggered/ Piers Morgan is a journalist and broadcaster who has spent a lifetime in media. He was the editor of the News of the World and the Daily Mirror before hosting various TV talk shows such as ITV Breakfast and Good Morning Britain. He currently hosts Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV, and his latest book Wake Up was published in 2020. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm not going to call him she because he must to call himself she. Of course he does. Not a sheep. He's a he. How can you be a leader if you can't even say what a woman is? Who's going to follow you? Who's going to take your lead?

I changed my mind on a few things with COVID because the science changed. I think that was everyone slightly lost their mind. And people will say, well, you're banging on about freedom. Where are you for the freedom of people to espouse views you didn't agree with on COVID?

And it's a tricky one when a lot of people are dying. But of course, the whole point of fighting for freedom is sometimes a lot of people die for freedom. Have you always had this thick skin? Yeah, I think my only real talent is thick skin. Is it part of you that thrives on conflict peers? Absolutely.

Love it. Why? Because it's fun. Gonna piss off all the right people so gloriously. And who are the right people to piss on, here? Wokies. Wokies are the world's most ludicrous people now. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry on location

from our favourite restaurant, Il Portico, on Kensington High Street. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisson. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today has been a long time coming. He's a journalist and author, Piers Morgan. Welcome to Trigonometry.

Bonjour, look. You've offended their entire staff in here. We were just talking about shit Italian actors just before you go. There you go. But listen, welcome, first of all. Thank you. One of the questions we always ask our guest is who are you. Now, you're one of the most famous people we've ever had on.

Everyone knows Pierce Morgan. Well, I think actually not many people know who you are, your backstory, how you come to be sitting here talking to us. So tell us that. Well, I mean, I grew up in a country pub down in the South Coast, a little village called Fletching. A tiny village went to the primary school. A parents owned around the pub

And I think my most formative memory of that Was I used to bottling up Where you replace all the empties And you'd go in and it would all be stinking of booze and fags And everything else And you'd go in there And you'd get all the stuff from the cellar And you'd replenish all the empties

They'd know what it's like in here And I actually got a warning From the school to my mother I was six And we're just a little bit concerned That Pearce is smelling of alcohol So that was an early formative memory, really. Fags are cigarettes for our American audience, by the way.

Fags are cigarettes over there, yes, yes, nicely pointed out. But I grew up in, I had a very nice upbringing. We didn't have particularly loads of money, but we had a lot of love in the family. Three siblings, so four of us. Lovely village lifestyle, local lifestyle, moved to the next door village. I had two types of education, one fee paying. till I was 13 and then stay educated from 13 to 18. I think they can either give you a chip on both shoulders or a chip on neither shoulder.

I think I went with the latter where I've always found the great benefit of being educated in two different ways, in two different environments, one very exclusive and one very non-exclusive. It's allowed me to probably, a bit like you guys, I think, sit down with anybody, whether it's Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama, which I've had a pleasure of doing, meeting the queen or just the average guy in the street. You know, I don't have any highfaluting desire to be with rich and famous, powerful people, any more than I do, people that I meet on the high street and have a chat with. So I think that comes from my upbringing and my education.

And then I went to journalism college. I had an absolutely clear idea from the age of about six or seven. I wanted to be a journalist, which is a great asset. Six or seven? Yeah. My mom remembers me reading the Daily Mail, the paper we've got to home, which may explain a lot of things. A daily mail from cover to cover avidly age six or seven

and studying headlines. I mean, it's a weird thing for a six or seven-year-old kid to be doing. But I was fascinated by news. Funny if my daughters this morning suddenly produced the house newspaper. I went, watch this. And she's done a whole newspaper, aged 11, based on the events in our house, mainly centered around the two kittens we've got and the drilling next door where she seems almost psychopathic

and had a desire to deal with these builders. But interesting to see her do that. One of my sons said the same thing around the same age. So there's clearly something in the jeans there. But yeah, I was fascinated by news, very nosy, very curious, wanted to get answers to things and love the idea of being first with information. And that's never left me. I have an absolute craving.

It's why Twitter is perfect for me because Twitter, you can be first with everything. Someone, someone was going to tell you before anybody else. You just catch the tweet at the right moment. And I think that's why I love the immediate. of something like Twitter, because for me, it feeds my addiction, which is news. So then I just went, I think the rest is probably well known. I went on to local newspapers, the Wimbledon News. I had a great time there. Funny enough, the news editor at the Sun, who was the guy that I, who first gave me shifts in Fleet Street. He died last week,

guy called Tom Petrie, incredible guy, brilliant news editor, wonderful with young people. and he always encouraged me. I couldn't understand why he was always so encouraging, but he was always so encouraging every time I called Pears, like I was his best mate, how are you? What have he got for me? And I give him little local Wimbledon stories, sometimes because it was London, you get a good one,

and they pay you for it, and I was excited, you get a big check from the son, then they gave me some shifts. It was only later I discovered that there were two Pears Morgan's. But I've met about three others now. I was about five of this in the world. The others keep very quiet for obvious reasons. But Tom Petrie's real mate was a guy called Pears Morgan from Kent, who was a photo journalist,

who had regularly given him stories for years. So he thought it was him ringing up, just sounding a bit more fresh voice involved. And then we started getting each other's payments. And it was like, hang on, what's going on here? I didn't do that. Anyway, that was it. There's a story of two Peers Morgan's. But Tom was great, and he got me onto the paper.

And that was when Kelvin McKenzie, the legendary, notorious beast of the sun, ran it. And it was probably one of those brutal journalism schools imaginable, albeit always laced with extraordinary high-octane energy and humor. And a lot of people that went through the Kelvin McKenzie's son went on to edit newspapers. I mean, I would say probably more journalists became editors from that reign of terror than the others, which will play slightly into what we may come to later about my view that as workplaces get softer and softer,

because everyone's so offended all the time. And so I'm set, you're not allowed to shadow people or berate them or even criticize people anymore. The downside of that is that for people with my personality, I found it a fantastic environment to work in. I wanted the stick. I didn't mind a bit of carrot, but really I wanted the stick to drive me to be better. So that was that. And then I got made into the News of the World at 28 by Rupert Murdoch. That was a crazy time.

He flew me out to Miami. We walked along Miami Beach in the surf for a few hours. I had no idea what I was doing there. And then he introduced me at a Fox affiliate's party that night to somebody else as the new editor of the news of the world. He's big as selling paper. That's how I found out. He literally went, this is my friend Pierce from London, his new editor of News of the World. What?

No negotiation, nothing? No, nothing. Wow. I literally found out when he turned to the person in the next minute party, he went, he's a new editor of the New Editor, The News of the World. That's a powerful way to be able to be in the world in his position, isn't it? The kind of thing Robert Murdoch's done his entire life. You know, he's a maverick, and he backs himself. He backs, again, a great lesson, backs himself.

You know, he always, he once said to me that he'd gone against his gut instinct three times, each time it had gone wrong. And he said, the trouble what that is, if you go with your gut instinct, you've only got yourself to blame if you're wrong. When it's not your gut instinct, it's somebody else's, and it goes against your gut, and it's wrong, then you want to blame other people. Different mentality. And that was great.

And then I defected to the Daily Mirror, had nearly 10 great years there, and then got fired in pretty big circumstances, the Iraq Botos scandal, as some people put it. And then I went to television. Simon Carl took me out over here, actually, the Belvedere in Holland Park. And he said he was thinking he was launching a new talent show. And did I want to be on it? And interestingly, it was Britain. He was thinking about, but it wasn't called that.

