"Total PSYCHOS!" Trump Vows Revenge As Iran Shoots Down Apache Helicopter

22:55Piers Morgan:But, Matt, how do you view the very aggressive expansion of settlements in the West Bank? Because most people believe that these are war crimes being committed, that this should not be happening, and that it's criminal, and that it's Smodrig is driving it. I mean, my view of Ben Gavir and Smodrig is they're a pair of absolute psychopaths, and that this is the problem with the current Israeli government. Netanyahu had to do this dirty deal with these guys to get power back, and they are absolute psychopaths. The kind of people, Ben Givir, his wife on his 50th birthday, gave him a cake with a noose on it.

23:30Piers Morgan:He posts gleefully a video proving that they abused detainees. I mean, the guy's completely nuts, right? So what is your view of the aggressive expansion? But on the settlement expansion, do you agree it shouldn't be happening? You have areas A, B, and C, like I said. And what you have is you have some settlers, which most of which that are pushing into the other areas that they're not authorized to be in, which the IDF does come in and stop and prevent those issues from happening. But it's odd to me that we're sitting here talking about random little groups of settlers over inside of the West Bank instead of the Palestinian Authority that is still paying for terrorist attacks.

24:08Do you know that they actually, the PA, all right, actually continues after these people get released from prison while they're in prison for killing Israelis, for killing Jews, for killing Christians, they actually continue to pay a stipend to the families. All right. So when their person that conducted their jihad is put away in prison, they continue to pay for that and they continue to pay the families. And then when they get out, they bear the title of prisoner, which makes them exalted over inside of the PA. So it's odd to me that we're sitting here, we're complaining about a couple settlers that are encroaching on territory.

24:39It's not a couple. It's not a couple. And the scenes have been increasingly horrific. No, it is a couple, Pierce. It is actually not a couple. And then what ends up happening is you see a video and it comes out. It's a couple. It's not a couple. And then, again, you have the IDF that goes in and they stop it and they kick them right back out of there every single time they complain about it. Well, actually, that's not really happening either.

24:56Piers Morgan:That happens all the time. It is happening. It's on video. The IDF appear to be allowing a lot of this stuff to be going on. and I think that is part of the problem. That's not true, Piers. It is true. That's not true. You see videos of these things going on, and again, they're not pointing out what area it's in, which is why I brought that up, areas A, B and C, which is why it's so important to have that conversation. No talk of the Christian genocide, no talk of the pay-for-slave programme, no talk of the PA pushing and wanting to kill people. I want to bring in the other panellists. I can very briefly deal with this.

25:25Very quickly. I go to Bethlehem regularly, and it's where Jesus was born. It's incredibly moving. And what you're... There is no... By the way, this is pure nonsense, there's a genocide carried out by Muslims and Christians. That's just fantasy. It's not true. Because I know the church people there. I know the Christians there. I go to their homes. I was there recently. You've read the Bible, you've read the Gospels, you know, where the archbishop... The angels appear to the shepherds, the shepherd's fields. That's been taken over now steadily by Israeli settlers. It's very ugly. The Christians in Bethlehem are being compressed in less and less areas.

26:02It's very hard for them to exist economically. It's heartbreaking, actually. I just wanted to say that. OK, Scott Horton, look... And that area that he's talking about is actually on the border of Area B, which they had gone over, and there's a slight portion of it,

26:16Piers Morgan:which does fall underneath Area B. Let me bring Scott Horton in here. Scott, there's so much to talk about that's raging right now in the Middle East. Whether it's the West Bank, whether it's Gaza, whether it's Lebanon, whether it's Iran, You know, do you see any possibility that we get to peace here, that maybe all of this was necessary to somehow get somewhere where there could be legitimate peace? No, that was what Condoleezza Rice said in the Lebanon War in 2006. These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East. All we got to do is make it a little bit worse for a while and then that'll help it get better.

26:55But no, worse is worse. And they absolutely should not have done, especially this war. But it's all of a piece. You know, they call it Israel's seven front war. I think one important development is that I believe is the first time that Iran directly hit Israel as retaliation for Israel bombing Beirut. And I don't, not even necessarily Hezbollah targets, but whoever they were killing in Beirut. And I believe that's the first time the Iranians have gone ahead and intervened, you know, in that way. They never have done that for the Palestinians, for example. But that goes to show, I think, that they're feeling that they are in a greater position of strength compared to where they were.

27:38And I have to say real quick, too, as a factual matter, I'm sure Mr. Hammer simply accidentally misspoke when he said that Iran had a stockpile of 90 % enriched uranium-235, when he meant to say 60%, which they had been enriching from up to 60 % since 2021. But they never went above that. It was a bargaining chip. They never went up to weapons. So actually, that's not true. The IAEA actually documented above 80 % enriched uranium, and there was two locations south of Tehran that the IAEA found that Iran didn't have to do was further. Hold on, further, further. Okay, so how do you debate this, then?

