-
Unknown A
Piers Morgan. Thank you. Sorry. Telling off color jokes off camera. Thank you so much.
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Unknown B
No, my pleasure.
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Unknown A
We are in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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Unknown B
We are.
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Unknown A
I'm not even gonna ask you how you wound up here, but I'm glad to see you.
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Unknown B
Well, we're both here for the same reason, actually.
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Unknown A
We've both gone into the oil business.
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Unknown B
Yes.
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Unknown A
I never. Yeah. So I want to ask you, I want to start just on a very hostile note. Okay. Because I feel like that's a good way to frame that. Good.
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Unknown B
Let's start with. Immediately, continue.
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Unknown A
Zelensky is a hero. How could you say.
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Unknown B
I don't agree with you about him or Ukraine? I went, I went to interview him in, in Kiev and is an extraordinary story. Obviously, this comedian who becomes president having played a. The piano comedian who was a president in a. In a comedy show. Right. And I've seen what you said about it. I mean, what's interesting to me on a bigger picture about Ukraine, Russia, your views, a lot of conservative views in America is that 30 years ago, there would have been no element of resistance from the conservative side about taking on a Russian dictator who'd invaded a European country. I know it's a lot more complicated. I know the history, but a lot of very smart people on a lot of people you've interviewed and, you know, I do learn a lot each time I talk to them about all the history. Obviously, my brother was a British army colonel.
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Unknown B
My sister married a British army colonel. They've all engaged in conflicts around the world. And so it's complicated. There's no doubt that on the Russian side, they believe they were provoked into doing this. I know that you have sympathy with that view. There's also no doubt from the Ukrainian side that they believe since the 90s, they've been this sovereign, democratic country, albeit not perfect, you think deeply flawed. I think they've been imperfect, trying to improve. And Zelensky has actually, I think, been a force for good. Not bad. But ultimately, what's happened now is that you have a situation. Whereas Donald Trump told me recently, you know, the. It's just the mowing fields now where you have thousands of young men being killed, often on a daily basis, both sides. And no one's winning this war, it seems to me, and if anyone is going to win it, it's likely to be Russia, not Ukraine.
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Unknown B
And then what happens? And that concerns me enormously. If the west allows Putin to just take the land he's taken, what guarantee do we have he won't try and take the rest Of Ukraine. He took Crimea, he took. He's back for more. I think he wants the whole of Ukraine. I think he won't stop there if he's allowed to get it. I think he's a pretty ruthless, evil Russian dictator.
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Unknown A
How are we defining just to find the term so we can follow this? What's a dictator?
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Unknown B
A dictator, to me is somebody. Well, I would start by saying you have no respect for democratic norms. A free and fair election.
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Unknown A
So, like, an unelected leader would be a dictator?
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Unknown B
Well, you wouldn't argue that Putin, for example, has free and fair elections.
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Unknown A
No, I. I've never. I'm not that interested, actually, you know, in. Not really. It's not my country. I'm interested in my leaders, whether, you know, they have the consent of. Of their people. It's not of great interest to me whether. I do think Putin's, like, way more popular than, you know, Joe Biden to his people. Yes. More popular in Russia than Biden was ever popular.
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Unknown B
I wouldn't dispute that.
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Unknown A
But why.
-
Unknown B
Why are you so against Zelensky?
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Unknown A
No, I'm just trying to understand when you. You dismiss Putin as a dictator, which. Totally fair, I guess, but I'm just trying to understand what you mean by dictators. So the first criterion for dictatorship is that you're not elected. And what else? Because Zelensky's obviously not elected either.
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Unknown B
Yeah, you're.
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Unknown A
So I'm just trying to kind of figure out what you're talking about.
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Unknown B
Well, your comparison with Zelenskyy and Putin over the last two years, I found baffling because you seem to think there's some moral equivalence between the two. And Zelenskyy hasn't illegally invaded another country. Do you not have a problem with what.
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Unknown A
Hold on. I just want to know what a dictator is. I just want to know. I mean, you know, maybe he's a better guy than Putin or whatever, and you could say some things about one or nothing, but, like, if we're just going to define dictator, the first feature of a dictator is he's not elected. So Zelensky's not elected. He's also. Well, he's banned a religious denomination. He's murdered his political opponents. He has banned a language group. Those all seem like features of dictatorship to me. Now he has the support of the British intelligence agencies. That doesn't mean he's not a dictator, though. That sounds like a dictator. I mean, if I gave you a piece of paper and I'm like, here are some qualities of a European leader, you would say well, that guy. That's not legitimate. That guy's a dictator. I can't support that.
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Unknown A
But his name's Zelensky, and he was once a comedian, and he does my show. So he's not a dictator. I think it's a dictator.
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Unknown B
Well, I would argue that if you look at the history of Ukraine since the 90s, since it became a want of a better phrase, democratic country, as they would say. Well, I mean, by the same criteria, you support Putin being popular in his country. I think just under 90% of Ukrainians voted for it. You wouldn't dispute that.
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Unknown A
Well, first of all, the country had a coup sponsored by the United states government, the CIA, in 2014. So everything that happened subsequent to that, I don't think we could call part of the democratic process. But just. Zelensky personally is not elected. He's not an elected leader. He rules by force. There's no election that gives him legitimacy. So that's not a defense of Putin. It's merely an attack on the idea that Putin's the only dictator in this contest. How is Zelensky not a dictator?
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Unknown B
Do you think Putin's a dictator?
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Unknown A
I guess. Yeah. I mean, I guess. I mean, if I stand up outside the Kremlin and say, down with Vladimir Putin, I'm possibly in trouble. That's why I don't live in Russia.
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Unknown B
Right. I certainly think that Ukraine has had a lot of corruption.
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Unknown A
No, no, but is Zelenskyy legitimate? How is he legitimate if he's not elected? How could you support an unelected leader?
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Unknown B
Well, he's the president of a country.
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Unknown A
Well, he calls himself that, but there's no election that made him president. He blew past the election and said, oh, there's a war. I can't. We can't have an election. We're gonna change the constitution. So how is that a legitimate leader? How could you support something like that that seems, I don't know, like a dictatorship?
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Unknown B
Well, I would categorize my support for him as supporting him against an illegal invasion by Russia.
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Unknown A
So this is. This is like why we support Stalin against Hitler, because, well, in a way, we had. So Stalin wants to be good, but, no, Stalin's also a dictator. So, like, how about we just don't support dictators if we're against supporting dictators? Or you could take my position, which is, I don't want a dictatorship in my own country because I live in a free country. But we're going to have relations with the country that helps us most up to a certain limit. We're not going to like, be allies with Stalin because that's too evil. We're not, you know, Winston Churchill or, you know, FDR or something. We're not gonna go that far. But in general, we will deal with countries that help us. But when we start having moral conversations about other countries, then we have to stick by our own standards. And by your standard, you're supporting a dictator.
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Unknown A
I wonder how you can do that. Pierce Born.
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Unknown B
I'm not saying they're morally pure in Ukraine. I'm not saying they're not riddled with.
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Unknown A
But how is he not a dictator?
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Unknown B
No, no, here's my point to you. My defense of the bloodthirsty dictator.
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Unknown A
Bloodthirsty dictator.
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Unknown B
My defense of them is based on the illegal invasion by Russia. You and I can argue about whether Russia was goaded and provoked into doing that. I do not think anything justifies what they actually did.
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Unknown A
Okay, that's a totally fair position. I mean, I guess I disagree, sort of. But I don't think what you're saying is crazy at all.
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Unknown B
But the point I was making, how.
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Unknown A
Is that more illegal than running a country without an election and banning a religious denomination? I don't understand that. So yeah, you could certainly say Putin did a lot of bad things. I would readily agree to that from the extent, to the extent I understand it. But we're supporting my government. And your government particularly are supporting this dictator in Ukraine who's oppressing Christians, who is banning people's native language and books in their native language. He's a book burner. And like, that's totally cool. Cuz we hate Putin. That's not totally cool, is it?
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Unknown B
So would you just let Putin take Ukraine?
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Unknown A
I would say let's have an election in Ukraine and let the Ukrainian people elect their own leader and get rid of the midget dictator who now oppresses them. Zelenskyy. And I would definitely not support a guy who's not elected as a democratic figure because by definition he's not. By definition, I don't care who his enemies are. He's not worth calling a beacon of democracy if he doesn't even have. Why not have an election in Ukraine today? Because we've got a war. We had elections in our country during the Second World War. So did you, like, why not hold him to democratic standards?
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Unknown B
I've got no problem with saying you should have an election.
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Unknown A
What about banning a Christian denomination?
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Unknown B
Yeah, I don't agree with any of those things.
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Unknown A
Well, how could we ever support that?
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Unknown B
Because ultimately we're Paying for that. Because ultimately we have to make a calculation about whether we're happy with Russia invading. What is a sovereign European democratic country?
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Unknown A
It's not a sovereign country. It was controlled by the United States. Well, they installed their government in a coup in 2014, but they have a puppet of the United States and Great Britain. They are not sovereign.
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Unknown B
Do you think they're a democracy?
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Unknown A
Well, their leader's not elected, so by definition, they're not a democracy. It may be a great place to vacation, or they've got, you know, we're getting a lot of money from, you know, defense deals, or they've got pretty women. Lots of great things you could say about the Ukrainians. They're actually great people, from what I can tell. I know a bunch of them. They're awesome, but they're definitely not a democracy.
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Unknown B
Should Putin just take the land?
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Unknown A
No.
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Unknown B
So what happens?
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Unknown A
I don't know. We should stop paying for the slaughter of the entire Ukrainian population because they don't know.
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Unknown B
I mean, either he's allowed to take it or he isn't. Either we now say, yes, you.
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Unknown A
Why is it up to us? I don't understand. We're not.
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Unknown B
Well, who else can stop it?
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Unknown A
Well, I don't know. I mean, when, you know, Congo invades its neighbors, like, it's not axiomatic that we should be involved.
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Unknown B
When Saddam invaded Kuwait, why did America go and support that?
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Unknown A
Because there's oil.
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Unknown B
Did you support that?
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Unknown A
Well, I was in college and drunk.
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Unknown B
Did you basically agree with that?
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Unknown A
Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of diet okay to drink beer in the morning.
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Unknown B
Do you think, looking back at it, was it right to do what America did with the allies? British were there, too.
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Unknown A
I don't know.
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Unknown B
Expel him from Kuwait. It wasn't a NATO country.
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Unknown A
Well, that was. I mean, that's the kind of war that, in theory, I would support. You say we have, you know, energy interests in this region. We want to keep it stable. When you start getting theoretical, like we're preserving democracy by supporting dictators, we say energy from.
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Unknown B
From Ukraine, though this is an energy component to that.
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Unknown A
Maybe. I don't see them.
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Unknown B
What I'm thinking is that the.
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Unknown A
I don't like, is the moral overlay because it's fatuous and fraudulent. He's not. This is not a democratic country. He is a dictator. We've supported many dictators who supported Mobutu in Zaire, which no longer exists because he was a bulwark against the Soviets. We thought in a million others.
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Unknown B
But you've already Said that you would support the expulsion of Saddam from Kuwait. I don't know that I would buy America. Well, you just said you did. Right, so.
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Unknown A
No, I said I was drunk in college. I haven't really thought. I said. But theoretically, you could make the case.
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Unknown B
Because they had United States.
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Unknown A
We need cheap energy. We're going to go to war to preserve cheap energy. You know, that's not a crazy thing to say. Maybe I could support that.
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Unknown B
Right. So what's the difference? I'd argue between that and what's happened with Russia and Ukraine.
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Unknown A
Well, because we need Ukraine's energy.
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Unknown B
We need Ukraine's wheat. We do. 25% of the world's wheat comes out of Ukraine.
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Unknown A
I'm aware. Which is why you probably don't want to kill all of its farmers and sell all of its farmland, which is what we've allowed to happen. Zelensky, we're not getting.
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Unknown B
The Russians are.
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Unknown A
Well, no, this war wouldn't exist if it weren't for the money in arms that we're sending to Ukraine. It would have been over in one day. It never would have started if we hadn't.
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Unknown B
When you say over, what do you mean? What would have happened?
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Unknown A
I don't think. I think it's very clear, and I don't know that anyone would disagree with this, that Russia would not have invaded Eastern Ukraine if the Biden administration hadn't sent Kamala Harris to the Munich Security Conference in February of 2022 to say to Zelensky on camera, we're gonna make you a NATO country, meaning we're gonna put American NATO arms on the Russian border. Like, you would not allow Chinese. Your country probably would, but you shouldn't allow Chinese missiles in Scotland. Peering over Hadrian's Wall, aimed at London, you'd be like, no, it's our. You know, you can't do that on our border. And the Russians like, no, you can't do that in our border. And we're like, shut up. You're Russian. You have no right to determine what happens on your border. Piss off. But that actually happened.
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Unknown B
My point is, if the defense of expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was that we have energy interests in that country.
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Unknown A
No one ever said, and therefore we.
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Unknown B
Should kick him out. But that's obviously what we all knew, and it was done very quickly and competently by General Norman Schwarzkopf. And it was great, great military operation. But. But surely the principle and ideology is not different. And what's every. Every. Well, every Republican. Every Republican, they're idiots.
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Unknown A
They support The Ukraine.
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Unknown B
Hang on. No, I mean every Republican in 91 would have supported that conflict.
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Unknown A
Well, whether or not members of the Senate support something is supportive.
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Unknown B
And I can browse every Republican voter I think would have supported it 35 years ago. I'm just saying what's changed is a lot of Republican supporters now conservatives in America are against supporting Ukraine anymore. And I'm curious about that change in what has been, what, 35 years? There's been a real sea change. And it may be because Americans are understandably war weary. They're fed up with spending a lot of money on foreign wars, foreign conflicts. There's a good argument. America hasn't really won a foreign war since World War II. You know, you look at from Vietnam onwards, endless quagmires, endless problems, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on and so on. And I look at what's happened in Ukraine and I'm just looking at it pragmatically. Do we just let a Russian, do we let Russia, led at the moment by Vladimir Putin, who I would categorize as a dictator, or do we let him just take what he wants, even if he uses it and dresses it all up as.