It was going to be called Paul O'Grady's Got Talent. Little secret for you. Paul O'Grady was the biggest star at ITV at the time along with Simon. And what do they call it, Paul O'Grady's Got Talent? And all the acts would be in the audience. And we did a pilot. And it was me, Simon, and Fern Britain, of all people. We used to be on this morning.

And we did this pilot fantastically successful. And it was all about to be green-lit. My comeback was assured. Prime Time TV. two fingers to the world who'd been reveling in my downfall and Paul O'Grady fell out with ITV

told them to go stuff themselves defected to Channel 4 Project died end of comeback before it even started and then I got a text six weeks later from Simon saying I've sold the Got Talent format to NBC in America and they repackaged it as America's Got Talent

which immediately to me went what a great idea and I can't be on it because of American Idol he said so I'm trying to think who do I know is arrogant, obnoxious, vile enough to step into my shoes. And your name is obviously immediately sprung to mind. And three weeks later, I was on the set of the Paramount Movie Lot on Melrose in Los Angeles. I'd rented Aston Martin just for the sheer hell of it.

I could drive my Aston Martin through the famous Melrose Gates of the Paramount Movie Lot. And I drove through these famous old movie backdrops thinking, what am I doing here? How has this happened? I got to a trailer next to David Hasselhoffs, who was one of the one of the ones. who was one of the judges. And that was that. Show went to number one. I then did Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump.

The first series of that, I won it. That's how I got to know Trump, who then became President of the United States, of course. And then I replaced Larry King at CNN for nearly four years. I had a great time doing that. And then left there and came back to the UK to do the morning show. And then had to leave that. Not quite how I would have wished,

because Mega Merkel didn't like me, believing her, which now seems quite extraordinary. I would have thought now I'd be probably let go for believing her. And that was that. And then, you know, here I am now at talk TV here, Fox Nation America, Sky News Australia, with a show called Here's Morgan Unsensored, back working with a guy that gave me the big break in the first place. So it's been a full circle. So that's a long version of my story, but that's it.

No, it's very interesting. And one of the things you touch on there is you're someone, people will, like or dislike or whatever, you're someone who has dealt with in his life with a number of big setbacks. Some self-inflicted, some not, right? People would argue. And none of which actually, when I look back, turned out to be a setback. So the key theme I would say, I remember Kelvin McKenzie's saying to me, the most annoying thing about me was that he would scream at me until his eyes were popping, his neck veins were bulging, you know, almost wanting to physically hurt me. And then, because I've done something wrong.

And then I come back an hour later with a big grin on my face and say, I've got a great scoop. It's really annoying my ability to bounce back. But I've always taken the view. What's the point wallowing in what's just happened? And even more so, change the narrative. If you had a setback or a negative in any part of your life, then change the narrative.

Everyone's, no one really cares. After about a week, even if you're involved in the biggest story in the country, take Gary Denicka, right? All over the papers for a week, whatever. I guarantee you in a week's time, nobody cares. Told him that. Just get on with it. Because no one cares, right? And if you lose a big job, people give you about a week where they care, then they moved on. So the best thing to do is change your own narrative. Find something that will change that story that you're just washed up,

has been, which I've had a few times, and show them you're not. But, Piz, there is a sensitive side to you as well. So, for instance... You're going to try and make me cry? Turn you into a West Ham fan, mate. That would make me cry. So, for instance, with Good Morning Britain, where you walked off, there's a lot of people who said that were staged. I don't think it was. No, no. And I also wasn't why I left. I mean, many American viewers of this will probably still think I walked off and never came back.

In fact, I only walked off for about 10 minutes because it was either that or I was fairly sure I was going to whack the weather guy on TV, which would have been great telly, but not a great idea. And he was the deputy weather guy, too, which was even more ignominious. I was a bit fired up about the reaction to my critique of the Megam Markle Harry, Oprah Winfrey, Wynethon, because I felt instinctively I was right that a lot of what they were saying was simply not true. And I wasn't going to buy into the narrative that the royal family were a bunch of callous races, just because these two said so for their own financial game. And I think history has proven me to be pretty spot on with that. But it was all building, building, building.

mob came online and the mob got to my bosses. And my bosses crumbled and they also crumbled because Mega Markle wrote to the female chief executive of ITV, my meet my top boss and demanded she find me. That happened overnight. And so I was told, look, either you apologize or you can't come back. I said, what am I apologising for? I said, I mean it. They said, no, we know you do, but can you not just say sorry?

I went, why? It's something I believe. I don't believe her. I don't think she's telling him a truth. Why would I apologize for that honesty hell belief? I thought, we're living in a democracy, aren't we? I don't have to believe people, do I? Is it written in my contract?

Thou must believe Megan Markle, Princess Pinocchio, which he opens her mouth. No, thanks. That was a very strange thing to be going through in a supposed democratic society that I was basically being shoehorned into a place where they knew I wouldn't apologize. So I had to leave a show that at the moment I left was now the most watch show on. breakfast TV in the country. We finally beaten the BBC with this great holy grail never thought we'd get to. It was absolutely on fire. Ratings through the roof, everyone talking about us, everyone tuning in to get my opinions, which I had been specifically hired to express in a strident manner.

Literally, when they launched me on Good Morning Britain, they used sympathy for the devil by the Rolling Stones as my comeback music. Because I've done a week's trial, which went chaotically well. And then when I came back, the people of Britain were told basically the devil was coming back because of my opinions. And yet for having those opinions honestly held, that in the end became the reason I had to leave. And so how much of what you do is actually calculated? How much of it is you thinking, right, I can say something in a more provocative fashion, which I know will get a bigger reaction. And how much is what you say, what you would just say to your friends? No, I'd say I'm exactly the same on air as I'm in the pub with my mates.

I'm the same. It can be just as obnoxious. I can be just as offensive sometimes, depending on their viewpoint. Remember, people are offended if it don't hear something they agree with, right? That's the era we now living. When I was young, never like that. You could all just gob off in the pub and that was accepted. We'd all have different opinions and we'd all get drunk together and go, I'm quite happy.

Now it's like people just exist in weird bubble tribes. They only really want to hear the same views that they believe they have. But as I always say to them, how you do expect to evolve or change your views or adapt or move with facts if you're so intransigently stuck in your tribe? It makes no sense to me. But that's where we are. It's a dangerous place for a democracy to find itself. How do we get here, Pierce? Because you mentioned the Megan Markle thing as well.

And it's just like everything is racist now. And that's not to say that there aren't racist people. I'm someone who's a first generation immigrant. I know there are racist people in this country. But I don't remember a time when, you know, office air conditioning was sexist and this was and every... It's ridiculous. But how did this happen?

Well, the most ridiculous example I can give you wasn't actually me, although I was accused of being racist for disbelieving Megamarker's truth, which was a lie, which seemed to be preposterous. And obviously, my critique of her had nothing to do with her skin color and everything to do with the fact she was telling a bunch of whoppers about the royal family and causing enormous damage. But the worst thing was Sharon Osborne, who was at the time co-hosting a show called The Talk on CBS, happy for 10 years, very successful. And I'd been on the talk many times. And she tweeted that I was entitled to my opinion. She didn't say she agreed with it.

So I was entitled to my opinion. And he was then set up on her show. So Cheryl Underwood, who was one of the black hosts of the talk, basically played the race guard in an incredibly unpleasant manner, deliberately, to try and gotcha Sharon, and basically made out that she accused her of supporting somebody who'd said racist things. Sharon kept saying, what are you talking about?

