“F***ing Bullsh*t!” Iran War Talks COLLAPSE Over Israel + Cenk Uygur BANNED From UK

23:52Piers Morgan:Obviously, that kind of double standard is unacceptable and is the, you know, refuge of cowards. Well, he hasn't been arrested, but he has been banned. and all of this amounts to a colossal embarrassment for the UK, which already has an unwanted global reputation for authoritarian crackdowns on social media users. And it's yet another example of censoring the criticism of Israel. It should be blindingly obvious that there is a huge difference between criticising the actions of a nation state and its government and the hate-filled diatribes of Kanye West, or indeed Valentina Gomez. But my country is losing the ability to see that difference.

24:26Piers Morgan:It won't be long before that's something which threatens all of us. Well, joining me now is Cenk Yuger, founder and CEO of the Young Turks, and Shabos Kestenbaum, commentator with Preju, both of whom are due to be in this studio with me to debate in person before the British Home Office intervened. Well, before I get to Cenk, you know, Shabos, credit to you because your first reaction publicly about this was to say how outraged you were by this ban and how wrong it was. Just explain why. Sure, well, it's good to see both of you, if not in person, at least virtually. And that's because of Charlie Kirk.

25:00Charlie Kirk always taught me that the best way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas. It's not with censorship. I'm half British, as I think I mentioned on the show before. My parents were born and raised here. My whole extended family still live in London. And to me, England is a country that produced the Magna Carta. You know, this is a country of thinkers like John Locke and Edmund Burke. And I find the deterioration of free speech, the erosion of free speech in the United Kingdom in particular, to be incredibly worrisome. I would add, I'm not entirely clear what the reasons were, because I think, Cenk, if you're being intellectually honest, you will also admit you were not given specific reasons.

25:33Was it because you're anti-Israel? It's possible. I'm not disputing that. But we also have to keep in mind that there are a whole host of people that have been barred from entering the UK that did not elicit the same outrage. People like, you know, Ezra Levant. I mean, he's pro-Israel as they come. And I'm not entirely clear why he was rejected. People like Don Keith, people like Dominic Tarchinsky, who I believe was on your show.

25:52Piers Morgan:Well, I had Don Keith on only last week after the Tommy Robinson march, and I gave him plenty of time to try and explain why he felt he'd been banned, and I didn't understand it. Now, Valentina Gomez, to me, is a different situation. She's somebody who is openly, brazenly, hatefully bigoted towards Muslim people because they're all Muslim. She hates them all and wants to whip up hatred about them. I didn't see Don Keith in that category at all, and I don't see you, Czech Yuga, in that category at all either. You know, you've been probably my most regular guest on Uncensored since we began. And sometimes I'm concerned about your blood vessels, but when it comes to what you say about Israel, I've been, you know, listening very intently.

26:39Piers Morgan:You've always been very careful to maintain your criticism of Israel and its government in particular and its decisions. But I've never heard you espouse any anti-Semitism. I've never heard you be hateful about Jewish people or anyone because of their faith or their ethnicity. So I just don't understand what rationale the UK government could possibly have for banning you. Have you been able to find out any more? Yeah, so let's break it down. So I go to the airport and they just say that I've been rejected by the British government and I'm not allowed to enter and hence I can't board the plane.

27:19Piers Morgan:They don't give any stated reason. Then about 20 minutes later, that Times article that you mentioned, Pierce, comes out, and it says, because I criticized Israel in the wrong ways. Now, I don't know if the British government is going to put out a list of the acceptable ways to criticize Israel and the unacceptable ways to criticize Israel. That might be helpful because apparently we're going to need it. Over 60 % of Americans are critical of Israel. will we all be banned from the UK? Should everyone be careful about traveling to the United Kingdom because they might ruin your plans at the end if a different government is unsatisfied with you?

27:56Piers Morgan:So can they put out a list of things you're not allowed to say about Israel? And what's amazing is that you're allowed to say anything you want about the United Kingdom or about America or any other country. And they said the only thing they could grasp at, because I've never said anything anti-Semitic because I don't believe that. In fact, I believe the opposite. is that they said that I said that America is controlled by Israel, the Congress is, because they're the top donor in this last election cycle. Well, that is empirically true. That is a fact. So are facts anti-Semitic now? Are news people not allowed to deliver facts to people?

28:34Piers Morgan:And if you say, hey, someone who is deeply anti-Semitic says the Jews are terrible and it's their fault and Hitler's good, etc., is in the same camp as a guy who says, no, this has nothing to do with Jewish people. In fact, 63 % of Jewish Americans are opposed to the current Israeli government. And I make that distinction on The Young Turks almost every day. You made it on this show regularly. Yeah, and if you put us in the same category, well, you know, you're destroying the idea of combating actual bigotry. It's almost like pulling a Jesse Smollett on a national level and saying, we don't care.

29:12Piers Morgan:And it's also deeply ironic to say that we're going to ban you for criticizing Israel by saying that our governments are controlled by Israel. Well, the other point I read in the Times piece actually involved directly this show, because the Times said the decision to ban you was also based on some appearances on Uncensored, in which he dismissed evidence relating to grooming gangs in towns such as Rotherham where official inquiries identified an estimated 1 ,400 victims. Well, let's take a look at the clip we think they're talking about. And then they go, it's the Muslims. I mean, it's almost comical.

29:51Piers Morgan:It's comical. And then we're talking about, wait, grooming gangs going after kids or whatever. Oh, that comes out just as everyone's talking about the Epstein files and how a bunch of pro-Israeli figures raped American girls. Oh, it's the Muslims! It's the Muslims! So next time you hear it's the Muslims, I guarantee you that it's Israeli propaganda trying to divert you from something that's in the news now. Can you address it? Can you shut up and let me address it? Can you address it without mentioning Israel? Or can you address grooming gangs? No, because that's the whole reason we're having this conversation.

30:28Piers Morgan:Brilliant. Because your Israeli buddies wanted a distraction. from the epstein files that's why they threw this garbage into the media so now let me just explain to you please just explain to you that that's going on for 30 years and let me address it you're asking me a question and i'll answer it you're asking me a question and i'll answer it this is super easy why don't you arrest everyone who's committed a crime so if pakistani grooming gangs exist and i'm sure they do then arrest them where's the question they didn't if there's a People shut up and let me finish. They didn't arrest them. If there's people, shut up and let me finish.

31:08Piers Morgan:So if there's a white gang of people who are raping people, arrest them. If there's a bunch of super powerful people who are raping American girls, arrest them. Now, again, you know, people can disagree with you, agree with you, whatever, right? The reality of the grooming gang scandal was that it went on over several decades. It was covered up. It involved predominantly Pakistani British Muslim men abusing young white English girls. That was what happened. And many of them eventually got brought to justice and put in prison, but not before a gigantic cover-up went on. And that is indisputable and was a disgusting scandal which shamed my country.

31:55Piers Morgan:However, nothing that you've said about that. I mean, look, I would contest and I would argue with you that I've not seen clear evidence of any concerted Israeli campaign to hide the Epstein scandal thing around re-inflaming the Muslim grooming gang scandal, because to me they're two totally different things, and the grooming scandal continues to make news because of developments involving it. So I would say that you're wrong about that, Shane, but it doesn't really matter whether you're wrong about it or not. You are perfectly entitled to express that opinion and to express that suspicion, and people on the panel can argue with you, disagree with you, or agree with you.

32:35Piers Morgan:The idea that that, again, as the Times reports, was one of the reasons apparently the British government used to ban you from coming to my country, I just find completely ridiculous and shameful. You know, people say to me, what is going on with your country? and they try and say, you're being overrun by Muslims. And I say, you know what, it's complete crap. We're not being overrun by Muslims. But when they say, but there's been a concerted attack on your free speech, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to argue about that. We have comedians who've been arrested at the airport, Heathrow coming in, for jokes they made on X months before.

33:12Piers Morgan:We now have this. We have people doing Facebook posts being put in prison, grandmothers and so on. And it's got completely out of control. and we've forgotten what free speech actually means. It actually means tolerating opinions that we don't like, not opinions you do like. What now happens? Do you have any right of appeal, Cenk? So let's talk about the grooming gangs for a second, Piers, because it goes a little deeper than what you said. They told The Times that I denied the existence of grooming gangs. You didn't. Even in the clip you just played. Yeah, you didn't deny it. I just, I said, I'm sure that they exist.

33:51Piers Morgan:So that's the exact opposite of what's true. So then that inexorably leads to the question of why is the British government lying about me? That is very weird, right? Why lie about my stance on grooming gangs? And can I not say that I think it's, you know, meant as a distraction and a way to blame Muslims overall? Well, you can. The whole point is, of course you can. Yeah, I mean, of course you're allowed to have that view. Like I say, I don't agree with it, but I don't agree with a lot of things you say. And I agree passionately with other things you say. And I like having you on the show because you always take part in debate.

