“DEVASTATING Defeat!” Trump Plans ‘Massive’ Iran Attack + Piers Morgan vs Cancelled Cornell Student

Summary

Podcast Summary: “DEVASTATING Defeat!” Trump Plans ‘Massive’ Iran Attack + Piers Morgan vs Cancelled Cornell Student

Piers Morgan Uncensored | July 28, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored tackles two principal topics: the mounting crisis and apparent defeat for the United States in the Iran war, and a heated debate with Cornell student Austin Franco, whose anti-Semitic comments led to national controversy and accusations of cancel culture. The show features a high-profile expert panel, including Professor John Mearsheimer, General Wesley Clark, General Mark Kimmitt, and political scientist Robert Pape, discussing the military, political, and sociological fallout of recent global events. The episode follows with a tense interview with Franco, scrutinizing the boundaries of free speech and societal repercussions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The Iran War: Catastrophe or Chance for Escalation?

Opening: “A Devastating Defeat”

• John Mearsheimer bluntly frames the U.S. campaign in Iran as a “devastating defeat,” listing the four primary war aims—all unmet:
  • Regime change
  • Halting uranium enrichment
  • Stopping support for proxy militias (Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas)
  • Ending Iran’s missile program

  “We failed on all four counts.” (00:00, 03:44)

• The strategic situation has worsened: Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. bases are destroyed, alliances are in tatters, and the global economy is at risk.
  • “Our alliance structure in the region is in tatters and the international economy may go off a cliff.” (03:44)

Unintended Consequences

• Piers Morgan underscores the danger of protracted conflict and the unpredictability:

  “The chaos of unintended consequences is one of the biggest strategic problems with waging war.” (00:35)

• With proxies like the Houthis striking Saudi oil infrastructure and Ukraine attacking Iranian vessels, the odds for wider regional and even global conflict rise.

No Military Way Out

• Mearsheimer:

  “There is no military solution...We’ve tried every strategy in the book.” (04:20)

  • U.S. escalation options are exhausted; only political agreements remain.
• Suggests Trump should seek a new “memorandum of understanding,” but Iran has the upper hand and will likely stall for more leverage.

Political Timetables

• Upcoming U.S. midterms and Israeli elections constrain both Trump and Netanyahu, potentially pushing them toward divergent, self-preserving strategies.
  • For Israel: Incentive to prolong the conflict.
  • For Trump: Need to end it to avoid high gas prices and casualties harming electoral prospects. (05:44–06:28)

Catastrophic Potential

• Escalation in Yemen and attacks on critical infrastructure (desalination plants) could devastate Gulf states dependent on such assets (09:07–10:22).

Nuclear Proliferation and U.S.-Saudi Deal

• Trump’s deal allows Saudi Arabia limited uranium enrichment.
  • Mearsheimer deems it logical for Saudi Arabia to pursue nuclear weapons but disastrous for U.S. interests:

    “It makes eminently good sense [from the Saudi point of view]...But the key, Piers, is what's good for Iran or Saudi Arabia is not necessarily good for the United States.” (12:53)

  • Saudi recognition of Israel (Abraham Accords) is off the table as long as Israeli behavior in Gaza and the West Bank maintains the status quo. (14:45)

War’s Unwinnable Nature

• Mearsheimer sees only a painful compromise:

  “There are really two big options... One is escalation and the other is a forever war... there is no escalation option here... So we have no military option here... This war will come to an end by the end of the year.” (16:05–16:34)

Ukraine-Russia War Overview

Piers Morgan questions whether Ukraine is turning the tide.

• Mearsheimer holds firm: Russia remains on track to win, with Ukraine facing mounting setbacks:

  “All this talk in the West about how the Ukrainians have turned the tide is just a propaganda campaign.” (19:27)

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II. Expert Panel Debate: U.S. Options in the Iran Conflict

General Mark Kimmitt

• Pushes back against Mearsheimer’s “catastrophe” narrative:
  • Claims U.S. did not pursue regime change and that losses are overstated.
  • Cites some success against Iranian proxies and nuclear ambitions.
  • Suggests the U.S. could “declare victory and focus exclusively on the Strait of Hormuz.” (22:02)

  “If we get a good agreement out of the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump... will declare victory in that process.” (23:20)

General Wesley Clark

• Argues strategic error in failing to isolate Iran militarily due to Russian and Chinese backing.
• Suggests “keep up the pressure,” no ground troops, but sustained operational focus on the Strait of Hormuz:

  “If we let Iran control the Strait of Hormuz, that's a knock on our global leadership, on our deterrence, on our ability to lead in Asia and on the security of Europe.” (25:16–27:00)

• Warns that massive escalation (air campaigns) have limits and may backfire:

  “Air campaigns run out of decisive targets... It's not going to persuade the Iranians to give up their 47 year quest to dominate the Middle East.” (41:51)

Robert Pape

• Warns of a multi-actor “escalation spiral” where the U.S. loses control:

  “We are in the spiral phase of the escalation trap...” (32:52)

  • “Scale” problem: Iran’s geographical dimensions make targeting drone and missile launch sites virtually impossible in the political and timeframes that matter.
• Argues political timelines are decisive—the U.S. must show some form of victory before the midterms or risk catastrophic electoral losses that would end the war on unfavorable terms.
• Predicts U.S. will be blamed globally if it continues to escalate, risking America’s leadership for decades:

  “Everything [Trump is] doing is making that political problem worse... the world is blaming America for this.” (48:13)

Notable Exchanges & Quotes

• Morgan, pressing Clark:

  “So, just to be clear, General Clark, you would go in harder and would that involve ground forces?”
  Clark: “No, it wouldn’t... But you can get the strait open, keep it open.” (29:05–29:18)

• Pape on U.S. escalation trap:

  “This is what I've been studying for three and a half decades, how military action impacts politics. This is that wicked of an escalation trap.” (34:29–37:47)

• Kimmitt on limitations of military pressure:

  “The original sin is that we somehow think that conventional warfare can change the behavior of the regime.” (51:26)

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III. The Austin Franco Interview: Antisemitism, Accountability, and Cancel Culture

The Incident

• Austin Franco, a Cornell student, declined a job opportunity with a start-up because it was run by Jews, responding:

  “Not interested in working for a Jew.” (00:31, 58:22)

• The comment becomes national news, sparking outrage and a coordinated campaign (especially online) to make Franco unemployable.

Morgan’s Confrontation

• Morgan challenges Franco repeatedly on his motives, highlighting the implications of Franco’s blanket dislike for Jews.

• Franco claims that negative personal experiences with Jews (at Cornell and elsewhere) fostered his preference, but denies outright hatred:

  “It’s just a preference, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” (62:14) “Being around and not wanting to be around Jewish people does not mean you don’t like them.” (64:08)

• Morgan forcefully points out the dangerous historical precedent and moral bankruptcy of such reasoning:

  “When you say, I don’t want to be around these people, you are sounding like you don’t want to be around all Jewish people.” (65:04) “You are de facto anti-Semitic. And that puts you in a different category to teenagers who say dumb stuff and then regret it and apologize.” (66:48)

Notable Quotes and Rebuttals

• Morgan, frustrated:

  “You brazenly admitted that in this interview. And that changes the context... I do expect people who say incredibly incendiary, anti Semitic or racist or misogynist things... to... express regret or apologize... You’ve doubled and trebled and quadrupled down.” (66:48)

• Franco:

  “I believe in freedom of association. That’s fundamentally what it comes down to.” (68:33)

• Morgan draws a line between bigotry and free association.

Key Segment Timestamps for Interview

• 59:00–75:50: The entire Austin Franco interview, including several exchanges about the meaning of antisemitism, accountability, and society’s response.