What did he say that was racist? And she couldn't answer. What did he say that was racist? He said racist things. And eventually, we may not have said racist things, but he's thinking, you know, in other words, if I didn't believe Megam Markle, who's from a biracial couple, you know, a white father, black mother.

If I didn't believe her, it had to be because I was racist. And it was an extraordinary thing. Sharon then lost her job over this because she reacted so angrily to the suggestion that I was a racist and therefore she was supporting a racist. None of that was true. And so to your point, that's where we are. How did that happen? How did we get here in your opinion?

Because you would have seen this in your lifetime. I've seen it in my life. Identity politics is the biggest problem mixed with a society that now values and celebrates victimhood and weakness and losing over previous generations who valued higher strength, winning, resilience and all those things. That's what's happened. So you now see a ridiculous situation with the gymnast, Simone Biles, who in the Olympics pulls out of the team competition, and she's obviously the star talent for the Americans, and the Russians end up winning it because she's having anxiety issues, makes a dramatic recovery three days later to take part in the individual, comes third, and she normally wins all the goals,

comes third, and really it's because she's just slightly lost her power. She's just not as good as she was. That's the real problem. And she knew it. She tumbled a couple of times in the team competition, and it freaked her out that she isn't as good as she used to be, in my opinion. She turned the whole thing into a mental health thing. This was all about mental health,

all about her brave anxiety, you know, facing down her brave issues like anxiety and so on. And everyone celebrated her, the cover of every magazine, for coming third, and for bottling it in the team. competition and letting her teammates down, so they lost, and then recovering in time to take part on her own thing. And I looked at all this. I went, well, we've all got nuts. How can she be celebrated more for losing and coming third and falling over and letting down her teammates than she did

when she won all the goals? And it's funny, Michael Johnson, the brilliant, you know, 200 and 400 meter runner, he pipes up on Twitter at me, has a go at me for suggesting that winning bronze is not somehow the greatest thing of all time. I went, if it's so great, how come your Twitter name is M.J. Gold? And in your Twitter bio, all you mention are your gold medals. And there was a silence. Because of course he doesn't celebrate losing. That's why he's Michael Johnson.

You say Bolt as a bronze medal dangling on his toilet wall? Of course he doesn't, right? So we've moved away now from what I think is important in life, which is that you understand that the more you will, work, the harder you put in, the more you get back. And actually, winning's a good thing in life, in all aspects of life, whether it's relationships or, you know, work or friendships, whatever it is, or sport, anything. Winning is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Competition is a good thing. You know, being able to lose and get back up and think, that sucked. I don't want that

to happen again. Now, Alex Ferguson at Manchester United used to say to his players when they lost a big, a big title race, don't ever forget how you're feeling right now. Don't feel that again. He didn't go, well done, lad, you lost. You lost to Arsenal. Let's all go party. It's party time.

Let's celebrate losing and being a bunch of losers. That's not how he got to be the most successful coach in history. But we are going down a very slippery slope where we are beginning to celebrate weakness and losing more than we do strength and winning. And that's part of the problem. So the relationship to all the racism and sexism and your transphobic, all that kind of stuff that goes on now about everything is because people can identify as part of these tribes. They want to be part of the trans activist tribe, which means anyone who says anything about any issue involving trans people is immediately a transphope. You raise any concern at all. So if a male rapist puts his hand up,

as he did in Scotland that says, I'm now a woman, so I want to be in a woman's prison until I'm going to attack other women and get an easier time than I wouldn't a men's prison. Everyone goes, absolutely right and proper that you should be in a women's prison, until we all go, hang on, this is completely insane. And the woman who was behind it, Nicholas Sturgeon, Firstman of Scotland, has to lose her job, and then he gets put right back where he belongs in a male prison. And I'm not going to call him she, because he wants to call himself she. Of course he does. Of course he does. Not a she.

He's a he. He's a male man person. who raped women with his penis. It's ridiculous. So that's where the madness goes, if you're not very careful. And lost in all this are people on the trans side, for example. I know some trans people who feel that they're just being made laughingstock by this debate. They feel that the woke efforts to try and protect them have the complete opposite effect. That actually they make trans people look ridiculous. Well, we've interviewed a bunch of people like that, trans people on our show to talk about this very thing. But, Pierce, you You talk about tribes.

And one of the interesting things for me was, when I was on your show, you were talking about how you're more liberal than not. And I don't think anyone that I know in our old industry, the stand-up comedy industry, like we are sitting right now in their eyes with the King Gammon, you know, the sun, the daily mail. Yeah, you have my book. Wake up.

Anyone who reads that book will know that I'm what I would call an old-fashioned liberal, the kind that tolerate other people's opinions. the kinds that believe that, like I said, I mean, all the issue we've been talking about are all in here, that identity politics is dangerous, that the woke mentality is destructive. It's basically a new form of fascism. And that's why they don't like me. Because secretly, they kind of know, I'm probably ideologically not far from them. I'm just not a nutcase like they are. And the moment I say nutcase on your podcast, there will be people writing insane. They're used to, how dare you? How dare you? You must be fired. you're belittling mental health. And it's obviously bullshit. So I say read that book and you'll get my poll. I don't really consider myself to be ideologically left or right.

I'm a journalist who likes to take them all down and expose the hypocrisy on both sides. Really, that's fundamentally. My ideology is they're all probably scamming us. So let's call them all out and get to the truth. All I care about is getting some out of the truth, which is increasingly hard when people think they can have their own version of the truth. And call it my truth. as if somehow that's different to factual truth. It's obviously an absurdity, but that's what people think.

So I think that you're right, a lot of people on the left assume I must be some right-wing higbanger because they probably see a few TikTok clips, which are taken in isolation where I'm saying, for instance, the other day, there's a TikTok clip went very viral, had five million views. And it's me on International Women's Day saying to a woman who was in an argument about gender. I said, so I can identify as a black lesbian, can I? And she said, well, that's ridiculous. I went, well, no, it's not, is it? It's the logical extension of what you've just said about gender should be limitless. Now, in the whole context of the whole conversation, everyone could see what I'm getting at. If all you've seen is a TikTok clip and me saying, I'm Pierce Morgan and I'm a black

lesbian, there he goes again, a right-wing lunatic. Look at that gammon, you know, belittling black people, belittling, gay people, homophobic. Of course, there's none of those things. I'm simply saying if you have limitless gender, if you can basically put your hand up and say, you can be whatever you want, if you just identify as it, that's what happens. And if people don't believe me, look at the Scottish rapist who literally took it to the worst possible degree and got away with it. So that's, I think they don't like me calling them out on the logic of their arguments, because a lot of it is illogical. Bill Maher in America is one of my favorite commentators in the world.

But he's on the left. He's probably like me politically, probably, a liberal guy really at heart. And he finds him completely insufferable, the woke brigade. Insufferable. And of course, it's not electable this kind of mentality. Most people aren't like it. You go down Kensington High Street and you talk to 100 people and you put five woke position to him.

I think you're nuts. You'd be put in some asylum. But do you not worry, peers, that we talk and we focus on gender and wokeism? And look, there's something that we need to talk about. But you're a journalist. You realize that this country is in a dire, dire situation, financially, economically, societally. And it just distracts from that. And we don't talk about that.