34:25Piers Morgan:You're always prepared to debate with people like Shabbos. I mean, I was really pleased, Shabbos, to bring you back in, that you immediately went out there publicly and defended Cenk, the guy you were going to be arguing with passionately about these kind of issues, not realising that he would be at the centre of it. I mean, let me ask you, Shabbos, in terms of this, Every country has a right to let anybody in or not let them in, right? America bans a lot of people from going into the country. I happen to know two famous people in England who stopped going to America because they had warnings, like literal cautions from the police for possessing tiny amounts of marijuana.

35:06Piers Morgan:And that meant every time they tried to go to America, they'd be hauled into a side room when they landed and grilled for 15 hours. And they got fed up with it and they eventually left. And yet Tommy Robinson, who has a list of prison convictions as long as your arm, appears to come and go as he pleases. So there are clearly a weird set of double standards applied about all sorts of stuff. But fundamentally, a country has a right to decide who they let in and who they don't. But you raised a good point, which is after the Tommy Robinson march, it was clear a number of American citizens had been banned from coming in for that because their views were deemed to be likely to, you know, be against the interests of my country.

35:48Piers Morgan:And some of them I kind of agreed with, like Valentina Gomez. I think she's an appalling human being who just wants to whip up racial hatred. But others I didn't get. And so I think, again, it's like, well, who's deciding this? Who is the arbiter? It seems to be just on the whim of a Home Secretary or the Home Office or the Homeland Security people, whatever, to just arbitrarily work out who they think isn't suitable. What do you think about that? Yeah, I agree with how you diagnosed the problem. And that's why I was comfortable using the word authoritarian, because when you have the government arbitrarily deciding which views we're going to subjectively decide or allow into this country, that's really dangerous.

36:24And there are kind of like two ways of answering this. One is the legal lens. So to your point, you are right. Legally, countries can decide who's allowed into the country and who isn't. The United States does it. So Marco Rubio has made it very clear in the beginning of the second Trump administration that we are going to screen people based on their social media presences, if they're in support of terrorist organizations or not. So Tyler Oliveri, he was actually banned from the state of Israel for entering Israel. Whether he should have been banned or not, it's irrelevant because legally Israel can make that decision.

36:49I think where I find Cenk's diagnosis of the problem accurate, but his antidote kind of silly, is because to your point, Piers, Shabana Mahmoud, she is the home secretary. This is a Muslim woman who spoke out against Israel for almost all of her political career. The United Kingdom is not a fan of Israel. This is the same country that banned military export licenses, that suspended free trade negotiations, that sanctioned two Israeli ministers. They recognized the state of Palestine against Israel's recommendations without even delineating its borders. They continue to fund the United Nations Relief Works Agency, again, against the wishes of Israel.

37:23There are these hate marches every single week. As I said, I have family who live in London. Almost all of them have stopped wearing their yarmulkes. Jews get stabbed in broad daylight. Ambulances are being blown up on Golders Green Road. Jewish cemeteries are regularly defaced. Synagogues are regularly smashed. So this idea that, like, this is the Israel lobby or this is the Jews exerting their control, A, the United Kingdom, or at least their government, hate Israel, and B, the Jews of the United Kingdom have very little political control in their country. So I think the much broader and better point to make is there is an erosion of free speech.

37:54We cannot allow a state-centralized government to dictate which views are accepted. And yet, I disagree with Cenk on basically everything. And I would assume, judging by his friend Anna, he disagrees with me on basically everything. But as I said, the only way you can have a civil society, the only way you have a flourishing democracy is when you go on platforms like the Piers Morgan show and you talk it out and you air it out. Right. Because, again, the only way to combat bad ideas is with better ideas, not saying that certain viewpoints are not allowed. And that's what the Keir Starmer government has been doing.

38:23And it's shameful. Cenk should be in London right now.

38:27Piers Morgan:Cenk, if you were the British prime minister, who would you not let in? yeah i i love freedom of speech i'm an american so i i don't i don't even agree with you on valentina gomez so we covered her on the young turks and she's yeah she's a nutcase but so what uh she's here in in america right now and is everybody going crazy it's our you know has she affected the whole country no no you so she has terrible ideas about how awful Muslims are and she's terribly bigoted. But so what? So then it's super easy to defeat her in a debate. So look, this isn't about any religions, Jews, Muslims, etc. Everyone in different religions have completely different points of view.

39:13Piers Morgan:To categorize people as thinking a certain way because they're Jewish, for example, or as Valentina does because they're Muslim, is by definition absurd. Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry's is one of the greatest fighters for peace movement in America. He's, you know, adamantly against what the government of Israel is doing. So this generalizations are absurd, but let us deal with it. You know, people that are in media and on shows like this and where we discuss things and debate things. But right now, the British government has stepped in and said that some views are not allowed. Well, okay, then you have to elucidate what those views are.

39:50Piers Morgan:I agree with that. You know, are you really banning the great majority of the world that is critical of it? Well, I think the problem is that's insane. Well, the problem, Shabos, I won't let you respond, Shabos, but the problem is if you don't say precisely why you're banning high-profile people, then obviously the theories will run riots, right? I mean, Cenk doesn't really know. He knows what he's read in The Times. You seem to be incredibly well-informed. Well, who informed The Times? You know, who, you know, The Times shares the building that I do with this studio, so maybe I'll go up and ask them.

40:22Piers Morgan:But, you know, they probably won't tell me. But, you know, the point being, somebody clearly briefed the Times, right, from, I presume, from the Home Office or the government. But what exactly is it that Cenk has said or espoused, which means they had to ban him on public order grounds? I just, I don't understand it. Well, that's entirely my point. So I want to be clear. It's very possible that Cenk was not allowed into the United Kingdom because of his views on Israel. That's totally possible. But I think the problem I had with you, Cenk, and with your nephew, Hassan Piker, is you immediately went to the conspiratorial.

40:54It's because of Israel. It's because of the Jewish lobby, however you phrased it. No, they reported it. It could be. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. It could be because, I don't know, you made weird comments about bestiality 10 years ago. It could be because you made weird comments about grooming gangs. I don't know, but you don't know either. And that's kind of my point. We don't know. And I would agree with you. The United Kingdom should actually say, here's what we found demonstrably offensive or whatever happens. be because then we could actually say, OK, so at least we know what's within the Overton window of accepted political discourse and fight against that accepted political discourse.

41:23But as I said, I think a much stronger argument is the erosion of free speech and not what you immediately did, which is just blame the Israel lobby, which, as I already demonstrated, doesn't make any sense because the Home Secretary, Maafin Saban, hates Israel.

41:36Piers Morgan:No, but but, brother, I'm not the one saying it. They apparently told The Times and they listed three things. They listed... I do know that it's in the article. It's like, so, I mean, you could say that The Times is lying and they made it up. Yes, the UK government did not explicitly comment on why you were banned. They don't say that. No, but again, Shamus, The Times is a very authoritative newspaper. It's like, you know, like The New York Times for the UK. And it published what appeared to be a very well-sourced report very quickly after the news broke, detailing the grounds that the UK government had banned Cenk.

42:15Piers Morgan:And it was largely to do with Israel and also potentially to do with what he'd said about grooming gangs on my show. But given that I've just illustrated that he said the opposite to what was reported in the Times, i.e. he didn't deny that there had been this abuse by the grooming gangs, he was making a wider point about whether it was now being used by the Israeli lobby in some way to distract attention from the Epstein scandal. And that's a different point. It's not about denying whether the abuse ever happened. He didn't. He said the opposite. He said he accepts it probably happened, right?

42:49Piers Morgan:So he wasn't obviously as aware of the case as we are. But I didn't hear him trying to deny it happened. He was making a bigger point about it being used as a distracting tool, which, by the way, I'm sure by some people, it is being used that way, as all these things are. But for you, Shabos, I mean, look, the First Amendment is one of the most powerful defences of free speech in the world. Piers, can I hold on? Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Can I just address the three reasons that the Times put out there? And we missed one. OK, so one was I said that Israel gives the Israeli lobby gave more than any other lobby in the last election cycle to Congress.

43:27Piers Morgan:That is an empirically correct statement. So, and by the way, the Times said it was incorrect. So the Times is incorrect. The British government is incorrect. And anybody can verify that. So then the second one was the grooming gangs where they said I said that they don't exist. And you just showed tape of me saying they exist. So then the British government is lying about that if the Times is correct. And then the third reason that I don't know if it was connected to the British government or the Times just threw it in there as a character assassination was about some blogs that I wrote where I was joking about.