The Cancel Culture Backlash

• Morgan references Glenn Greenwald and other commentators who ask if the punitive response to Franco (“ruin his life” campaigns) is disproportionate.
• Morgan experiments with empathy, questioning if society allows young people to learn from mistakes, but Franco’s lack of regret tempers this sentiment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• John Mearsheimer:

  “We failed on all four counts. Furthermore... our basing structure in the region has been destroyed. Our alliance structure... is in tatters…” (03:44)

• Robert Pape on escalation:

  “We are in the spiral phase of the escalation trap... the world is blaming America, blaming America for this.” (32:52, 48:13)

• General Kimmitt:

  “They are fighting a revolutionary war. And that revolutionary war... depends on two factors... patience and resistance. In resistance, you win by not losing.” (51:26)

• Piers Morgan to Austin Franco:

  “If you were one of my sons, I'd be utterly ashamed of this. And yet here you are laughing. You think it's all quite funny. I can tell you. It's not funny to Jewish people.” (68:10)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Topic | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–03:32| Opening statements: The U.S. defeat in Iran and its consequences | | 03:32–11:24| In-depth with John Mearsheimer on the military and political deadlock | | 14:27–16:55| Saudi nuclear deal and Middle East diplomacy | | 21:17–41:50| Expert panel: Generals Kimmitt, Clark, and analyst Pape debate U.S. options | | 45:48–56:57| Predictions, political fallout, and panelist closing thoughts | | 57:54–75:55| Austin Franco interview: Antisemitism, cancel culture, and public outrage |

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Tone and Atmosphere

The episode is combative, urgent, and unflinching. Morgan does not hedge on controversial questions and demands direct answers. The expert panel is deeply skeptical about the viability of further escalation in Iran and pessimistic about U.S. prospects there. The Franco interview is confrontational, exposing the raw reality of contemporary bigotry and probing whether society’s response is justified or excessive.

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Conclusion

• On Iran:
  All experts, despite different emphases, agree the U.S. faces a no-win situation. The military options are exhausted, and political pressures—domestic and international—are tightening the noose around the Trump administration. Risks of uncontrolled escalation and global economic havoc persist, with little optimism for a dignified U.S. exit.

• On Cancel Culture and Antisemitism:
  Franco’s unapologetic stance reignites debate: Is society right to ruin the life of an openly prejudiced young man, or is the response itself another form of injustice? Piers Morgan gives no quarter to Franco’s rationalizations but acknowledges the broader social dilemma.

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Summary prepared as a resource for listeners seeking in-depth understanding of the episode’s content and debate.

Transcript

[John Mearsheimer]

We've suffered a devastating defeat. We went into the war with four goals. We failed on all four counts. There is no escalation option here.

[General Wesley Clark]

There may not be an easy military option. Pulling back, that's no good.

[Piers Morgan]

But just to be clear, General Clark, you would go in harder and would that involve ground forces?

[Robert Pape]

One word. Scale. Scale. There are massive mountains, 11,000 Manhattans. That's the search problem. We have the scale problem.

[Piers Morgan]

What's made you so anti Semitic?

[Austin Franco]

What do you want then? What is your end goal with this?

[Piers Morgan]

I want you to admit you're just a brazen anti Semite. You don't like Jewish people. You don't want to associate with Jewish people. Just admit it. The chaos of unintended consequences is one of the biggest strategic problems with, with waging war. For all of the so called war games and disaster planning, nobody can predict the future. Iran's proxy militia in Yemen is attacking Saudi Arabia's coastal oil facilities. It jeopardizes yet another alternative to the Hormuz Strait. And it drags in another country who didn't want war in the first place. This weekend, Ukraine launched a deadly attack on an Iranian vessel it says was trading weapons with Russia. Now experts fear that Ukraine's European allies might be dragged in too. They may want nothing to do with Trump's Iran war, but they're lockstep behind Ukraine in the war against Russia. You don't need to be a doomsayer to understand how this could spiral out of control. Dangerous unintended consequences are one of the reasons why so many expert guests on this show have repeatedly called on Trump to declare victory and get the hell out of this. For a while that is what he was doing. But all of a sudden the debate has pivoted. It's all about how and when the US should escalate and not if. The war's public cheerleaders are making the case that US Deaths may be worthwhile if the US Escalates into operations like seizing Cog Island.

[Austin Franco]

No one in America wants American casualties. It's tragedy and a horror. We do understand that war does come along with casualties and we are willing to undergo those casualties in pursuit of of an end and a victory for America. But as far as the idea that, for example, America, we can't hit Kharga island because the Iranian people would then be deprived of oil resources, the American people are, I should say, not particularly concerned about that. We are far more concerned with why we're there, not winning.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, the American people are concerned about why the US is not winning as well as the war's cost in lives and dollars. The question is whether any of the dramatic operations now being retailed will get them any closer to anything which could plausibly be called a victory. Why Trump has given up on giving up is unclear. The late Lindsey Graham had one prescient explanation in newly released documentary footage about his pro war crusade.

[John Mearsheimer]

How long have we been pushing this?

[Piers Morgan]

You've been pushing this for years.

[John Mearsheimer]

Right?

[Robert Pape]

Right.

[John Mearsheimer]

It's here.

[General Wesley Clark]

I talked to Trump this morning.

[Piers Morgan]

Oh, he's Jack.

[General Wesley Clark]

It's the best thing I've ever done.

[Piers Morgan]

He loves blowing stuff up. Well, whether or not Trump loves blowing stuff up, it seems inevitable that he's about to start doing it again. And the whole world is again braced for the unintended consequences. In a moment, we'll have an all star expert panel to make sense of what happens next. But joining me first with his assessment on Iran, Ukraine and the Saudi nuclear deal is political scientist professor John Mearsheimer. Professor Mearsheimer, welcome back to Uncensored.

[John Mearsheimer]

Glad to be here, Piers.

[Piers Morgan]

Where the hell are we? I can't think of many people better qualified to at least try and explain where we've got to with this Iran war.

[John Mearsheimer]

We've suffered a devastating defeat. You want to remember we went into the war with four goals. One was regime change. Two was to eliminate Iran's ability to enrich uranium. Number three was to end support for the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. And number four was to put an end to the long range missile program. We failed on all four counts. Furthermore, on February 27, the Iranians did not control the Strait of Hormuz. They now controlled the Strait of Hormuz. Furthermore, our basing structure in the region has been destroyed. Our alliance structure in the region is in tatters and the international economy may go off a cliff at some point in the not too distant future. This is a catastrophic defeat. There's no other way to cover it up. Now people might say there is a military solution for fixing this problem. There is no military solution. We've tried every strategy in the book. A military, a major air campaign, a blockade, and now this tit for tat strategy. All of them have failed. And nobody has an alternative strategy that will pull our chestnuts out of the fire.

[Piers Morgan]

I mean, that is my reading. What should President Trump do then?

[John Mearsheimer]

Well, I think what President Trump should do is try to get an agreement, a new memorandum of understanding as soon as possible. But the problem is it's not in the Iranians interest to agree to new to a new memorandum of understanding anytime soon. They should drag this crisis out for a good month or so more because the more time goes on, the more coercive leverage they have. So I think Trump is gonna have a devil of a time getting the Iranians to agree to a deal that's as good as the memorandum of understanding of June 17th. So I think that he's in real trouble.

[Piers Morgan]

And you've got, of course, the Israeli position, which, a bit like with Trump's midterm elections coming in the fall, you've got the same in Israel. Netanyahu will know that if it looks like he's failed with this war, that will probably lead to him being booted out of office. So he has his own political imperative, perhaps, you could argue, to keep this thing going. Conversely, Trump, you know, would probably face the opposite issue, where if it's still raging this war in September, October, and gas prices are still going through the roof and more American servicemen and women are being killed, this could be politically very toxic for him and end up costing him the whole of Congress.