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Unknown B
I'm doing this because I fear about NATO encroachment, which may well be. May well be his reasoning. May well be his reasoning. But many people think it's not his reasoning.
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Unknown A
Okay. Many people think. If I mentioned something like they think, why would you want to put you U.S. missiles? Because Russia's border. I don't understand. Because so obviously acceptable for any sovereign nation to tolerate.
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Unknown B
Here's the other part of the argument.
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Unknown A
He has nuclear weapons. Why would we want that?
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Unknown B
A lot of people, we have nuclear weapons too. A lot of the argument.
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Unknown A
You guys have nuclear weapons.
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Unknown B
Yeah, we do. Yes, we have nuclear weapons.
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Unknown A
Why?
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Unknown B
Why? Nuclear deterrent.
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Unknown A
Great Britain has nuclear weapons.
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Unknown B
Yes, we do.
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Unknown A
Do you think that's a good idea?
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Unknown B
Yes, absolutely.
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Unknown A
You know, why freaking me out?
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Unknown B
If Ukraine had nuclear weapons, they wouldn't have been invaded. Can we agree on that? We told them to give up their nuclear deterrent.
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Unknown A
Invaded. If the west hadn't said, we're going to use you as a staging ground for intimidating Russia. Like, why would we want to do that? Why not just allow. What we've done is pushed Russia into the Chinese.
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Unknown B
And many people would say, how does that help us? Many people in that region say, actually what's happened to Ukraine is precisely what. Why they should have been in NATO. Because if they had been in NATO, Putin wouldn't have invaded them.
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Unknown A
Okay.
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Unknown B
And also they say People say that also say if we hadn't collectively basically bullied Ukraine into giving up their nuclear deterrent, he wouldn't have done it either because they would have had a nuclear weapon to defend themselves.
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Unknown A
This is super crazy.
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Unknown B
Is it crazy?
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Unknown A
Yes, it is crazier than your theories. Well, actually, I, I don't, I don't, I don't think. I mean, I have a million theories, but these are not among them. It's not a theory to say that Russia moved into eastern Ukraine because the United States wouldn't give up on pushing for Ukraine admission into NATO when NATO did not want Ukraine the criteria for admission. So.
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Unknown B
But I think you're only giving half a picture. I'm not, I'm not oblivious to that. But I would add this component to it, which is also not surely beyond the realms of fantasy. Vladimir Putin knows that a lot of that part of eastern Ukraine, they still speak Russian. He has resented the breakup of the Soviet Union, famously, and that actually he wanted to take back land that he believes banning people should belong to Russia. Should belong to Russia.
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Unknown A
Okay. In general, possessions are overrated, but there are some things you really would not want stolen. And to me, family shotguns, including a whole bunch of them I got from my father, are at the top of that list. So I keep my dad's shotguns in a Liberty safe because it's safe and it's also really attractive. Liberty Safe just created something really cool. It's a limited edition safe that commemorates the inauguration of Donald Trump, America's 47th president. The original design celebrates Trump and his swearing in while upholding Liberty's commitment to building their safes right here in the United States. And they went all out on this one. It's the special 47 edition. It features a one of a kind artwork that pays homage to the President. It's very, very cool. Not all safes are created equal. There are plenty out there. And a lot of the manufacturers slap an American sounding name on the label.
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Unknown A
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Unknown B
Do you accept that?
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Unknown A
I think it's true of. Look, I'm not an expert. I've interviewed Putin. You know, I've been there a couple of times. I don't speak Russian, so I hope I don't get over my skis and pretend to know things that I don't. But what's very obvious is they have an interest and have for over 300 years in controlling Crimea. Crimea, where their fleet is based. They had a referendum in Crimea. The people of Crimea are Russian and want to remain part of the Russian Federation. So he didn't take Crimea. It's Russian. It's filled with Russians. They had a referendum that nobody disputes. People should be allowed to choose their own government. That's the basic precept of democracy.
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Unknown B
You did take Crimea.
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Unknown A
Okay. Should people be allowed to choose their own government?
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Unknown B
Yes.
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Unknown A
Okay, so the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to align with the Russian government. So that's illegitimate. Why?
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Unknown B
When did they do that?
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Unknown A
Right after the coup in 15, I think.
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Unknown B
Right, so after they've been invaded. Why do you think. Why do you think. Why do you think so many Russians vote for Putin in Russia?
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Unknown A
I don't think it was invaded. Russia has controlled Crimea for 300 years.
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Unknown B
Yeah, but it was.
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Unknown A
It is.
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Unknown B
It wasn't. It wasn't Russia's. And in the same way that. That. That you say with the people of Crimea voted overwhelming in favor. Of course they did. They would have been killed if they hadn't. Same way as in Russia.
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Unknown A
In a secret ballot.
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Unknown B
The same way Russia.
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Unknown A
Wait, wait, wait, hold on. So you're saying that the election was conducted duress and people's votes were known to the Russian government? I don't think that's true. I think it was a secret.
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Unknown B
I'm saying it's exactly the same way that people in Russia vote for Putin. You think it's an overwhelming show of support for him? A lot of it is driven by fear.
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Unknown A
Okay, that may or be true, I don't know. But you don't think that's true. The only measure we have of popular consent is an election. And when conducted by secret ballot, if we think it's not being. It's not the 2020 election. It's like kind of a legitimate election. That's what we go with. And I'm. Is there. Have you ever met anybody who believes that if a free and fair referendum were held once again in Ukraine, that Ukraine would vote the Ukraine? I mean, rather than Crimeans would vote to align with the Zelenskyy government in Kyiv. I don't think so. It was 97%. Look, I'm just saying self determination is the core idea in democracy. They don't have it in Ukraine because they haven't had an election. They ignore the election because it's run by a dictator called Zelensky. If you wanted to say he's a dictator, that's fine.
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Unknown A
You support a dictator. The US Your government has supported many dictators. So is mine. That's kind of a fact of life. There are very few democratically elected leaders. Sometimes even our leaders aren't really democratically elected, as you know. I just don't like the moral bullshit that attaches to all of this.
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Unknown B
That's fair enough.
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Unknown A
Where we tell the population we're on the side of democracy and he's Winston Churchill.
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Unknown B
I don't claim. I don't claim it's Mother Teresa against him.
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Unknown A
No, but you have, though. You've like, he's a marvelous person.
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Unknown B
I like him. I'm allowed to honor.
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Unknown A
I guess. You like dictators. I've never said a Putin. He's a marvelous person because, like, it's a little dictatory for me. I think he's really smart. I admire what he's done to Russia, but I'm not gonna sniff his jock because he's kind of a dictator. But you're like, oh, I love that Zelensky. He's so great.
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Unknown B
I do like him.
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Unknown A
How can you like a man who's a dictator?
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Unknown B
I don't think he's a dictator.
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Unknown A
In what sense? He's not elected. He rules by force. He rules with guns. He kills his opponents. He's assassinated a ton of people, including, you know, I know. Someone he tried to assassinate. Fact. How is that worth supporting? Do you feel a little guilty for supporting someone?
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Unknown B
No, I don't.
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Unknown A
Really?
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Unknown B
No. I think we should try and do more to help him win.
-
Unknown A
How rich do you think he's gotten from this?
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Unknown B
I have no idea.
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Unknown A
Does it bother you that he's gotten rich?
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Unknown B
He's not as rich as Vladimir Putin.
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Unknown A
Well, I mean, if all comparisons are to Putin, then all bets are off.
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Unknown B
Putin is. Putin is financially raped and pillaged his.
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Unknown A
Country for maybe, I don't know.
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Unknown B
Maybe.
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Unknown A
I don't. Okay, let's see.
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Unknown B
He's got a personal net worth of 100 billion ripples. Whatever.
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Unknown A
We would know that.
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Unknown B
But.
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Unknown A
Great. He does. He's evil. We'll just. We'll stick with that. But the question is, why would you Support personally. A dictator who's gotten rich on a war in his country, who bans a Christian denomination, and who murders his political.
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Unknown B
Well, he literally only been.
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Unknown A
Does that bother you at all?
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Unknown B
Well, he'd be living in his country for two years.
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Unknown A
He's done a lot of oppression in two years.
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Unknown B
He didn't get rich on corruption in two years.
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Unknown A
But can I ask you when you talked his last.
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Unknown B
Been doing this for 30 years.
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Unknown A
Why don't you have an election? Why don't you stop murdering your political opponents? Why don't you let people practice their Christian denomination? Why don't you let Russian speakers speak Russian and read Russian books? That's what non dictators do.
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Unknown B
You say any of that to Putin?
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Unknown A
Of course not.
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Unknown B
Why not?
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Unknown A
Because I'm not his friend. I don't have the relationship with Putin that you have with Zelensky. I didn't tweet after my interview. You're a very handsome man. I love you. I love you.
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Unknown B
I didn't call him a very handsome man.
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Unknown A
I think you did.
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Unknown B
I don't think he's a very handsome man.
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Unknown A
Hot. Hot is maybe what you said.
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Unknown B
I don't think I called him hot.
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Unknown A
Okay, well, you said I really admire.
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Unknown B
You and I think you asking me to ask all the questions Zelensky, you didn't ask.
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Unknown A
He's a personal friend of yours. I'm friends with Putin. I love this guy.
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Unknown B
I love personal friends with Zelensky. I admire.
-
Unknown A
Read your Twitter feed.
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Unknown B
I admire him.
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Unknown A
You can't fool me, period.
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Unknown B
You can't miscategorize me. I'm not a friend of his. I've only met him once. But I do admire his fortitude as a leader. I love the fact he stayed in Kiev when the Russians went in. He could have fled. Many would have done that position. Everyone thought the Russians would win in a few days. Yeah, they didn't.
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Unknown A
I agree.
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Unknown B
I do admire the fortitude that he showed as a lead, a leader. Those characteristics I like.
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Unknown A
Doesn't mean you called him a magnificent leader. In fact, I'm pretty sure I think he has been. Okay, so I'm just asking, since I didn't call Putin a magnificent leader at all.
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Unknown B
But nor did you ask him any of the questions that you want me to ask.
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Unknown A
I didn't feel like I didn't want to do what everybody does, which is, you're so bad, bad. Vladimir Putin, meaning I'm so good. I'm going to give you a moral extra. I'm like, whatever. It's your country. Country's actually doing great. I was super impressed by Moscow. I recommend it to everybody just because it's beautiful and orderly, which I like not moving there. They don't have freedom of speech, which is a prerequisite for me, but I didn't feel like that was my job. I just want to hear what the guy says. We're fighting a war against him and no one's heard him.
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Unknown B
Why do you believe him?
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Unknown A
I don't know that I do.
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Unknown B
You know, you believe his reasoning.
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Unknown A
Believe something.
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Unknown B
You believe the reasoning for the war. You're fully all in on the Russian.
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Unknown A
There's kind of no question about that.
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Unknown B
Well, questions.
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Unknown A
I don't really think so. I don't think any informed person. I mean, Bill Burns, only 10% of.
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Unknown B
People in eastern Ukraine actually want Russia to take them over. Okay.
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Unknown A
I don't know how we know that, but I believe that. But it doesn't.
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Unknown B
It's a poll. Same poll. You're quoting me about Crimea.
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Unknown A
Well, that was a poll. It was an election. Which are critical to democracy. I don't know if you knew that.
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Unknown B
But the vast majority.
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Unknown A
You're a magnificent leader.
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Unknown B
An election is a poll. They're called polls.
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Unknown A
An election is a poll. A poll is not an election. Right, so there are different criteria for polls.
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Unknown B
Well, a poll can be an election. Yes.
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Unknown A
Now we're getting metaphysical. But I would just say. I would just say if you believe in democracy, you believe in elections. If you have a leader who's not elected, he's not a democratic leader, he's a dictator, which is. Okay, that's fine. It's a foreign country. I wouldn't call any dictator magnificent just because it seems a little.
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Unknown B
How could Zelensky have an election in the middle of a war? Out of interest?
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Unknown A
I don't know. How did, how did Franklin Roosevelt do that in the middle of the Second World War? How did he do that?
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Unknown B
Because no one had invaded America. Okay, well, but how about the people could actually vote? Well, you've got half of half of.
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Unknown A
Ukraine making billions of dollars in Kiev today. How about the non occupied parts of the country just make a good faith effort to have an election. But he doesn't want to because I think he's pretty darn unpopular because he is a lackey of western powers who sold his country out. And Ukrainians know perfectly well that he's getting rich and so is the entire leadership. I was in Courchevel, France two weeks ago, which is probably the richest town in Europe. It's a ski town in France near Geneva and everybody at the Hermes store was Ukrainian using my money to buy $100,000 handbags. Nobody seems to care about that. I care because that's not freedom fighting, that's grifting. That's theft. And everybody in Europe knows that. And you know that too. You go to Romania, all their, you know, high end car dealerships are sold out because Ukrainians have bought the car.
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Unknown B
So to be clear, when.
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Unknown A
What the hell is this?
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Unknown B
So, okay, well, so when Putin invaded Ukraine, you'd have given him what he wants. Take whatever you want.
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Unknown A
Well, as I've, as I've said, and I really mean it from my heart, I mean, I have no kind of. I'm not getting rich from this. So I'm saying what I sincerely believe, which is pushing Ukraine to join NATO when NATO doesn't want Ukraine. There's no strategic reason, no actual reason to have Ukraine or to have NATO at all. We shouldn't have NATO at all.
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Unknown B
That's preposterous.
