EXCLUSIVE: 'Netanyahu Is FASCIST!' + Ehud Barak Breaks Silence On Shock Epstein Claims

0:00He has declared war on the state of Israel and on the people of Israel. Fascistic, chauvinistic, extremist, ayatollah-style. They're outraged, the Iranians, and they want revenge.

0:12Piers Morgan:We've seen crowds chanting death to America. It shouldn't be taken literally. They mean death to the U.S. Empire. They mean death to this oppressive regime. He was a convicted pedophile. I'm not an expert on the rules of America. All due respect, Mr. Barak, it's the same rule pretty much everywhere. where if you sexually abuse a minor, you're a pedophile. I told you, I regret the fact that I ever met him. The fact that the American society accepted him probably blinded me. Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most consequential and divisive leaders in modern history, but the great survivor of global politics, elected six times as the Israeli Prime Minister, could finally be facing the end of the road in elections later this year.

0:56Piers Morgan:He's facing difficult questions about the enormous security failures leading to October 7th, as well as the failure of the Iran war he did so much to Stoke. And Netanyahu could lose much more than power. He's still facing corruption charges in Israel, as well as contentious ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes. It's against his backdrop that he's made his latest big move. He's refusing to abide by a Supreme Court decision on a media freedom case, plunging his country into a constitutional crisis. Critics are calling it a legal coup and nothing less than an assault on democracy. Well, Ehud Olmert was the Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009 and joins me now.

1:33Piers Morgan:Mr Roman, welcome back to Uncensored. Hi. Benjamin Netanyahu, I believe, with the active participation of some of his ministers like Ben Gavir and Smodredge, is making Israel globally more and more unpopular, which for somebody like me that loves Israel, knows lots of Israelis, knows many Jewish people around the world. I find this really upsetting to watch. Do you agree with my categorisation and what can be done about it? Well, I certainly can add to this. I think that he has declared war on the state of Israel and on the people of Israel, on the basic fundamental values which have characterized what Israel was and the way that Israel was perceived in the international community.

2:28Even at times, many different parts of the world didn't agree with us, criticized Israel, but there never was such a storm of protest across the world in the friendliest places that were so much connected to the state of Israel as it is now. And this is largely, almost entirely, because of the fascistic, chauvinistic, extremist, Ayatollah's type character of the major part of the government, who is a complete consent and inspiration of the Prime Minister of Israel. I know that lots of good, innocent people and Jews across the world complain about the growing wave of anti-Semitism. And certainly there is anti-Semitism, there was anti-Semitism throughout our history, throughout our lives.

3:33We all were victims of it. But five years ago, or 15 years ago, or 20 years ago, when I was fighting at the time I was prime minister with Lebanon, there was a certain criticism. There were some voices of discontent, but there was not anything similar to what it is today. And there was anti-Semitism also then, but there was not any such voice of hatred to the state of Israel. And the only reason for it is when you look at this government, what can you say? When you see this Benghiv running the Israeli government and talking about the Gaza to get rid of everyone there, because everyone is Hamas and everyone who is Hamas is doomed to die.

4:31And everyone in Gaza is Hamas. And the obvious interpretation of it is that he calls for a genocide of these people. And what the settlers are doing in the West Bank without the Israeli police stopping it, in fact, in some cases supporting it. And the Israeli army is indifferent or sometimes actively supporting it. And this is obnoxious, totally intolerable and unacceptable and unforgivable. And it is all done under the auspices and the responsibility of the Israeli government. So what do you want people outside of Israel to think? I can't tolerate it and I'm an Israeli and I live here. Well, also, I think, I also think, yeah, right.

5:22Piers Morgan:And I would say that the really disturbing development in the last few days is it appears that Netanyahu and his government are now prepared to ignore a Supreme Court ruling. And, you know, I remember in the months before October 7th, because I actually interviewed Netanyahu in London in April, I think it was, of that year, when there were huge protests on the streets of Israel about his attempts to, you know, reduce power of the Supreme Court. But if now you have a government in Israel, supposedly the only democracy in the Middle East, a government that is prepared to actually ignore a Supreme Court ruling because they actually want more control of the media, then what does that say about Israel's claim to be a democracy?