Yeah, well, that's where you're wrong. I'll tell you why. Because it's not a small thing. Actually, the way that we tackle big stuff of the kind you're talking about, it comes down to leadership. How can you be a leader if you can't even see. say what a woman is. Who's going to follow you? Who's going to take your lead? What kind of person are you? Secere Starmer is very impressive in many ways. I like him personally, but he just refuses to say what a woman is. Rishi Sunnack to his credit when I interviewed him immediately said it's an adult human

female. Great. It's not difficult. It's not a trick question. That's the answer. Biological sex is just a irrefutable fact. So when a politician can't answer that, it answers to your question, he might be leading the country. In two years' time, Keir's time, a man who won't say what a woman is because he's too scared. Does that come for you? Doesn't come for me. So I don't think these are small things. I think the battle for freedom of speech, we saw it with Gary Denacher again recently,

the battle for someone's right to have an opinion, the battle to save what I call old-fashioned debate, the battle against this woke fascist mentality that you will agree with us or you will be destroyed. Take care, Rowling. It must be destroyed at all costs, the author of political correctness. All that has got to be fought and won. Otherwise, the rest of it can't get fixed. You're going to end up with leaders who are incapable of leading

because they can't even answer basic questions because they're too scared. That would be my answer. That it's not they're all interlinked, all about leadership, it's all about freedom. It's all about understanding that what the cornerstone of democracy is, is freedom. And the moment you infringe on that right to freedom for the British public, for the American public, for any so-called democracy, that way hell lies, because that way you're heading into fascism. Do you think peers as well, part of the problem is, in the days of Blair or Thatcher, they had to liaise with the tabloid press in order to create a good story, in order to create positive headlines. But now politicians seem more and more to be at the behest of Twitter. And Twitter is its own world. And a politician can be plunged into its Twitter.

for saying something which we all know to be true. 20% of the public are on Twitter in the UK and the US, about 20%. Of the 20%, 80% of the noise is made by 10% of the 20%. And it tends to skew to the extremities of the debate on right and left. More left than right, actually. You can create an impression of all this stuff being sort of sanctioned by the majority. Of course, he's not. It's why Twitter gets everything wrong.

You know, Twitter assumed Jeremy Corby and be prime minister, assumed Hillary Clinton would become president, assumed Donald Trump would be completely wiped out in 2016, it assumed Brexit would never happen. You know, it just makes all these assumptions based on the 80% of the 10% of the 20% screaming away that that's what's going to happen. But it's not what 80% of the public,

you don't even know what they think, you didn't even ask them. They're not on Twitter. They're not howling away all day. Now, I love Twitter as an information source and as a source of stirring up debates, because I'm in the debate business. And if you ask me what my job is, it's to create debate on television, in columns, on Twitter. It all feeds into debating for me. I like a good argument.

Always have done. And I have a real problem with people who can't argue without throwing my toys out of the pram in a way that is ludicrous. Well, they just want to cancel you. I'm having an opinion. I think it's pathetic. But, yeah, to me, the fundamental cornerstones of these things all come back to the basic principles of democracy, which is free speech, freedom of expression, freedom. And the moment you start to infringe on that, it's all over. Well, Pierce, talking of freedom, one of the things that, I'll be

honest with you, surprise me. When I did your show in person, afterwards, I said, mate, now the we're good mates, how about you on block me on Twitter? And you went, oh, I've blocked you on Twitter. And I went, yeah, I take the piss out of you over COVID. And that's when you surprised me because you went, yeah, I deserved it. Yeah. I did not expect that, actually, given your public. I've changed my mind on a few things with COVID because the science changed. So I'll give you an example and I'm quite happy to admit this and talk about it. And people are like, ah, there you. Yeah, because to me it changed.

So I'll give you a classic example. I, when they said that vaccines couldn't transmit the virus, I said, okay, right, in that case, anyone who doesn't have the vaccine right now represents a clear and present threat to spread in this virus and killing people. So you're selfish bastards and I'm going to call you out on that. And by the way, those who do have the vaccine, they should have more freedoms because they're not going to be to transmit it once they've had the jab. You are and you don't care.

Very strident, very emphatic, based on a completely erroneous scientific assessment, which was it couldn't. Now, you might say, well, you shouldn't have said it anyway. I would sort of agree with it. I would say something else, actually, which is I think that you have a duty to be skeptical. As a journalist, that is your job. And I've learned a lesson in the pandemic about that, definitely, definitely. And I would totally accept that.

I think I was too strident anyway, got too kind of wrapped up in it all. But, you know, I had good reasons for it. I had one of my colleagues at Good Morning Britain, Kate Garroway, her husband was in a coma from COVID. I had four or five friends and family who lost loved ones. I think you say goodbye to their parents on FaceTime and Carehones, where it had ripped through and so on. So I was very, like, emotionally invested in it.

Probably too much so for a journalist. I accept that. But on that key point of the transmission, the scientists then said a bit later, actually it turns out there's not much difference between whether you've had the jab or not for transmission. And at that point, I realized everything I've been saying was completely wrong and completely unfair. And then it becomes a personal choice.

If you want to, now, again, someone will say, well, it should be a personal choice anyway. Well, yeah, yeah. But if we had, for example, as one of the Oxford AstraZeneca professors put it to me, If this had been the plague come back with a 30 to 40% death rate, including kids, how would people feel then? If we had a vaccine that was proven to be largely successful and stopped transmission and people were refusing to have it and we were seeing not 3,000 people die a day, but 50,000 died.

I would say that people as views of that argument might change quite quickly. But you wouldn't need to force anyone to take a vaccine if it was the plague because people would take the vaccine. So my point being that the argument would play slightly better if there were much higher numbers of people dying, which would come back to my sort of thing that if the principle is the principle, it shouldn't really matter what the scale is. But I totally accept my rhetoric was over the top. And I think that people, once it was known that you could transmit it, whether you've been jabbed or not, I think it's entirely your personal decision to then have the vaccine or not.

And that's a complete U-turn of what I thought. But the scientists are the U-turn. I was basing all my emphatic, passionate rhetoric of what I believe the science to be. Another lesson from the pandemic, science evolves. Facts change. They find out more information. I don't think, as some people do, that all scientists are evil. I don't think they're deliberately setting out to mislead people.

I think they're trying to get to the truth. It was a novel virus. Early on when there were no vaccines and no hope of any, there's never been a coronavirus vaccine. So in those first few months, when people were dying in big numbers, there were no therapeutic drugs, really, no vaccine. And it looked incredibly serious for mankind. At that point, I felt the only answer was the blunt instrument of a lockdown. As it went on, I think the argument for lockdown became less and less convincing. And I always believed that all the subsidiary effects of lockdown on other health issues, heart disease, cancer and so on, we're going to come back and haunt us.

The question then was, where was the pendulum on that deal? Well, look, Francis and I both supported the first lockdown. And actually someone quote tweeted a tweet of mine from the very first moments when I was saying, we need to work together and stop thinking solely about ourselves. And people are now using that against me. So I know the position that you're in. But I think the one thing is sticking with the theme of freedom that we've been talking about that I found very concerning is the amount of censorship that was happening of scientists,

very prominent scientists, including Nobel, David Davis, who was a guest on our show at this point, Nobel Prize winning scientists being censored for talking about things that are, in their era of energy. I agree. Lab leak, right? All of this stuff. I totally agree. I totally agree. I think that was, it was everyone slightly lost their minds. And people will say, well, you're banging on about freedom. Where were you for the freedom of people to espouse views you didn't agree with on COVID? And it's a tricky one when a lot of people are dying. But of course, the whole point of fighting for freedom is sometimes a lot of people will die for freedom. So I totally accept that. And I've evolved my opinion. If it was not,

other health crisis, I would probably behave rather differently. I think we all would. I would say the same thing about when I campaigned against guns in America, I was a British guy telling Americans how to lead their lives. They have 420 million guns. We have hardly any. And so what do I really know about their gun culture? The truth is I thought I knew better than them and shouted out louder and louder

to try and get them to give up guns, and they sold more and more guns because of my shouting. They have the complete opposite effect to what I thought. And if I had my time again, I would dial down the rhetoric, and I would try and have a much more open and constructive debate. Or I would even suggest, let's stop calling it gun control. Call it gun safety. How do you make it safer? I know you can't take all the guns away. So how do we make it safer?