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Unknown A
What's the point of NATO? To keep the Soviets from invading Western Europe. Oh, well, it's been 35 years since they.
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Unknown B
To keep peace.
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Unknown A
How's that worked? To keep peace. We now have the bloodiest war in 80 years in the middle of Europe because of NATO. So how's this peacekeeping?
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Unknown B
Or you could argue, as many people do that actually the reason is because Ukraine wasn't in NATO. Had it been, Putin wouldn't have invaded.
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Unknown A
This is super crazy. This is like an addiction. And I've been through addiction, so I'm not judging at all. But it's like, I feel really shitty. I've got to have a glass of vodka to feel better.
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Unknown B
Are you mocking my mental health?
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Unknown A
I'm.
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Unknown B
Yes.
-
Unknown A
But I'm also saying that I've lived this so I know what it feels like. It's the thing that is killing you. It's truly killing you. Whether it's NATO or vodka, you become convinced it's saving you. So you wake up hungover and you're like, oh, I feel so bad. Give me a screwdriver. And if a screwdriver. You feel better and you don't realize that you're starting the cycle again.
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Unknown B
Would Putin have invaded Ukraine if it had been a member of NATO? No, he wouldn't have done. Because then America would have been obliged.
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Unknown A
Here's what I know for a fact. Putin said this for 20 years. Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. They will not accept that anymore. That we would accept Chinese missiles in Tijuana or you would accept Sri Lankan Missiles in Glasgow. You're just not going to accept that.
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Unknown B
NATO is a defensive organization.
-
Unknown A
How is it defensive?
-
Unknown B
Because it has never acted proactively. Aggressively.
-
Unknown A
Where were you when the Yugoslavia war was going on and they were bombing the shit out of Christians in Yugoslavia? Do you remember that? Yes, that was pretty offensive.
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Unknown B
NATO has always operated in a defensive capacity. How would.
-
Unknown A
Really? Yes, that's how they created Kosovo. Defensively.
-
Unknown B
It was defensive.
-
Unknown A
Oh, it was.
-
Unknown B
Yes, it was.
-
Unknown A
It was the aggressor there.
-
Unknown B
Well, no, my brother in law was literally there.
-
Unknown A
Just a minute. What you're saying is insane.
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Unknown B
It's not insane. NATO has never actually acted unilaterally. It's never attacked anybody without being attacked. It's always been defensive.
-
Unknown A
When. Okay, who in Yugoslavia attacked NATO? Look, just note, here's the point where you just submit defeat, bow your head and be like, I bow before superior knowledge. I totally got this wrong. I can't believe I had such a silly idea. I'm so.
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Unknown B
You think nice, good guys in Yugoslavia.
-
Unknown A
I'm saying they're nice good guys.
-
Unknown B
We're just saying that was not a.
-
Unknown A
Defensive action, that was an offensive action. Bill Clinton's like, I don't like what you're doing. I'm going to use NATO to kill you. And he did. And then created Kosovo as a NATO.
-
Unknown B
Base because they were absolute genocidal.
-
Unknown A
They may have been naughty. I'm not defending their.
-
Unknown B
But that's what they were being defended against.
-
Unknown A
Who are we defending?
-
Unknown B
The Yugoslavians that were being pillaged and raped and murdered by other Yugoslavians? Yes.
-
Unknown A
Okay, this is getting intense.
-
Unknown B
But NATO is a defensive organization.
-
Unknown A
You can say it all you want. Just like you can say Zelensky's a beacon of democracy when he's not elected and he's banning parts of Christianity, but he's a dictator.
-
Unknown B
So just to be clear, just to.
-
Unknown A
Be honest about what things are, just.
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Unknown B
To be clear, you would have let Putin take what he wants. What's the alternative? When he invaded Ukraine?
-
Unknown A
So I try and deal, especially as I get older in the world of reality and achievable goals. And here's the reality. Russia is a nuclear armed power. It's the largest country on earth by land mass. It's also the remnants of a global empire. So they have a sense of themselves as a global player. And they are because of energy and resources in general uranium. I mean, they have a lot of resources the world needs. So they're a real country. They're not Afghanistan. You can't just tell them what to do get in line, bitch. They're not going to accept that, okay? So they have said since the fall of the Soviet Union, you cannot have NATO on our border because it's a critical national interest of ours. So unless you want to risk nuclear war, which we are now doing, you can't move NATO to their border whether you want to or not.
-
Unknown A
That's just a fact. And if you do, you're going to get a war. We've known that since the fall of the Soviet Union. And we promise not to do it. And we tried to bring. He. He asked to be in NATO. In 2000, he asked George W. Bush to be NATO. Nobody contests that. This evil dictator who wants to invade Liechtenstein asked to be in NATO. Why wouldn't we let him in NATO? Why did Condi Rice say, oh, it can't be a NATO. Why do we have morons like Condi Rice in our US Government? I don't know.
-
Unknown B
So when he invaded there, what would you let him do?
-
Unknown A
We're in a hall of mirrors now. Look, not really, okay?
-
Unknown B
We're in a very clear moral.
-
Unknown A
We.
-
Unknown B
Moral moment in history where Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. It is a European country, and we side with it. Has been independent from Russia since the mid-90s.
-
Unknown A
Assassinate people.
-
Unknown B
But what do you do?
-
Unknown A
You learn moral about this. Look, in the real world, we do things we can achieve. And if we can't achieve something, we don't try and do it because millions will die as we're watching.
-
Unknown B
So what do you. What do you let him do that?
-
Unknown A
Well, you start with a realistic understanding of the limits of your power, which was all adults have to do. My neighbors may offend me. I want them to turn down the music. I can't just go over there and shoot them. I just can't. It's against the law, and I'll pay a penalty if I do that. So I have to negotiate with them. Will you please turn down the music? Shut up. No, please do it. If they won't maybe threaten them like, I live in the material real world, right?
-
Unknown B
But once. Once actually he's invaded, what do you do?
-
Unknown A
Then you have to decide, like, is it worth it? Is it worth it?
-
Unknown B
So that's interesting to me.
-
Unknown A
A million Ukrainians are gonna die. Their farmland's gonna be sold to BlackRock. The Ukrainian nation will cease to exist. They'll flood it with third worlders.
-
Unknown B
So what do you do? What do you do?
-
Unknown A
What would I do?
-
Unknown B
Yes.
-
Unknown A
I would say, like, if I took over the government in January of 2022, and we're on the verge of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. I would say, guys, it's not worth trying to impose something that this country will never accept, because if we try to do that, we'll get a war.
-
Unknown B
Do you let Putin take Ukraine?
-
Unknown A
You don't let anybody do anything you realistically assess.
-
Unknown B
You either do or you don't do.
-
Unknown A
Because you're gambling with the other people's lives. By the way, if. If a million Brits had died, you might have different perspective. But it's very easy to be like, oh, more Ukrainians should die for the cause of democracy.
-
Unknown B
Let me assure you, if Russia invaded Britain, that would not be the view of the British people. Our view would be to fight to the last man and woman to kick him out. But my question really is.
-
Unknown A
You really think so?
-
Unknown B
My question is, you just got invaded.
-
Unknown A
Over the last 40 years and did nothing. So I don't think so. I don't think you would do that. I think you'd be like, we can't fight back because we have nuclear weapons but no real military. So we'd, like, negotiate. Just like all conquered nations do, they negotiate on the basis of reality. What can I actually achieve?
-
Unknown B
But respectfully, you're not answering my question, which you don't have to because you're interviewing me in this bit. But the question is, once Putin invaded, do you let him take the whole country? What do you do?
-
Unknown A
If I were in charge.
-
Unknown B
Yes.
-
Unknown A
If I had come in. If I came in In January of 2022, I would say to the State Department, I would say to the NATO leadership.
-
Unknown B
I'm talking about February, end of February, early March.
-
Unknown A
I'm cleaning up a mess caused by the previous administration.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. So assume it's happened.
-
Unknown A
Let's say I'm Donald Trump, who's actually coming in in that exact circumstance.
-
Unknown B
Right. And he's now wrestling with this very problem.
-
Unknown A
He certainly is. And it's.
-
Unknown B
He doesn't want to give Putin the win. And that's my point to you. Do you actually want him to win?
-
Unknown A
Well. Well, I mean, if your lodestar is whether other people win, you will lose.
-
Unknown B
Right.
-
Unknown A
Okay. That's a shitty way to go through life. If I'm trying to prevent you a win. No, I'm trying to win. I'm trying to win for my wife, my children, my neighborhood, my country.
-
Unknown B
But once he's invaded.
-
Unknown A
I don't care whether you win or.
-
Unknown B
Once he's invaded, what do you do?
-
Unknown A
Your victory has nothing to do with anything. What I care about is My.
-
Unknown B
You're in this as much as we are.
-
Unknown A
No, no. I care about my country and whether we win, what's good for us, because I'm in charge. My country in charge of nothing.
-
Unknown B
Is it good for America that Putin wins?
-
Unknown A
This whole thing has been a disaster for. We're lose the US Dollar over this, okay? Because we follow the advice of people like Boris Johnson who have no skin in the game whatsoever, but they get to feel like a moral charge, be like, we're on the side of democracy, okay? It's. It's so infuriating to make it. I'm sorry to be so mean to the Brits because it's our fault.
-
Unknown B
We can take it.
-
Unknown A
In fact, we started this, but you guys went along like little Pekingese. You shouldn't done that.
-
Unknown B
But why are you not answering my question?
-
Unknown A
What would I do if I were Trump right now?
-
Unknown B
No, no. Once he invaded Putin, what do you let him take?
-
Unknown A
Like, call Putin. Let him take.
-
Unknown B
I would say at that point, to.
-
Unknown A
What extent can you clean it up? You call Putin and you say, all right, this happened. First thing we're going to do is recognize it's not in our interest. Your interest, the world's interest, to have NATO missiles on your border. We don't want that. There's no reason to want that, because we don't want to drive you into the arms of China. You are really part of Europe and you should be part of the west, because the west is a Christian world that has a lot in common.
-
Unknown B
And what if he says culturally, religiously.
-
Unknown A
Linguistically, historically, and we want to be a bloc against the rising?
-
Unknown B
And he says, you know, obviously. And he says, actually, I want Ukraine.
-
Unknown A
If you're the leader of the United States, your number one goal is to keep Russia, the world's largest landmass with some of the world's deepest energy reserves, from relying on with China, which has too many people, not enough land, and not enough energy. So if they get together, they create a bloc that is bigger than you economically and militarily. So you cannot let that happen. That's number one goal. You cannot let that happen. And that retard in charge of our country just allowed that to happen because he hates the United States as an acted against its interests consistently from day one, 2020, to January 20, 2025, when he left. Thank God. So that's the goal. Do not allow, to the extent you can control it, do not allow Russia to align meaningfully with China. They have much more in common with us. They're part of Europe. You guys don't want to invent this.
-
Unknown B
I don't want to be pedantic.
-
Unknown A
You're not being pedantic.
-
Unknown B
What do you let Putin take?
-
Unknown A
I don't care. What I care about.
-
Unknown B
You don't care?
-
Unknown A
Well, I care, but what I care about is the balance of power in the world. And if the west finds itself in a place where it's got a much smaller collective economy and a much less powerful collective military than the east, then we're in serious trouble. There's no balance in the world. The Chinese are in charge of everything. And so you can't let that happen.
-
Unknown B
But if you roll over and you let Putin take what he wants over.
-
Unknown A
It'S all this, like, dick measuring contest.
-
Unknown B
Let me just respond.
-
Unknown A
Roll over.
-
Unknown B
Let me just respond. If you roll over, you let him take what he wants in Ukraine. Why should China not go and take what they want in Taiwan, for example? They would detect they are going to.
-
Unknown A
Take what they want in Taiwan.
-
Unknown B
I'm not sure they will, especially with Trump as president.
-
Unknown A
Part of China.
-
Unknown B
I don't.
-
Unknown A
Okay, why do we get to dictate what China does with Taiwan? Like, there's fears you'd be happy for.
-
Unknown B
Them to take back Taiwan.
-
Unknown A
I'm not happy. I'm not happy with any conflict ever. I hate violence. I'm a Christian. I'm just saying that great countries have spheres of influence. So Saudi Arabia, where we are now, everyone's like, oh, the Saudis are interfering in Yemen. Well, Yemen's right there. It's in their world. Like, they have an absolute interest in making sure that, like, nothing crazy goes on in Yemen. We have the same interest in Mexico and in Canada. And we have some crazy cross dressing prime minister in Canada. So we kick him out because they're on our border. That's what great powers do. That's what they've always done, is what they always will do. So it's totally fair for us to recognize that the countries around Russia, no, we shouldn't be invading or torturing them or oppressing them, of course, but that's their sphere. And big picture, holy smokes. You do not want the two largest powers in the world, apart from the United States, to get together and align against us.
-
Unknown B
Why do you support. Why do you support Israel against Hamas, for example? Why do you support America giving them billions of dollars?
-
Unknown A
Why? I don't.
-
Unknown B
You don't support Israel being supported by America?
-
Unknown A
I support Israel in the sense that I, I really like Israel. I brought my family on vacation.
-
Unknown B
Did you Agree with America supplying them with a lot of arms.
-
Unknown A
To the extent that it, that it helps the United States, I'm for it. Of course. I think what we need is.
-
Unknown B
So you do believe in America interfering in countries a long way away. It just depends which country. No, I, I, your principle, it doesn't really apply in Israel.
-
Unknown A
I'll articulate it for the third time just to be totally clear. I believe the United States, like every country, should, to the extent that it can act on behalf of its own people and their perceived interests, we can debate what those interests are.
-
Unknown B
But that doesn't apply in Israel.
-
Unknown A
I don't know what you mean.
-
Unknown B
America's supporting Israel because it's an ally.
-
Unknown A
I don't even know what those words mean. I'm just saying my personality.