6:11They're actively fighting to destroy the status, the authority of the Supreme Court. The fact is that they don't even recognise the president of the Supreme Court. not tacitly, not quietly, not behind the scenes, publicly, officially, the Minister of Justice says that he doesn't recognize the President of the Supreme Court because he is not certain that the selection or the appointment of the President of the Supreme Court was done in a proper manner, which is nonsense, of course. It was done precisely as all the former presidents of the Supreme Courts were appointed. And the prime minister doesn't actively recognize him.

7:01And so this process, which deteriorates towards the destruction of the Supreme Court, non-compliance of the government to the ruling of the Supreme Court is moving rapidly. And we are really coming, we are coming very close to fight to defend the soul of the state of Israel, the soul of the nature of Israel. When you say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, there is a question now, are we still that kind of democracy? We definitely are not that kind of democracy that we were. You can't be a democracy and do not recognize actively, publicly, in the biggest volume of your voice, the Supreme Court, and consider yourself to be a democracy.

8:01We are not. So this This is really the coming elections. We have some fears, by the way, that with the assistance, possible assistance of the Ben-Vil's police, he is the Minister of National Security, he is in charge of the Israeli police, when the police is not what it used to be years ago. So there are some voices in Israel that are scared, I mean, that are scared and they voice it out that if the outcome of the elections will show a defeat to Netanyahu, he may not recognize it, and he will not allow the enforcement of the outcome of these elections with the assistance or the lack of participation of the police in favor of this outcome.

8:54And if the Supreme Court will rule out something again, he may not agree to abide by it. So we are coming close to a very unique moment in the history of the state of Israel. And we are fighting to save our country. There is no other term that I can use.

9:12Piers Morgan:At the same moment, you've also seen this extraordinary situation that's been unfurling between the United States and Israel, where it would appear from a very deep-dive piece in the New York Times quite early on that Donald Trump was persuaded by Benjamin Netanyahu that this was the best time to attack Iran and that, unlike previous US presidents, Trump decided to go along with this, and that Netanyahu presented a set of circumstances that would happen, which were, you take out the Ayatollah and some of his top people, The IRGC collapsed from within. The people rise up. There's a natural revolution.

9:52Piers Morgan:And everyone's too preoccupied to worry about the Strait of Hormuz. Now, as we know, the first part of that happened, but he got replaced, the Alutoglu, by his more radical son anyway. None of the rest of it's happened. This has created a lot of distrust with President Trump, who obviously feels a bit humiliated, I think, by what's happened. It's clearly been, at the moment, a failure. And there are people now openly calling. You know, you've seen people who have always been supportive of Israel. You know, I'm thinking of Rahm Emanuel, who's looking to, you know, perhaps run for president, talking about it's time for America to stop supporting Israel financially and so on.

10:30Piers Morgan:This feels to me like this Iran war and the way it was executed and the failings involved with it could be the beginning of the end of this relationship between the United States and Israel. Do you fear that could happen? Well, I tell you, I read the same book, I think, that you read, the new book, Regime Change, issued last week by Hege Eberman and Jonathan Swan, who wrote already before a couple of books about Trump. And what they say there and what they tell there is really mind-boggling, is staggering, is stunning how, unfortunately, President Trump was convinced and persuaded to join in with the Israeli attack.

11:17He didn't do it in the very first evening of June of 1995, but he subsequently joined in. And then he was convinced again in February, 28th of February this year, to join in with the Israeli attack. And what I asked myself then, and I said it out loud in American media on the 28th of February, right after the president, I happened to have been in Washington at that time, and And I said, OK, I'm not unhappy when an enemy of the state of Israel was eliminated and that the president of the United States of America supports the Israeli needs for security and is prepared to fight against our enemies.