28:14How do you debate the deputies? Let me just answer that one point, and I'll let you continue. It went on Iranians. Hold on. Let me answer that one point. Because this point is indisputable. No, no, no. This point is indisputable. The deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament went on Iranian state TV and admitted that they were trying to acquire a nuclear weapon. So go ahead. OK, well, the IAEA did find some. The IAEA did report that they found some isotopes above 80 percent. But then in the next report, they said they asked the Iranians about it. The Iranians explained it away and the IAEA accepted their explanation.

28:47know what it was. Just while they were reconfiguring some new cities. Okay, now do the deputy speaker of the parliament. Now do the deputy speaker of the parliament admitting that they were trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Oh, so maybe you should look into it. Maybe you should look into that because he's on video. I'll look into that quote. That they were trying to develop. They never did. Admitting that they were trying to develop a nuclear weapons grade. And, and, and you did not, and you did not comment on the two undisclosed locations. Did you? No. Was that dismissed away? No, it was not.

29:16Because there's no excuse for it. They were not abiding by the NPT. They were not abiding by any of it. Well, that's not true. And in fact, I have brought up unbidden on this very show the developments at Pickaxe and they call it near Isfam.

29:34Piers Morgan:Isn't it also true, though, Matt, that as a consequence... That is documented by the IAEA, Pierce. How can nobody talk about it? Let me ask you a question. Is it not also true that as a consequence of Donald Trump ripping up the Obama deal, the Iran deal, in 2018, that Iran now has 10 times the amount of enriched uranium and is therefore able to make 10 times as many nuclear bombs as it could have done before that. So how has that been a successful strategy? That is, as far as we know, what they've disclosed to the IAEA. You know, when we started to develop the GBU-57 all the way back in 2007.

30:11That's that 30 ,000-pound bunker buster that we used on Isfahan and Natanz last time. We started developing that back in 2007 specifically for that mission. Why do you think we were developing it for that mission? Because the United States had intelligence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. No other president in history, minus Obama, thought it was okay. No other president. It is true. Look it up. You didn't even know about the deputy foreign minister. You didn't know about the two undisclosed You're going to sit here and tell me what I said is not true. You go look. Go look at how long we've been developing the GBU-57 specifically for that mission.

30:47Yeah. And what president in history, besides Obama, decided it would be a good idea to allow Iran to enrich uranium? The fact is, Donald Trump corrected a bomb that was done underneath the Obama administration. Yeah. W. Bush refused to bomb them. Do you know anything about the covert operations that were done? All right. Let me bring the others in. I want to bring it. He said, Colmert tried to convince W. Bush to go to war in 2007 and 8, and he told them no.

31:09Piers Morgan:Yeah, well, we know that actually Netanyahu... He said he developed the GBU of 57. What year was that? We know that Netanyahu tried to get every American president to do what he's just done in Iran. Anyway, they've never had a nuclear weapons program. They've never enriched to weapons grade. The IAEA has never accused them of converting their nuclear material to a military purpose. OK, let me bring in Josh Hammer. Josh Hammer, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, and I think Netanyahu was driving this narrative, according to the New York Times' big deep dive a few weeks into the war, that they believed that this war on Iran could reshape the Middle East and it would all happen very quickly.

31:44Piers Morgan:You decapitate the heads, the IRGC collapsed from within, the people wouldn't uprise, the Strait of Hormuz would be ignored. None of it's really happened, other than they killed the IRGC, who's been replaced by his more radical son. And the problem now is that I think they're on competing agendas. I don't think Netanyahu wants to stop attacking Iran. I think he'd love to try and get rid of the regime. I think he'd like to carry on as long as it takes to do this. He's shown the same capacity to do this with Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and so on. And yet Donald Trump clearly now sees enormous political peril in continuing this for much longer.

32:26Piers Morgan:Inflation is soaring. Food prices will be soaring when the fertiliser issue involving the straight and foremost plays through into the food chain. Energy prices are way, way higher than they were before all this. And he's got this ticking clock. You can't get away from it. The midterms are coming. And at this moment in time, if this carries on the way it is for much longer, then the Republicans will lose the House and the Senate. it. And at that point, Trump becomes a lame duck. He's politically paralyzed then. This is a perilous moment because I just think the two countries have different agendas.

33:06Okay, so I'll get that in just a minute, Piers, but there's been a lot said here that simply has to go addressed as well. So Peter's actually not the only person who just got back from Judea and Samaria from Israel. I actually just got back this past Sunday, just three days ago, from a trip as well. I was over they are co-leading a trip for young American Christian journalists in particular. And I think it's worth noting that we took this lovely group to Christian holy sites like Nazareth. We took them to the Mount of Beatitudes on the north of the Sea of Galilee. We could not go to Bethlehem.

33:35Bethlehem has been invoked numerous times in this conversation. Our trip did not feel comfortable going to Bethlehem because we would be putting these young fellows' lives in danger. Matt is a thousand percent corrupt. There's been a Christian genocide in Bethlehem. The Christian percent of the population of Bethlehem in the 1920s was north of 90 percent. Now it is roughly 15 to 20 percent there. It's all being done under the auspices of the hegemonic Arab Muslim rulers there in Bethlehem. Furthermore, I actually sat down to interview this past Monday in the Israeli North Shadi Khalul, who is one of the leaders of the Israeli Christian community.