-
Unknown B
They're an ally, right? I mean, they, they both know what.
-
Unknown A
That means to be an ally. I mean, we have no.
-
Unknown B
It means that when Israel want attack in Gaza and attack Hamas, America will help it because it's his own.
-
Unknown A
That's not what it means.
-
Unknown B
So it gives it billions of dollars.
-
Unknown A
Worth of be an ally. Okay. Fundamentally greater allies of my own children. When they come to me and say I want to do this, I assess whether it's good for them or not. And if I don't think it is, I don't support it.
-
Unknown B
All right?
-
Unknown A
Because they're my true allies. They're my children.
-
Unknown B
But why would you support America getting involved in Israel?
-
Unknown A
A country that's your ally says I want to do this does not mean axiomatically you support it. Maybe it's not good for you or me.
-
Unknown B
So do you support America supporting Israel to the tune of billions of dollars?
-
Unknown A
Depends if you can make what's in.
-
Unknown B
America's interest is what it's in all cases.
-
Unknown A
It's not just about Israel.
-
Unknown B
But do you support what's happening then in the support in the attacks in Gaza, for example? Because I don't see the difference between that and what's happening in Ukraine. This is a long way away from America. There's no direct involvement with America. Well, there's no, there's no mainland involvement with America. And yet you think it's right that America supports Israel. Well, put words in your mouth. But you don't think it's right.
-
Unknown A
Those are the words that came out of my mouth.
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Unknown B
You don't think it's right. America supports Ukraine.
-
Unknown A
Simple.
-
Unknown B
And Russia.
-
Unknown A
I have a simple solution. Let me explain what I think and then that way we'll get my wrong. We'll get Right to what I think. Am I wrong? I actually tuned out midway through. I'm not exactly sure.
-
Unknown B
You can't see that when I'm right.
-
Unknown A
I did.
-
Unknown B
I did because I'm right. You can't tune out.
-
Unknown A
I didn't follow when I'm right. No, it was more a lecture about what I think. And then I'm like, wait, I know what I think. I think it's expert on what I was. I think I'm the uncontested premiere of my own head.
-
Unknown B
That is true.
-
Unknown A
So I'm going to unload its contents on you right now.
-
Unknown B
Explain, tell you why. What is America's national interest in Israel?
-
Unknown A
I'll define the parameters as well, because I'm happier with that. I would say I support the right of all sovereign nations to act within what they believe is their own interest. Like we don't always know our own interest in our personal lives or between nations. Like, we think it's good for us, but it may not. Be the vodka in the morning analogy. Not good, actually. But I thought it was. Now I know it's not. But to the extent that we think we know, I think countries should act on behalf of their own citizens. That's the basic idea in democracy. Okay. And there's certainly a. You could make a case that whatever we're giving to Israel this year, in the form of direct aid, military assistance, loan guarantees, however we're doing it is good for the United States. I think you just have to make that case.
-
Unknown B
Why is it good for the United States?
-
Unknown A
Well, you could make that case, but why is it? I'm not convinced.
-
Unknown B
What is the case?
-
Unknown A
Well, I don't know. You'd have to be an advocate for it. You are a vociferous advocate for it. So why don't you tell me?
-
Unknown B
For what?
-
Unknown A
For USA to Israel in the current conflict.
-
Unknown B
Actually, I haven't expressed a view about that at all. I'm just curious about your. The difference.
-
Unknown A
You're not an Israel hater, are you?
-
Unknown B
Why do you hate? Not at all.
-
Unknown A
Why do you hate? Why are you attacking Israel?
-
Unknown B
I'd like.
-
Unknown A
I don't know why. Like what? What problem do you have with Israel, Pierce?
-
Unknown B
I have no problem with Israel like this.
-
Unknown A
They secretly hit Israel.
-
Unknown B
I have no problem with Israel whatsoever.
-
Unknown A
Feels like you do. Is Netanyahu a dictator?
-
Unknown B
Actually, I don't like Netanyahu. I think you should. I think you hate Israel. I think you should go. But that's what. Let me just ask you one more time. Hang on, hang on.
-
Unknown A
Now we're getting into. I'm not comfortable with this.
-
Unknown B
Here's my question.
-
Unknown A
Should I be platforming you? That's my question. You just said you don't like Netanyahu.
-
Unknown B
I'm trying to work out who's. Whose brand suffers more when we platform each other. But let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
-
Unknown A
I'm going to need a second.
-
Unknown B
One more time, just quietly, for the people at the back. You don't like America getting involved in helping Ukraine against Russia because there's no national interest for America in doing that in your eyes?
-
Unknown A
Well, there's a negative national. Okay, so I'm using the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency because of this war. All right, so no greater national.
-
Unknown B
That's your position. Is America first. That there's no interest for America shouldn't.
-
Unknown A
Be doing it every country.
-
Unknown B
It's a problem between. It's a problem between Ukraine and Russia. Okay, that's fine. A lot of people have that view. I respect it. What I can't understand is the difference in your logic and principle about supporting Israel in its war with Hamas, which is many thousands of miles away from America. Have I. No, there's no direct.
-
Unknown A
If I've been a great advocate for the work goes. I missed that part of the conversation.
-
Unknown B
Well, you support America supporting Israel, you don't support America supporting Ukraine.
-
Unknown A
I don't support America supporting any nation on the planet to its own detriment. Every element of our foreign policy should serve the United States. That's the point of our government, is to serve the people who live there, called citizens. That's what democracy is. There's no other reason. So if I'm in charge of a country and I decide actually I should do this because people who pay me want me to do it, or I'm making money to do it, then I'm by definition illegitimate. That's not democracy. That is a species of oligarchy or whatever. You could assign a name to it. That's not democracy. So I just believe in our system and our. Our leaders should act on behalf of their own people or what they think is their own people's interests. And I would apply that to Israel. I'd apply it to Ukraine. I think there have certainly been times where we have benefited from our alliance with Israel.
-
Unknown A
You know, it's an alliance just like we have an alliance.
-
Unknown B
They are allies.
-
Unknown A
Then I don't know what ally means.
-
Unknown B
It's short for alliance.
-
Unknown A
You're right. It is, yes. Funny, I never knew that.
-
Unknown B
Gotcha.
-
Unknown A
You got me.
-
Unknown B
You've literally just.
-
Unknown A
When it comes to etymology, you are the Unchalleng King.
-
Unknown B
Boom.
-
Unknown A
You're blowing my mind.
-
Unknown B
Piers Morgan, My English linguistics.
-
Unknown A
You guys invented the language.
-
Unknown B
You know what? It is our language. You lot it up, but we actually. It's our language.
-
Unknown A
As a PG Wodehouse fan, I totally.
-
Unknown B
It's a root, not a route. It's Iran, not Iraq, not Iran. And it's a hurricane, not a hurricane.
-
Unknown A
Hurricane is embarrassing.
-
Unknown B
These are all our words. We gave them to you. You changed them. We have hurricanes.
-
Unknown A
You don't have hurricanes or pecans.
-
Unknown B
I have one in 87. It knocked down all the trees in my house.
-
Unknown A
You had a hurricane?
-
Unknown B
Yes. 87.
-
Unknown A
I think it's a typhoon when it happens.
-
Unknown B
Famously, the BBC weatherman at the time announced on the BBC Main News on the night, there are people ringing in saying, is there going to be a hurricane in the UK and no new adventures? And let me tell you, there is not. Four hours later, every tree in south of England fell down.
-
Unknown A
Are you serious?
-
Unknown B
Yes. But we called it a hurricane is my point.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, well, you don't have enough experience as someone who spends a lot of time in Florida. It's a hurricane. It's also a cocktail. Of all the New Year's resolutions you're likely to put off, the one you're most likely to put off and keep putting off is buying life insurance. And you should have life insurance. It's kind of crazy not to because the future is unknown. You gotta have life insurance. But you may not have life insurance because it's a huge hassle and it can be a huge ripoff. But there is an answer. Policy genius. It makes it very easy and. And much cheaper. You can find life insurance policies that start at just 292 bucks per year for a million dollars of coverage. And some options, and this is the best part, are 100% online and let you avoid unnecessary medical exams. The guy with the gloves.
-
Unknown A
You don't want that. If you can avoid it, and you may be able to avoid it, 40% of people wind up looking back and wishing they'd had better life insurance or any life insurance. It could have helped their families enormously. Policy genius can fix that for you. Peace of mind. That's what they're really selling. The address policygenius.comtucker or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much money you could save and how much hassle you could save. Policygenius.com Tucker would you kill Putin if you could.
-
Unknown B
Would I? Not personally, no.
-
Unknown A
But do you think it should be the policy of the UK government, the US government, because it is now the policy to kill Putin?
-
Unknown B
No, I would prefer the people of Russia to vote him out. But I also feel the same way about Netanyahu and the people in Israel.
-
Unknown A
So you're not calling for the assassination of Netanyahu or Putin? No, no. Do you think that if Putin were to leave either by force or choice, that Russia would have a more pro Western leader after?
-
Unknown B
Not necessarily, no.
-
Unknown A
Okay.
-
Unknown B
Highly unlikely.
-
Unknown A
Highly unlikely. I think that's a fair assessment. Then why would you want. Since there's no evidence that the majority of Russians don't want Putin, there's overwhelming evidence that they do want Putin. So he appears to be the choice of his own country, which you may not like or whatever, but seems true. And he's the most pro Western leader we're likely to get in our lifetimes. Then why are we against Putin exactly?
-
Unknown B
Because I don't believe him in the way that you seem to believe.
-
Unknown A
I don't believe anybody.
-
Unknown B
That he has this very well intentioned, perfectly reasonable, understandable reason why he had to illegally invade a democratic country and take a third of its people, take a further his land and people. And you think that's fine. And I'm saying it's hilarious when you.
-
Unknown A
Make reference to what's legal in the middle of a war.
-
Unknown B
It's illegal.
-
Unknown A
When your country and mine blew up Nord Stream and destroyed the Western European economy, is that legal?
-
Unknown B
You're talking to the editor of the paper that opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq. You supported that.
-
Unknown A
Well, I. I started the invasion of Iraq.
-
Unknown B
That was illegal too.
-
Unknown A
Apologize for 22 years. But I wanted.
-
Unknown B
You said that was illegal.
-
Unknown A
I don't even know what that means.
-
Unknown B
Breaking the law.
-
Unknown A
What law?
-
Unknown B
Against international law.
-
Unknown A
Who makes international law?
-
Unknown B
Well, the international community.
-
Unknown A
Oh, the international community. What do they mean?
-
Unknown B
Do you don't think there's anything like you don't believe in?
-
Unknown A
I don't know what that means. Who is the international community?
-
Unknown B
So you think any invasion of a sovereign democrat?
-
Unknown A
Not at all.
-
Unknown B
Could be legal?
-
Unknown A
I don't know even know what you mean by legal. It's wrong. Lawful. What law? Are there international policemen? Who are they? What are you even talking about?
-
Unknown B
Well, you don't. You don't. You. You don't think they're international laws?
-
Unknown A
No, I think they're moral laws. And that's what I care about. Certain things are wrong regardless of what the leadership.
-
Unknown B
You don't believe that. You believe there are actual laws, not international laws.
-
Unknown A
There are no international laws.
-
Unknown B
Really?
-
Unknown A
Are there international police? You don't believe in international courts?
-
Unknown B
You don't believe in. Yes, there are international courts.
-
Unknown A
Really? So. So who. Who's punished other than Milosevic?
-
Unknown B
Do you believe in. Do you believe in the Geneva. Not.
-
Unknown A
I believe in the ideas behind the Geneva convention, absolutely. But it's universally disregarded, including by your country, which I think is bioweapons, by the way. You should get on that, find out. Those are prohibited, but I think you guys have them. You're in violence.
-
Unknown B
If that turns out to be true, I would be violently opposed to that.
-
Unknown A
But you know that it is true.
-
Unknown B
I don't, actually.
-
Unknown A
I think you should find out.
-
Unknown B
I'll look into it.
-
Unknown A
I mean, there are biolabs in Ukraine. What are biolabs doing in Ukraine, do you think? Are you comfortable with that?
-
Unknown B
No, it wouldn't be if they're there.
-
Unknown A
But you said Zelensky was a fabulous leader. Why would he have biolabs?
-
Unknown B
I like him personally.
-
Unknown A
The dictator with bioweapons. I'm not into it. I'm sorry. I'm just. I guess that it would be. It's against international law, so I'm opposed. No, look, I'm just saying international law is a theoretical concept. And it's literally theoretical because it's not enforceable, and we know that because it's not enforced. So what matters is what's the interest of your country and what's right and wrong. And I'm a Christian, so that's like pretty clear for me. All this is wrong. It's completely wrong. It's wrong to send cluster bombs to Ukraine, which you supported. I'm totally opposed to that. Cluster bombs to kill more kids. Like, why that's wrong. I don't care if international law says it's wrong, that's it.
-
Unknown B
Was it wrong. Was it wrong for America to use atomic bombs?
-
Unknown A
Absolutely. Really? To use nuclear weapons? Yes.
-
Unknown B
To win the war?
-
Unknown A
Of course.
-
Unknown B
To save many hundreds of thousands of more people dying. That's what happened.
-
Unknown A
I don't. You know, this is referred to in the business as a theoretical.
-
Unknown B
Not really. Everyone is.
-
Unknown A
Well, it's literally theoretical.
-
Unknown B
Whether you agree or don't agree with the use of nuclear weapons, nobody disputes the fact that it brought an end to a war which hadn't been allowed to carry on for another six months to a year, would have carried kill many more people.
-
Unknown A
Why drop it on Japan's Christian population? Is there some reason Hiroshima wasn't enough? No, because they wanted to test a different variety of atomic weapon. So, like, I'm against that. I'm against killing civilians, I'm against firebombing cities, I'm against bioweapons, I'm against chemical weapons.