Much more interesting conversation than a British guy who, with an accident like mine, we've been driven out with guns to get them independence in the first place. So I'll think, I mean, Jay Leno got it right with me, I think. He said to be, Pierce, look, the smart crowd, like L.A. and New York, the smart liberals, he said, we can't have all agree with you, right? You're right. It's madness. It's guns thing. It's madness. He said, but most of the rest of the Americans thinks, who's this snotty British guy with this British accent telling us what to do? It'd be like you're going to Germany and saying they can't speed on the automobile. Again, the smart liberals would be like, he's right. Too many people die on the automobile. We should reduce speed. And the rest of Germany's going, I don't want to hear this

for this guy and I definitely don't want to hear it from my accent. And he was right. He was right. It would be like an American coming over here and saying, I want to ban cricket because, you know, people get injured. And what would we do? We said, sod off, annoying American. Go back to him, you know, that's what we would think, right? So I broke that sort of cultural rule, which is you don't go to someone's restaurant. You don't go to someone's house and tell them their curtains suck. You might think it. And you might hope they'd change their curtains. But you just don't shout at them. Your curtains are disgusting because it's their curtain. So I think that I've learned definitely through that, I've learned through the pandemic, that if the primary function of a journalist

is to be skeptical of everything and to be open to all opinions, you know, I would qualify it slightly. There were a lot of demented anti-vaccin. Stiller. Who are completely implacably opposed to all vaccines who were peddling utter lies about the vaccine. vaccine. And so I make no apology for taking them head on. They were really the people I was targeting. But when I look back at some of my tweets around the issue of vaccine transmission, I made a presumption the science was always going to stay the same. And when it changed, I was made to look stupid and dictatorial and freedom bashing and all the things that I hate. And that was wake up, cool. Wake up, Pete. But, Piz, moving on.

you started in newspapers and you saw the absolute beast that were the tabloid newspapers at the time. They were so powerful. The reality is... They were great. Yeah. Just for the record. The British tabloid press is the most vibrant dynamic press in the world. And from all parts, the mirror, I edited the mirror was left wing.

The usual was right wing. I did both. And I will always defend the British tabloid press here. So you can call them a beast. I call them a wondrous. flawed, not perfect, but wow, did people in this country have to be concerned about the press holding their feet to the fire? And that's what you need in a democracy. I agree with you, but the reality is that press is no longer anywhere near as powerful. I think it was last year

a couple of years ago, the Sun declared 62 million pounds losses, which for a paper like the Sun is and was unheard of. So where are we moving now? Well, we're moving online. I mean, there's no doubt, you know, my kids are in their 20s, they don't reprint newspapers, they read everything online, but they do read newspapers online. So I think there's going to be a migration bit like in the music industry. How long that takes, I'm not entirely sure, but you can see the graphs on all the circulations have all been steadily falling, you know, mirror sold to an half million a day when I was editing it back in the 2000s, early 2000s, and now it's probably, I don't know,

a tenth of that. So there's no question of the way the graph is going, but there's also no question that the digital readership of all the papers is rising pretty fast too. So it's really what happens when it all washes out and you end up with just digital papers, which will be the next generation after mine, aren't going to buy print newspapers. I would lay an even bet in the same way they don't buy vinyl records. So I think that that's coming, but does it mean the influence has changed? I'm not so sure. I think a great front page of a son. Why don't you ask Matt Hancock how influential the Sun newspaper is? Because it was him and it.

his shenanigans being put on the front page of the Sun led to him having to quit his health minister in the middle of a pandemic. So I'd take issue with the inference that papers like the Sun don't have that influence. They've still got it. I mean, just ask politicians. They still wake up and check the front pages

and make sure they're not on them. But surely, if young people aren't engaging with them as much as they used to, that therefore means they're no longer as powerful. Well, they are engaging in a different way. They're reading tweets from these papers. They're reading stuff that goes viral from these papers. They're disseminating the content.

They're just not disseminating it in the old-fashioned way of buying a newspaper and sitting down in the cafe and reading it like I like to do. Still do. Still get five papers a day and sit in a cafe and read them. I love the feel of newsprint. My sons don't give a damn about that. They don't read books in print form. They read them on Kindles and stuff. It's just a, I would say that the information has still been disseminated.

Just the mode of travel and the way it's being put around and published, if you like. has just radically changed and is much faster. Yeah, but also as well, they're not making the money they used to make. Isn't that a significant problem, peers? Well, it depends on how much money you can make from the digital side. A lot of them are making good money from a digital map. So that will take time because you're in that mid-period now of the slow death of print papers and the inexorable rise of digital.

And obviously a lot of advertisers at the moment are still on the print side, but they will move over time. 15, 20 years time, I'd be amazed if there are any national print newspapers whose print sales are still much of a force. I'll just be amazed, just based on numbers of my kids and their mates. They don't reprint newspapers. So that clock is ticking. I think it's ticked longer than people may have feared, actually.

And can you make a lot of money out of digital papers? Absolutely you can. Absolutely. So I don't share the doom-laden view. I think everyone thought about records. stop selling records. It all get streamed. We're going to make the same money. They all make a lot of money.

Now once you'll worry about the record industry. Speaking with the theme of journalism, one of the things that occurs to me is you are someone who has dealt with very powerful newspaper proprietors in a very direct way. And everyone has got an opinion about why Rupert Murdoch does what he does. What drives these people who want to own a newspaper or a media empire? What do they want? Well, I think of Rupert Murdoz case, he likes being at the center of things.

He always has done. That's why he likes owning newspapers, television stations, movie companies, publishing houses. He's just one of the world's great media figures. And in my opinion, the best, certainly that I've ever worked with or full. There's something about having somebody at the top of a company where it's their train set. As I discovered, when you go for a company like ITV, which has a lot of engine drivers, but they're all dependent on their next standing up in front of shareholders, and they can be bullied by Megamarkle into getting rid of presenters of hot TV shows,

that doesn't happen under someone like Rupert Murdoch, because he wouldn't even take the call for Megal Markle. So I think that there's a power that comes if you work in that environment. And I listen, I owe him an awful lot. You'll never get me saying a bad word about... What have you learned from him? He's an unbelievable maverick that he backs himself, absolutely backs himself to the extent that he has the most extraordinary vision for things. Sky News here, Sky Sports, revolutionized the way sport was

covered. The way when Sky bought the Premier League, absolute game-changing for football in this country. Why is the Premier League the best in the world? Rupert Murdo. I mean, bottom of mind, doesn't get the credit he deserves, but it was. You never see that in the profiles of Ruper. But you'll see all the devil stuff. I did he myself as a devil on the front page of the mirror when he was trying to buy Manchester United. We did him up in pointy years and horns and said red devil. The only person in Britain who thinks Rupert Murdoch should know Manchester United

raises their right index figure, and he was going like that. I think he quite admired the work because I was the rival editor. It would have been a nightmare if they'd bought Manchester United because the sun would have got all the exclusives. So I think, look, I just think he's driven, for my estimation, Rupert was driven and still is just by news. He loves news. He loves being at the center of what's happening, knowing what's happening. And he loves the vibrant and dynamic reporting of that, commentary on that. That's what I think gets him up in the morning. He just can't wait like me

to find out what's going on and what are people thinking and who's doing what and who's going to run the country and it's all intoxicating to him, which it is to me. Well, this is one of the things, Francis and I wanted to ask you both. I mean, you're very famous. You've got tons of money, I assume. You know, you... Little Notre Dame. I can even afford a meal in here.