43:57Piers Morgan:myself, which they didn't clarify at all. And so then you make, and those are 30 years old. So then you go, okay, wait, is this just a character assassination? Because I've been in the UK so many times since those 30 years have passed. For those who didn't see that, what were the jokes? Yeah, so I'm going to clarify that and the one that Shabos alluded to. So in a blog I wrote about 28 years ago, I was kidding around about how I couldn't get girls in South Beach and how the The genes of women must be poorly designed if I can't get women in South Beach. It was a joke about myself. And so, by the way, the New York Times, Times of London, et cetera, have never clarified that it's a joke.

44:35Piers Morgan:And it's an abomination that they mislead people like that. And then Shabos just talked about bestiality. Now, that was another joke from a video where they edited it so they cut out me saying the horse wouldn't say nay. And everybody in the studio laughs. And so since they cut that out, they have been smearing me with that for literally a decade straight. But again, I didn't get banned from coming into the UK all of those years. These are all attempts at character assassination ex post facto. So now that makes it even worse, because why did the British government lie about me? What is it about?

45:09Piers Morgan:And they did say it was over criticism of Israel. So if they don't clarify, they're just sending out an advertisement to the world. Don't come to the United Kingdom. We will ban you. We won't even tell you why we ban you other than the fact that generically we don't like your opinions of Israel. And Shabbos can say that it's absurd, except that's literally the only thing that they have said to the newspapers as to why I was banned. So if it's absurd, take it up with the British government, not me. But that's my point, because that's not true. The British government has not publicly comment on it.

45:42All they had said is that you and your nephew are not good for the public service in the United Kingdom. Is it because of your views on Israel? Probably. Well, no, I think it's more than that, Shavos. But hang on, hang on, hang on.

45:55Piers Morgan:The Times hasn't reported this out of nowhere. They reported it because they've been briefed by the Home Office to this is the reason. Here's yes or no. Has the British government taken a public or official statement on Chenk Uyghur? The answer is no. We can speculate as to what it is, and I would probably agree it has to do with Israel. But again, you are missing the much broader point that there has been erosion of free speech in the United Kingdom. You have staunchly pro-Israel activists, including pro-Israel Jews, who are routinely banned from the United Kingdom. You have a United Kingdom government that, as policy, wants to recognize, in fact, has recognized a state of Palestine against all of Israel's objections, have continued to fund the United Nations Relief Works Agency, again, against all the objections of the state of Israel.

46:37They have sanctioned Israeli ministers. They have weekly hate marches. They have terrorist attacks against Jews almost on the weekly at this point. So to say it's part of the Israel lobby, I'm saying is demonstrably not true. And yes, Cenk and I, we should be in the United Kingdom going at each other's throats on Lebanon and Iran and tariffs and Epstein or whatever. So I agree he should be there. It was wrong for the United Kingdom to do this. But when you simply focus on the, you know, everything is run by Israel, it's all a conspiracy. We don't know that. It might be. But again, the British government doesn't actually have an official statement on this matter.

47:08Should they? Probably. but you're ignoring the fact that so many other people have also been banned from coming into the United Kingdom, which I think is the real story, not Cenk Uyghur and his nephew. But they haven't been banned.

47:22Piers Morgan:People haven't been banned because they're supportive of Israel. That's not been the reason they've been banned. It's normally to do with other things they've done. You're proving my point. There is no reason. You're proving my point. There is no officially stated reason because it's arbitrary, it's subjective and it's stupid. But to say it's one thing over the other. In fact, Cenk, you were tweeting before the Times article even came out. So all I'm saying is none of us actually know. We can probably suspect why it is, and I would agree with you. But ultimately, the bigger problem here is being completely ignored, that you have a labor government led by Keir Starmer that has cracked down on free speech, that is arresting its own citizens for Facebook posts.

47:54I think the Online Safety Act, the Communications Act of 2003 were terrible pieces of legislation. And again, the United Kingdom is something that brought free speech to the world. The concepts brought by John Locke and Edmund Burke and the Magna Carta are needed now more than ever. And that's why, again, as someone with British ancestry who has family living in England, that's why I'm so appalled at the state of the United Kingdom today.

48:13Piers Morgan:But if you have someone like Valentina Gomez-Chenk, who you've defended, I was surprised to hear you say that, because she's tried to be a politician. She's run for office. She has advocated for all Muslims to be thrown out of the UK, for example. and she wants to come to the UK and take part in a march led by Tommy Robinson and we know that is her position and we have 5 million Muslims in the UK and I would say her presence, given her position of throwing every Muslim out of Britain because they're Muslims and the disgusting things she then says about Muslims why should we let her in? I would say obviously if you advocate violence I think we would all agree on that But I'm surprised that you would think that that may not be a criteria to stop someone coming in, given her obvious potential by saying that to whip up genuine hatred against all Muslims.

49:10Piers Morgan:Look, I would answer, so what? I mean, there's tons of people who whip up hatred against Muslims. I would argue that almost all of American mainstream media whips up hatred against Muslims. They call us terrorists, and when Israel does 100 times worse, they say that they're a moral army and a democracy. They've kept 5.5 million Palestinians as their prisoners for 58 years in a brutal dictatorship they run in the occupied territories. They're not a democracy at all. So, okay, the mainstream media has been painting Muslims as the bad guys, and how dare they seek their freedom from the Israelis, their disgusting terrorists.

49:49Piers Morgan:So I would say the New York Times and CNN and ABC and all those outlets have been horribly bigoted against Muslims. But I wouldn't want to ban them. Look, I believe in freedom of speech. I'm not at all threatened by Valentina Gomez's ideas. Her ideas are comical, bigoted and easy to defeat. So the minute you ban something, you say, well, that idea is hard to defeat. I'm really worried about that idea. So I don't want it to be in the public sphere. No, I believe in putting it all out there and, you know, get the battle of ideas going, and it's super easy for people who are right to win. How many times have you been to the UK in your life?

50:32Piers Morgan:I think I've probably been there about three times, twice to give speeches at Oxford, and then at least one other time. And never had any problems? Yeah, three, four times. No, that's why I went to the airport, and I thought initially that it was a bureaucratic snafu because I was like, well, this can't be true. That doesn't make any sense. I already had an existing visa. And so, like, you know, Shabbos keeps saying that you can't put it on Israel, but I'm not the one who did. The Times did. The Times says the British government told them it's because I criticize Israel. So either the Times is lying or the British government is doing something quite, you know, terrible.

51:08Piers Morgan:Well, Shabbos, let me ask you, Shabbos. It's terrible for free speech, terrible for Britain. Shabbos, in April, the UK government banged Kanye on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to public good, the same argument used against Cheng over his history of anti-Semitic comments, which are pretty indisputable. He's released a song called Heil Hitler. He sold T-shirts with Swastikazani. He talked about death con-free on Jewish people and then apologised for them in a lengthy mere culprit in the Wall Street Journal. So pretty indisputable that he said all these things and did all these things.

51:41Piers Morgan:Was it right the UK government banned Kanye? Well, let me just add quickly that my understanding is the reason why Kanye West said DEFCON 3 is because he didn't know which one was worse, DEFCON 1 or 5. So he figured he would just compromise in the middle because he's an idiot. Right, I'm sure that's true. Yeah, it probably is. But in general, I mean, yes and no. Again, every country can decide who's let in. If they don't think that he's conducive to the public good, then they probably shouldn't let him in. The problem I have with the United Kingdom, and this is where Cenk and I are in agreement, is it's entirely subjective.

52:07They don't actually tell you what the rules are. But look, I mean, I'll use Mahmoud Khalil. That's a pretty good example. This is someone who came into the United States. He lied on his visa application, and he will be deported. I mean, he appealed to the Supreme Court. I can guarantee you, even if the Supreme Court hears his arguments, which I highly doubt, he will be deported, mostly because he lied on his visa application. But it's also true that this is not an American citizen. He's a foreign national. He comes from Algeria and Syria. He called for the eradication of Western civilization. So, you know, what exactly is the net positive of having someone like Mahmoud Khalil in the United States?

52:36So I think in general, a country can dictate, like, what are the types of peoples we want? What are the types of values and ideologies we want? The problem, again, with the United Kingdom is they don't actually tell you any of those things.

52:46Piers Morgan:But Shabbos, if the United Kingdom has decided that Cenk's regular, very virulent attacks on the Israeli government for their actions, and the nation of Israel, because they represent the nation of Israel, obviously, Have you ever heard anything that Cenk has said which you believe was anti-Semitic? Well, no offence to Cenk. I try not to listen to him too much. But in general, whether he makes anti-Semitic comments or not, to me it's not really the point. No, but my question is whether you believe he's anti-Semitic. I think it's irrelevant. I care way more about policy. It is relevant because they may well have used that as a reason for not allowing him in.