[John Mearsheimer]

Yeah, I think there's no question, Piers, as you say, that Trump wants to put an end to this. He understands he doesn't have a winning strategy. And as you point out, from an Israeli point of view, it makes sense to try to keep the war going. This is the war against Iran. You also want to understand they're heading in different directions with regard to Lebanon, southern Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. There have been reports on Channel 13 in Israel that the Trump administration has asked the Israelis to leave Gaza, leave southern Lebanon, and leave southern Syria. And, of course, this idea is anathema to Netanyahu and to most Israelis. So it appears to me that what you'll see is that the two sides are at loggerheads on two different sets of issues.

[Piers Morgan]

It is a mess. And we've also got this added complexity of Ukraine launching a deadly attack on an Iranian vessel it says was trading weapons with Russia. This could potentially drag in Ukraine's European allies into a war they've so far resisted getting involved with in any offensive capability. What do you think is going to happen here?

[John Mearsheimer]

I think it's possible that the Iranians may strike at some target in Ukraine, but I think Iranians do not have any interest in getting involved in a war against Ukraine. And I don't think Ukraine has an interest in getting involved in a war with Iran. Ukraine is up to its eyeballs and alligators fighting against the Russians. The last thing they need is a new front. So I think There may be some minor tit for tat, but I don't think this is going to escalate in any meaningful way. I think the escalation that's really scary is what's happening with regard to the Yemenis or the Houthis and the Saudis. And now it looks like Saudi oil is no longer going to come out of the Red Sea, and furthermore, that the Houthis are actually destroying oil refineries inside of Saudi Arabia. This is really potentially bad news.

[Piers Morgan]

I mean, it could be absolutely catastrophic, couldn't it? And we haven't even got around to the potential apocalyptic element of this, which is if they start trading attacks on desalination plants, for example, the consequences for the people in these countries could be absolutely horrendous.

[John Mearsheimer]

There's no question about that. You want to remember, though, that Iran hardly relies on desalination plants at all. They rely on desalination plants for somewhere between 2 to 3% of their drinking water. It's the Gulf states that are heavily dependent on desalination. This is one of the reasons that President Trump has not gone after infrastructure, civilian infrastructure in Iran. His great fear is that if he starts going after power plants, he goes after bridges, oil facilities, or desalination plants in Iran, that the Iranians will retaliate in kind. And this will basically, and I'm not overstating the case here, it will destroy these countries in the Gulf because they can't survive without desalination plants. And this greatly limits our ability to escalate.

[Piers Morgan]

I think there are also economic pressures on these Gulf states, which are beginning to really bite, particularly some of the smaller ones. I mean, I've been hearing about Kuwait and Bahrain and these kind of states who don't have the kind of Middle east superpower economies of, say, Saudi Arabia, who might be in real trouble the longer this goes on.

[John Mearsheimer]

Well, the thing is, if you look at the geography, Bahrain and Kuwait can only get their oil out through the Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz. And given that the Strait of Hormuz is closed to them, they're not getting any oil or gas out. Both the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates, the uae, they're getting their oil out. The Emirates have a base, it's called Fujari, that's on the Sea of Oman. And. And they're able to get quite a bit of oil, I'd estimate somewhere on the order of 2 million barrels a day at a Fujari. And of course, the Saudis, up until very recently, have been getting oil out through the Red Sea. So I would estimate that in total, about 7 million barrels of UAE and Saudi oil have been getting out onto world oil markets. But hardly any Kuwaiti or Bahraini oil has been getting out because it's all bottled up inside the Persian Gulf.

[Piers Morgan]

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[John Mearsheimer]

Absolutely. From Saudi Arabia's point of view, it makes eminently good sense to have nuclear weapons. I think I've told you before that Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, said that the reason he believes that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons is because it makes so much sense. But the key peers you always want to remember this is that what's good for Iran or Saudi Arabia is not necessarily good for the United States. And in this case it is absolutely not in our interest, not in America's interest or Europe's interest for that matter, to see either Saudi Arabia or Iran have nuclear weapons. So the fact that President Trump has allowed Saudi Arabia to have this significant nuclear enrichment capability is not good for the United States. But I think in this case, Trump felt that he had no alternative that if he didn't provide the Saudis with some enrichment capability, they'd go on the nuclear market and they'd get that capability from another country, maybe China, maybe Russia, maybe Japan, or maybe Pakistan, who knows? But Trump, I think, concluded that they were going to get a nuclear enrichment capability. And it would be better from our point of view, both economically and strategically, for us to be in control and that we would be able to prevent any move by the Saudis to use that nuclear enrichment capability to get a bomb.

[Piers Morgan]

I mean, President Trump's made it clear the deal is contingent on the Saudis recognizing Israel and joining, effectively, the Abraham Accords. Can Saudi Arabia do that politically for its own reasons, given what is going on in the Middle east right now?

[John Mearsheimer]

No. And that's why the agreement that was signed last Wednesday made no mention of that, and it wasn't part of the negotiating process, because the Saudis would have never agreed to that. The Saudis have made it unequivocally clear that they will only agree to an Abraham Accord with Israel if Israel gives the Palestinians a state of their own or makes significant movement in that direction. And if anything, the Israelis are going in the opposite direction. As you and I have discussed on this show before, Israeli behavior in Gaza is, in my opinion, a genocide. And what they're interested in doing is, is cleansing Gaza. So the idea that they're going to give the Palestinians a state of their own in Gaza or even in the west bank, if you look at the pogroms that the Israelis are conducting in the west bank, that's even more evidence that the Palestinians are not going to get a state. And the Saudis say that as long as that is the case, there'll be no Abraham Accord. So I think that President Trump is whistling in the wind when he thinks that he's going to get the Saudis to agree. Now, after signing the agreement last Wednesday, to all of a sudden agree to

[Piers Morgan]

an Abraham Accord, how does this all end? I mean, take me forward to the end of the year. Where do you think we'll be?

[John Mearsheimer]

If I had to guess, I think we're going to get another memorandum of understanding. You know, a lot of people talk about a forever war. There are really sort of two big options besides a peace agreement or a memorandum of understanding. One is escalation and the other is a forever war. We just go on with these tit for tat attacks against each other. I don't think that you can have a forever war, because I think the economic consequences rule that out. I Think the longer this war goes on, the closer we get to going off the cliff and ending up with a worldwide economic depression. So this war has to be shut down. And one of the incentives to escalate is because people recognize you can't have a forever war and that this has to be shut down. So they say, let's escalate. But as you and I both know well, Piers, there is no escalation option here. If there was an escalation option, we would do it. Right? And in fact, if you look at the most significant military campaign that we've waged in this war, it was the 40 day strategic bombing campaign between February 28th and April 8th, and we ended it, and we never started it up again because it was not a campaign, an air campaign that could produce victory. It was just not in the cards. So we have no escalation option here. Some people talk about putting ground forces in. We don't have enough ground troops to invade an island, much less invade the country of Iran. And furthermore, if we invaded Iran, the, the Iranians would win that conflict. And furthermore, the American people have no interest in a ground war in Iran. So we have no military option here. And what's going to happen, I believe. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe that President Trump will sign another memorandum of understanding and the terms, from our point of view, will be worse than the terms of the 17 June memorandum of understanding. But I think this war will come to an end by the end of the year.

[Piers Morgan]

Just finally, Professor Mearsheimer, let's talk about Ukraine briefly. We had an extraordinary spectacle at the weekend where Laura Loomer, the influencer who actually does have the ear of President Trump, flew to Ukraine, flew to Kyiv, sat down with President Zelenskyy and apologized to him for all the abuse she'd hurled his way, calling him a Nazi and so on, and saying America should do nothing to help Ukraine. Saying the complete opposite now and doing so, people think quite cynically because there is a belief that, contrary to all perceived wisdom, the Ukrainians are beginning to defy expectation and begin to get the upper hand in this war with Russia, mainly through the new types of warfare, drones and so on, that they've been deploying very skillfully. You've maintained from the start of this Russia will win, that Ukraine will have to ultimately give up territory. They've refused to do that. Is your position modifying at all? Are you seeing here on the ground perhaps a possibility that Russia may not get the victory that you thought was inevitable?

