‘TOTAL Betrayal!’ Can Republicans Survive Trump's War On Iran? + New Ayatollah 'Will Not Last'

24:56Piers Morgan:The American military is the most powerful in the history of the planet. It's not that so much. It's just that I think that with their responses, the Iranians are being quite tactically smart. What they're doing is they're trying to put the fear of God into people living in the Gulf States, many of whom are expats from other countries. They're trying to get them to leave, which many of them are doing. They're trying to destroy the business model of places like Dubai, which is, it's a fun, completely safe place to come. And they're doing that by hitting hotels and airports and so on. And at the same time, they're controlling ruthlessly the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 % of the world's oil flows.

25:34Piers Morgan:And that is extremely concerning, not just because of the huge spike in oil prices and gas prices, but also because of the geopolitical elements of that, involving China's reliance on it and Russia's involvement and so on. So much as I'd like to be as optimistic as you are, I look at it and think they may be being defeated in terms of military firepower, but the regime remains intact. They've replaced one Khomeini with another. The IRGC clearly have a stranglehold over the country. The combination of the bombing putting the fear of God into Iranians so they're staying in, and the IRGC's control means there are no rebellions on the street that we can see.

26:16Piers Morgan:So Trump's idea that this would be an organic rebellion off the back of the bombing road by the Iranian people is not happening. And I'm looking at it thinking, well, okay, maybe it will be over in a week, but I'm not quite sure how this ends as simply as you think it's going to. All right. So there's probably about five or six big arguments that you made there. So I'll try and address each of them in turn. First, let's start with the Straits of Hormuz. I think you're overstating the extent to which the Iranians have control over the Strait of Hormuz. Their entire navy is at the bottom of the ocean and the Americans are there to guard it.

26:51And I think the only really remaining threat is some of the missile threat from the south, which is being aggressively degraded by the United States. You made a really big claim, and I think this is extremely important. You made a claim about how the other Arab countries, because they are being bombed by Iran, that this is a sophisticated strategy that's going to get them to question their continued work with the United States. I think it's the opposite. I think they all realize they no longer want to live under Iranian blackmail. And I think they look at Iran flinging missiles in every direction.

27:20I mean, a couple of days ago, they flung missiles at Azerbaijan. And that's an important thing to realize because the leader of Azerbaijan, Aliyev, was the one leader in the region to give condolences to the death of Khamenei. And how did they respond? By launching missiles at a school in Azerbaijan. And you saw him immediately -

27:35Piers Morgan:Well, on this point, just to be clear, just crystal clear, I'm not saying for a moment the Gulf states won't continue to support America. In fact, the complete opposite. I do believe it's been a massive strategic error, actually, by Iran to go after the Gulf states in the way they have. But I think from a tactical point of view, there's no doubt that in the short term, it has put the fear of God into people. And I think it may question the resolve of the Arab Gulf states, of the leaders, to want this war to be remotely prolonged, because they can see that the longer it goes on, the more damaging it gets to all of their collective interests.

28:13Piers Morgan:So, in fact, you know, I think they are falling in behind America in terms of they hate what Iran is doing. We saw that from the Qatari prime minister overnight in an interview with Yalda Hakim from Sky News saying that. But that doesn't mean they want this war to continue. So the question then becomes, if there's a lot of pressure on the economics of this war, never mind the loss of life and so on, on the economics of the war, then how does this actually end? So I think it actually ends up working the opposite way. I think that what the Saudis and the UAE and Qatar and Bahrain will decide is they don't want to permanently live under the threat of Iranian blackmail.

28:51And that's what this would be if they made an early peace because they were scared about their economics. Then Iran would just hold this over their heads indefinitely while they built up a huge ballistic missile capability while they restarted their nuclear program. And then basically these countries would be at the mercy of Iran. I think so what that means is that the Arab countries will decide in their own interest that they want this war finished. And that even if somehow the United States steps out of the way, I think they'd end up finishing it on their own right, taking advantage of the weakened Iranian regime right now to try and impose their will on it, even if in a world where the United States retreated from the scene.