34:07He actually just got a permanent approval from the prime minister Netanyahu himself to start the first fully Christian community there in the Israeli North near the Lebanese border there. And he was going on and on and on with Shadi Kulul about how he is peace persona non grata in Bethlehem. He is not welcome there. He's not welcome at the place of Jesus Christ. So there's been just a tremendous amount of just blatant misinformation. Even the situation on the ground, again, I actually spent a decent amount of time on this trip in Judea and Samaria. The highways in Judea and Samaria have lots of Israeli license plates and Palestinian authority license plates there.

34:42There is actually a much more peaceful situation on the ground, frankly, than the media reports would have you belief. Are there problems on both sides? To an extent, yes. But I think it's notable that Peter, in his answer earlier, and Scott and yourself for the matter, no one on this panel, frankly, has mentioned the fact that it's not just Arabs who at times are being killed. I didn't hear Peter mention the fact that there was a terrorist attack in central Israel, an Israeli man was killed by an Arab terrorist this past Sunday just when I landed. Furthermore, there have been now 20 Israeli soldiers killed by Hezbollah in the north.

35:14Hezbollah, which infamously actually takes over Christian churches in Lebanon, seizes those churches, and then use that to fire upon Israelis. The Maronite Catholic Christian president of Lebanon, Yosef Ayyoun, has called this out explicitly, which is why he is now increasingly aligned with Netanyahu on the Iranian proxy threat of Hezbollah in his own country there. So there's been a tremendous amount of misinformation spewed here on this panel when it comes to the issue of Judea and Samaria and Bethlehem and so forth. Having said that, I do want to address your question when it comes to the war in Iran and Trump and Netanyahu.

35:43Are the two leaders fully aligned? No, of course not. at this point. Look, they have more in common, clearly, than they have against. Donald Trump is not a fan of Iran, to put it mildly. He's made that clear over and over and over again, pulling out of Barack Obama's nuclear deal, taking out Qasem Soleimani, the entire launching of that big fury. There's literally a Pakistani national currently sitting in prison in New York City for trying to assassinate Donald Trump on behalf of the IRGC. There was a recent plot by the IRGC trying to assassinate Ivanka Trump. Donald Trump, not a fan of the Iranians.

36:14Do the two leaders have different domestic political calculuses? Yeah, they probably do. Donald Trump is staring at rising gasoline prices. Netanyahu is facing his own election in the Knesset this October, roughly, we anticipate it will be. And he's looking at the fact that he wants to solidify his reputation as bona fides, as a tough on Iran, tough on Hamas, et cetera, style leader there. So there's definitely a slight divergence there, but I don't think it is ultimately more than slight. And the thing to remember here, Pierce, is that there's been so much garbage spewed the American media, Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, all these propagandists say that the tail is wagging the dog, Israel's driving America to conflict.

36:53No, they're not. No, they're not. And Donald Trump has just proven it yet again by calling him Netanyahu after Israel received incoming from both Hezbollah and Iran and saying, don't do this. So if the tail was wagging the dog, then the president of the United States would not be the dog wagging the tail in So I think the reports of Israel hit Iran anyway. Israel disobeyed Trump and bombed Iran anyway when he said that. Scott, I was there in the Israeli north. I was literally in a hotel on the banks of the Sea of Galilee last Monday evening. Our whole group of these young 18, 19, 20 old Christian generals had to rush to the bomb shelters at 2 a.m.

37:30the morning because of incoming Hezbollah fire. Then the Iran missiles fired a few days later. Yeah, but you're changing the subject. We were talking about whether - Donald Trump, to his great credit, responded to the attack, the horrific attack on the Apache helicopter there near the Omani coast. And you know what he said? He said that when you are attacked, you have to fight back there. Why in the world would that same standard not apply to any other country there? And by the way, even after that, American Israel started this war, that's why even. No, they didn't. Iran started this war in 1979.

37:58But regardless, even after America started this war in 1953, then no, they did not. Even after Iran fired the missile into Israel this past Sunday, Trump said, don't do it. Bibi did. And then after that, Trump said, you know what? Fine. Both got your shots there. Now it's come. So you know what? Now it's come-ish until Iran decided to go gun down on a patchy helicopter. You know why? Because they are fanatical 72 virgins in Islamist eschatological Shia is trying to imitize the coming of the 12th Imam. These are not rational actors. And unfortunately, this current administration is now falling to the same enticing trap, the siren song, that you can treat these fundamentally irrational figures as rational actors.

38:35It's the same delusion, unfortunately, that the Obama administration...

38:38Piers Morgan:I'm not entirely sure that anyone who's been reading Donald Trump's social media outpourings for the last 14 weeks would deem him to be a particularly rational actor in all this, would they? Or how about the Israelis who convinced Trump this will be easy? All you got to do is kill the Ayatollah, drop a few bombs on the IRGC. They won't close the strait because who's they? They won't even be in power anymore. It'll be a bunch of freedom-loving Democrats will take over the country and make it an American and Israeli ally. And now you hear Josh Hammer, all we got to do, we got to hit him harder. We got to go back to war.