53:25Piers Morgan:So it's relevant. You know, outside of Harvard University and Candace Owens, I'm pretty reluctant to call people or institutions anti-Semitic. What I will say is that Cenk's policies, the ideologies he advocates for, are wildly disastrous to the 10 million Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Jews who call Israel home. I think that's way more important of a discussion rather than simply calling people anti-Semitism. And this might actually surprise both of you, but this is where I'm sort of outside of the Jewish mainstream, at least in the United States, because A, they don't like the fact that I go on your show.

53:54B, they don't like the fact that I tweeted what I did last night. And C, I think we are way too comfortable just calling anything we don't like antisemitism. I think we've totally cheapened the meaning of that word because there are actual antisemites in the United States. There are actual antisemites on social media. And we both agree that the criticism of Israel, certainly the Israeli government, in fact, I have a lot of criticisms on the guest you just had before us, that is totally legitimate. And that's totally fair game. And actually, I've been Jewish since the day I took my first breath.

54:19I don't know of any Jew who actually pretends otherwise that it would be antisemitic. But we are way too comfortable just saying opinions we don't like are inherently anti-Semitic. And it was actually weird because just a few hours ago, I got a notification that Candace Owens actually liked my tweet defending you, Chang. So I don't know if I want to be in the Candace Owens camp. But ultimately, I think it was Voltaire who said, I detest your opinion, but we'll fight like hell to ensure that you have the right to say it. I think he said, I'll fight to the death.

54:44Piers Morgan:Yeah, I'll fight to the death to defend your right to have it. Yeah, so we should be doing this debate, talking about the substantive issues, Israel, Gaza, America in London. and I look forward to it. And if there's anything I can do to amplify the fact that the United Kingdom is taking American citizens and forbidding them from entering the country, then, Cenk, I mean this genuinely. I know you probably don't like me and I know Anna doesn't like me, but I mean this genuinely. Please let me know what I can do to help because this is not just a United Kingdom problem. It's not just an Israel-Gaza problem.

55:10It is a problem affecting Western civilization where people, especially young people, don't know how to have conversations or debates anymore. They just silo themselves in these dumb echo chambers and anything they don't like is racist or anti-Semitic or homophobic or Islamophobic. It's stupid.

55:22Piers Morgan:I completely agree. And I absolutely applaud what you've just said. I do. I think it's intellectually honest. And I think the key thing that I judge people now, well, are you intellectually honest? Are you prepared to be critical of your own side at all? If you're not, you're intellectually dishonest. You're just part of a tribe where honesty doesn't matter. I mean, Cenk, what's your reaction to what Shabba said? So, look, I appreciate him standing up for freedom of speech. and I appreciate him not doing the thing that, unfortunately, a lot of supporters of Israel do. The minute you criticize Israel, they say, oh, I've got 28 different tropes.

56:02Piers Morgan:That's it. You cross one of the tropes tripwires. So that's it. You're an anti-Semite. I've canceled you, etc. I do disagree with him on a number of things, though. Mahmoud Khalil isn't guilty of any of the things that he said. And, oh, look at that. Yet another critic of Israel banned by yet another Western government. I'm sure it's all a coincidence. Come on, nobody believes it's a coincidence. You could say that all day long. We all know that, especially, look, I don't know much about the British. Hold on, Shabbos. I don't know much about the British government except what they've done to me.

56:31Piers Morgan:But the U.S. government is overwhelming. You can't support boycott, divestment, and sanction of Israel in over 30 states in America because they've passed absurd laws, some of which they signed in Israel, not even in America. It's just preposterous, saying you're not allowed to disagree with a foreign government. We've given them over$300 billion. They've given them 94 % of Congress. They're the number one donor to Biden and Trump. It goes on and on. They have overwhelming control in this country. It isn't Jewish people, because remember, 63 % of Jewish Americans don't even agree with this current Israeli government.

57:05Piers Morgan:And some of the best fighters for peace are Jewish. But does Israel and the Israeli lobby have enormous control? Of course they do. And look, guys, it's so overwhelming, because Shabbos last week in a debate with Anna Kasperi, my co-host on The Young Turks, She said proverbially, oh, my God, shoot me in the head. And Shabbos said gladly. Now, I assume he was. No, but that's on tape. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I mean, let's assume that Shabbos was kidding and et cetera. He could speak for himself in a second. But if I had said that about Shabbos or anyone else, the British government would pounce and the American government would pounce and media would pounce and go, look at that.

57:44Piers Morgan:He's calling for the murder of someone else. When Shavu says it, nobody even noticed, because there's such a wildly different standard for people who support Israel and people who oppose Israel. And if you're denying that, you can deny that. But everyone has eyes and ears. Your most essential command could be to ignore what we see with our eyes and what we hear with our ears, but it's not going to work. We all see the massive, massive double standard. Shavu? OK, a bunch of first I'll just respond to the Anika Spare's because parent thinks that one's so easy. This is a woman who's called me a bitch on your show, Piers Morgan.

58:19I think she's called me a Nazi. She calls me every name in the book. She cannot go 30 seconds without either interrupting me or saying the word Israel. So I was speaking and lo and behold, she interrupted me. And as I was talking, she said, shoot me in the head. And that was Anika Sparean serious when she said shoot me in the head. No. Was I serious when I joked and said gladly? Also, no. I think this is her way of absolving herself from the fact that I was bringing concrete evidence that refuted all of her talking points and she had no actual answers. So her only response was, the Zionists want to kill me because it's part of their culture because they're so violent.

58:48It's a stupid point that you and I are adult enough to know is not true. That's number one. Number two, Mahmoud Kul, he objectively lied on his visa application. Okay, like that is why he will be deported. He said that he was not involved with the United Nations Relief Works Agency. That was a lie. He has had more due process and more lawyers than I had when I sued Harvard. The fact that this guy, we can't even get one person out of the United States after more than two and a half years. He's getting all of his constitutional rights protected to him. He's able to petition all the way to the Supreme Court.

59:15And as I said, the American judicial process will take its turn and I guarantee you he will be deported. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly go on your show and apologize. That's number two. Number three, this idea that it's criticism of Israel that's being stifled, that it's our free speech in the United States that's being stifled. I mean, you guys have Twitter. You can't go more than what? Three posts without another deranged conspiracy theory, whether it's Israel is training dogs to rape Palestinians. I mean, every single time I'm asked to speak on a college campus, anytime I'm asked to go on Piers Morgan, anytime I'm in a Twitter debate, it's all on one stupid thing, and that's Israel.

59:46So Piers, you interviewed Joe Kent 10 minutes ago. I agree. Cut foreign aid. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. It is 0.8 % of our federal budget. It means absolutely nothing. But all people want to talk about is the foreign aid, is AIPAC, is the Israel lobby. It is so inconsequential. And I actually believe Israel is being used as an excuse to distract us from actual pragmatic issues that our country is facing, like tariffs, like the Epstein list, like immigration, like the economy. Let's talk about those issues. But unfortunately, especially my generation, all they want to talk about is an American lobbying group called AIPAC.

1:00:18All they want to talk about is one of the only democracies in the Middle East, Israel. And again, have those conversations. Hate Israel as much as you want. Be as anti-Semitic as much as you want. But let's be honest. The idea that criticism of Israel is being stifled is ludicrous. It is detached from reality.

1:00:33Piers Morgan:Okay. Final question for you, If the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is watching this, and he might well be, because I'm about to interview a lady who wants to have his job, which is Kemi Baden-Hok, who's the leader of the opposition. If he is watching, what is your message to him about what's happened to you? Yeah, I'd like to know a number of things. How long is my ban? Am I permanently banned from the UK? If I show up in public in the UK, is it really going to cause disorder or is it going to cause mayhem? I believe we're the only family to have two members banned from Britain. Are we the most dangerous family in the world to the United Kingdom?

1:01:18Piers Morgan:What are the standards for how you can criticize Israel? Will you ban billions of people in this world who are critical of Israel or over 60 percent of Americans? Will you ever explain why you ban people? Will you clarify what gets you banned? And why are you singling out one country that cannot be criticized? Israel's population is about the size of Papua New Guinea's. Are you also banning people for criticizing Papua New Guinea? I mean, isn't it absurd that you're only banning people for criticizing one country? Do you not see any of those double standards? And finally, what I would ask him is, is Britain free or is it not free?

1:02:00Piers Morgan:Are British citizens allowed to have the same opinion as me, travel outside of the country and be allowed back in? Or will they also be banned? Because I would guess that a great majority of British citizens agree with my point of view on Israel, not their point of view. So how far are you going to take this absurdity in protecting a different country in Britain and, by the way, ruining your reputation as the home of freedom by doing so? OK, well, all I can say... Hang on, Shaddles, we've run out of time. All I would say is I had a bagel with you, Czech, last time I was in Los Angeles where we both have homes, and at no stage did I feel you were a danger to my life.