29:26Piers Morgan:OK, let's bring in the other two guests. Owen Schroer, what do you what do you say to Will's argument? Very bullish, thinks that this is ending quickly, and it's going to be a massively big win for the United States and Israel. Well, I think Will has his White House talking points down almost 100 percent. I'm not sure there was an original thought there. The one thing he missed was you're not supposed to call this a war, Will. He read a book in the last decade. You're not supposed to call it that. Here we go. You insulted me. We could keep doing this all day. I'd love to, Will. I also find it funny that he keeps saying Iran blackmail, another talking point that is coming from Western media, as if we didn't just see the Epstein list and all the connections to Israel revealed with that.

30:11He says Iran blackmail. As far as the conclusions that we're reaching here, I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure about these conclusions about the Gulf nation states. You know, when this thing first broke out, they said, oh, it'll be all the NATO countries and the EU countries and the Gulf nation states, everybody lining up against Iran. Well, it hasn't really been that smooth. It seems like a lot of them want to maintain good relations with the U.S., but they're not so sure about what's going on with this war. And, you know, you bring up what happened with Azerbaijan. They come out and say, OK, we're against Iran.

30:43And then they get hit with a bomb and you don't even scratch your head for a second. You don't even think for one second that could be a false flag as if these things don't happen in war. So I think that there's a lot. They came out and gave condolences for the death of Khamenei and then got bombed. Okay. Well, we'll see how this all turns out. I don't think it's going as smoothly as Will likes to represent. Like I said, I'm not sure there's an original thought there. This is the neocon. Will represents the neocon faction of right-wing politics that we thought we defeated in 2016. We thought we defeated again in 2024.

31:16This is the opposite of what Trump ran on. And that's the big thing here. We can debate about war and foreign policy. These things aren't going anywhere. The problem is this is a total betrayal of Trump's base. This is exactly against everything he ran on. And the 1984 Orwellian nature of the Board of Peace launching war after war after war and sitting here screaming about how Iran is firing missiles all over the world while Israel is in a war with seven separate countries at the same time. The irony and the hypocrisy should not be lost on your audience, Piers.

31:46Piers Morgan:OK, let me bring in Caroline. You were a former Trump spokeswoman. Where does all this sit with Donald Trump's repeated mantra when he campaigned in the 2024 election of America first, no more interference in foreign wars, particularly in the Middle East? And now here America is in the biggest interference imaginable in the Middle East, taking on Iran in this full-blooded, full-frottled way. Where does that sit with how he campaigned? Yeah, Pierce, you know, first and foremost, I love the American military. I love our troops, just like millions of Americans do. And that's why we were so excited when a candidate like Donald Trump came on the scene and talked about no more involvement in the Middle East and no new wars.

32:36And I would go on TV and say that on behalf of the president during the 2024 campaign. And I was proud to do it. I was enthusiastic to do it. It wasn't just that President Trump was talking about that. No more involvement in the Middle East. Criticisms of our past involvement in the Middle East were extremely valid. an indictment of the neocon political class establishment and their record in the Middle East. It was the passion with which he talked about it. You know, you can go back to 2016 and you can see the fire in him, the passion that he was talking about it with. It really electrified people and moved them to put him into the White House.

33:12And so he said no new wars. And I think people are confused right now in the base as to why it looks like we now are in a new war in the Middle East, you hear this talking point going around that 90 percent of MAGA supports, you know, this war. But that's that's not mathematically possible, because if you look at the coalition that elected President Trump into the White House, if that was true, right, if 90 percent of MAGA supported this war, Nikki Haley would be in the White House right now as president. Marco Rubio would be president. I mean, the American people had a chance in 2016 to elect literally anybody else besides Donald Trump, who were all on stage in that Republican primary saying, we would love war with Iran.

33:56They had a chance to do that again in 2024 by picking Nikki Haley as our candidate, but instead they picked Donald Trump. I also think if 90 % of MAGA supports this, I don't think your show would be getting the views that it's getting. I don't think Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson's show would be getting the views that it's getting. You know, polling is sort of an outdated way of collecting information. You know, they say Vietnam was the first living room war, but it looks like this is the first war in the social media age. And social media is a way for you to see in real time how the public is perceiving something.