-
Unknown B
What weapons do you support?
-
Unknown A
I guess conventional weapons. You know, I'm.
-
Unknown B
Well, how big a bomb do you support?
-
Unknown A
Look, if you're intentionally killing civilians, isn't.
-
Unknown B
It a question of just of scale?
-
Unknown A
I mean, to some extent it is, yeah.
-
Unknown B
If you believe in a big bomb and it kills 500 people, but you don't agree with one that kills a thousand, what's the difference ideologically?
-
Unknown A
It depends who they are. I mean, I think you can say. I mean, there are.
-
Unknown B
So after Pearl Harbor. After Pearl harbor, you think it was wrong with the Japanese refusing to surrender, vowing to kill as many people as they possibly could, that America decided to use its two most powerful weapons to bring an end to the war? I think there's a.
-
Unknown A
One way to put it.
-
Unknown B
I would say it's more morally justified what America did than what the British did, for example, in carpet bombing Dresden. Actually, yeah, I think there was more justification because they were trying to bring an end to the war as quickly as they could to avoid potentially millions more people die.
-
Unknown A
You know, it's no defense of Imperial Japan or Pearl harbor or Franklin Roosevelt for allowing Pearl harbor, which he did. It's not a defense of any of that. To say if you're intentionally killing civilians, you probably shouldn't beat your chest and brag about it. You know, maybe you can make.
-
Unknown B
I agree with that.
-
Unknown A
Maybe you make the case that we had to do it or whatever, but you should. I agree, you should weep and that's evil. And you should just say it's evil. And I know it's like really threatening to. Is it evil, Ben Shapiro, to say that or whatever. Is it evil to kill civilians on purpose? Yeah, it is. Think it is. Kids and children. Well, how is it not actually in a war we can call it whatever you want. How is it right to kill women and children?
-
Unknown B
I didn't say. Well, because I think there is a moral right behind you if you are.
-
Unknown A
Literally to kill women and children.
-
Unknown B
If there's a world war that threatens the entire. It threatens the entire world. Yes.
-
Unknown A
Some people killed your kids, like your 8 year old.
-
Unknown B
Well, this is your own children.
-
Unknown A
Justifiable.
-
Unknown B
Well, because actually you have to. Well, by your criteria, it's disgusting. Okay. It's nothing's. So no war is morally justified.
-
Unknown A
I mean, I Think it's pretty hard to justify. I mean, yeah, you know, a pure defensive action, sure. But all I'm saying, look, it's all ugly. It's all hard to stomach. I've actually seen some of it up close. Super ugly.
-
Unknown B
You could say that.
-
Unknown A
You say, you let me.
-
Unknown B
The fact you'd be morally justified to.
-
Unknown A
Intentionally kill non combatants, women and children, I think we can say that's wrong. In fact, I thought that was the thing we were fighting against, and censorship and dictatorship, people ruling without being elected, people using force to get their will. Like, I thought that was the whole thing we were fighting against. So how about we don't become that? And I'm just saying all kinds of decisions are made under duress. I have made decisions under duress, foolishly, that I'm ashamed of, including supporting the Iraq war. But why are we defending it? I just don't understand that. And we're defending it, of course, because we're still doing it. And a lot of people are getting rich and a lot of people find meaning in their otherwise barren lives rather than, like, raising decent children, having a productive life, making something they exist to destroy. I just think that's evil.
-
Unknown B
You think no military action is morally justifiable, though.
-
Unknown A
I didn't say that.
-
Unknown B
Are you implying that.
-
Unknown A
I'm not implying it. I never imply anything. I just say things.
-
Unknown B
It's the deaths of any findings for girls.
-
Unknown A
I'm just telling you what I think.
-
Unknown B
If you kill. Yeah, if you kill any innocent people, civilians in a war, you think it's all morally lacking in justification. Because I would argue against that.
-
Unknown A
Right. You're arguing against a construct that you created in order to argue against. Well, I'm being super straightforward, if you're interested.
-
Unknown B
Is there any form of warfare that's morally justified? Go on, let me finish.
-
Unknown A
I'm saying when you intentionally kill women and children, when you wage war through fear by murdering the civilian population, I don't think that's a good thing. And I don't think you should be defending it. And I don't know why it's such a threat to say that out loud. If you're firebombing someone's city, as we did Tokyo, as you guys did Dresden, and a lot of other cities, by the way, in both of those countries, if you're dropping atomic weapons in the middle of town on a Catholic church, I don't know why you have to look back 80 years later and be like, that was a great thing. It wasn't a great thing. It was A shameful thing. And we should be better than that because we're not savages. Because we're Christians.
-
Unknown B
But I don't agree with you. I don't agree with it.
-
Unknown A
Okay. Apparently you don't.
-
Unknown B
I don't.
-
Unknown A
You said right on camera it's okay to kill 8 year olds because it's war. But it's not okay to kill 8 year old.
-
Unknown B
I didn't say anything is okay. What I said is morally justified because when you have an enemy that is prepared to put 6 million Jews into gas chambers and murder 6 million more people, they are prepared to do anything and you have to stop them. And then any response you give to me is morally justified.
-
Unknown A
Any response?
-
Unknown B
Well, pretty much. If you're. If you're taking the water them. To try and end the war. I'm trying to defeat a nihilistic group like the Nazis. Yes. It's boring.
-
Unknown A
Says the guy who's defending the murder of 8 year olds. They're nihilistic.
-
Unknown B
I'm not defending the murder of any eight year old.
-
Unknown A
Thing is expressing a species of nihilism. The whole point is we are better than you because we have limits. There are some things. I'm not going to rape your wife. How do you.
-
Unknown B
How do you. Stop.
-
Unknown A
Let me. Let me finish.
-
Unknown B
Okay.
-
Unknown A
I am not going to behave like an animal. You are. That's why we're at war. You bombed preemptively my Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor. We weren't even at war. Why'd you do that? That's outrageous. We're going to punish you for doing it. I get it. But we're not likely not punished.
-
Unknown B
Defenders defend.
-
Unknown A
Of course not. Defending. There was no threat of invasion if you're the United States. I mean you live in a tiny island nation. I think there was a Japanese attack.
-
Unknown B
Pearl Harbor. That is a form of invasion. Isn't.
-
Unknown A
Was not an invasion. It was an attack.
-
Unknown B
It's a mass attack on.
-
Unknown A
I'm not defending Pearl Harbor. I don't think Roosevelt should have let it happen. Which he did.
-
Unknown B
But it wants to happen. What do you do?
-
Unknown A
You. You attack them back.
-
Unknown B
You agree?
-
Unknown A
Okay, but hold on. There are finer distinctions here.
-
Unknown B
Not really. You attacked them back.
-
Unknown A
Let me finish my.
-
Unknown B
Was it morally defensible to attack them back?
-
Unknown A
Stop. Okay. Yes. It was morally defensible to attack them back.
-
Unknown B
Thank you.
-
Unknown A
Thank you.
-
Unknown B
You agree with me.
-
Unknown A
It depends what attack.
-
Unknown B
You agree with me. You didn't qualify. Were you qualified?
-
Unknown A
Like crazy. You're like.
-
Unknown B
You didn't qualify it.
-
Unknown A
You say it's okay to molest children. Why do you say that? You're like, I didn't say that. No, you just said it's okay to molest children. Now why would you be in favor of child moles?
-
Unknown B
Nobody's talked about molesting children.
-
Unknown A
That's what children.
-
Unknown B
You just said it was morally justified for America.
-
Unknown A
It's like hilarious America.
-
Unknown B
You said America attacking after Cole Hark.
-
Unknown A
Hold on. They like, they end the interview and they're like, what just happened?
-
Unknown B
So you'll be saying that he just.
-
Unknown A
Told me what I believe and then he attacked me for believing it. So hilarious. I love that. It's like a species of masturbation. Like, you don't need another person present.
-
Unknown B
Don't. Not masturbation. It's making love to someone. It's making love to someone you love.
-
Unknown A
Okay, let me just say, you don't ever want to wind up in a place where you're defending the killing of children. You just don't. Now you go into any kind of.
-
Unknown B
That wasn't what I was doing. I was saying there's moral.
-
Unknown A
Just very much what you were doing.
-
Unknown B
No, no.
-
Unknown A
You said it was morally justified to kill children.
-
Unknown B
I said morally, just. No, no. Morally justified to drop bombs which end a war. Yes, I do believe.
-
Unknown A
Can I ask you just since we're still on Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Hard to say to make the case for Nagasaki, but whatever. Why not? If you have this fantastic new weapon and you want to prevent somehow you're required to invade Japan. Like, I don't know why we'd be required to invade Japan, by the way. Like, no one ever answers that.
-
Unknown B
They just attacked you.
-
Unknown A
No, they attacked us four years earlier and we've now beaten them and driven them out of the Philippines and Malaysia and all this stuff. We've won. Why do we have to invade mainland Japan? No one ever answers that question. We just kind of have to, because we have to. Okay, I'm not second guessing the military leadership of the Second World War, but I am second guessing this. Why wouldn't you bomb just military installations? Why drop these bombs in the middle of a city when you know that overwhelmingly the incinerated people will be civilians? Like, why would you do that? I would not do that. I would have the bomb. Okay, we're going to drop it on, you know, critical military infrastructure, arms manufacturing plants on, you know, a fleet. Why would you drop it?
-
Unknown B
Because when the enemy is not making that calculation, you have to stop them. Them.
-
Unknown A
Stop them from what? Not being invaded?
-
Unknown B
Stop them from killing your civilians, killing your People.
-
Unknown A
Japan, in the summer of 1945, was in no position to kill any American civilians, period. So I think they had a couple firebombs over Oregon three years before. But the point is. Look, I don't want to. I understand. You know, people do their best under pressure. They make mistakes. I've made a million of them. I'm not judging. Even Harry Truman, who I do think was kind of a pig, but whatever. I'm not even judging. I maybe would have done the same thing. I'm just saying, 80 years later. Why. Why defend that? Like, what's the point?
-
Unknown B
I think it was morally justified to kill 200,000 civilians. Yeah.
-
Unknown A
So then we wouldn't have to invade, which we didn't have to anyway, to.
-
Unknown B
Save potentially millions of lives being killed. Yes.
-
Unknown A
Of our invaders, of their country, both.
-
Unknown B
Sides, to bring an end to the war.
-
Unknown A
How about just not invade them?
-
Unknown B
They wouldn't surrender. You got to bring the war to an end.
-
Unknown A
But they had lost. Why do you. But why do you have to invade?
-
Unknown B
They refused to surrender.
-
Unknown A
Okay. But we'd kick them out of all of their colonies. We'd driven them back to their island.
-
Unknown B
You don't dispute dropping those bombs ended the war, do you?
-
Unknown A
Well, I am disputing it. That's what I'm doing right now.
-
Unknown B
Did end the war.
-
Unknown A
Oh, disputing that. It ended the war, sure, of course.
-
Unknown B
So the means and effect are correct.
-
Unknown A
I'm also not disputing that bringing down the Twin Towers changed the United States. Like, if you commit enough killing, you will change people's behavior, including getting them to surrender. I'm just. My only question is, is it worth it? And what are you becoming when you participate in it?
-
Unknown B
But I think.
-
Unknown A
I think that's a meaningful question that nobody addresses. Who am I? I'm a decent person. I am. I am an imperfect person. This is how Americans, I think, should think of themselves and mostly do. But I am also representative of an enlightened country, product of an enlightened civilization called Western civilization. And there are certain things I will not do, even if they benefit me. I'm not doing that because I'm not that guy. I don't kill children. I don't rape women. I don't send women into battle to defend me, which I guess we now do. That's wrong.
-
Unknown B
So you. You would condemn what Israel's done in Gaza, for example?
-
Unknown A
I don't want to be involved in that.
-
Unknown B
I mean, nearly 20,000 children are said to have died.
-
Unknown A
I. I don't.
-
Unknown B
You condemn it.
-
Unknown A
Think that that is a.
-
Unknown B
By your criteria, is it morally justified?
-
Unknown A
That is a calculation that Israel has to make. I don't want to be. Have anything to do with that.
-
Unknown B
You have no view. No view.
-
Unknown A
It's hard to take a lecture from someone who just admitted that he hates Israel in every fiber of his body.
-
Unknown B
I never said that.
-
Unknown A
You said that. You said that.
-
Unknown B
Now you're distracting.
-
Unknown A
No, no, I'm not.
-
Unknown B
Oh, yes, you are.
-
Unknown A
You're the one who said that.
-
Unknown B
You're not distracting.
-
Unknown A
You said, I hate Benjamin Netanyahu.
-
Unknown B
No, I didn't. I said I don't think you should be leader anymore.
-
Unknown A
You hate him. National hatred that you know, I don't know where it comes from. I can't account for what's in your soul. I don't have an X ray into what's deep inside you. But all you said was I hate.
-
Unknown B
I have no problem saying that. I think Israel's response has gone. Gone way too far. Way too many civilians have been killed. What I'm surprised about is that you having lectured me about the deaths of 8 year olds, you don't want to morally condemn what Israel's done in Gaza. I'm curious as to why are your criteria.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, my criteria apply solely, and this is a thread of consistency throughout my arguments here and everywhere for the last 20 years. They have to do with the behavior of the United States, which is my country and it's been my family's country for hundreds of years. I pay my full taxes. I feel very vested. I'm a shareholder in my country. So its behavior matters greatly to me. I'm implicated in its behavior. And I don't want the United States to participate in things that are counter to its interests or counter to the values of Western civilization. That's really simple. So other countries do all kinds of abominable things, including cannibalism a lot, actually, and human sacrifice a lot, actually. And you know, okay, they're not my country. So I don't want the United States involved in anything that's morally indefensible or counter to its own interests, period.