39:11I guess eventually we got to send in a ground force to take Tehran. You shouldn't stop the ceasefire on April 8th. The reason we are here is because the ceasefire was called prematurely. The reason, hang on, hang on.

39:20Piers Morgan:The reason the ceasefire was called was because the military actions alone just weren't working. Because what the Iranians were doing was they were ignoring the fact they were getting bombarded and they were simply focused on shutting the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the Gulf state neighbours. It turned out to be a very smart strategy. You're going to like it. It might be that I think they're an appalling regime who deserve all they get. However, as a strategy against the bombardment, it turned out to be very effective. It forced a ceasefire. Then we had a blockade, which wasn't really a blockade.

39:58Piers Morgan:That didn't work either. The Iranians still control Australia foremost. They still have enough weaponry to attack the Gulf states at will. They still have enough weaponry to attack Israel, as we've seen. So this idea they've been completely decimated militarily clearly isn't true either. The Supreme Leader is in place. His father was killed, but he's there. He's more radical. The IRGC are still running the show, and there are no sign of popular uprisings. Nothing that Netanyahu, in the White House situation room, three, four weeks into this war, before the war started, nothing that he promised Trump has actually really happened, other than decapitating the Ayatollah.

40:37Piers Morgan:And I think that's the problem. I want to bring in Peter Oborn, just to round things off here. You know, Peter, at the core of all this, I've always believed, until you sought, and you said this immediately when you first started talking, until you sought the Palestinian problem, nothing really gets resolved here. And to date, there's never been, it seems to me, a particularly collective will by the Arab countries in the Middle East to make that happen. Could, out of all this mayhem now, could there be a scenario where Saudi Arabia joined the Abraham Accord and other countries, may states follow, and that there becomes a collective will to address the core issue of the Palestinian problem, and could that ultimately, not in the near future, but could that lead to a lasting peace?

41:27Yes, I don't think it's a question really of the Arab states. These are tame despotisms, which are, generally speaking, doing what Israel wants. That's what the Abraham Accords is. I think what it does need is a change in the mind of the United States, which so far has been the godfather to Israel, done what it wanted. But we are seeing a very interesting change in sentiment against Israel in the United States, including among US Jews. And I think if there is... So the moment they've got Trump, if they've got somebody who was less favourable to Israel, were ready to take the side of the Palestinians as well as the side of the Israelis, then that way something might happen.

42:10Piers Morgan:OK. Faso in debate. Thank you all very much. I really appreciate that. I'm joined now in the studio by Alex Gandler. He's a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London. Well, welcome to you. We've not seen you on our censor before. Donald Trump said, if I tell him Netanyahu to do something, he does it. Is that true? Well, shut up, Pierce. Right, straight into it. Yeah. We have a very good relationship with our American allies. We are constantly in conversation and communication on all different levels. we're talking. We're partners in this. Do you do what you're told by the President of the United States?

42:47We are partners in this. We are partners in this.

42:50Piers Morgan:That's not quite how he phrased it. Because a partnership is where you agree things together. He says if I tell him to do something, he does it. Is that true? Again, we're partners. We constantly talk. Does your Prime Minister do what President Trump tells him to do or not? Again, we talk constantly. There are disagreements and there are agreements. That wasn't my question, with respect. Oh, no, I understand. You're asking a yes or no question. Well, only because the president's been absolutely emphatic. If I tell him Netanyahu to do something, he does it. Is that your understanding of how this works?

43:24Let me rephrase it, Dan. Israel is an independent country, a sovereign country that has its own decisions. Does that answer the question?

43:31Piers Morgan:So you don't do what the president tells you? We are in alignment regarding our goals and our needs. Well, you either do what he tells you or you don't, with respect. Yeah, with respect again. We're a sovereign nation. So you don't do what he tells you to do? Well, you don't. That's what you're saying. What I'm saying is that we're in communications. No, you're specifically saying, unless I'm misreading what you're telling me, that you do not do what the President of the United States tells you to do. You take actions as an independent, sovereign country. No, the way I'm saying it is very specific to the fact that I don't want to answer the question directly because I think the question misses the alliance between Israel and the United States.

44:12Piers Morgan:Well, not really, because Donald Trump couldn't have been more clear. He, talking publicly on camera, if I tell him to do something, he does it. My simple question was, is that true? I don't think you think it is true. Or do you? Again, we, in our relationship with the United States, which is a long-lasting relationship with different presidents, with different prime ministers along the years, we have been in great communications, and I think we're at a pinnacle of communications where both the president and the prime minister speak almost daily. There are disagreements. There are agreements. But last week, the president of the United States said to your prime minister Netanyahu, you are effing crazy.

44:52Piers Morgan:Everyone hates you now. Everyone hates Israel because of this. That was the president of the United States to your prime minister. And the Israelis denied that that happened, denied the conversation. And then the president was asked in an interview and said he said it. Well, I wasn't privy to the conversation itself. But from my understanding, talking to my counterparts and colleagues in Washington as well, this is a conversation among many conversations between friends. And sometimes... I'm sure you say to your friends the same thing. I don't call my friends effing crazy and say everybody hates you.