1:02:40Piers Morgan:And I'm going to try and get you back into my country so I can return the favour and buy you a nice meal here. And I suspect, again, that you will not present a clear and present danger to my security. Pierce, how come you never bought me a bagel in L.A.? You never asked. I think that's anti-Semitism if you ask me. You never asked for one. It's because it's because... Okay, next time you're in L.A. It's only because you're Jewish. Otherwise, I'd buy you a bagel in a Jewish diner where we had it, by the way. It was Larry King's old place. So, I will happily... But you know what? We'll all have a bagel at Larry King's Old Diner.

1:03:17Piers Morgan:What about that? Guys, thank you very much. Jake, I'm sorry about what's happened to you. I think it's ridiculous. We'll see how this plays out. But thank you all very much. Well, Kemi Badenok is the leader of the Conservative Party and the leader of the official opposition to Keir Starmer's Labour government. If she gets her way, then she will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. And she joins me now for her uncensored debut. Kemi, how are you? I'm very well, thank you for having me on. I've never interviewed you. It's the first time for everything. Have you been hiding or waiting for the right moment?

1:03:48I've been waiting for you to ask me, and now you have.

1:03:51Piers Morgan:Well, I did ask you in January, and then I fell over and broke my hip. Oh, right. Oh, yes. But you were very nice about it. How are you now? Well, you were suggesting it may have been alcohol-related, and I had to quickly say it was not alcohol-related. For Americans who are tuning in, because half our audience is American, Who are you? Who is Kemi Baden-Ock? So Kemi Baden-Ock is common sense personified. That's what I'm about. I am a politician who's very much on the right, but my politics is politics which people who are not political will want to share. I believe in family. I believe in equality under the law.

1:04:30I think that we need our police to do their job, create a safe society. I think government needs to make sure that it helps to grow the economy. So let's back business, support the people who are out there working hard, even if they're not business owners, whether they're nurses or teachers. Let's drill out oil and gas in the North Sea. You know, energy is growth. Let's make sure that we can give an inheritance to our children. I'm a mum of three children. And quite a lot of what I'm doing now is about making sure that they've got something to look forward to when they grow up.

1:05:00Piers Morgan:What people say to me, just my personal straw poll of family, friends and so on, Everyone seems to be warming to you, even if they didn't like you to start with. They see you as a kind of most improved player in the parliament, in the sort of commons firmament. And I would say that too. But the problem you have is it's not yet showing up properly in the polls in a way that suggests you can be prime minister. What are you going to do about that? You've got two and a half years. It's a long time in politics. A day could be a long time in politics. But how are you going to square that issue of your rising popularity with people on a personal level, but a residual distrust and dislike of your party, which many Brits blame for the chaos that we've now found ourselves in?

1:05:50So you're absolutely right. I need to make sure that people understand what the party is like now under my leadership. We made a lot of mistakes over those 14 years. I wasn't there for all of it. I only became an MP in 2017. But what I want people to know is that those of us who didn't like what was happening, who were complaining and trying to steer the party onto the right course, are now in charge. This is a new Conservative Party under new leadership. And we have junked some bad policies, things which were not helpful for the country. Net zero in legislation by 2050 is de-industrializing. Good intentions, cross-party consensus isn't working.

1:06:33So we've junked that. We have to be much tougher on immigration. We let a lot of people down. Immigration far too high. So I've brought in much tougher policies. We're leaving the ECHR. We've got a borders plan of how we're actually going to get the numbers down. We want a high growth, low immigration economy. If you're using immigration to fuel your growth, then it's a pyramid scheme. And we just want to get Britain working again. There are too many people who are on welfare, and it's breaking the back of this country. I used to say that the rider was getting heavier than the horse in terms of the people we were carrying.

1:07:07The rider is now heavier than the horse. We spend more on welfare than we get in income tax. That's not right.

1:07:13Piers Morgan:It's ridiculous. And we've got 5 million or so people now on benefits in this country not working. a million and a half of whom have a variety of mental health issues, predominantly like anxiety and things like this, a sort of failure to better deal with regular life stuff. Where have we gone so badly wrong as a country that one and a half million people are sitting at home anxious, unable to work? What should we do about that? So we need to remind people what the welfare system is there for. It is therefore the most vulnerable for those who absolutely cannot work, not just those who don't want to work.

1:07:50And I think COVID shifted the understanding. We spent a lot of money, you know, tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of pounds, paying people to stay at home. Some people just decided they quite like staying at home, and it felt like the government could afford it. We were actually borrowing that money. What's gone wrong is that too many people think that we are an infinitely rich country. We can give money to people who don't want to work. We can give money to people abroad. We can fund everybody who wants to come and live here. and we can't do that. And what really worries me now is that we now have a government that genuinely believes that.

1:08:24We didn't believe that as Conservatives. We were trying to manage and get a balance. We got the balance wrong. Labour really believed that you can just tax, tax, tax and pay for benefits, and that is making the country poorer.

1:08:37Piers Morgan:As we were preparing to do this today, there's been a further development in the scandal of Lord Mandelson. He was a UK ambassador to Washington briefly. He'd been fired from two previous Labour governments. Sakhir Starmer brought him back again, only to have to then fire him again for a sort of record-breaking third firing. What does this say? I mean, the stuff that's come out today is kind of more embarrassing than, I would say, significant in terms of the new files about all this. I mean, Mandelson emerges as, you know, pretty duplicitous and all the rest of it, but it's not really that consequential.

1:09:12Piers Morgan:But what does it say about Sakhir Starmer's leadership? already battered by the terrible local election results, infighting in his party, people jostling now to run against him, and yet he still seems to want to carry on. You've got this bubbling away in the background, the Mandelson scandal, again playing to his judgement. What do you feel about him just continuing? So the Mandelson scandal is a metaphor for Keir Starmer's leadership. He doesn't know what he wants, he doesn't know why he's there, but he just believes that everything he does is right and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong.

1:09:49There's a pomposity in the way that he manages things. He's not paying attention to the detail. Peter Mandelson, it turns out, was flagged as a security risk before the vetting had even started. And Keir Starmer didn't want to know. He doesn't want to know. He delegates to other people and then he punishes them when things go wrong. He has ruined so many careers for mistakes which he made. And that's why his party don't like him. And the country can see that he doesn't have an agenda to deliver growth, to deliver prosperity, to deliver safety. He just wants to be in the job. Doesn't know why, but he just wants to be there.

1:10:26And that's why I think he should go, that he doesn't have a plan to make this country a better place. Should Keir Starmer resign? So I've said he should resign for a whole number of things. I've also said that he misled Parliament. I've brought the evidence to Parliament. Labour MPs voted against. None of this would have happened if I hadn't exposed at PMQs what was going on. The Mandelson files, all of these documents that are coming out have only happened because of the work that I and other Conservative MPs have done. So Labour have become tribal. Rather than doing the right thing, they've just wanted to conceal it, even though they don't like the guy.

1:11:03Piers Morgan:Do you think he lied to Parliament about Mandelson? I do, and I've said so. I can't say it on the floor of the House because you're not supposed to call anyone. a liar on the floor of the House. But I have made the case that I do believe he's misled Parliament. I put the evidence there. He said that all the security vetting had been done. It hadn't. He said he followed the process. We've seen evidence from these release files that he was told to carry out the vetting, and he didn't do so. But it's the fact that he put someone who had links to Russia and links to China in our most important diplomatic post.

1:11:38Because if you're an American ambassador, you see, if the UK ambassador to America, you see US intelligence as well. And he shouldn't have been seeing that. But this is Keir Starmer's fault. So it's no longer just about, ooh, Mandelson was a bit dodgy, he hung out with Jeffrey Epstein. That was bad enough. But the fact of the appointments going ahead with all of the stuff that we now know was going on, I think that that is resignation territory. And I think it's one of the reasons why his MPs want rid of him. A hundred Labour MPs have said they don't want this man. They're all looking to Andy Burnham to come and save them.

1:12:12And I think Keir Starmer is in a very dangerous position. I'd be surprised if he survived.

1:12:15Piers Morgan:In relation to today's dump of over 1 ,000 pages of documents, what leapt out to you as significant about it? It was Pat McFadden, the welfare secretary, saying that all Labour MPs want is to increase taxes so they can pay for benefits. He has confessed privately what he refuses to say publicly. I say this at every other prime minister's questions. Labour are not the Labour Party anymore. They're the welfare party. They're taxing everybody else to pay for Benefit Street. And now we have a cabinet minister confessing that that is true. Let's turn to big global issues. This afternoon, Iran signalled it was just going to pull out of any peace talks with America and Israel because it believes Israel's breached the agreement of the ceasefire by continuing to attack Lebanon.