Why do you do what you do? You could be on a beach somewhere for the rest of your life. Well, I don't do it for money. And I mean, I like to value myself correctly, but that's a different argument. I don't do for money. I do it because I like being at the center of things, too. I love it. because I'm a news junkie.

So for me, I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning normally, and the first thing I do, get to it, what's going on? What have I missed? What have I missed? You know, when I'm on holiday, the nightmare, my wife will tell you that I'm one of these people that if I get cut off from information, I become a twitching wreck. If you just lets me do my thing and just every hour check what's happening,

I'm very relaxed. I can have a nice holiday. But you cut me off from that supply chain of, of stuff happening, I'm a nightmare. But isn't there a part of you when there's a Twitter storm or everything explodes in the zeitgeist and you get pilloried as, you know, the enemy of the people, whatever they want to go? It's funny.

Is it funny to you? Is it hilarious? Absolutely hilarious. A bunch of geeks in their mum's dungeons screaming abuse of it. It's hilarious. Okay. But when the Miguel Marker's, when the Merkel thing like... Twitter storms last about 36 hours.

They haven't got the energy, these people. These young wokeies, they haven't got. the energy or commitment to stuff. I can wage feuds of people for 20 years with great passion. They give it 36,000 they moved on to somebody else. They haven't got the energy or commitment. But when people are calling you racist, for example, that has got a hurt. Well, it's just dumb. But I'm in a good position now. I've got nearly 8.5 million Twitter followers, 2 million Instagram followers. I've got a pretty powerful platform. I've got to show that airs every day in the UK, Australia and America. I can create a lot of noise back if I

want to. And I don't hesitate. And that's one of the good things about Twitter. They can tell me with their 40 followers, you're a racist. And I can reply to 8.5 million people. No, I'm not. You're the problem. And then what normally happens is they delete their tweet. And then you see 10 minutes later account deleted. I call it vaporizing. It's a bit like a Star Trek. And they said zap things. They just disappear. I like vaporizing Twitter accounts. Have you always had this thick skin? Yeah, I think my only real talent is thick skin. In the sense that I think everything comes from that for me. My ability to soak up crap and just let it wash off me

is an ability I've realized over time not a lot of people have to the extent that I have it. And the resilient streak. My favorite movie scene is Rocky in the sixth film when he finally has it out with his spoiled sun in the street. and it gives them a speech about life being a tough place. It's going to beat you down. And it's not how hard you can hit. It's how hard you can get hit, get back up and keep moving forward. And that's how winning is done.

I love that speech because that to me is my view of life. To my sons, they'll cringe if I mention Rocky in the speech to his son. But they know instinctively I'm right. I said, nobody cares about a whining mona who's just going to play the victim all the time. Nobody cares. You might think they do, but they don't. Don't wallow in bad stuff. Short of death and terminal illness, everything is survivable and thrivable from. I'm living proof of it.

A number of times I've had people write me off. He's finished. We got him this time. He's done. Really? I'm fine, thanks. But that's a mental resilience. When did you get that, Piers? I think my family are very strong people. My mom's very strong.

My grandmother was very strong. Dad's strong. You know, my brother was an army colonel, served in wars and stuff. It gives you that very important thing, perspective. I think a lack of perspective is one of the problems with young kids today while they're so anxious about stuff. They don't really have a perspective. I used to say they had it easy compared to previous generations,

and statistically they did. But actually, in the last few years, they've been hit by a once-and-a-year pandemic, a new war raging in Europe. You know, cost of living crises the like of which we have a civil time. which affect young people. As in crisis, it's something they have been hit with real problems and they are actually discovering perspective, the harm way, which is a lot of people going through some really bad stuff.

So you getting all upset about an exam result or, you know, your car being dented or a girlfriend or whatever it may be, you've got to get perspective and it's not as bad as you think. I can guarantee you it's not as bad as you think. I say to my sons, whatever, always come to me, I said, have you got something bad? because the likelihood is I've done something the same or worse. And they look at me and they laugh and go, really? I went, really. I'm 58. You don't get to be 58 with my career trajectory and not have probably done a lot of things.

And you think, God, I got over that, somehow came through it, especially in the public glaze. So I think that being able to do that, having a thick skin, having mental resilience is really a crucial tool of life. Without it, I think you really struggle. I never feel anxiety. Only about Arsenal. You know, in the running now to the Premier League,

if we don't win now, I will be a bubbling wreck. But other than football, honestly, nothing makes me anxious. I have television doesn't, being attacked on Twitter doesn't, losing jobs doesn't, because I've learned over time I normally get a better one with more money. You know, nothing I don't think is ever irrevocably bad. It just, it's down to. you, though, to change that narrative. Don't expect other people to. If you're fired on a Friday,

by Monday, most of your mates have gone back to work and couldn't care less. They'll think about you once a week. Reality check. So don't expect everyone to keep calling you and stroking you and saying it's all going to be okay. How can we help? Get on with it. Is it part of you that thrives on conflict, Piers? Absolutely. Love it. Why? Because it's fun. Yeah, I'm like you. I'm the same. I couldn't imagine not thriving on conflict because that means you never express opinions, you never argue with people, it basically means you're a dullard. And who in the world wants to be a dullard? Someone who just sits there soaking up stuff, never challenging, never questioning, never falling out with people. I mean, I love all that stuff. Making up's always such fun.

Nice long lunch with your sworn enemies. I even did it with Jeremy Clarkson. This scar on my head is from his right fist at the British Presser Wars. You've made up with Jeremy Clarkson. At the Scarsdale pub round the corner. He messaged me at 1 in the morning and said, Morgan, Clarkson here, drink. Scarsdale, Monday, 7 p.m. he went. See you there?

We went in like old enemy combatants, you know. And all I remember is he got very drunk on rosé, which I thought was a bit girly. No offence. I was drinking pints of foaming ale like Alan Partridge. And we got blind drunk, and then his daughter turned up, and I realized we had to have one of my kids for the peace settlement. I called my eldest boy on the phone, and we put him on, and we had a formal peace

settlement. The handshake was made, and the war was over. I think it's still simmering slightly. It wouldn't take a lot. We were in here one night, the wine was raging. We had an argument about something. It wouldn't take a lot. The old scar would start twitching, and I'd be like, my army brother was like, you didn't hit him back. It's pathetic. It's what the matter with it. Any regrets, peers, when you look back at the career? I'm Edith P.F. To my veins. What's the point?

Regret is such a waste of energy. What's the point? You've got to think about it. What I mean about changing the narrative? You're much better of expending energy on changing your narrative. Doing something which stops people looking back on something that's gone wrong for you. That is a key part of my resilience of my thick skin. It's like, I sit there.

And everyone else is going, oh, God, you know, whatever. And I'm sitting there thinking, what's next? What can I do? What can I do? And to be able to get to where you want to get to, you've got to have a fresh head. And all the said to people, when you get fired from a job or whatever, or you're involved in some scandal, whatever it may be, go and clear your head. Just take four or five months and clear your head.