-
Unknown B
So Israel's dropping American bombs on Gaza, killing lots of children in order to. You think the deaths of.
-
Unknown A
I'll tell you what I think.
-
Unknown B
Hang on, you think, you think the killing of. You think the killing of civilians morally indefensible?
-
Unknown A
Let me tell you what I.
-
Unknown B
So American bomb bombs are being used to kill a lot of children and women in Gaza.
-
Unknown A
I hate that.
-
Unknown B
Is it more? Let me tell you, is it morally indefensible now. You don't want to say.
-
Unknown A
I'm in the process of telling you.
-
Unknown B
Go on, then.
-
Unknown A
Stand back. Let the flower bloom. Okay. Stop tending the garden, Pierce. I hate the fact that civilians are killed with American weapons. I hate it. I hate it in Ukraine. I hate it in Gaza. I hate it in the occupied territory. As you ever recall, these days, I think in the specific case of Israel, we have been closely allied with the Israeli government, you know, since the 1950s. We're actually instrumental in the creation of Israel, so since the late 40s. And I think that there are times when our interests have aligned, and there are times, the transfer of military technology to China being one of them, where those interests diverge. I would very much appreciate an environment in the United States where Americans could speak openly about what their money is doing in a bunch of different foreign countries, including that one. And I think that we should reassess all our relationships, all our alliances with our allies on the basis of whether or not it's good for the United States on a bunch of different levels economically, whether it's good for our internal politics, whether it's good for, you know, our power abroad, et
-
Unknown A
cetera, et cetera. And yes, more than you know, I really think that we need a much more honest conversation about our relationship with Israel. And I feel, if I can just say one thing and brag, I feel like I'm one of the only people in the United States who's not emotional on the topic. Everyone's so emotional about it. They hate Israel. They love Israel. It's like, I'm American, okay? I like Israel. I don't love any country other than my own. And I think we should have a rational conversation about this. And at this point, as you well know, we don't. So that's my actual position.
-
Unknown B
Yeah. I mean, look, for what it's worth, my position is Israel had a fundamental duty, almost a right, but a duty, to defend its people after October 7, given the horrendous scale of that attack. And my only question I kept asking repeatedly from about the first couple of weeks onwards was, what is a proportionate response? What is morally justified?
-
Unknown A
In general, your relationships with Nate, with your neighbors are your problem. In my home, my neighbors, I own my house. I can't leave.
-
Unknown B
But it's also an American problem because American military is being used.
-
Unknown A
You make calculations about your behavior based on what you can achieve, based on what you think your interests are. And that's true at the homeowner level, and it's true at the nation Level. So you deal with your neighbors, and that's your problem. And if you're in a fight with your neighbors, it's up to you to resolve it. It's not my problem. I do not have to resolve your disputes with your neighbors. And that is true of Ukraine and it's true of Israel. I'm sorry. I wish you well. I may have. You know, obviously, I like Israel because I like going there. I know Israelis, and I really like them.
-
Unknown B
I like Israel.
-
Unknown A
Oh, it's the best. I mean, to visit. It's the best.
-
Unknown B
I like Israeli people. They're very.
-
Unknown A
I do, too.
-
Unknown B
I like Palestinian people, too, that I met.
-
Unknown A
I do, too. And there are a lot of Christians. The one thing I'll just be honest, since you're pushing me on this, that makes me a little bit emotional, is there are a lot of Christians, Christian Arabs, and having traveled a lot, I can say, just as a matter of personal preference, I really like them. I've never met a Christian Arab that I didn't like, actually. I think they're really amazing people, and a lot of them have been killed or mistreated with American money and weapons. And I think it's disgusting. And I think it's especially disgusting that Christian leaders in the United States have said nothing because they're bullied and bought off. And I think they should feel shame because they've dodged their duty, which is to speak up on behalf of their brothers in Christ, and they haven't. And they're Christians in Gaza who are killed.
-
Unknown A
There are a ton in the west bank, and by the way, that's the cradle of Christianity. The Pope apparently killed the Church of the Nativity.
-
Unknown B
That's what the Pope calls a church in.
-
Unknown A
He's absurd. I can't.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, but he call. He actually calls a church, a Catholic church in Gaza, every night to see how they're doing. Every night, apparently. Calls.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, that's the hope. The Pope thing. I'm not getting involved. I'm not a Catholic. Sorry. You're gonna have to deal with him. It's your Pope, not mine. So we were at a meeting here at TCN the other day, and I looked around the room, and every other person had a kind of ruddy vitality, pink cheeks, alertness, bright eyes, full mental acuity, and a cheerfulness you could almost smell. And I asked, why does everyone look so good? And part of the answer, of course, is they like what we do for a living. It's really interesting. We think it's important. But another reason everyone looks so Good is because they'd all had a great night sleep. I'm not making this up. Almost everybody here uses a new sleep technology from a company called eight Sleep. They sent it to us and everyone here loves it. It's called the Pod.
-
Unknown A
It's a high tech mattress cover effectively that you add to your existing bed. You don't need a new bed or anything like that. You just throw this over what you have. What it does is adjusts the temperature of your bed, warmer or cooler depending on what you want and it maintains an ideal sleeping environment all night long. So I didn't know this but as you progress through different phases of sleep, your body's needs change. And 8 Sleep automatically keeps things exactly where they should be, in the sweet spot through the entire night. It's been proven to increase the quality of your sleep. The amount you sleep every night. It improves your recovery time from physical exertion and it may even improve your cognitive performance and enhance your overall health. It seems to be doing that in our office. So it learns and adapts to your sleep patterns over time and automatically adjusts temperatures throughout the night through each phase of sleep.
-
Unknown A
And it does this independently for each sleeper on either side of the bed. That's pretty cool. So you can sleep well and feel much better and be more effective the next morning as we are here. Try it for yourself. Go to eightsleep.com Tucker use the promo code Tucker to get an extra 350 bucks off the Pod 4 Ultra. You can try it with zero obligation for a month and if you don't like it, just send it back again. That's eight sleep.comtucker better sleep today and look great in your morning meetings as our guys do. But no but in general I'm speaking about the United States. Protestants in the United States, that's the world that I'm from. That I understand they have an obligation to stand up for their brother Christians around the world and they don't in this specific case because they're intimidated. And I think that's really shameful and I think they should feel shame for it.
-
Unknown A
It's not a political question. It's not do you hate Israel? It's like I don't hate Israel. Anybody who murders Christians, defenseless Christians, the religion of peace, the actual religion of peace, I'm opposed to that. And we should just say that that's not controversial. It should not be controversial. And it just shows how totally afraid and lacking self confidence Christians are to just say like I'm sorry, I'm not like, attacking me, But I'm opposed to that. You can't use my money to kill Christians. Blow up a church. No. Or to storm the Church of the Nativity. That's my religion. No, you don't get a dollar if you do that. And by the way, we're not giving you any money until you promise to treat Christians as equals. You know what I mean? That's. That's how I personally feel, and I think all Christians should feel that way.
-
Unknown A
It's not attacking anybody. It's just a baseline demand of, like, dignity and respect, and they don't get it. I mean, fundamentally, that makes me emotional.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, look, fundamentally, I. We're not a million miles apart, and we both. Neither of us like war. Nobody who likes war should ever.
-
Unknown A
One of us likes dictators.
-
Unknown B
No. Yeah, you do.
-
Unknown A
I didn't tweet out, I love you, Vladimir Putin.
-
Unknown B
You didn't need to. You said it in your eyes.
-
Unknown A
But I didn't say it on Twitter.
-
Unknown B
You should have. You know what? You should have been on Twitter. You just seen. Everyone thought you did.
-
Unknown A
Oh, I didn't. I don't give a shit what people think, but I didn't tweet. Vladimir Putin, you're fabulous. You're fabulous.
-
Unknown B
You didn't need to. Body language said it for you.
-
Unknown A
Start humping his leg in the interview. No. Anyway. No, I just. I'm against dictatorship, and I don't want to send money to dictators. Does it bother you that your tax dollars go to a dictator?
-
Unknown B
No, because I don't. I don't see Zelensky as a dictator in the way that you do.
-
Unknown A
If your prime minister decided not to have another election for, what, two years?
-
Unknown B
Two years, I think he'd been in charge. Putin. What is it was he into? Nearly 30 years now.
-
Unknown A
I think Putin has been in 24.
-
Unknown B
24.
-
Unknown A
I'm not defending Putin. I'm just saying, like, all dictatorship is bad. Like, a little dollop of dictatorship is as bad as a mouthful of dictatorship. I'm just against dictatorship. I'm for democracy. Inspiring, passionate, determined and resolute. That's what you called Zelensky.
-
Unknown B
Oh, I thought he's on to me. I thought that was your. I thought that was your. Out for me.
-
Unknown A
Inspiring.
-
Unknown B
Say thank you.
-
Unknown A
And resolute. And very handsome, though that's implied.
-
Unknown B
I would agree with all of those things.
-
Unknown A
You would?
-
Unknown B
Yes. I think the courage, the moral courage he showed on the night that the Russians invaded, when people thought they would sweep through Kyiv and almost certainly kill him, the fact he immediately went on social media and with people around him and said, I'm not leaving. I'm staying here for you. That's moral courage of the kind we saw with Trump when he stood there and got back up and went, fight, fight.
-
Unknown A
When he assassinates, I'm surprised you don't opponents. Or when he steals U.S. aid, or he allows his generals to sell half the missiles they get from the United States to the Mexican drug cartels and Iran and everyone else in the black market. Is that inspiring?
-
Unknown B
Well, you're making a lot of allegations against your facts. Okay. You say they're facts, but other people dispute them.
-
Unknown A
Who disputes that they're selling weapons in Ukraine on the black market? I don't think anyone, just.
-
Unknown B
I'm sure that's happening.
-
Unknown A
Oh, it's happening.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
Who disputes that Zelensky's murdered his political opponents? No one has.
-
Unknown B
He. You think he personally has ordered the murders?
-
Unknown A
Well, he's in charge of the country. He's the.
-
Unknown B
He has.
-
Unknown A
He's the dictator.
-
Unknown B
You said he did.
-
Unknown A
Well, I mean, in the same sense that we would say.
-
Unknown B
You wouldn't dispute that Vladimir Putin does that relentlessly, but imprisons and tortures and kills.
-
Unknown A
No, I think there's. There's a long. There's a long history of that in the region. Poisoning your enemies. Putin has done that. It seems clear to me. I'm not sending him money. I'm not calling him passionate, determined, resolute and handsome.
-
Unknown B
But you haven't hate this.
-
Unknown A
I love this.
-
Unknown B
I don't hate it. No? No. Because I keep asking you the same question, and for some reason, you don't want to answer it.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, no, I've answered all questions. Let me ask you a really easy question. Now that you have been, like me, fired from your, like, cushy mainstream media gig, how much happy are are you, and why? And looking back at the television networks and newspaper, how many newspapers do you work for?
-
Unknown B
I ran two of the big ones in the U.K. yeah, right.
-
Unknown A
But over your whole career, how many did you work?
-
Unknown B
I worked for three. Four. Four, actually.
-
Unknown A
Okay, right.
-
Unknown B
So.
-
Unknown A
So you've been at every stage of British media. Looking back, how do you feel about them?
-
Unknown B
I think I had the best of it, really. I certainly think in newspaper terms, it was before the Internet had really taken hold, and so you were the receptacle for news for people. You know, there weren't many television networks. You didn't really have cable television when I was running the papers. So papers have much more influence and much more power because they were bringing the news to people. People woke up in the morning and they would read their paper to find out what had happened. Happen that doesn't happen anymore. People already know what's happened. There are millions of news networks all over cable news. There's millions of Internet sites. You can get the news. Everyone knows what's going on. So the sort of. The point and relevance and power and influence of newspapers has dissipated. They can still break big stories and have big influence.
-
Unknown B
And if I was running one again a, I'd be completely digital by now. I just abandoned print papers altogether. But the economic model is very difficult. If you do that, you don't make as much from the digital side as you do from print. So they've got to weigh that up and somehow get through it. But I would invest heavily in investigative longer term journalism because that's how you can now bring news to people they don't already know.
-
Unknown A
Well, sure, but I meant. All true, totally true. I'm really asking about the honesty level.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, yeah.
-
Unknown A
So now you have a gig where you can say whatever you want. You're your own boss, you can make a real living. I have no idea how you're doing, but given your numbers are huge. So I, I bet you you're probably making more than you made before. We're in that range anyway, so it's all great. But the greatest part is you can say exactly what you want. How would you compare that to your previous?
-
Unknown B
I would say the difference is you. You we can't get canceled, Right?
-
Unknown A
Right.
-
Unknown B
Who's going to cancel ourselves? So we have a complete freedom and sort of liberation from the restrictions that inevitably become with working for big companies. Big companies in the media have really struggled, I think, to move with the way young people now get their information. They don't really understand the big legacy media companies that young people do not watch linear television, they don't read print newspapers.
-
Unknown A
What they really struggle with is to stop lying. They can't stop lying liars.
-
Unknown B
And they, and they have controlled the way news is determinated. The thing about you and me and other people that do this, whether you're on the left or the right, there's no control. Right. We don't get control by anybody. We're only answerable to ourselves and what we want to do. I think I'm like you in the sense of we're not politically aligned in many ways, but we love talking to each other, love debating, love arguing, love asking questions, love learning.
-
Unknown A
Like I think we are politically aligned.
-
Unknown B
I think we are in many ways.
-
Unknown A
You do own guns. I know that you do. Secret. I know that you do. And I know that you think this whole Ukraine thing is insane.
-
Unknown B
Let me tell you. Well, I don't. But let me tell you, I know that you do.
-
Unknown A
I can see it in your eyes.
-
Unknown B
Like, how do I get out of this? There's a lot of military, a lot of military in my family who know how to use guns better than me.