[John Mearsheimer]

No, on the contrary, I think the Russians are in the process of winning the war. First of all, if you look at what's happening on the battlefield, the Russians are moving forward slowly for sure, but moving forward steadily. Surely by the end of the year, they will control all of Donbass. And there's all sorts of evidence, given the huge manpower problems that the Ukrainians have. They have a significant desertion problem. They have a significant draft dodging problem. They have a much smaller population than Russia to begin with. They're suffering badly. Up on the front lines, the lines are beginning to buckle. These are the Ukrainian lines. But I think more importantly at the moment, if you look at the Russian bombing campaign against Odessa, they have basically cut off Odessa from Ukraine. Ukraine no longer has a port on the Black Sea. And this is having devastating consequences, and it certainly will have devastating consequences over the long term inside of Ukraine. Ukraine needs Odessa. It needs it to sell its wheat and to import all sorts of goods and weaponry, but that's no longer possible. So I think that the Russians are in the driver's seat here. And all this talk in the west about how the Ukrainians have turned the tide is just a propaganda campaign, much like the propaganda campaign that we hear vis a vis the war in Iran. You remember all the rosy stories that were told about how we were winning in the war in Ukraine and how the Ukrainians are winning the war against Russia. These are just propaganda campaigns and they bear little reality to what's happening on the actual battlefields.

[Piers Morgan]

Professor Mearsheimer, always great to have you on our censor. Thank you very much.

[John Mearsheimer]

You're more than welcome, Piers.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, we have no military option. Professor Mearsheimer just told me. My panel may disagree, or maybe they agree. Joining me now is retired General and former Assistant Secretary of State Mark Kemet, the professor of political science and military analyst Robert Papp, and former general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark. Well, welcome to all of you. Let me start with you. General Kimmet, if I may. Welcome back to uncensored. Let's start with Iran and we'll come to Ukraine later on. Iran. I mean, I gotta say, I found myself nodding away to Professor Mearsheimer there. I don't see a good option here for the United States, just a series of bad options. Do you see a way that the United States wins this war?

[General Mark Kimmitt]

Well, first of all, let me correct a couple of comments that he made that I would take issue with. Number one, it was never the US Objective for regime change. That was categorically stated. A number of Times by President Trump. Our basing structure in the Middle east is not in shambles, nor are our regional alliances. And for that matter, the Houthis have not destroyed any Saudi oil infrastructure. Now, just wanted to correct the record on his comments. Is there a way to win this? Well, look, I think the best way to do it is we continue to focus on the Strait of Hormuz. But if you look at the objectives that we did have for this war, slow down their nuclear program, help eliminate their missile program, go against their proxies, in many ways, we have achieved some level of success. The fact remains is there's a question about if there is any nuclear program left at all cost. Course it is in the minds of the nuclear scientists, but we've really set that nuclear program back considerably, the missiles and the proxies. Now, the fact remains we could declare victory at this point but not go home. We could declare victory and focus exclusively on the Strait of Hormuz. And I think if we get a good agreement out of the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump may not have achieved strategic victory, but you can bet he will declare victory in that process.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, General Clark, welcome to you. Back to uncensored. I mean, the problem is, what's in it for the Iranians to do a deal here? You know, against all the predictions, particularly by the Israelis, when they were in the White House with Donald Trump in the buildup to this war, nothing they predicted has happened. I mean, they said if you take out the Ayatollah and the top people around him, then the IRGC collapses from within, the people rise up, there's natural revolution, everyone's too distracted to worry about the Strait of Hormuz and so on. Well, none of that has happened other than the Ayatollah got killed and his son took over. He seems to be more hardline. You know, I look at this and say, well, they've still got all their enriched uranium. I heard there, General Kimmet say we put back their nuclear program aspirations and so on. But we were, of course, assured only a year ago, after the 12 day war, that that had been put back decades. So it's hard to know what to believe when it comes to where their nuclear program is, other than they've got all their enriched uranium. And the Americans and Israelis have got no apparent way of getting their hands on it unless it's voluntarily handed over. But crucially, the Strait of Hormuz has become this asymmetric nuclear weapon that, that they've been able to turn on and off the tap. When it suits them and cause enormous damage to the global energy market. And they now know they can do that with impunity. I don't see the incentive. If I'm the Iranians who have been facing constant threats of existential destruction from Donald Trump in between trying to appease them, where's the incentive to do a deal?

[General Wesley Clark]

Well, the Iranians believe they're winning because they've got this trade and because they've still got their missile cities. And Russia and China are just pouring in the resources, the technology, the rocket fuel, the motors for drones and other things. And you can't succeed militarily if you can't isolate the theater of operations. And so we haven't done it. We haven't wanted to do it. And just like in Vietnam, we're up against the same issues of, well, we'd like to win this little war, but Russia and China are against us and we got to be careful. There might be nuclear weapons, they might not like what we're saying. And so we're sort of hemmed in on this thing. But I do think that what Admiral Cooper was doing, going after the targets in the strait was very productive. That's the center of gravity of this operation right now. That's the near term center of gravity. And the fact that he was effective is proved by the Iranian reaction. They didn't stand by and took it. They went after the infrastructure of our allies because they know that we can drive them out of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, can you stop an errant drone, missile or drone that's launched from 50 miles back or something? Maybe not, but you can certainly set up a system in which you can protect tankers going through, you can clear the minefields. You've got most of the strait cleared now. But one thing you can't do in these campaigns is you can't stop. Because by stopping right now, they're rebuilding everything we just attacked, and they're moving in whatever radars they can replace. They'll put in more patrol boats. They'll do everything they can to rebuild. So the idea of a bombing pause was really popular during Vietnam. Never worked when I was running the operation in Kosovo and Richard Holbrook suggested to me, why don't we do a bombing pause? And I can't negotiate. Absolutely not. And here we are pausing the operation again. Now, Mearsheimer may be right. This may end with an mou, but the truth is this is a lot different than the war in Vietnam in terms of the consequences of American failure. And so There may not be an easy military option, but pulling back, that's no good. We've got a near term problem and that's a strait of war moves. We've got a longer term problem with Iranian nuclear weapons and possibly intercontinental ballistic missiles. And we have to face the fact that if we don't act, we will be facing a Middle east superpower. And this is simply their aim. They've worked 47 years. They don't care about their people taking out their oil and taking out their energy and stuff. That's a near term, that's like a bite of a gnat. These people know what they're focused on. They're working. They're building their missiles right now. And the fact that we haven't stopped Chinese and Russian intervention in there and support is an indicator of where this is going. So this is a real break point for American foreign policy and American national security peers. If we decide to pull out and get, as John Mearsheimer said, an MOU that's worse than the one we didn't have before, we're sacrificing our leadership globally. If we let Iran control the Strait of Hormuz, that's a knock on our global leadership, on our deterrence, on our ability to lead in Asia and on the security of Europe. So there are so many consequences right now and we're actually at a decision point.

[Piers Morgan]

But just to be clear, General Clark, if you were in charge here making the big call, you would go in harder. And would that potentially in that eventuality involve ground forces?