45:28Piers Morgan:No. No. Do you? No. Well, I speak to them and sometimes I curse as well. How many of your friends do you call effing crazy? I wish I could get them on the line. Does everybody hate some of your friends? No. OK, so you haven't had that conversation? Well, Amog's friends, you can sometimes speak very bluntly. It's not the same as to speak to someone who's your adversary. He said he personally kept Netanyahu out of prison. Oh, I don't know about that. Why, out of interest, has the Prime Minister not carried on with his court case? It keeps being postponed. Do you know why that's not happening? Well, it's part of the...

46:04First of all, it is happening, from my understanding.

46:07Piers Morgan:And every time he's due to appear, it gets postponed? Not every time. For security reasons? Listen, we're in the middle of a war. Sure. So the longer you keep the war going, the less chance there is of him actually appearing in court? I don't think that comes into the considerations. Really? No, first of all, the considerations are for the judicial system in Israel, whether to postpone it or not. Sometimes it's merited. Sometimes he appears at court. So it's, you know, it's the judicial system in a democratic country. I'm sure it works the same way here in the UK. Trump said to him, Bibi, you better be careful or you will be on your own very soon.

46:44Piers Morgan:And that's pretty direct. Can you see a situation where, for political reasons, the President of the United States gets out of this war in Iran, but you, Israel, decide to continue it? Well, earlier I told you that we're a sovereign state, an independent state that has to take action when it's needed. Iran was needed. And it wasn't needed just for Israel. I want you to imagine a scenario where Iran is nuclear and blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Could you resolve it? I don't think so. Well, you've... I mean, look, if you... Let's be clear about the start of the war. The Strait was open, right? Yes, but it was always an option.

47:22Now, because of the war, it's closed.

47:24Piers Morgan:Also, as I was saying in the panel earlier, Iran worked out very quickly. They obviously can't compete purely militarily, and we're getting bombarded, and a lot of damage is being caused. There's no doubt about that. But they could compete by attacking the Gulf state neighbours. And it was very effective as a strategy. You wouldn't dispute that. No, absolutely not. I think you're on the point. I'll tell you more than that. The Gulf's neighbours, as part of the Arab Accords, and I've heard the end of the last panel, as part of the Arab Accords, the Gulf states had an understanding quite a long time ago that Iran might do this.

47:58This isn't something that just happened. Geopolitics and history, they take time.

48:02Piers Morgan:But they only did it after you went to war with them. With whom? With Iran? Yeah. No, so the understanding of Iran... But there weren't running off rockets at Riyadh and Doha and Dubai before. Yes, but they knew that might happen, and they knew that Iran, while developing those rockets... So one of the reasons for war was obviously nuclear. Another one was the ballistic missile program. The ballistic missile program, the first missiles developed, were exactly for those states. It was directed at those states. Why were we told at the end of a 12-day war last summer that the Iran nuclear program and its nuclear aspirations had been put back decades, when that didn't even seem to be eight months.

48:41Well, they have been put out...

48:42Piers Morgan:You had to go to war to stop them doing something that we'd already been told only eight months earlier had been put back decades. I never understood that. It's a good question. I'll tell you two things. One, there was a major hit on Iranian nuclear facilities and Iranian nuclear capabilities and development capabilities, especially scientists. Two, Iran understood that it's possible. Up until that moment, since the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, Iran felt itself shielded, especially by the proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis and whatever was happening in Syria. They felt that the war is going to be far away from them.

49:20It isn't. The war needs to come to Iran in order for them to understand that it's very possible. But it's not working, is it?

49:28Piers Morgan:By any impartial observation, This was supposed to be over in two to three weeks. Then it was five to six. We're now in week 15. There's no sign of it being over. The Iranians basically have everyone over a barrel called the Strait of Hormuz. They now can weaponize that strait. They have complete control of that strait. The Enriched to the Iranian remains wherever it is. You haven't got your hands on any of that. Where's the wind here? How does it happen? Well, it's a bit short-sighted. Is it? It wasn't me that said it would be over in two to three weeks. It was the president of the United States.

50:04No, I understand. But I think that wars... I'm speaking both as a student of history, but not only. Wars take time, especially big wars. Is it naive of the president to say that? Don't put words in my mouth. I'm going to ask you if you think it was. Well, wars take time, especially when they have big consequences as the realignment of the Middle East post-October 7th. We didn't start this, but once it started on October 7th by Hamas terrorists, we understood that something has to be done with the Middle East and the way it is operating against Israel, against Western targets, and where it's going.

50:39Piers Morgan:And I defended Israel's right to defend itself after October 7th. I got a lot of criticism for it, but I believe then and I believe now you had a right to defend yourself, a moral duty to defend your people. The question I kept asking from early on was what would be a proportionate response. And it seems to many people that Israel has now just gone a bit berserk with the way it flattened 75 % of Gaza, killing maybe 80 ,000 people, the way it's now doing the same sort of thing in southern Lebanon, attacking Iran, attacking pretty much everywhere. And people are cynical. They think your prime minister knows if he keeps doing this, he can avoid being held to proper account in a courtroom and will probably, if there's an election in October, as it seems to be what's coming, that he might even be able to avoid that happening and maybe stay in power that way.