-
Unknown A
I know, but not all use of guns is equal. Right. Some is counterproductive.
-
Unknown B
You know, the thing about guns. I'll just say this for your audience. It will all be looking at me thinking I'm the two a gun grabber. The reality is it's complete cultural difference in my country. Everybody used to have a gun. Everybody used to in the old days. Now very few people have guns. There are incredibly tight restrictions, and the consequence of that is we have almost zero gun crime. The was your country.
-
Unknown A
Is London safe now?
-
Unknown B
No, I'm about to come to that. The. The problem we have is with knights. Right. So I'm not saying for a moment, you get rid of all the guns, nobody gets killed. Of course they do. We have a knife crime problem epidemic in our country.
-
Unknown A
You have a people problem. You have the kind of people who stab each other. Well, you didn't used to have that.
-
Unknown B
Well, we did. We did.
-
Unknown A
No, you didn't.
-
Unknown B
We did.
-
Unknown A
I mean, it's miserable how many people got stabbed in London in 1970 or shot compared to now.
-
Unknown B
Sure.
-
Unknown A
But there's a massive increase because the people, the attitudes of the people, the actions of the people are totally different. You've got different people and different behaviors and like, you can't admit that because. I'm not sure why.
-
Unknown B
No, no, because actually there are lots of white English people who stab each other.
-
Unknown A
Oh, I know.
-
Unknown B
Right?
-
Unknown A
Oh, I know.
-
Unknown B
So it's not just about.
-
Unknown A
No, no.
-
Unknown B
The influx of migrants, if that's what you're saying.
-
Unknown A
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that I do think immigration has changed your country for the much, much worse.
-
Unknown B
Well, it's certainly changed the country much worse.
-
Unknown A
That's my opinion. But it's not just immigrants who are behaving badly at all. There are a lot of native born indigenous Brits who are behaving badly. That is totally true. And there are a lot of immigrants in your country who are kind of superior, actually, if we're being totally honest, who are impressed. Really impressive.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
I'm not making a blank statement. I'm just saying that the behavior has changed of the people who live there. Right. You can't be trusted with guns now because you're out of control.
-
Unknown B
I don't know about that. I just know we have very tight gun laws and no gun violence. The interest or very little. My question for you, but do you.
-
Unknown A
Own a gun secretly?
-
Unknown B
I do not.
-
Unknown A
Do you want to?
-
Unknown B
You know why I get 5 years in prison if I got caught with it? So you're afraid.
-
Unknown A
You're afraid of your government, which doesn't trust you because it's a dictatorship.
-
Unknown B
Let me ask you a question about guns since you raised him, because I'm curious. You have it said There are over 400 million guns in circulation in America?
-
Unknown A
Hope so.
-
Unknown B
And it's apparently a million new guns get sold every month, so that number exponentially rises. The number of mass shootings in America is also rising. Do you think anything should be done about that? If I have my time again talking about this with Americans, I would never have been so censorious. I would never have been talking about gun control. I think the word control alienates Americans. But what I would have said was, how do you make it safer? How do you stop so many people getting shot? What do you do about it?
-
Unknown A
Well, you ban SSRIs immediately. Immediately SSRIs. You ban whole categories. Psychoactive. Absolutely. Like, immediately. Yeah. I mean, the truth is that, you know, drugs and alcohol drive a lot of our social ills. A lot of them. And when people are sober, and I would say, you know, if you're on Xanax or Prozac or whatever, you're not sober.
-
Unknown B
Right, Right. I agree.
-
Unknown A
But certainly alcohol and meth and, you know, most of our social problems are either caused or exacerbated by the drugs that people take. That's just a fact. And mass shootings are definitely in that category. So, look, as you found out, your. Your knife crime has just exponentially jumped recently.
-
Unknown B
Yeah.
-
Unknown A
And that's not because there are more knives. People use them at dinner every night and have for hundreds of years, and not since the Roman times they've used knives and not stabbed each other. It's because people are behaving differently. Why is that? That's true, I must say. All the gun control people who want to send all the guns to Ukraine so they can go kill other Eastern Europeans. It's like. It's sort of weird. Do you think that's weird? No.
-
Unknown B
One thing is weird about the question I asked you is simply that if I was an American, there's a lot.
-
Unknown A
Of gun crime In Ukraine. Are you adding to that?
-
Unknown B
Well, it's a war. It's a different thing.
-
Unknown A
It's gun crime. I call it gun crime. People getting killed.
-
Unknown B
You think Ukraine defending itself is a crime?
-
Unknown A
I think there are a lot of people getting killed with guns. And I think it's really sad. And we should. Should disarm Ukraine.
-
Unknown B
Really?
-
Unknown A
Well, sure. People are getting killed with guns. They shouldn't have. They should be. Strict controls on guns in Ukraine. Automatic weapons. You guys are sending automatic weapons to Ukraine to kill other human beings. I just think that I'm just not comfortable with that morally.
-
Unknown B
See what you're doing the British Cheshire.
-
Unknown A
Cat thing with me.
-
Unknown B
No. Because I think it's a fatuous argument, but it's fine.
-
Unknown A
You're avoiding meaning. Brilliant.
-
Unknown B
You're avoiding answering my question, which is.
-
Unknown A
Why do we have so many guns? Because we're free.
-
Unknown B
No, no. Didn't ask.
-
Unknown A
No one can tell us. We can't defend ourselves.
-
Unknown B
We all used to have guns too.
-
Unknown A
And then you guys, after the Second World War, which was like a liberation war, and you won, you lost all your freedom and now you can't even express your political opinions or they put you in jail. So, like, how did you win? How did you win? Is that what victory looks like? You lose all your rights, your economy gets destroyed, Bankers. Oh, I won.
-
Unknown B
We won. Because I'm not conducting this interview in Germany. German, which I wouldn't say linguistic. I'd rather not speak German and be goose stepping around my yard in England. Yes.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, but you are goose stepping people arrested for praying.
-
Unknown B
We literally won our freedom from people.
-
Unknown A
Where's your freedom?
-
Unknown B
You can get. I'm as free as you could possibly want. A human being.
-
Unknown A
Defend yourself. You can't control who comes into your country and you can't criticize government policies or you get arrested. So how are you free? You're a slave, aren't you?
-
Unknown B
No. How free are you? We have cultural problems in our country.
-
Unknown A
Facebook right now and say, I don't want any more immigrants in my country. They're making it worse.
-
Unknown B
You could say that. What you couldn't say because a lot of these stories I have to say in America have been spun completely disingenuously. There's one case, for example, I see everyone trying to send me as an example of Britain's gone mad. Elon Musk has done it as a guy who got seven years in prison. Actually, what he was doing, this guy was he was orchestrating and directing rioting on hotels containing asylum seekers because he had a Incorrect belief that someone who had stabbed three young girls to death and stabbed loads of others in a horrific attack was an illegal asylum seekers in his country.
-
Unknown A
I mean, is that okay?
-
Unknown B
Fine. It's not okay to have no asylum seekers. It is not okay to allow too many people to come.
-
Unknown A
Why is it not okay to have an asylum?
-
Unknown B
It's not okay to have a broken asylum system as we have.
-
Unknown A
Why have any asylum seekers?
-
Unknown B
Because I believe you should as a good country. Because we're a caring, compassionate country. And by the way, Britain, for all your knocking, how is that carrying Compassionate?
-
Unknown A
Your native population is in massive decline. How is that compassionate to your people?
-
Unknown B
Britain actually is one of the most tolerant, multicultural countries in the world to this day.
-
Unknown A
Then why do you have so many stabbings?
-
Unknown B
We have a problem with stabbings. But you know what? How many people get killed by stabbings a year in Britain?
-
Unknown A
Evidence. Hang on, you have a problem. Some were very compassionate. We do have a lot of stabbings.
-
Unknown B
Fine, but by your criteria, they're just defending themselves. Haven't they got a right to bear arms?
-
Unknown A
Okay, well, hang on. Have they really any stabbings?
-
Unknown B
Hang on.
-
Unknown A
Years ago now you got a ton of stabbings, but everything's totally fine. And if you complain about it, you're going to jail.
-
Unknown B
Do the British people have a right to bear arms?
-
Unknown A
Tucker, all free people have a right to defend themselves.
-
Unknown B
Bear arms.
-
Unknown A
Of course. Yeah.
-
Unknown B
They can carry knives. So why are you annoyed about the knife crime?
-
Unknown A
I'm against all crime. Look, here's what I'm saying. Here's my only point.
-
Unknown B
I'm sure if they use the Tucker Carson argument, well, the other guy's got a knife. I better carry.
-
Unknown A
The United States, which is governed by a system we inherited with great gratitude from you, from the English, a person has a right, which is, we believe God given, it's inherent. We're born with it because we're not slaves. We're free people. To say what he thinks is true.
-
Unknown B
Period.
-
Unknown A
Period. And government has to not only not infringe on that right, but protect it. It exists to protect that right. Your system is a little different. We took it a little farther and enshrined that in our Bill of Rights, which unfortunately, you don't have. I bet you wish you did. But from an American perspective, the idea that you would ever punish someone for.
-
Unknown B
Talking, and that wasn't why that guy.
-
Unknown A
Was punished, but that may be right. I would not contest that.
-
Unknown B
It is right. He was literally inciting a right.
-
Unknown A
I would contest that there are hundreds of People who've gone to jail in the last five years in the UK for expressing a. Opinions. That is a fact.
-
Unknown B
It depends what you think that opinion is. Most of them have been directing violence or inciting violence. That's different. Expressing an opinion.
-
Unknown A
That's right. Pierce. I don't think they were.
-
Unknown B
That is right. That is right.
-
Unknown A
Okay.
-
Unknown B
And also look at the case of Tommy Robinson. Tommy Robinson. Most Americans I speak to think he's in jail as some kind of political prisoner like Nelson Mandela for having views about. About.
-
Unknown A
Or Julian Assange.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, but that's not why Tommy Robinson's in jail, because he defamed. Named a young Syrian refugee. Yeah, he lied about him. Okay, well, he did, but he was in. No, the guy. Eventually.
-
Unknown A
If your leaders are going to jail for lying.
-
Unknown B
What?
-
Unknown A
How many of your leaders have gone to jail for lying? They lie constantly, every time they speak.
-
Unknown B
Not enough. It's not enough.
-
Unknown A
It's right around zero, actually. That doesn't throw powerless people in jail for saying things they don't like.
-
Unknown B
You also have a defamation law in the United States. People have gone to jail for breaking that law. That's happened. So you're not so pure yourself.
-
Unknown A
Criminal.
-
Unknown B
Yes. You. Yes, you do criminal defamation. You do. Go and check it.
-
Unknown A
Okay. There's a lawyer sitting right there, but he's occupied.
-
Unknown B
And you've had. You've had people go to prison in America for defamation for libeling people for saying things that you don't like. It's happened.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. I'm just pausing because I don't know if that's true. I think I would be opposed to that.
-
Unknown B
It is true.
-
Unknown A
Do people go to jail in the United States for defamation?
-
Unknown B
Yep.
-
Unknown A
They face civil. They face civil judgment.
-
Unknown B
People have gone to jail making this.
-
Unknown A
Up out of nothing.
-
Unknown B
No, no. Go and check it.
-
Unknown A
Well, let me check with an actual American. Weird American. Right, Right. This is my college roommate. Oh. He was born in the uk but this is my college roommate who's an attorney.
-
Unknown B
I had offense. I had all this debate on Twitter recently, people.
-
Unknown A
There's a criminal defamation.
-
Unknown B
There is crime where. Go and check it. In certain states. Thank you.
-
Unknown A
Has anyone gone to jail for that?
-
Unknown B
Thank you.
-
Unknown A
I've never heard of that.
-
Unknown B
Sorry. The British guy is now telling Americans about their own law. I mean, I'm pleased, obviously, but I.
-
Unknown A
Think I'm going to. I'm going to dismiss that as a fifth. I've never. No, no, no. Not take the fifth. But the point is, you should never allow anybody in your country to go to jail. For having unpopular opinions.
-
Unknown B
It depends if they're inciting violence.
-
Unknown A
That's the criteria even mean.
-
Unknown B
I do think, by the way, for what it's worth, that some people have been put in jail for saying stuff on Facebook they shouldn't have been in jail. I agree with that.
-
Unknown A
The Criminal prosecution service CPS shared a video in X warning people about using social media. And it stated this. And I'm quoting. Quoting. I can't do the English accent, but this is what they say. Try think before you post. Exclamation point. Content that incites violence or hatred.
-
Unknown B
Right.
-
Unknown A
Isn't just harmful, it can be illegal. Paging George Orwell. The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibility or face the consequences. That's just like North Korea. At that point, you're inciting hatred.
-
Unknown B
If you're inciting violence against people.
-
Unknown A
No, no. Or hatred.
-
Unknown B
Right, but the violence you'd agree with inciting violence.
-
Unknown A
I don't know what that means.
-
Unknown B
It means you literally direct people to go and attack an asylum. See? Go.
-
Unknown A
No, that's directing violence. Inciting violence.
-
Unknown B
Well, that's the same thing.
-
Unknown A
No, it's not the same. It's not the same. So if I say, pierce, I want.
-
Unknown B
You to go and beat up Alex, Right? That's inciting and directing violence the same thing.
-
Unknown A
I could. You could say. And you're holding. It's not the same. Your government. Hold on. I'll tell you what the difference is. Your government is saying that some opinions are so inflammatory that they inspire people to commit acts of violence.
-
Unknown B
Yes.
-
Unknown A
Okay. That is a definition that justifies censorship.
-
Unknown B
If you want my honest opinion, some of the ones who've gone to prison should not be in prison.
-
Unknown A
How about inciting hatred?
-
Unknown B
Well, it depends what you're trying to say.
-
Unknown A
How do you measure hatred? Do you have a hatred meter?
-
Unknown B
Me?