34:31We certainly use that on the campaign, I can tell you. Social media is a more accurate representation of public sentiment. You can track it in real time versus polling. So this idea that 90 percent of the coalition supports that just quite literally isn't possible when you look at the wide swath of people, independents, moderates, Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, young men who all joined President Trump's coalition specifically because they were really excited about the promise of no new wars. And I guess that would be my question to Will, though, is, you know, first and foremost, do you think that this this is a war?

35:09Because, you know, the president has been on the phone with reporters, a lot of them who he calls the fake news, you know, Politico, CNN, Axios, New York Times, on the record in those phone interviews, calling it a war. The secretary of defense has called it secretary of war, excuse me, has called it a war. But the president hasn't publicly come out and said to the American people that it's a war. So, Will, do you think this is a war and is it a new war?

35:33Piers Morgan:Well, it's a very good question, which I will get Will to answer. What I would say, though, is I don't think America has declared war, correct me if I'm wrong here, but since the Second World War, and yet it has repeatedly gone to war. And I do think it's a complete farce, I have to be honest with you. As someone who loves America and loves your constitution and loves Americans, the idea that you have not been waging war repeatedly ever since World War II is ridiculous. And the idea that this is not a war when the American mighty military has gone in full throttle against Iran, both at land, at sea, every imaginable way you can think of, it's crazy.

36:15Piers Morgan:Of course it's a war, isn't it, Will? Why do we pretend otherwise? I mean, I think it's a war. I don't know what the legality of it is and why the president might want to avoid it. You know, he might want to say to use the language that's appropriate to justify his powers. Well, the truth is they all do it. I don't think any American— They all do it. I mean, well, it's the same reason Clinton— I hear you. I hear you, but there's a really good reason not to do that. It's a reason Clinton didn't do it with Gosovo. It's a reason that Obama didn't do it with Libya. If you don't call it a war, you don't need congressional approval.

36:47Right, but then we don't get to do things like knock out 50 of the Iranian leadership in the first five minutes of the war, right? We lose the element of surprise. This is, you know, this isn't 1760s where there's no telephone communication across oceans. You know, the sooner England hears about our wars three weeks later when a ship shows up, you know, instantly the moment we declared war, the Iranians would know what's up. And that would be the end of our ability to gain the element of surprise. And that saves American lives. If we if we're going to do a military operation, I think that we want the commander in chief to do so in a way that minimizes American casualties to the extent possible.

37:18And so I think that it's it's totally justified for him to do that. I think, I'm sorry, Caroline, I just am not impressed by saying that the polling doesn't say what it says. This is not just one poll that says 90 % of MAG supports it. It's consistently across all the polling that's done, you have 80, 85 % plus of Republicans supporting the president. And I think that it's because they understand that the president is not conducting the war in the manner of George W. Bush, that it's not stupid. You have to understand, he created the space for negotiation after the 12-day war. You need to remember, he hit those three nuclear sites and then immediately forced a ceasefire, including telling Netanyahu and Israel to turn the planes around when they had been struck after the ceasefire deadline.

37:58He wanted a negotiation. He wanted to be reasonable. But the problem is the Iranians, it's like the Black Knight and Monty Python. They refused to accept that they were beaten and refused to make any concessions. You need to just go listen to Steve Whitcoff, who Tucker and everybody loved a year ago, explain what his negotiations were like. They opened the negotiation by saying we have 60 percent of rich uranium for 11 nuclear bombs. We have an uneniable right to enrich and we're not going to give you anything in on the negotiation table that you didn't get militarily. Like what is what is President Trump supposed to do?

38:29And if he cowers in the face of this. This is my question really quick.

38:34Piers Morgan:Hang on. On this very point that Will just raised. And I'd like to bring Owen back in here just to respond to this. But this is what Antony Blinken, the former Secretary of State, said about Israel trying to pressurize Barack Obama to launch military strikes on Iran and saying they would just attack themselves if Washington refused. Take a listen to this. Back during the Obama administration, the Israelis were pushing President Obama to take military action against Iran and were warning that they would do it themselves if he didn't. And he wouldn't because he thought the better way to get at the nuclear program, which is what we were focused on.