12:08But I wonder, was there a thought about the next step? What are they going to do? What do we want to achieve? Do we sort out a strategy of how to move forward in order to achieve something which can be tangible, which can be effective, which can make a difference in the situation? And apparently, other than blah, blah and inflated rhetoric of Netanyahu and his group of thugs that surrounds him, there was not any strategy. There was not any thought. there was really a childish belief, arrogant belief, that with the first strike, which was very successful from a military point of view, and considering that the objective was to really eliminate a group of leaders, including the Ayatollah, it was quite successful.

13:04But again, there was nothing that was thought about what's next. And there was this belief, the childish belief, that the regime in Iran will collapse rapidly and that the Kurds from the east will flood into Iran and will destroy everything. I mean, it is so childish. It is so pompous. It is so irrelevant that you ask yourself, are these guys responsible for the well-being of hundreds of millions of people? This is how they manage themselves. This is how they handle the most significantly significant and sensitive things that can change the lives of so many millions of people. Unbelievable. It is.

13:59Piers Morgan:Ehud Omar, thank you very much indeed for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Pierce. Joining me now is the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Mr Barak, welcome back to Uncensored. How significant do you think it is that Benjamin Netanyahu's government appears to be preparing to ignore a Supreme Court ruling in Israel, thus, in many people's eyes, defying its own rule of law?

14:30I seriously think it's a major blow to our democracy. It is an attack of the government on the Israeli democracy in a very dangerous manner, unprecedented. There is no way to run a modern democracy based on the idea that the executive branch can impose its judgment on judicial issue over the Supreme Court. So it's a direct attack on democracy, and there is no way but to block it and stop it. A government that dares to attack this way the relevance of verdicts of the Supreme Court might even ignore the results of election in Israel. And you can't impose anything on it.

15:24Piers Morgan:Well, that is a very significant point, that if it gets to the elections and Netanyahu was to lose the election, then given what he's now doing with the Supreme Court, many people fear he will simply refuse to accept the results of that election. What happens then? No, I don't know. the all living former chiefs of the Supreme Court issued a statement today saying that accepting this new norm will be the last nail in the coffin of Israel as a democratic, advanced country. And I really think that this government under Netanyahu, even before the war of 7th of October, almost three years ago, they started an attack on our democracy.

16:18They brought us to the verge of debits, and it seems to be determined to keep moving forward. And the former Chief Justice Barak, not a relative of mine, told the public very honestly, We are defending democracy, but you, the people, should not expect the Supreme Court or the Attorney General to solve it to you. It's up to the people to solve it. And that's very tough warning. I think that the only way is for the president of the country, who are immune against any steps, to take the lead and call upon the people to step out, to go out to the streets, to establish a siege on the Knesset and the Prime Minister's office, paralyze the state until this government kind of resign.

17:24And I don't believe that the president will do it based on his behavior in the last three years. then it comes to the heads of opposition. The heads of opposition should announce, call upon the people to stop everything that's moving in the country in order to make sure that the government will understand that it has no choice but to resign. I don't believe even in free and fair election under this situation and I don't want to dive into all alternatives that Netanyahu has to try to torpedo a fair and right kind of executed elections.

18:07Piers Morgan:Who is the best potential next prime minister of Israel? Who can repair the damage that Netanyahu and this government, with people like Ben Gavir and Smodric saying ever more outrageous things, doing ever more outrageous things? Who is going to be the person that comes through to save Israel from what is going on? I don't want to point to a name. I want to ask in a different way. We have five heads of opposition. Eisenkot, a former chief of staff, a leading general. Bennett, a former prime minister for about a year. Lapid, who was a prime minister for three months. Lieberman, who is the head of a good right-wing party, but against Netanyahu, and Yair Golan, who runs the Democratic Party.