Go to a beach. Go and get fit. Go and do yoga, whatever you want to do. Clear your head. Turn your phone off. Don't get engaged. Don't spend every minute of the day fretting over what your next move is going to be. If you've got a clear head, you'll start being offered some interesting things.

You'll make the right call because you got clear head. And then when you're ready to go again, you're full of energy and you're fit and you're ready to go. That's been my experience. And then you can hit the ground running. Whereas if you wallowing what's happened and think how unfair it all is, a nobody gives a shit. Honestly, outside of your family and closest friends, nobody cares. I'm not sitting there at home when I've been fired or whatever with people going,

poor old Piers Morgan. They're like, great! We got him this time. Jump on his grave. Stand on his head. And I know that. I'm laughing because I think I'm going to have the last laugh on you, look. Is that it?

Because I'm like that. I'm like, I'm going to show you. Yes. And it's going to be so satisfying when I do. It's going to piss off all the right people so gloriously. And who are the right people to piss off piss? Wokies. Wokies are the world's most ludicrous people now

because they become the very thing they profess to hate most. They become fascist. and they can't even see it. And so they want to cancel everything, they want to shame everything, they want to destroy everything, they want everyone to think the same, act the same, have the same beliefs, have the same values,

enjoy the same films, enjoy the same rewritten books, enjoy the same statues, celebrate the same parts of history. That's called fascism, literally what fascists do to a country. That would have been here if people hadn't fought for freedom in the way that they did. And those people gave their lies so that we could not only express opinions,

but so that we would listen to people whose opinions we completely disagree with, and we would go, you know what, you're entitled to your opinion. And we seem to have lost that more. We have lost that. And yet 90% of the public that I talk to, maybe more, think it's terrible that we've lost that. Where's their voice? Actually, it's probably people like me. biting that fight for them.

And do you think that's why you get the ratings that you get, you get people following you, is because you are willing, unlike a lot of people in the media, you are the one who actually strays from the party line. You're the one who challenges. I think it takes a certain amount of balls to put your head over the parapet in this environment. That's what I would say.

I'm not going to blow too much smoke up. I'm backside. I don't mind doing that, obviously. But I just think the reality is you've got to have some people prepared to have this fight. And it doesn't make you popular. Although if you walked around with me for an hour, you'd be amazed at the number of people that would come up and say, thank you for what you're doing. Even if they don't really agree with what I'm saying.

Because free speech matters to people a lot more than I think people realize. And, Piers, another thing that might surprise people, given the public perception of you in certain circles, as you're rightly say, actually, the Twitter circles, is everyone I've spoken to and every time I've done your show, the people who work for you, they really like you. Really? Yeah, they do. Well, don't tell anybody that. There's almost like a sycophantic feel to some extent. It's brand damaging. And I've done your show on ITV.

I've done your show on talk TV. That theme seems to be constant. And we know people used to work for you. way back when, and no one has a bad word to say about you, unlike out there in the media where everyone has a bad word to say. Yeah, but it's interesting, isn't it? Because a lot of the journalists will base their perception of what they think the public think of me based on Twitter, which is full of lunatics.

Whereas again, if you walk around with me, I never get any crap in the street at all, from anybody. Whether I mean, New York, L.A., Sydney, London, Scotland. It's universal. Normally, people laugh, they smile when they see me, and we have a laugh, right? And it's not because they agree with everything I say at all. In fact, quite the opposite sometimes. They just like the way I say it, and they like the fact to have the balls to say it, to say what I think. And that has really resonated with people.

I don't get any problem at all when I walk around. Nothing. I can remember one person after the Megan Markle debacle. I was out of my daughter walking in the park and one of my sons. And I was literally mobbed by about six or seven people, different groups of people coming over who wanted to show their support. I had a crazy period after that. And then this woman came out, it was obviously a Guardian reader. She had this sort of pinched face, you know, vegan-looking head, tight helmet, too tight, really.

It was cramming her cranium in. And she just came up and she said, you're all revolting, revolting people. And my daughter, it was like nine or ten, just went, include me. That was funny, but literally I could count on one hand. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't happen. It's a Twitter thing. And then the mainstream media assume, because it's blowing up at me all the time, that's what the public think.

But they don't. Not in my experience. I mean, maybe they all do, and they just lie to my face, but that's not the British way. So I think that Twitter is a fantastic tool, but it also skews a lot of things. Like I said, it makes people assume all sorts of things are going to happen. which never happened.

And it also creates an atmosphere around high-profile people, which often bears no relation to the truth. J.K. Rowling is hated on Twitter. But I bet you 90% of the British public probably agree with it. Well, certainly agree. Probably more, yeah. And they look at what happened with the rapist in Scotland. And they think, well, that's exactly what she was talking about.

Exactly. That's it. Right there. That's why she's right. And yet for expressing her opinions and turning up at an event two doors down, the windows of this place got bashed in. I don't know you've covered on your... Well, we had James on the show to talk about it, yeah.

Really outrageous. Outrageous. And to me, the hub of those particular types of opinions seems to be the BBC. Now, where do you think the BBC goes from here? It's pretty simple. I actually think what they should do is have a license fee for the BBC News and Current Affairs.

and all the things that come off that. And if you want to pay it, it's voluntary, like it is for Amazon, Netflix, all the rest of it. But if you want to get pretty unparalleled news coverage, largely done, I think, in an impartial way, albeit by a lot of people who often in their own lives are not remotely impartial. So there's a slight bias, which comes from the fact, I always joke, you could shoot a harpoon around the BBC newsroom and not hit a conservative. But I do think that most of their output is pretty down the line. but I would take news and current affairs and charges a description for that

and everything else just make it completely commercial right sport entertainment why shouldn't it be I mean they all day long on match of the day for example the idea Gary Denicka a football presenter can't express an opinion and the current rules are so vague about non-news people was Laura Coonsberg or Hugh Edwards the main news people at BBC of course they can't express news opinions Gary Denicka you know standing up as he would see it for refugees. Really? Is that going to have any material effect on how people vote in this country? No.

What it did do, actually, was raise a big light on the policy, which probably hasn't worked out for the Conservatives quite how they hoped, because it shone a light on some of the problems with the policy. But as for Gary's ears, a friend of mine, full declaration, but I would say that if it was a right-wing presenter. I mean, there aren't many who admit to doing that. But if it was somebody who agreed with the small boat's policy, for example, I would defend their right to have that opinion. I actually wrote a column saying, I don't agree with what Gary said, actually.

I think he's very naive about a lot of this. And when you've got whatever it is, 30 or percent of all the people coming over on small boats turned out to be young economic migrants from Albania, a safe country, clearly the system is deeply flawed. And you should be able to say that. And so a lot of the woke left refused to accept even that. demonstrable fact, which I think is ridiculous. But in Gary's case, obviously you shouldn't have compared it to 30s Germany. I just have a rule of thumb. Just try and leave Hitler.

I'm trying to leave Hitler and the Nazis out of it. Pick a general comparison. Just anybody. Anybody, anybody. And then you get ludicously when people start comparing him to Putin. And you're like, well, what's the difference? So I think it's all a bit crazy. But at the heart of it is free speech.

And I think the BBC's problem really is the license fee is anachronistic. My son's not going to pay a license fee. But it's not. Pierce, before we wrap up and ask you a final question, another friend of yours, or maybe former friend of yours, looks like he's going to run again. Donald? Donald.