39:18In the days after the October 7th attack on Israel, the horrific attack on Israel by Hamas, the Israelis were insisting that in the north, Hezbollah from Lebanon was about to attack. And they wanted to strike preemptively against Hezbollah. And President Biden said, look, we're with you. We'll always be with you in defending Israel. And if you're attacked, we're there. but we're not there if you're going to start something. And we came within about 30 minutes of having a war in the North based on bad information that the Israelis had.

39:54Piers Morgan:I found that really interesting to be reminded of that because has Donald Trump been played here by Benjamin Netanyahu? Has he been sold a pup? Was he told, look, they're going to go after us, we're going to have to attack imminently, you're either in with us or you're not. and they said, okay, well, we better come in. I mean, is that what's happened here? Well, I think you have two separate things happening. I think we have to recognize the power of the Israeli lobby. I think this is something that the average American is now very aware of the power of the Israeli lobby. And so now AIPAC is trying to find new ways to fund their candidates that don't go through AIPAC because it has such a negative stench on it now.

40:34But then there's Netanyahu. So AIPAC buying our candidates to essentially sell out America's best interest is one thing. But Netanyahu is a completely different issue. He's been lying to the American people in the United States Congress since the 1980s. He's been saying that Iran has days until they have a nuclear weapon. So obviously somebody's being dishonest here. It wouldn't be the first time that Israeli intelligence has lied to us. I could look at some recent times. I think the whole story about Iranian drones off the East Coast, I believe that was false Israeli intelligence. I think that the strike on that school that just happened in Iran, I think that was bad Israeli intelligence that we acted on.

41:12So I think Israel has been giving us bad intelligence, whether intentionally or accidentally, for years. And I find it funny that we sit here, and again, it's this blatant hypocrisy and irony, except it's not funny because we say, oh, we're saving American lives. Well, at least seven American lives have been lost in this war so far that we know of. We also had three people shot and killed here at a retaliation attack at a bar in Austin, Texas, where I live. And as far as this number of 90 percent MAGA supports this, well, you can only believe that if you're counting the fact that the Mark Levins of the world who support this war more than anything, they get ratioed on every single post.

41:51And so they're the ones that are supporting this. They're the least popular. Tucker Carlson, whatever you think of his politics, he's more popular now. And so I just I just don't see these things adding up in real life. And I think the issue is we've been dealing with this centralized media and even a centralized political narrative that's been able to kind of get away with lying and deceiving the American people. Maybe that's because they were distracted. Maybe that's because social media didn't exist before. Maybe a combination of the two. But it just doesn't work anymore. We're not buying these talking points.

42:21And again, if you want to have a foreign policy debate, that's fine. The average American is sick of what's happened in the Middle East. And this is what resonated with that person while Trump was campaigning since 2015. We have spent trillions of dollars, at least five trillion, trillions of dollars in the Middle East. That's what we've done. And we've got nothing for it. We've gotten absolutely nothing but our blood and treasure in that region and nothing to show for it. And so Americans are sick of it. We would much rather spend a billion dollars a day is the cost of this war. It's up to 10 billion dollars now.

42:53We would much rather see that invested in our own infrastructure, our own people, our own country, whatever it takes. That's what this administration was supposed to be about. So if you want to say 90 % MAGA supports this, then you have to account for at least 40 % of the people that were once MAGA are not MAGA anymore. Otherwise, it makes no sense. And if we continue to let these neocons co-opt the actual America first conservative movements, then we're never going to have any real right-wing or conservative victories for this country.

43:20Piers Morgan:Okay. I want to give Caroline the last word. We've run out of time, but Caroline, just very quickly, The poly market, the prediction markets, asked US forces enter Iran by March the 14th, 21 percent, March the 31st, 44 percent. And by the end of the year, 68 percent. So they're seeing money coming in, quite a lot of money, a poly market, betting that the longer this goes on, the more of a stalemate it is, the more pressure the Trump administration will come under and the IDF to commit troops on the ground. What do you think this very quickly that would do politically for the Republicans with both the midterms and potentially 2028?

44:04There's absolutely zero support within the Republican Party or outside of that electorate for U.S. ground troops in the Middle East. I mean, the number one trending hashtag on social media the last nine days has been hashtag send barren. So if that tells you anything about where the American public is at, they don't have an appetite for sending ground troops to the Middle East, especially for objectives that remain unclear and for a war that doesn't seem to have a clear purpose. You know, the administration has offered two reasons for many reasons for going to war with Iran, but two of them have been in direct conflict with each other.