[General Wesley Clark]

No. No, it wouldn't. I think you can define a box of operations maybe 10, 15 km deep off the Gulf. It might involve some new technology. I think you need steering continuous ISR over this region and you need the ability to strike immediately. But you can get the strait open, keep it open. And with some escort vehicles, maybe there's some civilian contractor operated ships that are out there helping so we're not putting our sailors at risk. Maybe we get the Gulf states to pay for this force, but there's a way to get, get this through. Maybe you have to subsidize insurance companies, but this is a, this is the near term problem. A longer term problem is what about the missile cities? What about Pickaxe Mountain? What are you going to do about that? Can you create a deeper penetrating bomb? What is it? Are you going to have to use a nuclear weapon or can you rip up the communications inside Iran so effectively that the IRGC simply loses control of the country? There are rebel groups there, there are people who don't like the IRGC, like maybe 80 million of them, but they're intimidated because whenever they surface, they get their heads cut off. And that's what's happening now with accelerated executions. So, but, but, you know, there are options here, but they're hard to discern and none of them are easy. And it's very, very difficult for a president to lead a country that's divided into a conflict like this. It's got the elections coming up. You've got all sorts of agendas at play here other than this. So if you were looking at this from the aspect of China and Russia, you'd be feeling pretty good right now.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, that's the point, isn't it? Robert Pape, welcome back to you to Uncensored. You've warned that America with this Iran war is in the most wicked escalation trap in our lifetime. With the US Potentially making Iran stronger throughout the conflict. That certainly, you know, I can easily see why that argument could carry water because they're still, you know, they're still in charge, they're still controlling Australia. Four moose. The people aren't rising up. The evidence is fairly conclusive that there certainly doesn't appear to be on the back foot, if anything, the opposite. President Trump has said we're in very deep talks with Iran. If they don't work out, we will go back to very strong military action. Asked how long he give the negotiations, he said not much time. Either it goes fast or not at all. General Jack Keane, you said he's familiar with the administration's next steps, told Fox News today on Monday, our plan is quite massive. It exceeds everything that we did in epic fury and then some. And obviously the Israelis will participate. The problem is, Robert Pate, with all this sort of bellicose rhetoric is we've been hearing this for month after month after month after month. You know, the president goes from wanting total annihilation of Iran 1 minute to these are pretty good guys to deal with. I'm sure we'll get a deal. And so it's gone on in a kind of increasingly, in my estimation, quite ridiculous manner of everything being gamed out on social media and very little of it actually happening. Where do you think we are with this? And in relation to what General Wesley Clark just said, do you think the only option for the United States is to go in harder? As appears to be the potential scenario they're gaming up.

[Robert Pape]

We are in the spiral phase of the escalation trap where escalation is occurring both vertically and horizontally and those dimensions are reinforcing each other. But where there are now multiple actors who are making decisions and America, what that means is America is progressively losing more and more control. Now I want to say that I highly respect General Clark and General Kemet. These are people that I truly respect. I taught for the U.S. air Force. I believe that our military is the best in the world. However, I want to point out that I don't think there's a way to win between now and the timeframe that matters to politically and that is the midterms. So I want to be super clear. I'm not saying we can't win ever. And I'm not saying if you kept this up for years, you couldn't possibly win. However, if there is not demonstrable victory, and I'll explain what that would look like between now and the midterms, there's a very good chance that the Democrats are going to win both houses and that is going to bring an end to the war, much like in 1974 Congress ended the Vietnam War. So we need to be very, very clear here that this is not like, well, we can just keep this up and it's just up to us to play the chess game. Now between now and the midterms, the core issue is going to be opening Hormuz and now opening Hormuz and the Red Sea, which just in the last week has doubled the problem. But I want to come back to the problem of opening Hormuz between now and the midterms. And I'd like your listeners to just hear one word.

[General Wesley Clark]

Scale.

[Robert Pape]

Scale. Now it's very important to understand that a Shahid 136 drone, given its range, it has a drone launch zone of roughly 500 miles of coastline by 500 miles deep, not just a few kilometers deep. That is a drone launch zone bigger than California. And that problem of scale is not just two by two. A two dimensional problem. There are massive mountains in that 500 by 500 mile drone. The Zargos Mountains. Think about mountains as a skyscraper where the drone, which is just a little bit bigger, heavier than a king size mattress, could be on any crevice anywhere, could be deeply buried in the basement. It could be on 412. And the problem is, do you know how many Manhattans Pierce, you can put in that zone launch area that I'm describing? 11,000 Manhattans. That's the search problem. We have the scale problem and we got to solve this in three months and we're nowhere near being able. We haven't won the first victory yet, let alone taken on this massive problem of scale. Now, again, I am the top. I believe in American primacy. I believe in America should be the strongest country. I believe we should have the strongest military. This is not coming from somebody who is, who is anti any of those things. This is coming from the opposite. And I believe that we're in the most wicked escalation trap. President Trump is trapped. The trap part is a political trap. He is trying to reverse a defeat. He's trying to reverse it because if he does it, this will be the end of his presidency and, and he will be the lamest of lame ducks going forward for years. So this is the trap of the escalation trap. We are likely going to escalate further. I think you're going to see multiple efforts here. But we're not alone. We're not alone. Iran is now initiating escalation. The Houthis are initiating escalation. The Saudis are initiating escalation. And notice we've totally stopped talking about Israel initiating escalation, Hezbollah initiating escalation. We're not yet talking about the proxies in Iraq initiating. As this war has expanded. The escalation trap is in the spiral phase. And this is the crucial thing to understand. And in that spiral phase, this is not just a chess game like we're Garry kasparov and we're 2,400 on the scale and we know better than the others. This is what I've been studying for three and a half decades, how military action is impacts politics. So I've never served in the military. I've never dropped a bomb. I'm not. I have nothing but the highest respect for the folks who put their lives who are the best and die to be the best. This is not a case where not respect. This is the opposite. And what we need to do is we need to have the respect to truly lay out what's in front of us, what's in front of our country. And this is that wicked of an escalation trap.

[Piers Morgan]

Fascinating assessment. I mean, General Kimmer, you know, this is. I gotta say something I've been reminding people of regularly is the impending double political eventuality of these two elections. One in the United States, the midterms, but one also in Israel. And they're both extremely important elections, particularly given what is happening with this war. Before I get your view of that, what about this New York Times story suggesting that one of the reasons for wanting to ease back from the United States point of view is to do with military hardware that the number of Patriot missiles, for example, is running low, they can't replace them fast enough to replace the ones that are being used, and so on. When you've read that report, does that worry you or is this normal stuff that goes on in any war?

[General Mark Kimmitt]

Well, I certainly wouldn't be upset and worried if I was Admiral Cooper in terms of how many patriots, how many JDAMs, how many FAST Tac Tomahawk missiles we have. The people that are worried are the Indo PACOM commander and could well be the EUCOM commander whose contingency plans all depend on having a certain availability of those critical materials. I believe that Admiral Cooper is going to get what he needs from this administration simply because he's in a war. But Cooper and the Indo Pacom command, the Indo Pacom commander and the European Command commander are probably shaking in their boots. Look, one thing that wasn't mentioned, and I want to throw this in here because there is another dimension and there's another set of actors in all this, and that's the Europeans. The fact remains is we ran the Tanker War 1981-1988. The United States at that time was not a belligerent and we were able to escort those Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf for the simple reason that neither Iraq nor Iran wanted to take on the United States. The maritime discussions that have been going on among the Europeans rests on a simple process and a simple assumption. They are not belligerents to this war. Yes, the Americans couldn't join that coalition, but it is certainly the case that the EU already has a maritime mission in Dubai right now, and they could expand that. The question that would be faced by the Iranians would be do we want to draw Europe into war? Possibly. Do we want to draw China and India into this war if non belligerents are escorting those ships? So I think that's a very simple logic that needs to be explored. And candidly, I also think that frozen assets from the Iranian accounts ought to be used to finance some of these options as well, such as reimbursing those tankers that do go through. So I don't necessarily believe the Strait of Hormuz as a tactical issue, as Professor Pape would always remind us, is an insolvable problem.

[Piers Morgan]

General Clark, this political backdrop to the war is incredibly relevant. I think as Robert Pape outlined, you know, he's completely right. If this is still raging away in two, three months time and Trump and the Republicans end up losing both halves of Congress, the House and the Senate it is highly likely that the Democrats will just end this almost immediately, as fast as they can, and that Trump will become, as Robert Pape said, a lame duck president. And this will become a terrible millstone for him. What I'm struggling to work out is how he, given how close this all is, you know, we're almost in August now, you know, how does he stop this becoming the millstone in the timeframe?