51:31Piers Morgan:And people are cynical about it. They think he's using war as an instrument for personal survival. The people of Israel don't see it that way. It's a narrative that has been fostered in the deep left. You know what, let me take you to an example. The sanctions that were imposed on several Israeli entities and the advice given not to do deals within Judea and Samaria yesterday by the British government. Completely unhelpful. Completely, completely unhelpful. Not only that, it takes Britain out of the place where it could make a change. Maybe deal with the corrupt Palestinian authority. Maybe deal with the pay for slay.

52:12Britain at the moment is irrelevant in this conversation.

52:16Piers Morgan:I mean, the relevant part may be this, which is that a Pew Research Centre study said British public opinion of Israel is at 61 % unfavourable versus 30 % favourable. In America, you're seeing also a majority unfavourable. Never seen these sort of figures before. There's no part of you feel concerned that Israel's reputation around the world is getting decimated here by the actions of a particular government, which is, to many people's eyes, just gone war crazy. First of all, yes, it makes my job a lot harder. but it is my democratically elected government that makes decisions for the benefit of the people of Israel to defend them.

53:03Yes, we would love to see everyone support us, absolutely. There is an informational warfare that, you know what, let me be brutally honest, we probably haven't been good at as our adversaries. We're a smaller country, there are a lot of reasons for it, and we also failed, yes, most likely.

53:21Piers Morgan:Do you think the actions of Ben Gavir and Smodrich in particular who are senior members of your government, do you think that their actions, which I have viewed as increasingly psychopathic, do you think they are a major contributing factor to why Israel is getting more unpopular? Ministers of Ben Gvir and Smotrich are elected officials in the Israeli government. You support them? I'm a civil servant. I don't think it's my position to support or unsupport an elected government in Israel. I work for the government of Israel. You can have an opinion. Of course, I have as a private citizen. but this is not my place to say.

53:55What's your view as a private citizen? No, I don't think I can share it on this.

53:58Piers Morgan:I think they're total psychos. I mean, Ben Givir's wife gave him a cape with a noose on it for his 50th birthday. Psychopathic. Smodrich is running this completely illegal, aggressive expansion of the settlements on the West Bank. Ben Givir posted a video, gleefully, of him laughing as a young female detainee was being literally abused in front of our eyes by IDF and thought that was fine. even prompted Netanyahu to condemn it because he couldn't do anything else. The guy had posted it himself. These are psychopaths. And I think it's a big problem for Israel. I think until you get rid of these guys or change the government or something gives, Israel gets more unpopular.

54:39Piers Morgan:And that has a direct impact on the way that Jews feel around the world, the way that things play out in the real world for them, which is heartbreaking and appalling, many of whom want nothing to do with Modric and Ben-Gavir. How does this change? As I said, they're democratically elected. But you need to understand that the Israeli process, the democratic process, which you're going to probably see in a couple of months, is quite wild in the democratic world in the sense of there is so much pluralism within the country. Here in the UK, up until not too long ago, you had two parties, mostly. In Israel, you have seven parties that form a coalition.

55:24Yeah. And more than that, people have opinions. They have voices. But policy is made in other rooms. It is made by the prime minister in a security cabinet. And the policy is not what you've just mentioned. It is different.

55:39Piers Morgan:It may not be policy, but it's public statements and actions by senior members of the government. That's the problem. It could be. But at the end of the day, Israel is a democratic society. I think you agree with me, there, Sycos. You just don't want to say it. Well, Pierce, that could be a good question for when I take off my suit at the end of my career as a diplomat, and maybe I'll be able to answer it. If the United States tells Israel to end its operations in Lebanon, will Israel agree? I think it should be very clear of what we want regarding Lebanon. We want a very strong and sovereign and prosperous Lebanese state alongside Israel.

56:20We want Lebanon to be as free from Iranian and Islamic regime control as possible. The path to it goes for Hezbollah, for both of us. You might have seen President Herzog today address Prime Minister Aoun in Arabic, saying he extends his end in peace. We truly want peace with Lebanon. We have no land disputes. We have no disputes at all with the Lebanese people or with the Lebanese state. We signed our last land agreement two, three years ago, actually giving Lebanon more than it wanted in a gas field in the Mediterranean in order for it to be successful. The problem lies with Hezbollah, and that's not us saying it.

57:06This is the Lebanese people, the Lebanese leadership, saying it quite loudly for the first time in decades, even since Prime Minister Hariri was killed in Beirut by Hezbollah.

57:19Piers Morgan:Final question. Smodrich, who we just discussed, describes himself as a fascist homophobe. Does the UK embassy have a view of that? No, I don't think he said it while he was in government, but honestly, I don't think we have a position on it. So you could probably condemn it then, couldn't you, if you're not commenting on what he said as a government minister. Israel believes in a pluralistic state. You're very welcome to travel to Tel Aviv this month to be in the biggest gay pride parade in the Middle East. OK. So you're not a fascist homophobe, then, clearly. I do not describe myself that way.