44:37One has been that Iran was an imminent threat to the United States, and the other has been that Iran has never been weaker. And so that's what we had to strike. Well, you can't be an imminent threat and as weak as you've ever been at the same time. Both those statements can't be true. And you see a lot of people who I think personally have not been loyal to the president in the past and certainly loyal to his ideology. You see Mike Pence and John Bolton who have come on this show championing this conflict. but the question that I think the larger American audience is asking is, are we just going to be repeating the mistakes of the past?

45:16And the question that I don't see these voices that are cheering on the war having to answer is, just answer bluntly, how many U.S. troops are you okay losing, and how much are you okay having it cost? And with every objective that you lay out, every goal that you lay out, you should have to answer how many troops are you okay losing, what units do you want them to come from, and how much are you okay with it costing? Those are basic questions you should be able to ask if you're waging war and answer.

45:41Piers Morgan:Yeah. And remember the words of one of America's great modern military leaders, David Petraeus, the general, who said, you know, the first question you ask is, how does this end? And I'm not sure anyone's really got a firm handle on that. Thank you very much indeed to my panel. I appreciate it. Joining me now is the former MP and host of The Rest is Politics, Rory Stewart. Rory, welcome back to Uncensored. Thank you for having me. With markets changing and living costs rising, finding a reliable place to grow your money matters now more than ever. In the Wealthfront Cash account, your uninvested cash can earn up to 3.95 % APY.

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47:04Piers Morgan:I was amused in a kind of ironic way to see you and your co-host Alastair Campbell debating this when it all flared up a week ago. And Alastair giving the world a lecture about the need to adhere to international law when it comes to taking this kind of military action in the Middle East. Some of us have long memories, Rory. I remember 2003 when I ran Medellin Mirror and said the very same thing to your co-host, Alistair Campbell, repeatedly when we said it would be a very bad idea to invade Iraq without a second UN resolution. The wider question, other than teasing you about your co-host and your facial expressions have given me all the answer I need.

47:46Piers Morgan:But rather than teasing you about that, on the bigger picture, is international law now just finished as a concept? You know, I keep hearing the argument from everyone. Well, if the others aren't adhering to it, why do we have to? If they're doing this, we should be able to do this. You know, none of them even call them wars anymore. The Russians call the invasion of Ukraine a special operation. Now we're told this is not a war either. This is, you know, a conflict or whatever it may be. Are we just circumnavigating international law, do you think? Well, let me take my defense of Alistair for red, so we won't get called down that rabbit hole.

48:24But you're right. Listen, something fundamental has changed. I think Trump's intervention in Iran is the beginning of a completely new world. It's been going on for 18 months, the signs of this, but this has shattered the order that America built after the war. America basically, after the Second World War, created a rules-based order, even if it was hypocritical, even if things went wrong, where broadly speaking, if you're a Western European country or you were in the Gulf, America seemed generous, relatively reliable, relatively predictable, and it followed process. Now, you can disagree, but it went, presidents had conversations with Congress, they were relatively consistent about what they were doing, occasionally they tried to go to the UN.

49:05All that's been blown out of the water. Suddenly now we have a president who has not consulted with his traditional allies and who has put the Gulf countries in a really difficult situation.

49:18Piers Morgan:Had you been Prime Minister, Rory, as many people would have liked you to have been. My mother's one of them. I think I've had that conversation. Had you been Prime Minister when Donald Trump made the call and said, we want to use UK bases to launch our aircraft from. We don't need you to supply any forces. We don't want you to be involved at this stage. We just want to use your bases. Would you have let the Americans do that? Tony Blair, the architect of, of course, the Iraq war, along with George Bush, was emphatic at the weekend in a private meeting that he would have absolutely done that. And Keir Starmer should have done that.