1:13:07Piers Morgan:What is your reaction to that? So I think that Iran is an enemy of the UK. They would happily wipe us out if they had the nuclear weapons to do so. And I think that Israel, being where it is with so many hostile countries around, does what it can to fight for its survival. It is not a perfect country. I would not say that. But I think that after what happened on October 7th, what Hamas did, Hamas is an Iranian-sponsored terrorist group. What Hezbollah and the Houthis have done, this is the consequence that Iran is reaping. I would like to see the war come to an end. I think the ceasefires should be respected, but it's not clear to me what the US strategy is in terms of an exit.

1:13:53It's clear to me that Israel is prepared to fight continually to ensure its survival, but the US is the one that can make this really end.

1:14:00Piers Morgan:Hasn't it been a complete mess? I mean, let's be honest. I mean, if the objective was to get regime change, that hasn't happened. They've taken out the Ayatollah, but his own sons replaced him. The IRGC, you know, Netanyahu tried to persuade Donald Trump that the IRGC in that eventuality would then self-implode. That hasn't happened. No one's got their hands on any of the enriched uranium. The Iranians' regime has worked out if you control Australia, Hormuz, you hold the whole world to economic energy ransom, and they fire off rockets at the Gulf state neighbours, which causes enormous damage to their business models.

1:14:36Piers Morgan:I'm looking at all this and going, this has been a complete mess. And I get a feeling that Donald Trump, I've known him a long time, that if he could get out of this right now, he would. But it's quite hard to see how you now extricate yourself, if you're United States, in a way that doesn't look like you failed. Like defeat. Yes, exactly. It shouldn't look like another Vietnam or Suez. So I'm an engineer. And the way I do things is by understanding exactly what it is you're trying to build and having a plan to get there. But you also need to communicate that plan to other people. And at the beginning of this war, it looked like it was regime change.

1:15:13We know that Iran has been terrorizing its population. Even now, they are rioting. So I'm someone who's always been supportive of making Iran a less hostile place to this country. How we do that depends. Our country has now been shown to not be in a place to do anything. We've looked very weak. My main concern from all of this is how the Iran war has exposed the UK's position on defence, on our relationship with the US, on the government not having a defence strategy. They're not putting any money into defence. They haven't got a plan. That's what really worries me. From the US perspective, what I would like to see is what was the plan, what was the exit strategy.

1:15:53It looked in theory as if Israel had done enough to weaken Iran and they were going in to finish the job. But now, looking at it, it doesn't look like they had much of a plan. Perhaps they thought it might be as easy as Venezuela. So they either need a new plan or they need to get their act together and finish the first plan. But this is having an impact on people across the world. It's increasing fuel prices in our country. And that's why if we can't be a strong country in terms of defence, let's at least be a strong country in terms of our energy. Let's drill our own oil and gas in the North Sea.

1:16:27We have cities like Aberdeen which are fading away because we're not allowing them to provide energy for this country. We're importing energy from Norway. We're importing energy from Russia now. Keir Starmer has lifted sanctions. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I think that's immoral. when you're not allowing our own British companies to take that oil and gas out. So this Iran war, for me, has exposed a lack of a plan generally, but more UK lack of resilience, which Labour... And I'm not saying that, you know, everything was perfect under us, but when the war in Ukraine started, we were in a position to help Ukraine.

1:17:01I don't think we'd be in a position to do that again with what Labour's doing.

1:17:05Piers Morgan:When Donald Trump called Keir Starmer and wanted to be able to use our bases that we share with them to launch his planes in this war. Keir Starmer said no. He then allowed him to do so 36 hours later when it was deemed to be then a reactive and more defensive role. What would you have done as Prime Minister? So I would have said right from the get-go, let them use our bases. And in fact, I said that. I even asked him to express support. When you have two countries where one is an ally and the other is an enemy state, you should be able to say whose side you're on. It doesn't matter who started it.

1:17:42If you've got allies, you should be able to say we're supporting this side. That's what Canada did. That's what Australia did. They didn't send any weapons or ships. I wanted us to at least be able to say morally this is whose side we're on. And I was shocked that Keir Starmer couldn't do that. That's something that I would have done. I would have let them use our bases. And probably the difference between me and others is that when we were being fired on, I would have tried to take out that capability. Some people don't agree with that. But I use this analogy that if someone is shooting arrows at you, you shouldn't just try and catch the arrows because eventually you'll get hit.

1:18:16I worry a lot about British servicemen and women in other countries. I worry about us looking like a soft target. I want us to project strength at all times. And I think that projecting weakness has also damaged some of our relationship with the United States. How do you get on with... And our partners in the Gulf as well. They're very, very upset by how we've responded.

1:18:36Piers Morgan:Of course. How do you get on with Donald Trump? I only met him once at a state dinner. We got on fine. What was his opening line to you? Drill oil and gas in the North Sea. I think someone had briefed him that Kemi's, you know, very determined on this issue. He didn't say drill, baby drill, which is normal. No, no, he didn't. He was disparaging about wind farms. So when Donald Trump says something I agree with, you know, I say so. When he says things that I disagree with, I'm also vocal about it. I think he was wrong to criticise British troops. I think that the rabble-rousing over Greenland was also wrong.

1:19:13I don't like the childish spats that he has with Keir Starmer, the public insults. It's my job to have a go with Keir Starmer. I mean, if you're Prime Minister, you're going to get that.

1:19:22Piers Morgan:You'll get that. Well, the thing is... And you may just cross over, right? Well, yes, yes. But I don't think that would happen. When I was Trade Secretary, we had other countries who were doing things to us on trade that were very, very damaging to the UK. I never had a war of words in public. I always had the war of words in private because the only people who are helped by a war of words between the UK and allies are countries like Russia and Iran. They love it when they see us lagging each other off. So I didn't like when Donald Trump did that because it weakens the Western alliance. And now more than ever, I think the world needs a strong NATO, a strong Western alliance.

1:20:01Looking like the West is weakening makes countries like Iran and North Korea, Russia, China maybe, you know, happy days for them.

1:20:10Piers Morgan:But many people think that his decision to go to war in Iran has emboldened the Iranian regime, not damaged it. I'm not so sure that is true. I mean, I'm not in Iran, but you look at the amount of capability that's been taken out. We know that they're clearly being helped by some other countries. They're fighting for survival. I think the main thing that Donald Trump underestimated is that with some countries, it's about ideology. They're prepared to die for their ideology. I think Donald Trump is someone who thinks in terms of, you know, what's the deal? Who's going to make money out of this?

1:20:44If something's costing people money, they'll back out. Iran is a country that is very, it's led by ideologues. They want to kill and they're happy to die for what they believe in. And I think the West needs to stop being naive as if every country is happy to go to the UN and talk it out. Not everyone is like that. How do we respond? Investing in our defence, making sure we can defend our country and people don't try and attack us. And that is not happening right now. There are all sorts of orders which we put in place in 2024. Labour paused them when they came in for the election. They said they wanted to have a strategic defence review.

1:21:20It's been a year since then. We should have had an investment plan last autumn. It's now this summer and nothing's happening. So Labour is weakening our country. I want a strong United Kingdom. I love this country and I can't believe what's happening to it. Everyone with common sense can see that we should be spending money on defence, not on welfare, and Labour just wants more and more welfare.

1:21:41Piers Morgan:What are you going to do about reform? Because Nigel Farage is leading in the polls. If the general election happened tomorrow, it would be highly likely that he would be Prime Minister, not you. What are you going to do about that? because he's stolen a large constituent of Conservative voters, I know quite a few, who just got sick and tired of the procession of useless Tory governments, as they saw it, wrecking everyone's lives. So they gravitated to this guy, Nigel Farage, and like I say, as things stand, he would win an election, not you. How are you going to beat him? Well, he's had a lot more time in the public eye than I have.

1:22:16The more people see of me, the more they like. So I need to get out there and explain that conservative message. We made some mistakes in the past, but we have always been the best option. Imagine if anyone else, Corbyn, Miliband, or any of those people had been in charge during COVID, during Brexit. I'm not saying that we were perfect, but we are still the better option. We are still the best option. Nigel Farage is attracting a lot of protest votes. He doesn't have the baggage of having been in office, but he also doesn't have the experience. He's telling everybody what they want to hear. He's a one-man band.

1:22:50He's got no-one to speak on defence. Is he a bit of a snake oil salesman, do you think? Well, I mean, you look at that fishy£5 million. Yeah, I mean, that stinks. What's he got? It does stink. It does stink. If it's a gift, why didn't he tell people about it? If you receive gifts 12 months before being an MP, the rules are that you say, why did he keep it? Have you received millions quietly? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And to be honest, I wouldn't want that. I mean,£5 million is a fortune. It's a life-changing money. Yeah, it is. It's life changing. It'll change your life forever. He claimed it was for security.