Big Donald. Yeah. He's running here. What do you think about that? Is that going to be a good thing for America? I think for the world. I'm hearing the same stuff I heard in 2015, that he hasn't got a cat in hell's chance for winning.

Absolutely he's got a chance of winning. He wins a Republican nomination, and that's probably going to be the toughest challenge he has. I would say that cyclically, are people going to want another four years of Joe Biden, given how old he already seems? And doddery, has to be unkind for a moment, but he is doddery. He's 80. He'll be 82 at the election, 86 at the end of his next term if he runs again. I don't think people will vote for that over someone like Trump, who's never had a drink in his life, never had a cigarette, never had a drug.

So for mid-70s, he's unbelievably full of energy. I mean, crazy compared to Biden. So I think he would beat Biden actually this time. And all he's got to do is get the nomination, but I don't think he can get the nomination. I think Republicans are going to veer to someone like Governor Ronda Santis in Florida. I think. But with Trump, everything's unpredictable. Is it going to be a good thing for the world?

Well, look, with Trump, I always felt if you took away all the rhetoric and the tweeting. If you took away all the things that make Donald Trump, Donald Trump. Take all the things that come out of his mouth, which make him very electable, as we saw. Remember, 10 million more people voted from second time around than first. So we took four years look at him and like what they saw in America. He still got beaten, but he had the second highest number of votes in history second time, right? So we've got to get these things into perspective. And I spent a lot of time in Middle America doing crime documentaries in Alabama and, you know, Arkansas and, you know, all these places, Miami and Dallas.

And you get a very different view of Trump when you're down there to the one you get in New York and L.A. I always say that. I wouldn't put it past him. He's got a lot of legal stuff going on and who knows where that all goes. But I've not seen a real smoking gun yet with him, which could, I think, bring him down or prevent him becoming potentially. I mean, look, can you imagine if you won again, the inauguration speech, the gloating that would go on? It would be literally insufferable. But he could do it.

I'd never bet against it. One thing I've learned with Trump, he's a very, he's a very, he's. He's got extraordinary charisma. And I don't say that necessarily is a great compliment. You know, you've had very malevolent political leaders. You've had extraordinary charisma. I don't want to mention him, but Hitler would be one, right? I thought you were going to say Jeremy Corbyn.

Well, he didn't have charisma. But you have malevolent dictators like Hitler and others who, Mussolini, they've all got great charisma. And that enables them to inspire a big following. Trump has that. He's not as malevolent, certainly, as those two were. But he can be quite malevolent some of the things he does. But it's often with him more the way he says stuff.

Than what his actual policies are. It's actual policies. He simply took him on policy. They were quite popular with people. Control your borders, lower taxes, you know, be America first. I mean, if you don't think most Americans go along with all that, they do. So I think that he, his problem is what comes out of his mouth and what comes off his fingers. That's been the problem with him.

So I think it's everything to play for. If you're going to beat him as a Republican candidate, then I think you're definitely going to have what it takes to be president because the biggest battle they're going to face. And they get on that first debate stage, whoever it is, they know Trump is basically King Kong. And he's going to try and smash it all down one by one. And it's whether any of them can beat him.

That's going to be fascinating to watch. Did you like him? Or do you like him? I do like him. Yeah. He does things that I have. hate, but then I think I've got a lot of friends like that. There are lots of people like that who I like, but they do stuff I don't like, you know. So I just don't, I don't think he's the devil

as some people think, and he's certainly not as angelic as some of his more diehard supporters think. I think he's somewhere in between. But I would say to my liberal friends, on migrants, for example, How many migrants did Barack Obama deport in eight years? And there's always a stunned silence. And then I say, well, give me a number. And this is people from the smart crowd here and in America. And then they start guessing and they go, in eight years, I don't know, 100,000. Someone else would go half a million.

Someone will say 10, you know, because that's the presumption. Barack Obama must have been a really nice guy with migrants. And the actual answer is 3 million migrants. deported under Obama, which is the highest prerata of any president ever. And he was known as Deporter-in-Chief in Mexico. He campaigned in 0809 to shut down Guantanamo Bay, because as a legal brain, he thought this was unconscionable, and it's still open. He dropped more bombs in his last year than I think any American president in modern

history. He launched all the secret drone programs. There's another way you can skin this cat with Obama being actually doing some pretty bad stuff that liberals gave him a pass for and Trump doing a lot of good things amid all the mayhem which he doesn't get enough credit for you know I would look at what he did I mean he didn't go to war in four years pretty amazing the only Jimmy Carter in modern times has been another president that could say that he always said to me as the sort war was too expensive which is the Trump way looking at it would be about people dying it's just too many too expensive but you know

but to his credit America didn't just start invading places when he was president He took on ISIS very effectively. You know, you'd look at the way that perhaps Putin and Jim Jong-un and others reacted to Trump and behaved around him. It's an interesting point. Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if Trump had been present? I'm not sure about the answer to that question. Certainly worth thinking about because he was unpredictable. And it's a great asset, actually, for an American president to be unpredictable.

Biden is very predictable. Yeah. Peter. Pears, well, thank you so much. It's been a great chat. We're going to ask you a few questions from our supporters that only they will get to see the answer to. But before we do that, our final question is always the same. What is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society? And I know that you talk about everything you think. What is the one thing that we are not talking about? As a society that you really think we are not talking about that. I think the biggest crisis facing young people is mental health. And what we're not talking about is the best way to combat mental health problems. I'm not talking about diagnosable mental illness, I'm not talking about clinical depression and things like that. I'm talking about this epidemic of anxiety.

And I think we're going about it completely the wrong way. I would like to have the mental health debate completely reframed into a constant barrage of influential high-profile people talking about, as I've done in this interview, about mental strength and resilience and thick skin and dealing with life's problems. I'd like the Rocky Balboa speech to his son played on loop in schools every morning at assembly. I'm serious, right? Instilling kids that normal life shit is not life ending. Because what's happened in the last few years,

the more I've noticed that we talk about everyone being mentally ill, and suffering from acute anxiety and kids being depressed and all these things, the more we've talked about it, I've just noticed, the more of it there's been. The more anxious they've got, the more depressed they've got, almost like they're all kind of wallowing now in this world of misery, that they're constantly being told there's things wrong with them, rather than celebrating what might be right about them, and focusing them on that and getting them out of this thinking.

I mean, the number of young kids now, a university, taking antidepressant medication is terrifying or anti-anxiety medication. I was young, we didn't even have those things. You had to have a thicker skin just to get through the day, right? And now it's just like there's a constant crutch. But I don't like the narrative from the top down. All these celebrities talking all the time about, I nearly killed myself. I nearly did, you know, I've had acute depression.

I've got OCD, I've got business, I've got. got PTSD. All of them have got 20 things wrong with them. And they talk about it all the time. And then all these young, impressionable people are looking and watching this and hearing it, thinking, oh yeah, I've got that, I've got that, I've got that. Self-diagnosing, hitting Google. And then before you know it, they're all medicated up. That's what's going on. So I would like that narrative to change. I couldn't agree with you more, man. And it's actually one of the reasons that I oppose wokeness so much is that it's training people to be fragile. Yes. Well, it's telling them not only to be fragile, but that you will be

celebrated for it and there's money in them their fragile hills. You can be a celebrity and a success story just by saying, I've got all these things wrong with me. Yeah. It's a great point to finish on. Pierce, thank you so much for coming on the show. I recommend everybody get the book, of course, and we

will see you very shortly with some questions from our local supporters. But for now, thank you for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon. Another brilliant episode like this one, or a show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's always available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys.

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