50:06Piers Morgan:Would you have done that? I think Blair is completely wrong. Completely wrong. This is an illegal, immoral, reckless war that is going to make the world a much more dangerous place. It's already driving up the price of oil. It's destroying the security of American allies in the Gulf. It's not achieving what it set out to achieve in Iran. Anyone who thinks that this is the path to some loverly liberal democratic stable regime in Iran at the moment, there's no sign of that. And of course, it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy for Britain. You know, we've been a very strong ally of the US since the 1950s.

50:40But we cannot be in a position where the United States does not consult with us, doesn't talk to us, has no interest in our views, and then just announces it's going to drag us into the war by using our bases. But isn't the cold, hard reality that if we get attacked,

50:58Piers Morgan:and we're vulnerable, I mean, the UK armed force has been reduced to such a degree, you could put all the army inside Wembley Stadium and have a lot of empty seats. We've been exposed, I think, with two ships which can't even leave yet for a week or two to join the action, even if we want them to. You know, there's a general feeling from all our armed force leaders that we are, you know, really heavily vulnerable right now. If we were attacked, say Putin decided to have a go, the first call we would make would be to the United States, to Donald Trump. And what concerns me about this is I'm not disputing for a moment anything you say.

51:37Piers Morgan:Many people feel the same way. But this so-called special relationship, it does rely occasionally on doing things. There was a very interesting piece I read at the weekend about Margaret Thatcher when Ronald Reagan, I think it was, wanted her help. And, you know, her every instinct and every one of her advisors said, do not help. But she slept on it overnight and went, we have to help. They're our biggest ally and they're the one that we have to help in these moments, even if our instincts tell us not to. that it actually, although it's in the short-term national interest to say we can't do this, the longer-term, bigger-picture national interest of the UK is that we have to have the Americans on side because when we get attacked, they're the first port of call.

52:23Unfortunately, Trump has shattered that world. If we were in a world in which we felt we could rely on the US, in which we believed that he believed in protecting Europe against Russia, that he believed in NATO, that he respected European sovereignty, fine. But he's trying to create a world in which he effectively says he gets to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and everybody has to come along with it. And there's no quid pro quo. It would be naive to think that because you helped him out somewhere, he would ever act except in his own national interest. The only thing that Donald Trump would think about if he was asked to do something is whether it would help Donald Trump.

53:01And secondarily, maybe his idea of what the U.S. wants. The idea that he shows loyalty, gratitude, forget it. Look at the Gulf. These people have given him airplanes. They've invested hundreds of billions. They've given him property contracts. And without consulting them, he's basically set out to destroy their economies overnight. That's what you learn. I mean, you cannot be in a position with somebody who's behaving somewhere between a bully and a gangster of saying to him, there's nothing we can do. And that was the risk, actually, we almost had with Greenland, which is you had people like Mandelson, our disgraced ambassador in the US, saying, well, maybe we just have to give him Greenland because the really big picture is Ukraine.

53:43And, you know, we're too dependent on them for defense. And this just plays into his hands because he basically thinks Europe's weak, the UK's weak, they just have to do what he says. And that world has changed. We cannot continue in that relationship because if you're in that kind of relationship, you will be abused forever.

54:01Piers Morgan:But here's the flaw in that argument, which is that he may be right in his assessment. You know, he was right when he said that the NATO member countries were not paying their dues. I think he's been right to say that Europe has not stepped up properly when it's needed to in the last few decades. He's right that America has to carry the lion's share of being the global police officer. You know, you say, when does he ever help in Europe? Well, he stepped in with Ukraine when most of his own party, in terms of his MAGA base in particular, didn't want him to. He committed many billions of dollars worth of help for Ukraine and continues to do so, even though politically it doesn't do him any favours.

54:39Piers Morgan:So, you know, I'm not convinced that if we had a problem and we were attacked that Trump wouldn't come to the rescue. I think he would. But I agree with you, he's an unpredictable beast and how you deal with him is very complicated. But again, I come back, if you were prime minister, it's very easy for us all to opine, of course, from our podcast rooms, and we both have lovely rooms, I think, as we're talking to each other here. But when you're in the Oval Office and you've got to make these calls, or you're in number 10, there are different dynamics at play, aren't there? Yeah, but I think the clear decision has to be eventually enough.