[General Wesley Clark]

That's a good question. And that's probably why Jack Keane is talking about massive escalation. But my concern about the massive escalation of force is that air campaigns run out of decisive targets. We strike the air defense first, we clean it out. That's all well and good, but you can't expect to win against Iran by doing counter value targeting, taking out civilian infrastructure unless it's militarily relevant, like transportation nodes and bridges and things like this. It's not going to persuade the Iranians to give up their 47 year quest to dominate the Middle East. It's going to appeal to some of the domestic base and they're going to feel like, boy, this is really good, we're going in there and getting them. But you've got to have a comprehensive plan. And so I go back to isolating the theater of operations, focusing on the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, as Professor Pape knows, and he studied my campaign, by the way, in Kosovo. I know that and I appreciate it, Robert, but. But the scale problem is significant. But remember, Ukraine has a scale problem and they've figured out how to deal mostly with the Shaheds. Now, you still got a ballistic problem and you've got some jet propelled Saheeds. I don't know if you can put all this together before the election. I don't, certainly can't put it together for a Labor Day. But I do think that you have to explain to the American people what the consequences are. You have to try to bring the two parties together on this in some way. In some ways, you know, President Trump is a Stuckey on this. You can argue about whether he should have started this or not, but the fact is that the Iranians have spent 47 years developing the means with a strategy to go after Israel. And they call us the Great Satan. And so if they can make a missile that shoots 1500 miles and then one that shoots 2,500 miles and puts England at risk, I'm sure Russia and China can teach them how to shoot one that hits us. And what could be better for Russia and China than to use Iran as a proxy to go after the United States, to take out our assets, to disrupt our influence in the Middle east, to wreck the economy, that the global economy, freedom of navigation. Those are the things we depend on more than anybody else. And, and so I think the President really has an obligation to come to the American people. You talk about the Democrats and what's going to happen after the election. I'm talking about military. And every president has tried to rally the American people, pull them together and, and have a united country, at least in facing this imminent challenge. I hope he'll do that, and I hope we'll focus on the strait, and I hope we won't do any more pauses that give the Iranians a chance to rearm and refit and repair their efforts in the strait. We got to do better protecting our friends in the Gulf, and we've got to isolate the theater of operations. And if we're not willing to do that, we're going to be in the same position we were in Vietnam, which is the American people saying two years from now, either get in or get out. We had that decision to make in 1964. We failed. And this is the decision point for the United States and our leadership and peers. With all due respect, it really isn't about the congressional elections. It really is about the future of American global leadership, and it is about what's good for the American people as a whole. And that argument has to be made. And we've got to get the media to look broader than the horse race for November.

[Piers Morgan]

And General Clark, just finally for you, how difficult operationally would it be if you were running the American military right now to have the commander in chief conducting a constant public dialogue on social media about what he is going to do, not going to do, constantly changing, depending on how the wind's blowing and so on? Surely, from an operational point of view, that cannot be helpful.

[General Wesley Clark]

Give me a mission. Let me do it, boss. That's all I'm asking for. You handle the politics. You talk to the people. I need the allied support, need the defense industrial base, need some assets from those other theaters we took him during Kosovo, and he needs them now. And let the commander do his job. Give him a mission. He had that mission on the Strait of Hormuz. We did 12 or 13 nights of attack. I think we, as Admiral Cooper said, he basically got rid of the targets. But you have to continue the campaign because they replace, they refit, they rebuild, and then you have to have the follow on which the escort ships and the insurance subsidies and the other things to get this thing open. If you think you can do it by taking out energy plants in Tehran, you're going to be very disappointed. I hope we don't do that. All that does is invite retaliatory attacks against Gulf infrastructure and we're more vulnerable than Iran is on that. As professor said and. And Mark Kimmetshev.

[Piers Morgan]

Robert Pape, you've made several predictions and like 99% of everyone else's predictions, they haven't come to fruition yet. One was in June. You predicted a 70% chance American troops would be on the ground in Iran within a month. That hasn't happened yet. You also warned of a mass casualty attack coming from Iran, potentially in June when you're on the Diary of a CEO podcast. Again, we haven't seen that yet, but that is obviously an ongoing concern, I would imagine. So put your predictive hat on again for the next month, two months. Do you think America will ultimately have to commit boots on the ground? And do you still have high concern about a mass casualty attack coming from Iran as this escalates, if it does?

[Robert Pape]

Yes, I do. And I understand people want predictions like polymarket, give me the day X is going to happen. Pierce. And so we get pushed to do that. But that's not what my model is really doing. My model is laying out the stages of escalation. On that score. It's been right month after month after month after month. So we're not, remember the mou. I'm one of the big people that was saying the MOU was not going to hold. I explained exactly why. I've explained the details and the mechanism. So seriously, this is about the stages. What I would like to tell you is we are heading to bad times. But I want to answer your question, which is the advice to President Trump, because there is some advice I want to give to J.D. vance and President Trump if they're going to listen to this and you yourself might be able to get it to them, which is we've got to understand that right now one of the big advantages Iran has is not just that we're on that Titanic where we're heading over the cliff on the, for the world economy, but the world is blaming America, blaming America for this. I want to be super clear about this, okay? And what that and what is happening is if we escalate now on any of these options, and I think we are likely to, but if we do that, the world, we're going to go off the economic cliff. This is not going to be stopped. And the world is going to blame America doubling down. That's the biggest problem we have to America's leadership in the world, to our primacy in the world, to the Europeans working with us, to the Democrats giving any sort of grace period whatsoever to do any of these options the generals are talking about here. And this is the big framing that President Trump needs to understand, which is everything he's doing is making that political problem worse. And this is not a general's problem. This is the President of the United States that has to understand the political reason we're failing strategically. And this is the reason the world is blaming us. And if we keep initiating doubling down going forward right now and over the next few months, what's going to happen is we will be blamed in ways that are unrecoverable, and they won't. The world is not just going to say, once Trump is gone, they forgive America. And these predictions I'm making about the economic, so the terrorism after. When we invaded Iraq, I explained we were gonna touch off the largest suicide terrorist campaign in modern times. It took six months for that to happen. And so this is not a situation, Pierce, where these predictions are measured in terms of the day of a prediction. Like you're doing a. This isn't right. The reason, but what we do is there is some real advice coming out of this, and this would be a way to truly try to change and move where we are for the good of the country. I'm not saying this for the good of even the president or MAGA politically. I'm saying this for the good of the country. This is the approach that the White House needs to take, and it is not taking this approach.

[Piers Morgan]

General Kimmy, I think I detected a slight shake of the head there. Or was it an involuntary tick?

[General Mark Kimmitt]

Not voluntary at all. I think we still make the fundamental error. The original sin is that we somehow think that conventional warfare can change the behavior of the regime. That somehow the more we bust, the closer we'll get to the end of this war. Look, General Clark understands as well. We fought and we made that same fallacy. We embrace that same fallacy inside of Vietnam. And somehow the more of them we killed, the closer we would get to victory. The body count fallacy, and we have now the structure fallacy, that the combined efforts of knocking out air defense, missiles, so on and so forth, is going to win. It's not we are fighting a conventional war. They are fighting a revolutionary war. And that revolutionary war, like all revolutionary wars, depends on two factors. For the fighter, patience, and resistance. In resistance, you win by not losing. And patience speaks for itself. This is how the way we got rid of those pesky British back in the 18th century, the fact remains is we wore them out. The purpose of war is to change the behavior of the leadership, to change directions. And as long as they think they are winning because they're not losing, they will continue this behavior and they will do it as long as necessary. And they are taking the bet that we're going to wear out and we're going to walk away. So in many ways, this whole conventional campaign is part of the original sin of how we're trying to fight the Iranians. I hope we can get our way through this. One of the ways is to lower the bombing campaign, but make it very clear that we're going to be doing it for as long as it takes and we're going to outpatience them.