57:54Piers Morgan:Alex Gander, thank you very much for coming in. I appreciate it. Thank you, Piers. Well, joining us now is Dana Lash, host of The Dana Show. Dana, how are you? I'm good, Piers. It's been a very long time. It's good to see you. It's been a very long time, if I may say so. You appear to have aged a lot better than me, so congratulations. Well, you're flattering me now. I've got to get my head through the studio door. It's going to get too large if it's too inflated. Well, I'm getting the factory out early so we can then revert to our normal antagonism. There we go. Got me now. Come at me now. I just want to start by talking big picture for a moment about this war in Iran, because my view of this is that it's turned into Donald Trump's worst nightmare, where every sinew of his behaviour suggests he wants to get out of this as fast as possible, but it appears that is proving to be incredibly difficult.

58:45Piers Morgan:And there appear to be parallel agendas going on here, one his and one Netanyahu and Israel's, where they want to keep going against Iran and Trump doesn't. I mean, putting aside the merits of whether we should be doing this war or not, Do you agree that that's where we've got to? I think that it's gotten complicated, and I think it gets more complicated as the time goes on. One thing that I halfway agree with you on when you're talking about the two different factions, I don't necessarily think that it's a Trump versus Netanyahu faction as much as I think it's a Trump maybe perhaps versus a faction that really doesn't want to see any kind of change in Iran.

59:29They don't want to see any change in the regime. They really don't have an issue if Iran controls the strait-of-war moves. And I think that there may be more of a contest there as opposed to between Trump and Netanyahu. But as it relates to Trump prosecuting the conflict, when he first began, it was very clear. It was very transparent. Everyone knew what the objective is. And, Piers, when the American people—we want to know what our leaders are up to. We're very nosy. We want to know what they're doing. We want to know what they're thinking. We want to know the machinations of everything. When we don't have those answers, we start filling in those gaps.

1:00:04And I think the longer it takes, the more questions that people are going to have. People aren't against conflict per se, but what they are against is long, drawn-out conflicts where it seems that indecision starts to take the lead and there doesn't seem to be a clear end in sight or the objectives shift. And I think that's where the administration needs to be very careful.

1:00:25Piers Morgan:I mean, Donald Trump has 37 times now. He said we're on the verge of a deal. And in between all those statements on his Truth Social, he's been saying the complete opposite, saying we're about to blow Iran to pieces, threatening Armageddon and so on. As it's gone on this, there's a real danger, isn't there, that he becomes the boy that cried wolf? If you keep saying this kind of thing and then the world can see that it doesn't happen, doesn't the authority of the president start to get eroded automatically? I don't know if it's the authority of the president. I think the issue here is it's very difficult to negotiate with, to actually get to the negotiations for negotiation for a ceasefire, because ultimately that's what we're doing.

1:01:11When you're up against a regime that continues to violate the ceasefire, just as we saw last night, yesterday with the Apache helicopter, just as we've seen previously, when they began to strike American assets and troops in Bahrain, Kuwait. So they're not—Iran is not interested in any kind of ceasefire. Let's be clear-eyed about this. And I think sometimes, you know, it gets a little performative, at least on their part. Now, I think in order to assume that, you know, Trump is crying wolf, you might have to assume that maybe perhaps he's not presenting that information with the best intentions or a gesture of goodwill to the American public.

1:01:47And I don't think that that's the case with Trump. I think he very much would love to have, as a part of his legacy, be known as the president who brought peace to this area and was able to make peace with Iran. I think you and I think you would agree with that. He loves that that idea very much. Getting to that point, though, with the remnants of this regime where they're still violating the ceasefire, they're still trying to maintain control of the strait. That's difficult. So he has to stay focused. And I think at some point the conversation is going to happen if it hasn't happened already, Piers.

1:02:18At what point do you escalate the pressure? And what does that escalation look like? How long does that take? What's the clear timeline? That's yet to be answered.

1:02:27Piers Morgan:I mean, the problem is they massively escalated this right off the top with a relentless bombardment of Iran. And there's no doubt that the American and Israeli military damaged a lot of Iran's military hardware. I don't think that's unquestionable. The problem is, and we've debated this a lot on the show, that there's been an asymmetric war being waged by Iran through the Strait of Hormuz and in conjunction with attacking their Gulf state neighbours, which has caused enormous tension with them, enormous damage to their business models, to tourism and so on. And they now know they can do that.

1:03:02You know, it seems to many people, like Iran has Trump over a barrel

1:03:07Piers Morgan:simply because, unlike Israel, Trump is working to a deadline of the midterms in November, raging inflation again, food prices likely to spike because of the fertiliser issue with the strait and so on. They know he has a ticking clock, and it's a political ticking clock. And so you talk about escalating. If he was to now commit, say, boots on the ground or whatever, it could be politically disastrous, never mind anything else. And so many people look at this and think that when faced with their extinction, as Trump's kept threatening, The Iranian regime, far from being extinct, now has not the original Supreme Leader Ayatollah, but his son, who's more radical.