19:05Each one of them, and any permutation of these five people, one of them Prime Minister, one Minister of Defense, one Minister of Foreign Affairs, one Minister of Treasury, and one minister of internal security or of justice. Any permutation is 10 times better than the present government led by Netanyahu is totally derailed from the normative behavior of a prime minister and the group of dwarfs, yes-men, which are totally kind of, I don't know, something that no country will nominate to run a bus station in a major city. And these zeros in terms of political power running the country into a disaster, they include some Jewish supremacy, Messianic fanatics, and some others who are ultra-religious, good Jews, but totally detached from realities of politics and basically blackmailing Netanyahu, who is very weak these days because of his corruption court case, because the demand to establish an inquiry committee, national inquiry committee to check what happened in the 7th of October and even before and after.

20:35and his main problem with Trump when he now loses his support and even the objective results of the war. In spite of unprecedented achievements of the IDF, of our air force, our intelligence and so on, after almost three years, not a single objective of the war had been achieved. Not in Gaza against the Hamas. They are still on their feet and having their weapons. Not against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where they're still alive and kicking. And for sure, not in Iran. There is no toppling down of the regime, no end to the nuclear military program, no end to the ballistic missile problem, and no end to the proxy system.

21:26So it's not an absolute victory, it's an absolute failure. And it's time for the world to realize Netanyahu and Israel are not the same. The interests of Netanyahu and security national Israel are not the same. Netanyahu by now is driven by his personal interest of survivability as a prime minister in order not to face the day of reckoning when he will have to take accountability for all the damage he caused in the recent years. And he's behaving as a private individual that wants to survive, not as a responsible leader of a nation in deep trouble.

22:08Piers Morgan:How damaging has the Iran war been, do you think, to Israel's credibility as a government, to the relationship with the United States? The attack, the 12th day of attack, last year, in June 25, was in a way justifiable, blow to their nuclear military plant, to their missile industry and so on. Not obliterated, not pushing them backward for generations as Netanyahu and Trump tried to exaggerate the result, but it was, let's say, give and take, it was justifiable. The new attack this February of 26, 28 of February 26, is an absolute failure. It was based, the whole idea was based on fantasy, that by eliminating a single person or probably half a dozen of leaders, Khamenei and his entourage, and some other illusions, you can topple down a regime.

23:22The idea, without admitting it publicly, was to topple down the regime, but any professional would have told you that it's not going to work. And I'm not saying it in retrospect. Many people in the room said it, both here and in Washington, and Netanyahu insisted on doing it. He succeeded to convince Trump against the judgment of both J.D. Vance, Rubio, and many professionals, I assume, on the CIA or NSC and so on. And when it started, the fantasies kind of blown up, exaggerated, and collapsed immediately. And there was misreading of how kind of stable is this regime. There is no understanding of the reason that in order to win, Israel and America has to win in a way that every teenager in the free world will see.

24:24It means something like Venezuela to Trump and something like the six-day war for Israel. But to the Iranian, and in a similar way to Hezbollah and Hamas, it's enough to survive. It's an asymmetric war. If they survived, they had won. If after several weeks or months of a war, they can still stand up and keep fighting, that means that they've won in their own eyes, but also in the eyes of the world community, in the eyes of the region, in the eyes of history, in a way. So that's something that should not have been missed by anyone who is serious strategist in this region. Not to mention the fact that everyone should realize in advance that the first step that they will do is to close the Hormuz straits.

25:24There was not a single war game in any capital in the world around the issue of Iran in the last generation, where the next or second step of the Iranian side in the war game was to close the Hormuz straits. The idea that it was not considered as something that will inevitably happen and will be needed to give answer to is, I don't know how to call it, a total clumsiness on the strategic level. And then the idea that the Kurds, the Kurds will be encouraged to cross the border from Iraq to Iran and move toward Tehran. It's ridiculous. There are 300 miles from the place where the Iraqi Kurds would meet the Iranian Kurds.