55:15You can't write a blank check to somebody like Trump. You've got to look at his entire business career. People who give him the impression that he has them over a barrel, that they have no options or alternatives, he will simply abuse them. And you have to consistently and respectfully say no. So what you have to say to him is, listen, you said that the US cannot afford to protect Europe anymore. You said that we should be dealing with Russia and Ukraine, and we've stepped up. You know, you've removed$50 billion of funding for Ukraine, and Europe and the UK is stepping up. You're barely providing anything now for Ukraine, right?

55:52You've in fact actually just made the situation in Ukraine worse because you've driven up the oil price, which will make Russia richer. You've lifted the sanctions. You're firing off all the Patriot missiles that could have been used to defend Ukraine. So respectfully, Mr. President, we're going to take you at your word. We are focusing on our interest, which is a country called Russia that has staken 20 % of a European country, has casualties of 1.2 million people.

56:18Piers Morgan:How does this end, Rory, do you think? Because General Petraeus famously said about all wars, first question, how does it end? And I'm really struggling to see how this ends in a remotely satisfactory way because there's no sign of regime change. There's certainly no sign of Iranian people rising up against the regime for perfectly good reasons to do with self-preservation at the moment. And if you don't affect regime change, then what is the purpose of this war? People hate this regime. There are a bunch of horrible theocratic murderers who've killed tens of thousands of Iranians. But there isn't an alternative emerging.

57:00There isn't an opposition on the ground. And this idea that just by killing Khamenei you suddenly get a change, you just end up with his son. Where does that get you? Nowhere. In the meantime, what you've actually done is you've destroyed all the faith in global shipping networks, oil, fertilizer, the economies of places like Dubai, you've made everybody suddenly lose confidence in the whole world. And you've given China and Russia a chance to say, well, if the US thinks it can behave like this, why can't we go around behaving like this? And you've given other people a chance to go and get themselves nuclear weapons, and there's no end.

57:34The only end is when President Trump gets out of bed in the morning and decides to tell everybody he's won. But in order to get there, we have this, you know, You were interviewing somebody who said he's like the knight in Monty Python who has had his legs chopped off and his arms chopped off and still hasn't given up. Well, for goodness sake, what's the point about that knight in Monty Python? He's not a threat to anyone. There's no point continuing to try to demand a surrender from somebody who's not a threat to you and doesn't want to surrender.

58:05Piers Morgan:If you were supportive, presumably, of Keir Starmer refusing permission for the US to use our bases at the start of the war, are you therefore against the decision by Keir Starmer two days later to allow the bases to be used and to now start committing our armed forces in increasing numbers to help the Americans here, but from a defensive standpoint? Stalin was demented. He gets the worst of all worlds. He's managed to completely irritate Trump. And then for some reason, two days later, he says, oh, actually, you can use the bases after all, with some new terminology around offensive. I mean, look, you may be more sympathetic towards Blair, but do one or the other.

58:49Either say, I'm with you, Mr Trump, you can use my bases, go for it, or say this is illegal, unjustifiable and horrifying.

58:57Piers Morgan:No, that's exactly what, to be honest, that is exactly what I said. I said very early on that weekend, make your mind up, Prime Minister. You're either with the Americans on this or you're not. But to go from being not with them to with them in the space of 36 hours, I thought was ridiculous. And that is not leadership. It's insane. He's ended up alienating the Americans, alienating the Iranians, annoying everybody who wants to topple the regime, annoying everybody who wants to stay out of it. and his idea that he can chart a course through this with some funny legal argument makes no sense. No, I think he's, look, what he should be doing is working with Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and saying, what's the world going to look like?

59:44Because we can't depend on America anymore. And then think about the next five to 10 years. What are the steps you've got to take to be genuinely independent? AI, tech, cloud computing, defense, security, the dollar. think it through, do it together, come up with a vision, instead of which what he's doing is flip-flopping.

1:00:04Piers Morgan:Rory Stewart, great to have you back on Uncensored. I look forward to hearing your defence of Alastair Campbell another time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. See you soon. And an update on the story we mentioned at the top of the show, considering the Iranian women's football team in Australia, President Trump says, I just spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister. He's on it. Five have been taken care of. The rest are on their way. Some, however, feel they must go back because they're worried about the safety of their families. So that's an update to that moving story about the Iranian women's football team.

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