1:23:22Then he said it was a gift for Brexit. The story's all over the place. I want people to know that I'm working for the public of this country, for the British citizens, you know, the British people. That's who I'm working for, not any particular donor. Of course, every political party needs donations. We get them from a large number of people. We're not bought by anyone. And they support us because of the policies we have. We're not changing our policies so we can do things, you know, on crypto or whatever. So I think that£5 million shows that even though he's tried to pretend that he's different from what people think of politicians, he is really in it for himself.

1:23:58That money didn't go to reform. It went to his personal pocket. So that means he's doing it. And he said that, you know, there's no money in politics unless, you know, you're dodgy or something like that. And, you know, if he said that, what did he mean by that?

1:24:12Piers Morgan:We've had so many prime ministers in such a short period of time. And really, from the moment of Brexit onwards, it's been total chaos here. I voted remain in that referendum, but I was prepared to give Brexit a chance. But 10 years later, I can't see any proper benefit from that whatsoever. I can see a lot of negative to it. So when I see West Street and he wants to be the new Labour leader, say he would have another referendum or even reverse Brexit, actually, why shouldn't we have another referendum? So we should not refight the battles of the past. But why if it isn't working? With any other policy, it doesn't work.

1:24:51So that is true, but let's look at the evidence. I wasn't an MP when the Brexit referendum happened. How would you have voted? I voted leave. I voted leave. And people voted leave for all sorts of different reasons. What have we got out of Brexit? The opportunity to make our own laws. Are we using them? No, we're not. This is one of the mistakes that the Conservative Party made, where they treated leaving the EU as the end rather than the beginning. We have not used those powers. We are not being competitive. Instead, some of the things we did were actually more left-wing, using leaving the EU to be more left-wing.

1:25:26Labour has doubled down on that. You know, VAT on private schools, you couldn't have done that in the EU. They're using leaving the EU to do more left-wing things.

1:25:35Piers Morgan:And that was a crazy decision. Yeah, it is. The politics of envy at its worst. It was the politics of envy. A lot of those schools have closed. Yeah. We don't have more teachers. They haven't got any money from it. So they're not more teachers, but they're now more pupils. Well, it never were when they tried it in Greece, is the point I made at the time. So we need to start using the benefits that we have. And there are some things that we can do. Gene editing, we're ahead. Even our regulation on AI, we're ahead of Europe on that. You look at things like jet fuel and refueling. There are all sorts of little rules that have impacted EU citizens, EU countries.

1:26:09We're able to refuel. It's been very good for our airline industry.

1:26:12Piers Morgan:But the polls suggest... One more thing. So things like the cheap power plan, which I've put out, where we're going to scrap VAT on energy bills. You can't do that in the EU. So what I'm doing is saying, here are the things we can do now that we've left. Let's use them. The trade deals. I signed our biggest trade deal since leaving Brexit, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We'd have to undo all that. And if you're going back into the EU, we're going to have to lose pound sterling and take the euro. People don't want that. So what Labour are trying to do is refight a battle. Most people want us to make the best of Brexit, not go back and have that argument again.

1:26:47You know what?

1:26:47Piers Morgan:Most of the polls show that a lot of people have buyer's remorse about Brexit. and given it was a referendum and given we're 10 years on, my whole thing at the time was, well, let's see if it works. Why not just ask the British people, you know what, we'll have another referendum and see whether you actually still want that to happen or not. Now, it would be incredibly difficult to go back in, I get that, and we'd have to have reforms of the EU and all the rest of it. And I'm not saying it should necessarily happen, but why not just ask the British people? So we saw last time that simply asking them the question is different from the government getting it done.

1:27:23Can this Labour government that gave away the Chagos Islands and paid£35 billion on top of that, do you think they can negotiate with the EU? I came into Parliament when the negotiations started. Three years of going round and round in circles. I want us to go into politics to get stuff done for the people of this country. Having endless negotiations and nothing happening, which is what happened 2017-19, I don't want to see again. So I'm not in favour of us going backwards. It's I'm in favour of the future. What can we do for the next generation? If you have another referendum and have another constitutional parliament debating these things, it's not going to make things better.

1:28:02We're not going to have the same deal we had before. You know, Margaret Thatcher's rebate, all of that is gone. We'll have to get the euro. And the euro is not growing. We need new ideas. It's an idea for people who haven't got any ideas. Labour have no plans for the country. So why don't we just go back to 2016 and hope it's all fine? I want us to talk about the things that we are going to do. What are we going to do on the economy? How are we going to get this country growing? How are we going to free up business? How are we using those rules to make ourselves an AI superpower? How are we competing with the EU?

1:28:33We can do these things. But they've got no ambition for this country. They can't think of what to do, so they want to refight old battles. Let's get the trade unions back in. Let's nationalise. Let's go back into the EU. Everything Labour is doing is about the past. I'm about the future.

1:28:49Piers Morgan:Free speech is a big raging issue. Not just here, but everywhere. But overnight, Cenk Uge, a regular guest on my show, probably one of my most regular guests, actually, got banned entry to the UK, stopped in Los Angeles, because, according to the Times, of his views about Israel and several other things, but mainly about his views about Israel. He's very strident with his criticism of the Israeli government. And what that means, therefore, for Israel as a nation. I've never heard him be anti-Semitic or say anything hateful about Jewish people, any of that kind of thing. Why has he been banned from this country?

1:29:29So that is a question for the government. But I've been very consistent about bans. I do think that a government should be able to make a call if the security services or the Home Office or other people have some information that shows someone will not be a public good. I think a government has the right to stop people from coming into the country. In fact, I wish they'd do more of it. Shouldn't they say why? All those small boats coming in, they should be doing the same thing. No, no, sure, but that's different.

1:29:56Piers Morgan:But shouldn't people... If people are being banned who are high profile, shouldn't there be an explanation? I think there should be an explanation. There's no reason to be secretive about it. But criticising Israel shouldn't be a reason. But I don't know if that is the reason. That's all the Times reported. But also, I believe in free speech. But I am concerned about the free speech of people in this country. I don't think that we are giving international rights for people to come to our country to exercise their free speech. But we've been jailing people, for example, for Facebook posts and so on.

1:30:28Piers Morgan:Do you agree with that? So people should not be, in my view, jailed for Facebook posts unless they are breaking the law very clearly. I am someone who believes in free speech, but free speech has its limits. You can't defame people. You can't incite violence or hatred. But I have also been very vocal about what is happening to British Jews in our country. There's clearly been a climate of intimidation and incitement to violence happening with a lot of those protests. I think that's the sort of place where you draw the line. That, yes, have free speech, but you don't use it to hurt other people.

1:30:58Your rights stop when someone else's rights begin. So if they, you know, when I'm prime minister, I want to be able to stop bad people from coming to our country. I don't know the reasons that Labour gives to the people that it does stop. But that right to stop people who are not conducive to the public good from coming to the country, I think, is an important one for a government to exercise.

1:31:18Piers Morgan:Are you comfortable fully aligning yourself to an Israeli government that has people like Ben Gavir and Smodrich, who, to put it bluntly, I view as psychopaths? So I am aligning myself with Jewish people in our country. I don't align myself with particular... Well, yes, but where did you... Well, if you were prime minister of this country, you would have to make public statements about the Israeli government. Given the way that certain members of that government behave now, what we see with our own eyes, would you be comfortable fully supporting that government? So let's remember, Israel is an ally of the UK.

1:31:54There will be all sorts of people who will be in any foreign government, Israel or elsewhere, that I might not be comfortable with, might dislike their views. But when I was Trade Secretary, I saw how Israeli intelligence helped protect British citizens and this country. They are fighting a lot of battles, which are really fights for Western values. And I think that when you look at what happened on October 7th, the massacre that happened, really horrific stuff, which I even find uncomfortable thinking about, knowing what I've read about what I saw, that I understand why they are in a fight for their survival.

1:32:32If there are specific things...

1:32:33Piers Morgan:But do you feel comfortable about the scale of the response in, say, Gaza and now in Lebanon? Are you comfortable about that? So I know that mistakes have been made, but I can also see that Israel takes actually quite a lot of care in targeting people. So I disagree when people call it a genocide. It's a war. All death, you know, is something which I think should be avoided. I think Israel actually takes care to try and target the specific people. But they're killing a lot of civilians in the process. Because Hamas uses the civilians as human shields. Is that a good enough excuse eventually, if it looks like eventually?