1:03:48Piers Morgan:The IRGC are still in tight grip of the country. No uprisings by the people of Iran. And the Iranians are controlling the Strait of Hormuz. It's unarguable. And they've still got their enriched uranium. So at the moment, I don't see any win here for Donald Trump. But I do see a ticking clock where he's got to get out of this. with the iranian people it's kind of difficult to measure i think the the uh opposition to the regime because they don't have the access to internet capability the way that we would have here so i think that that's a difficult thing to measure and i don't necessarily want to take maybe perhaps the regime or uh associate associates of the regime their word for it but in terms of asymmetrical warfare it could be argued that iran has been engaged in asymmetrical warfare for decades, Piers.

1:04:35I mean, we can go back to the 80s, the Marine barracks bombing. We can go back to a number of things that Iran or their proxies, well, let me finish, the Iran or their proxies have carried out. I see what you mean when you're talking about this, you know, that Trump started hard and fast and in an overwhelming nature. And I think that's perhaps response to a lot of stuff that Iran has done to American assets and American troops over the years. Now, that being said, what Iran is doing right now in terms of getting to midterms, and this is where I do think that you're correct, going to midterms, this is where it gets difficult because Iran is prosecuting this in the court of public opinion.

1:05:10They know that they don't have the capability. If Trump really wanted to just pull that lever and really go after Iran hard, they know that they have no hope of winning a victory on that. And they know, in fact, they're thriving on the indulgence of our understanding about prosecuting this in the court of public opinion. They're thriving on that and they're using that to their advantage. But I think that's where the president needs to be very careful and not let them get too far over their skis with that. So that's an advantage for them because they make themselves, even though, despite the fact that they have been the bullies for decades and decades and decades, they've funded terrorism.

1:05:44They funded Hezbollah. They funded Hamas, the Houthis. They have funded all these proxy groups. Despite that, they're still able to successfully make themselves look like the victim on the world stage when in fact that they're not. So I think Trump has to be careful of the optics, but I think I'm not buying into any kind of doomer sort of perspective of his job performance on this. I'm not ready to say, I'm not near that yet. I don't think we're there. I think that we have decimated the IRGC. I think we've decimated a lot of their military capability. Now, if we commit troops on the ground, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

1:06:17I think that's highly unlikely. I would be surprised at that because Trump is notoriously anti-war in that regard, but he's being cautious with American resources. So, and I think the American people, that's why they're still watching and waiting to see what he does here because they believe him in that.

1:06:31Piers Morgan:We've seen a real schism in the conservative right in America with people like Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, going completely away from Trump, particularly on this war, but other issues too. You're more still siding with Trump, as is Mark Levin, who said this about Trump only yesterday. I don't know why the President of the United States feels the need to keep going to left-wing reporters and talking about confidential conversations he has with the Prime Minister of Israel. And I don't know why he keeps bashing the Prime Minister of Israel. He's trying to protect his country and his own people.

1:07:07Just a few weeks ago, their fighter jets were fighting right alongside ours. The Mossad was working with the CIA. And of course, the Prime Minister was working with the President in what was a spectacular military operation. I know the President is deeply desperate for a deal. The Iranians know he's deeply desperate for a deal. The whole world knows he's deeply desperate for a deal. Got it. But the problem is the state of Israel is in the neighborhood.

1:07:34Piers Morgan:I mean, that's as critical as he's been of Donald Trump. Do you agree with him? I think he's right. I think Mark Levin is right here. I think in terms of the criticisms of Israel, I wonder if there's not a play in the works here to try to put some daylight between Trump and Netanyahu. Remember, we're all doing this. I mean, we're all watching this because we're all judging everything that they're doing. And that's they have to win, not just, you know, the American support, but they're looking at, you know, the international community at large. And I sometimes wonder if it's not a formative discord that we see between them.

1:08:05But at the same time, you have to consider, you know, peers, if your house is under siege by your neighbor to the north and they're relentlessly bombing you, you might respond to that. I mean, I think any normal common sense person would probably respond to that threat. And I think the criticism of Trump's recent remarks has been there wasn't perhaps consideration of that in his last remark on Netanyahu. So I don't know if I buy it that it's entirely genuine. It may be performative. If it is, I mean, that's good statecraft. I mean, that's, you know, you're kind of making your enemies wonder what your next move is going to be.

1:08:39But again, don't forget that transparency to the people because they want to make sure that they're not disparaging an alliance.

1:08:46Piers Morgan:Daniel Lash, I'm going to leave you there. You have a hard out for your own show. I appreciate you joining me. We managed to get through this without shouting at each other. I think it's amazing. I know. You know, we agree on a lot more than we disagree on, I think. And you still have to come to Texas and shoot some guns. You know what? I'd happily come to Texas and shoot some guns, unless I'm not shooting people. That would be fine. Piers, for the love. No, and have brisket. No, we're very good. We're very good people here. Dana, good to see you. Come back soon. Good to see you. God bless. Thanks.

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