[Piers Morgan]

I want to ask all of you the same question. I want a one word response to round things off. And it's simply this, Given what has happened, do you think if Donald Trump had his time again, and I'll start with you, General Clark, he would have agreed to go to war with Israel in Iran?

[General Wesley Clark]

I'm not going to be able to answer a question like that. Obviously, he's got, he had reasons for wanting to go to war. He's got reasons and concerns. Right now everybody understands that when you start a war, it's not that hard, but to finish it and end it is really difficult. And, you know, many, many books will be written about this and why and so forth. I just want to go back to what Mark Kimmitt just, just said. Patience, limit the objective. Use military force against military targets, not counter value. You're not going to punish the Iranian people and the leadership will then say, oh, my goodness, we can't afford that. We've got to have more. We've got to have water for our children. They're not going to say that. So you've got to focus it, limit it. If you really work the Strait of Hormuz, you can get it open. And you will avoid some of the blame that Robert Pape is attributing to the United States going forward. If you focus on the Strait now, can you do it? Well, that's the mission. You've got some really smart people in Central Command and in the Pentagon, and you've got some great technology gurus out there in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Put them to work, give them the mission, but stay with it. If you go back to the Iranians and say, please give me a deal. I'm really, I think over my head, can you help me? They're not going to help you. They don't want to help the United States. They're against the United States. So is China and Russia, and they're going to do everything they can to pile on. So I think the President has some real decisions to make. But I don't think this is a situation in which the United States just has to throw up its hands and say, oh, my goodness, it's all over. We should never have done it. Throw the bums out and let's retreat back to Cuba, Venezuela and Greenland.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, it's a fascinating response. Not exactly the one word I was seeking, given the time limitation we now have. Robert Pape, can you give me a yes or no? Would Trump have done this if he'd known what was going to happen?

[Robert Pape]

No. I advised the first Trump White House. This was about Afghanistan, how to bargain with the, negotiate with the Taliban. I saw behind closed doors, movement, actual. Even though you don't see this with leaders necessarily on cameras, on, not saying there would be reason in this case necessarily, what I am saying is that what little I know, the answer is no. And I think more importantly, going forward here, it is extremely important here to see that desperation doesn't necessarily have to make matters worse. It can mean searching for answers where you're not necessarily normally looking.

[Piers Morgan]

And General Kimmich, the light has literally gone out on us as I'm talking to you. So I do need a yes or no out of you. Do you think Trump, if he had a do over, would it have done this?

[General Mark Kimmitt]

Look, very quickly. We've tried the economic sanctions for 40 years. We tried diplomacy for 20 years. None of that was working. This war may not have been imminent, but it was inevitable. As Professor Pape would understand, it's better to fight it before you can't fight it.

[Piers Morgan]

Gentlemen, a fascinating debate. Honestly, I can't think of three people better qualified to have had that because I've learned a lot, as always, from talking to you all. Thank you very much indeed.

[General Wesley Clark]

Thank you.

[General Mark Kimmitt]

Thank you.

[John Mearsheimer]

Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.

[Piers Morgan]

My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana.

[Austin Franco]

Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer.

[Piers Morgan]

They're even coming to the castle to collect it.

[Austin Franco]

Tonight we feast. An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana.

[Piers Morgan]

Pick up fees, may apply. Last month, a teenage Ivy League student made Global Headlines for declining a job interview for an internship on the basis of the boss's religion. Austin Franco, a student at the prestigious Cornell University, told the prospective employers that he was, quote, not interested in working for for a Jew. The two Jewish brothers who ran the company went public, and the remarks started a media for all, including days of dedicated coverage on Fox News.

[John Mearsheimer]

Two Jewish brothers offered to interview him for a summer internship at their startup. He posted this reply. Not interested in working for a Jew.

[Robert Pape]

Thanks.

[Piers Morgan]

Cornell student Austin Franco is accused of

[Robert Pape]

sending the anti Semitic message, and in several online remarks, he appears to be standing by his comments.

[Austin Franco]

I'm glad we know this individual's name.

[Piers Morgan]

I'm glad he was exposed. Indeed.

[Austin Franco]

And the brothers are so generous and graceful, certainly more than I am, because

[Robert Pape]

I do want his life to be ruined.

[Piers Morgan]

I agree with you.

[Robert Pape]

It is a permissive structure.

[Austin Franco]

And parents, what are your children putting out there?

[John Mearsheimer]

Well, Mr. Franco may find it difficult finding another internship.

[Piers Morgan]

While it appears to be an open and shut case of anti Semitism, it was the campaign to, quote, ruin his life. The same some people found uncomfortable. Leo Terrell, who is an official in the Department of Justice, posted dozens of times on social media about Austin Franco, with one comment urging the public to make him permanently unemployable. Commentators, including Glenn Greenwald, who is himself Jewish, said it felt a bit too much like cancel culture. While listing the many powerful figures who'd mobilized to condemn Franco, he added, adults with large influential platforms, pundits, media types, even elected officials right here on X routinely say things as bad as, and often much worse than pretty much every other group you can think of without facing a single consequence, let alone a completely unhinged, coordinated campaign of very powerful people to ruin their lives forever. But what Franco said was blatantly and outrageously wrong. There's no question of that. But commentators like Greenwald raise some interesting questions. Should a teenage student be treated so harshly? Or when there are Republican lawmakers who compare Muslims to barbarians and dogs, have we made it impossible for young people to make stupid mistakes in the age of social media? In a post cancel culture society, do people like Austin Franco deserve a second chance? Well, we decided to interview him so we can decide exactly that. Austin Franco joins you now. Mr. Franco, thank you for joining me on Uncensored.

[Austin Franco]

It's good to meet you, Pierce.

[Piers Morgan]

So let's just start with the obvious question. When you said, not interested in working for a Jew, thanks, what did you mean?

[Austin Franco]

Yeah, well, so coming into it, I intended to always let him know I wasn't interested in working for him after looking at his LinkedIn profile, and I just wanted to see what would happen. To be frank, I was curious what the reaction would be by the Jewish community and by the United States collectively.

[General Wesley Clark]

So.

[Piers Morgan]

Right. But I'm not quite sure. Again, why, why say that

[Austin Franco]

I've had bad experiences with Jews at Cornell. One of my friends at Virginia Tech as well, before I transferred to Cornell said, we should genocide all Palestinians. We should have done it 50 years ago in one fell sweep so that everyone would forget about it. And then while at Cornell, two out of the three house managers for the apartment complex I was living in were also Jewish and made up things about me that weren't true and dragged me through the mud. And the university, like the civil rights office, they would drag me through it and make up random statements about me that weren't true to get me in trouble. And they ultimately kicked me out of the house right before finals as well. And so those experiences compounded together for me to say, listen, I don't want to be around you people anymore. You know, you've made my life a living hell, especially when it comes to studying for finals, and you continue to make things up about me. I just. I don't want to work for you. It was as simple as that.

[Piers Morgan]

There are 15 million Jewish people in the. In the world. Why would you blame all of them for the actions of small handful?

[Austin Franco]

So this is not to say, like I said, I've had good experiences with Jews as well, but I've had enough experiences that were displeasing that I didn't want to be around. It's, you know, it's just a preference, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know, if you had a problem with Asian people or midgets, right? Like, you know, let's say you're around 10, right? And all of them are really mean to you. They step on your feet, right? You're going to say, okay, I don't want to be around you anymore. And if your boss is somehow a midget, you're going to say, listen, I don't want to work for you because you're a midget. It might not be a nice thing to say, but is it really worth losing our marbles over this like the Jewish community did within America? You know, saying, we're going to make this kid unemployable. Let's ruin his life, let's kick him out of Cornell. I mean, it's really ridiculous,

[Piers Morgan]

actually, if you don't mind me saying, what you've just said is more ridiculous, isn't it? I mean, what on earth has this got to do with, as you put it, midgets?