1:33:06Piers Morgan:We hear from Ben Gavir and Smodrich what they really want to do is kick all the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank. I don't know him and I don't know what he said, so I can't comment on that. I do think it is wrong that Hamas uses innocent civilians as human shields. That is what has caused a lot of the scale of the violence. You look at what they did with Hezbollah and the pages, You look at the very precise targeting in Iran. I believe the Israeli government, when they say they do everything they can to minimize human life, Hamas does not do that. And even Palestinians will say that Hamas is the biggest oppressor of Palestinian people.

1:33:42Getting rid of Hamas, I think, is important. It is a terrorist group. That's the issue, I think, with the guest on your show. I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name. He has said that he prefers Hamas to Israel. Hamas is a terrorist group.

1:33:57Piers Morgan:No, he's always condemned Hamas to me. But I was told that he had said that. And I just don't want people who support terrorist groups coming to our country. Yeah, he's not a Hamas supporter. That would be a mischaracterisation. Two quick things before we'll be a rapper. It's been very interesting talking to you. Don't leave us along next time. OK. One is your faith, which I find really interesting, because you were very open about this recently in an interview with Amal Rajan. You said that you lost your personal belief in God after reading about the Joseph Fritzl case where this Austrian monster had imprisoned and abused his daughter for 24 years.

1:34:34Piers Morgan:She'd had to have seven children by him. And it was a despicable, awful story. And so you had lost your belief in God, but now identified as a cultural Christian. And people were a little bit confused about that, as you know, and debated it a lot. You happened to be married to a practising Catholic. Yes, goes to church every Sunday he does. Right, and I believe your kids are all being raised... Yes, they're all Catholic. And they go to church every Sunday. So what do you do? What is a cultural Christian? I go to church sometimes, but not very often. But remember, I'm the granddaughter of a Methodist reverend.

1:35:09Yes. So I grew up in a Christian family. My grandmother, I tell people my grandmother was born a Muslim. She actually converted to Christianity after she believed she'd witnessed a miracle. I grew up in a very Christian family. In Nigeria? Yes, in Nigeria, my childhood. You were born here, but then your mother went back to... Yes, I was born in London, but my childhood was spent in Nigeria. And it's literal there. The Bible is a living word of God. So when I say I lost my faith, it was believing that every single thing in the Bible was true. Because if every single thing in the Bible was true, I don't think what happened to Elizabeth Fritzl would have happened.

1:35:47Piers Morgan:Well, I think you made the point that you made little prayers to God, which God answered about exams and so on. But she had clearly prayed every day to be released from this horror and had never been released in 24 years. And you were making the point, how can a just God allow those two things? Yes, basically. Why were my prayers answered but not her prayers? But I am still a cultural Christian. Do you pray? No, but when I say I'm a cultural Christian, that means that the culture of Christianity is one which I think is a force for good. I think churches are a good thing. I think that the work ethic, the Protestant work ethic, which is what Methodists are often most seen about, is very important.

1:36:31I think the Christian values, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, truth telling, all of those things I think are important. And I think that they are very much part of the culture of this country. I think that this is a Christian country. I don't want to see Christianity disappear. and so even though I might not believe in every single thing that is in the Bible, overall, I think that Christianity is a force for good and I will fight for it. Do you think you might rekindle your belief in God

1:36:58Piers Morgan:given that the rest of your immediate family are pretty devout by the sound of faith? I don't think faith works like that. I don't think faith works like that. Oh, no, it does. Really? Why do you think so? I've heard people who renounce their faith and then something happens and they get it back. I might need to see the kind of miracle my grandmother saw. Do you think anything would persuade you? But sometimes I look at how lucky I have been personally. And, you know, the role that I'm in, you know, 10 years ago I was not even a member of parliament. Now I'm leading the Conservative Party. And, you know, once in a while you can think, is there someone who is, you know, or is there a being that is directing these things?

1:37:37Those thoughts do cross your mind. So I don't describe myself as an atheist. I describe myself as agnostic. Maybe there is a God, maybe there isn't. But I will try and live my life according to certain values, which are Christian values. But I'm not going to use the Bible as a textbook for how to be in government or what rules and regulations should come in. And I think that most people in the country are probably in that space, that there is a cultural Christianity. Go to church, not just for weddings and funerals, Christmas and Easter when something momentous is happening. and I am bringing my children up in that.

1:38:13But I also, I believe in being honest and I cannot pretend that I believe in God when I don't believe in God, when I am agnostic about his existence. I'm somebody who, you know, even when it's painful, I will tell the truth. If I'm telling you something, you know that what I say I mean. I think that that's really important in politicians. People are so disillusioned by politicians saying things so that they can get votes. So I'm not going to tell people that I believe in something just to get their votes. I want them to know what I do believe. So I'm a cultural Christian. I believe in culture a lot.

1:38:45I think we talk a lot about values, but not enough about culture. And I think we have a great culture in this country. We're at risk of losing it if we don't preserve it. So I fight for churches. I want to see them fixed. You know, I want more money going into preserving churches, which are actually often a repository of the history of every village, especially in the countryside and in rural areas. They tell a story about who we are and, you know, maybe where we're going.

1:39:08Piers Morgan:There are people like Tommy Robinson who spend their time on the airwaves in America saying, Britain is lost, London is lost, we've been overrun by Muslims, and there's no hope for us. So we are people. A country is its people. We are not lost. We are not broken. But there are certainly some things which are broken or breaking. I think our immigration system is broken. That's why I want us to leave the Convention on Human Rights. It doesn't work. I think there are a lot of nice ideas we have which are being naive. People who convert asylum seekers to Christianity and then they go on and become an imam afterwards or start visiting the mosque.

1:39:47People who convert men who claim to be gay and then when they get their settled status, they get married and have children. I think that we've been very naive. I'm not a supporter of Tommy Robinson. I think he said a lot of unsavory things. You know, he's gotten into trouble for contempt of court. but he is tapping into a sentiment that clearly thousands of people do share about their concerns about us losing our culture. I'm also concerned about us losing our culture. I think that Britain is a beacon to the rest of the world. The reason why people come here is because of British culture and British values.

1:40:21So we have to fight for them. People think culture is just the food you eat or the clothes you wear. Culture is the way you behave, its norms, its expectations, how you treat women, how you bring up your children, how you treat minorities, who gets a job. Is it a meritocracy or is it a clan culture or an aristocracy where it's who you know that gets you in? Those are the things that make up culture. And we don't talk enough about those things. And that's a conversation that the Conservative Party is now having. That's one of the ways that I am changing the Conservative Party. I think for a long time, you know, a lot of people turned their noses up talking about culture or saying you're fighting culture wars.

1:40:58But culture is as important as the economy. They go hand in hand. If you have a culture of people not going to work and just having benefits and they get money for having children on benefits, you're going to destroy your country very quickly. That's why I want to put the two-child benefit cap back in place. People who are on benefits should have to make the same decisions as everybody else when it comes to having children. That's part of our culture.

1:41:23Piers Morgan:There is a parallel I think you're going to rather like, which is that my football team at Arsenal have just been declared the champions of England by winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years. The manager, Mikel Arteta, a Spaniard, has created a team of shared values, as he sees it. Four of his squad are young men of Nigerian heritage, Maduaki, Eze, Saka and Waneri, which I didn't actually realise they were all of Nigerian heritage until I knew you were coming in and that you are. What does that say about your prospects to be Prime Minister that Arteta's clearly put his faith in four young men, British Nigerians, who've powered us to victory?

1:42:11Piers Morgan:Are you seeing this as a sign? I think it is a wonderful sign that we are a multiracial country and you're judged on how good you are, not on the colour of your skin. That's something I never wanted to change. I tell people that this is a multiracial country, not a multicultural country. We should all have a shared culture and shared identity. But it is amazing that we, people whose heritage is from elsewhere, are treated fairly in this country. And I think that the British public will give me a go. I think that they will look when it's the election day and think who actually has the best offer.

1:42:45Who has got the character? Who is a leader who doesn't take any nonsense and does the right thing? We may not agree with everything she says, but we know she means it. I think that they will look at me. But I've still got a lot of work to do. And I've got a lot of work to do with the party as well. I want people to know that we got things wrong and we know we got things wrong and we have changed. I'm changing the candidates that are coming into the party. We want new people, better people. So I'm changing things. And I think that we will be looking like the new fresh party while Labour and even reform will be looking quite tired.

1:43:16I mean, Nigel Farage is already quite exhausted. He doesn't come to work anymore. He doesn't.

1:43:23Piers Morgan:Kevin Bainot, a pleasure to get to know you a little bit. Come back again. Thank you. Pleasure was all right. I enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Piers Morgan, our censored, is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, you can ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan, our censored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. independent on censored media has never been more critical and we couldn't do it without you.

1:44:02Hey, Chicagoland, the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette.

1:44:07Piers Morgan:Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals and even open the refrigerators. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home.