26:15And along these 300 miles to Tehran, there are about a million armed people who back the regime. How the hell you can even dream that it will work? And the ridiculous idea that leaders from the West, the leader of the great Satan and the leader of the little Satan, could call upon the Iranian people to stand up and take their destiny in their hands is also ridiculous. Try to imagine what would have happened if Khamenei, the dead one, would have come on TV and call upon Israelis to topple down Netanyahu because he tries to destroy democracy in Israel. It will unite even the protest against Netanyahu behind him.

27:01And the same happens in Iran. So you cannot explain it only by the theory of a gambler that failed and tried to double down on his gamble in order to save the case. No justification for the failure of Netanyahu. Netanyahu misses the very way that military campaigns are won. You have to have a clear objective. They should be achievable. You should have the means to execute them. You should have the political will to stand up the ups and downs of a real war. and you should have a vision of how you're going to translate your achievements in the battlefield into sustainable political diplomatic results.

27:53This political diplomatic leg is essential for any war. And they should know, both in Jerusalem and in Washington, that a war, especially a war that you initiate, has always to follow the rule from macroeconomy of diminishing returns. The first day is dramatic. Everyone gets happy and applauds. Then you have one or two days more when you can deepen the damage. Then comes the time of diminishing returns. And later on, you find yourself muddling through and sinking into the mud of a war. America had it in Vietnam. they had it in Iraq, they had it in Afghanistan. We had it a generation ago or two generations ago in the attrition war with Egypt and Syria.

28:45That's the rules, and they should have been cleared. No way to explain it. It's a major failure, and in Israel, at least, the prime minister and his government should be accountable and be removed from power, even independent of their attempt to destroy democracy, which started, I should admit, before the war. So it's much more crazy than I thought. You cannot just relate it to the fact that there is a war. And as a result of the dire straits they got into, they raised this idea of dictatorship. They had it when they started the government, nine months before the war started.

29:26Piers Morgan:Yeah, I would say that since you last appeared on my show, your name appeared many times in the Epstein files, including regular correspondence, multiple visits to Epstein's Manhattan apartment, one to his private island, and your critics have said you must have known what he was like and what he was doing. What do you say to your critics? That it's not true. I knew him. I never denied him. I knew him. for years, since 2003. And I met when I used to visit the United States several times a year. I used to meet with him, usually for breakfast or lunch. I met American leading figures from politics on both sides of the aisle, from the academy, from diplomacy, from business, from philanthropy, leading players, I never witnessed or had been exposed to any kind of improper behavior, not with young women and not with any other situation.

30:48It's true that I spent some time when I came to New York, sometime in a building where he had a dozen or two dozens of apartments. And I never saw anything of this nature. I visited his island one time together with my wife, an Israeli security detail. We spent there three hours in a certain afternoon. There was no one there except for Epson himself and several locals who were working in gardening and maintenance. So, of course, I regret the fact that I ever had met him and would be happy if I would have been feeling anything. In fact, I knew that he was in a prison for about a year, an open prison in Florida for tempting a girl for relationships, something like this.

31:52But I judged him based on what I've said. The American society judged him. I kept meeting more scientists, leading politicians, even journalists respected the people. But he was, as you know...

32:11Piers Morgan:OK, but he was, as you know, he was a convicted sex offender. I mean, he perpetrated a sex crime against a minor, and everybody knew that. And the question that people have for people like you, who continue to be so friendly with him, is why would you choose to be friendly with somebody who was a convicted sex offender? You know, I am not an expert on the rules and norms in America, but from what have I seen, the kind of people that were meeting in his place and meeting with him very regularly. I was only four or five times a year in America, and the people I met there left for me no doubt that the American society, even the upper kind of privileged layers of it, stratas of it, understood that he made certain crime.

33:13He served some time in an open prison. He paid his duty, whatever, to society. And the American society, as a matter of fact, kept treating him in what seems to be the same way. So I didn't feel that I have any...