-
Unknown A
Does. UK government. I mean, you're defending it, so.
-
Unknown B
No, I'm not defending. I'm literally telling you. I'm not defending that. I'm saying there are people who've been put in prison.
-
Unknown A
Why don't you overthrew your government? It's a tyrannical government.
-
Unknown B
I will always support people's right to have hateful views. That's fine. I don't agree with the government, but it's a crime. I don't agree with that. Right. But it depends what they're saying.
-
Unknown A
What are you doing to overthrow the tyranny if they are Insight.
-
Unknown B
If the excitement of hatred Makes people go and act, commit acts of violence. And you intend it to. That should be a crime. You shouldn't incite people to go and commit acts of violence.
-
Unknown A
But if I say something that the government doesn't like, and this is, of course, it's all self preservation here, they're not. No one is ever penalized for attacking. If you get up and you say, I hate Vladimir Putin and all Russians, you're not going to go to jail in the UK for that because that's the official policy of your government.
-
Unknown B
You wouldn't go to prison. No, no, but you wouldn't.
-
Unknown A
They can lynch Russians and they'd be like, you're right to say that.
-
Unknown B
But you asked me if you said you hate immigrants, you wouldn't go to prison for that. If you said that they're all over there in that hotel, go and throw firebombs at it. That should be a crime, shouldn't it?
-
Unknown A
Yeah, if you're telling people, if you're telling people to go.
-
Unknown B
That's what most of these cases involve.
-
Unknown A
No, that's not what it said, actually. That's not true.
-
Unknown B
The cases you're talking about are people who've been in prison.
-
Unknown A
That incites hatred isn't just harmful, it can be illegal.
-
Unknown B
So my criteria.
-
Unknown A
Okay, but I'm talking about your government and I'm asking.
-
Unknown B
I've told you, I don't agree with it.
-
Unknown A
You. Well, that's dictatorship from what I can tell.
-
Unknown B
I don't.
-
Unknown A
Yes, I said not dictatorship. The government is saying things that we hate are illegal. Put you in prison.
-
Unknown B
I'm half agreeing with you.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, good. Right, so what are you doing to change it? So you've got a prime minister now.
-
Unknown B
On my show regularly saying, I think.
-
Unknown A
It'S wrong, but at a certain point, don't people have a right to do what the American colonists did? And that's to throw off tyranny because their rights are inherent, they're given by God, because they're human beings.
-
Unknown B
So you want them to be violent? Violent?
-
Unknown A
Of course not. I'm totally opposed to violence. You're the one who was justifying firebombing.
-
Unknown B
What's the example you just gave? Wasn't it conducted with violence?
-
Unknown A
Of course not. But you should be single minded in getting a government that permits people to live like human beings, not like slaves. Right.
-
Unknown B
I don't think anyone should be able to use on social media. They shouldn't be using rhetoric which is inciting violence, period. Hate. I think this idea of what is hate is a much More complex thing. I don't feel comfortable. Somebody who believes in free speech and people saying hateful things and being put in prison. It's wrong.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, well, inciting violence is an absurd standard because. And this. They tried to take me out many times with this. Some wacko will go shoot innocence. Like he watched this show or he had the same opinions as you. It's like, I couldn't be more against violence. I'm mad at my government because it funds violence around the world.
-
Unknown B
Yeah, yeah.
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Unknown A
So inciting violence is just a way to get your critics to shut up. You can continue to loot their country.
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Unknown B
But if I say to people here, can you come and stab Tucker?
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Unknown A
Okay, but that's right, that's not inciting. That's like directing. It's like being a criminal.
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Unknown B
I think you'll find. Look, I may be wrong, but I'm really. I'm really wrong in. In linguistic matters, I think you'll find the definition of inciting and directing is not dissimilar.
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Unknown A
You know as well as I, and I don't know why you would defend it, that your government is stifling criticism of itself, of its own illegitimate leadership.
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Unknown B
Using law enforcement, I think, in relation to hate crime. Yes. They've overreached on that in relation to using social media.
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Unknown A
They flooded your country.
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Unknown B
We had riots last summer, and that's.
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Unknown A
Very unpopular with the native population. Always has been. Always has been. And the government for 40 years has told them in increasing volume to shut up and stop complaining. And now it's putting them in jail for complaining about it. That's the tr. The truth.
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Unknown B
That it's not as simplistic as that.
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Unknown A
Of course it's not as simplistic as that. Of course not. I agree. I'm over generalizing, by the way.
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Unknown B
You wouldn't have a country without a flood of him. Without a flood of immigrants, America wouldn't exist.
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Unknown A
But you're not America. You have a native population.
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Unknown B
Why would you object to the concept of a flood of immigrants? You literally got built on it.
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Unknown A
Well, look what happened to your country. Well, but my country is by its nature different.
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Unknown B
On. On the premise of immigrants.
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Unknown A
You're a monarchy run by the head of your church.
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Unknown B
There's a monarchy here.
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Unknown A
Right. And they're living as they should, which is consistent with their values. And your country isn't. So that's all I'm saying.
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Unknown B
Monarchy. Well, I think the king's a fine man, really. Viking. Yes.
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Unknown A
What has he done to preserve England?
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Unknown B
Preserving Did. Yeah. What do you mean?
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Unknown A
Well, I don't know. I mean it.
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Unknown B
Well, he's a Christian.
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Unknown A
He's the head of the.
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Unknown B
What is head of the Church of England.
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Unknown A
Yeah. He does, yeah. How's. How's church attendance?
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Unknown B
He goes quite regularly.
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Unknown A
What's all joke, dude, you had a Christian country, now you don't. So that's not a win, that's a failure.
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Unknown B
We have a far less Christian country. I agree.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
I'm sad about that as a Christian.
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Unknown A
Can I ask you, Keir Starmer seems like the most unpopular now that Trudeau's gone. The most unpopular leader in the West.
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Unknown B
He's certainly gone from winning with a big majority last summer to being incredibly unpopular very quickly.
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Unknown A
Can he hang on, you got four more years of this? Ish. Is that right?
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Unknown B
Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would say that there's a reasonable chance he will contest the next election in four years time. It depends really how the next year goes. I mean, I've never seen anyone lose such political capital so quickly.
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Unknown A
Yes.
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Unknown B
And he did it because he came in and decided that the strategy he would do is to say the Tories were so awful, the country's now in a terrible state, so bad that we'd have to do all these punitive taxes and we're going to have to whack the pensioners and we're going to have to whack the farmers and punish all these groups of people. And everyone was like, wow, you've waited 14 years in opposition and this is what.
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Unknown A
What did the farmers do wrong? I never understood that.
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Unknown B
They make our food. I mean, it's ridiculous. Most of them live literally because British food's not good.
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Unknown A
Is that what's up?
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Unknown B
Most of them lose money. Farmers. And the idea he created the impression that a lot of pensioners can afford it. A lot of farmers can afford it. Actually, most of them can't. Most of them can't.
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Unknown A
Why would you target farm?
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Unknown B
I mean, it's just inexplicable.
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Unknown A
But it's happened throughout Europe and the United States. Attacking farmers.
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Unknown B
And it seems like part of a should reward farmers. Farmers are the lifeblood of any civilized country.
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Unknown A
Right. But if you're looking big picture, if you're opposed to famine and you're for human flourishing and people, then you'd want to do whatever you could to have enough food.
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Unknown B
I agree.
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Unknown A
And if country by country by country, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Holland, they're all attacking farmers. United States, maybe there's a bigger anti human agenda at work. Does it, do you say?
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Unknown B
I just think there's a. It's a pretty dumb political agenda that's been pursued.
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Unknown A
So it's not just dumb, it's, like, weird.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
Of all the groups you'd attack, white farmers.
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Unknown B
Makes no sense.
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Unknown A
It does make sense, though, doesn't it?
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Unknown B
Why?
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Unknown A
Well, clearly there's an effort to reduce the human population. If you're. If all these countries.
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Unknown B
He wants to starve the Brits and kill us.
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Unknown A
Well, I don't know. You know, you can't assess the motives of individuals. They're unknowable.
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Unknown B
We're trying to starve the British think.
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Unknown A
Okay, I don't know him. I don't know what he's trying to do. No, no, no, no, no, no. You come on. Look around the world. Government after government after government around the world is endorsing policies that they know will reduce birth rates, is attacking agriculture and is allowing, I don't know, drugs and food that kill people and make them less healthy. So if you add that all up, you don't have to know their motives. You just look at the effects and you're like, the effect is to kill people. What is going on here? Do you ever wonder that?
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Unknown B
Crap governance by a series around.
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Unknown A
It's like every country's like, you know, we saw people kill themselves. How would you ever come up with.
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Unknown B
That at a time when we need more people, not less? Yeah.
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Unknown A
What do you think that is?
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Unknown B
Bad governing?
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Unknown A
I mean, why is it the same in every country?
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Unknown B
Well, I just think the food thing in particular. Look how fat everyone's getting, right? I mean, fat, lazy, sedentary. And you're like, that can't be good for anyone.
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Unknown A
No, but why is it happening?
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Unknown B
Bad, bad politicians.
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Unknown A
But why is every politician in every Western country coming to the same set of policies whose effect is fewer children, more unhealthy dead people? Like what? I mean, you don't have to be a conspiracy not to just say. I'm looking at just the numbers. That is how many kids per family dropping.
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Unknown B
That is the consequence of all the political actions that have been taken. I agree. I don't think it's a mad global conspiracy in the way you might be inferring.
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Unknown A
Well, I don't.
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Unknown B
I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, but I don't. Listen, I know where you're coming from on this. I don't believe they're actually smart enough to do that from the public.
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Unknown A
And why are they all doing it?
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Unknown B
All of them? I think because they're not very competent. And then. And they're not very good and they're lazy, but they're going along.
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Unknown A
Averages would suggest that, like, I don't know, the governments of Spain, Belgium, New Zealand. Pick another. Mexico would adopt the opposite policies. Like, we're going to pay you to have more kids, not one of them.
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Unknown B
Here's what I agree with you about. It's wrong and it's got to change. We need more people, not less. We need better food, not crap food. We need to reduce the size of our human beings whilst increasing populations. Otherwise the planet's going to kill itself, going to basically self implode and die out. As Elon Musk is warning, he's right.
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Unknown A
I agree with that. I'm going to end on this.
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Unknown B
Have we ended on agreement?
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Unknown A
I just want to know your. Since you're, I think, good at predictions, how do you think the war in Ukraine will end?
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Unknown B
I think it will end. I do think Donald Trump will get a deal. I do think in the end that Russia will probably keep most of the land they've taken. I personally wish that wasn't the case, but I think that's how this gets ended. And I hope that Ukraine get enough guarantees that the rest of their country won't get taken down the line. We saw Crimea go. We've seen the east go pretty much. And I suspect Vladimir Putin, I believe, will try and take the rest of it. I may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I hope it gets a deal, gets done soon because too many people are dying. I heard the other day that 100,000 people on that battlefield died in six weeks on both sides collectively. I mean, this is a horrendous. Has been the stuff you saw at the Somme. I mean, it's like.
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Unknown A
I totally agree, but do you think it's kind of. I strongly agree with you and I have for two and a half years. But why is it only now that we're getting sort of more realistic casualty figures? How could a government fund a war without knowing how many people died in that war?
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Unknown B
You think the Ukrainians have not been telling the truth about it?
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Unknown A
I think the US and British governments have both lied about it and kept those numbers from the public. And I feel like that's a crime.
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Unknown B
They should tell the truth. They should be transparent. If that's the case, it's wrong.
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Unknown A
I hope you'll go back to Great Britain and grab him by the throat and make them tell the truth.
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Unknown B
You know, you've made me think, go back to Britain and make us jolt us into action. You know what I like about the Trump thing in the last week, just the sense of hope, optimism, dynamism. Even the bit before the election when he went down to watch one of Elon Musk's rockets launch. And just the fact that America's back in the business of going into space, aiming to go to the moon, aiming to go to Mars. Yes. Where's that in my country? Where is that kind of dynamism? Where is someone hitting the ground with 200 things they want to do?
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Unknown A
I agree.
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Unknown B
You may not agree with all them, but, my God, the energy Trump is expending, the dynamism, the aspiration, the. The. The thing of making America great again. I got a feeling this time around, Trump's going to have a very good four years. I'm not so convinced about my country, and I want to get that kind of oomph and energy and dynamism in Britain, because I don't disagree with a lot of the characterization you've had. If we are a country in the doldrums right now.
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Unknown A
We are, and it solves a lot of problems. I think that's really smart.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
You know, the energy, the attitude, all of it. Why are people doing heroin in the first place?
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown A
Why would you want to do fentanyl? Because you're hopeless.
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Unknown B
We have a terrible drugs problem.
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Unknown A
No, I agree.
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Unknown B
In our country. Terrible. You have a bad drug problem in.
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Unknown A
America and you solve it with attitude.
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Unknown B
Yeah, you do.
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Unknown A
Piers Morgan, thank you for taking all this time.
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Unknown B
I enjoyed it.
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Unknown A
It's great to see you in Saudi Arabia.
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Unknown B
Let's do it again sometime.
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Unknown A
Thank you.
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Unknown B
Thanks very much. Enjoyed it.
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Unknown A
So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show. On one level, that's not surprising. That's what they do. But on another level, it's shocking. With everything that's going on in the world right now, all the change taking place in our economy and our politics, with the wars we're on the cusp of fighting right now. Google has decided you should have less information rather than more, and that is totally wrong. It's immoral. What can you do about it? Well, we could whine about it. That's a waste of time. Time. We're not in charge of Google. Or we could find a way around it, a way that you could actually get information that is true, not intentionally deceptive. The way to do that on YouTube, we think, is to subscribe to our channel. Subscribe. Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video.
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Unknown A
That way, you'll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information, so we hope that you'll do that.