[Austin Franco]

The point being is that if I were to say something about the midget community, like, I don't like midgets. I don't want to work for them, nobody would be like, oh, my God, this is, you know, crazy, right? They'd be like, okay, you're just an asshole.

[Piers Morgan]

Of course they would. Of course they would.

[Austin Franco]

I don't think so. I don't think so. Pierce, Listen, if it's a question of was it a nice thing to say, the answer is no. You stated that, and I can agree with that. But another question we have to ask is, is the reaction equivalent to what I said? You know, we have kids out there saying the N word on a date.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, I'm going to come to that. I'm not going to. Hang on, hang on. I'm going to come to the. I'm going to come to that aspect of the story in a minute, because that's where I do have concerns. But I have to say that from everything you said so far, it seems to me you are genuinely anti Semitic. You don't like Jewish people. Do you just accept that?

[Austin Franco]

So. No, because being around and not wanting to be around Jewish people does not mean you don't like them. One of my exes who I dated was half Jewish. So it's not a question of, oh, he's hating on Jews. Obviously, that's not the case. The question is, is do I wanna be around them?

[General Wesley Clark]

Well,

[Piers Morgan]

it can be. No, hang on, hang on. It can be the course. It can be the case. When you say, I don't wanna be around these people, you're talking about 15 million people. And they are a people who historically, as we saw in World War II, have been the victim of the most appalling prejudice and antisemitism and genuine hatred that led to 6 million Jews being killed in the Holocaust, for example. So this is not something that should be treated lightly. When you say, I don't wanna be around these people, you are sounding like you don't wanna be around all Jewish people. Unless I'm hearing you wrong.

[Austin Franco]

Listen, there are always exceptions, but the point being is, like, if I don't wanna live in New York, that doesn't mean I hate New York. I just don't wanna be in New York or be around it.

[Piers Morgan]

All right, no, but if you said, I don't wanna live in New York, Because I don't wanna be around. If you said, I don't want to be around New Yorkers, all of them, then you're branding millions and millions of people with the same brush, aren't you?

[Austin Franco]

But what's wrong with that? You know, it's not like I'm hurting them by saying, I'm not going to come to New York and give you my business or my labor. Right? It's just saying, listen, I have a freedom of association. I don't like New York. I, I think it's disgusting. I don't want to live there. Right. There's nothing wrong with that.

[Piers Morgan]

Can I ask what your family made of your comment?

[Austin Franco]

They were not happy. Our views have diverged much over the past four years, so.

[Piers Morgan]

But one thing I want to say is not happy. What did your parents say to you after it? Because obviously you became national news and for the most egregious of reasons.

[Austin Franco]

I mean, there are plenty things, plenty more things that we could probably focus on than what a 19 year old said. But my family and me disagree on certain things and they were not happy with it. I was not happy that they were collateral in what I said. I mean, my dad had to have his webpage taken down. My mom also had problems with her job. I, I mean, the scale of this, this is what I'm saying, right? Is I said something that was immature, right? And not only do I get screwed.

[Piers Morgan]

Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Rewind. The problem, Austin, it's not that you said something immature or stupid or anything like that, because had you then said, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it. I don't mean the way it came across. But it's the opposite with you. You do mean it. You don't want to be around any Jewish people. That's 15 million Jewish people. So therefore, you are de facto anti Semitic. And that puts you in a different category to teenagers who say dumb stuff and then regret it and apologize. You've got no intention of either expressing regret or apologizing. You mean it. You don't want to be around Jewish people. You brazenly admitted that in this interview. And that changes the context for me about the way that the fallout was then handled and the punishment that people have called for. I don't believe in cancel culture, but I do expect people who say incredibly incendiary, anti Semitic or racist or misogynist things when it becomes public to either express regret or say they're sorry or do something to atone for what they've done, you've doubled and trebled and quadrupled down. You've extended your dislike of the Jewish people you were dealing with in your university campus, and you've embraced the entire Jewish population as they want nothing to do with you people. That is racism. That is anti Semitism. It is an appalling thing to hear a young man say, if you were one of my sons, I'd be utterly ashamed of this. And yet here you are laughing. You think it's all quite funny. I can tell you. It's not funny to Jewish people.

[Austin Franco]

I believe in freedom association. That's fundamentally what comes down to, you know, you have jocks and nerds in high schools, and, you know, the jocks make fun of the nerds all the time because they can't get laid or they can't get a girlfriend. Right? Yeah, it's not a nice thing to say, once again. But it's not the end of the world. And just because the jocks don't want to associate with the nerds does not make them bad people. It doesn't make them.

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, but you're not singling them out for the. You're not singling them out for that.

[Austin Franco]

Nerds.

[Piers Morgan]

Hang on, hang on. You're not. You're not singling them out for their ethnicity. And you don't seem to understand that or care that what you have done is genuinely shocking. And it's shocking to hear you double down. Now. I don't understand why you don't understand. What you said is so egregious.

[Austin Franco]

Let me ask you this.

[Piers Morgan]

If.

[Austin Franco]

If you don't want to work for someone, for whatever reason it may be, maybe you don't like their shirt color, right. Why does it matter? Why does it matter if I don't want to work for a Jew or I don't. I. I could not.

[Piers Morgan]

You made it. You made it matter.

[Austin Franco]

No, no, no. If I don't want white person.

[Piers Morgan]

You made it matter by saying, I don't want to work. You said, I don't. You didn't.

[Robert Pape]

You.

[Piers Morgan]

You didn't say that. And you are a white man.

[Austin Franco]

No, I didn't say that.

[Piers Morgan]

So it's a completely different thing.

[Austin Franco]

But let's take a hypothetical.

[Piers Morgan]

If you said, I don't want to work. If you'd say, well, let me. No, let me ask you a hypothetical, and I don't find this quite as funny as you do, but we'll persevere with this for a while anyway. But if you said, I don't Want to work for black people. What would you have thought about that sentence?

[Austin Franco]

I'd treat it the same as if I didn't want to work for a white person or an Asian person or a Latino. Doesn't really matter.

[Piers Morgan]

You are white, so it's different. You are a white person. If you. Would you have said, I don't want. Would you have said, I don't want to work for a black person?

[Austin Franco]

If I felt that way, yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

You wouldn't think that's racist and offensive?

[Austin Franco]

No, because I believe in freedom of association. Things may be unkind to say, but ultimately it is. Oh, no.

[Piers Morgan]

You can mix with whoever you like. You can mix with whoever you like. But when you commit your thoughts to writing and you send them to third parties and you're being brazenly racist and in your case, anti Semitic, what I find shocking is not that a teenager would do something stupid, it's that a teenager, having had plenty of time to now think about this, who's been national news and been debated by Americans all over the country, should come on an interview like this and just double and treble down as if none of this matters. And. And that actually be quite proud of your antisemitism. I find that very disturbing. And where have you got that from? What's made you so anti Semitic?

[Austin Franco]

What do you want then? I mean, what is your end goal with this? I mean, if we're not allowed to choose who we want to associate with?

[Piers Morgan]

I want you to admit you're just a brazen anti Semite. You don't like Jewish people. You don't want to associate with Jewish people. Just admit it.

[Austin Franco]

I can't be a brazen anti Semite.

[General Mark Kimmitt]

All right?

[Austin Franco]

1. Because I dated Jewish people, so it's

[Piers Morgan]

clear that I have nothing to do with it.

[Austin Franco]

Well, it does. Right?

[Piers Morgan]

You literally said you don't want to associate with any Jewish people.

[Austin Franco]

And what's wrong with that? Genuinely, what's wrong with that? I don't understand. It just seems to be you have these emotions tied up that says if

[Piers Morgan]

you see anything, how have you been? So how. How have you been so poorly educated? Honestly? I mean, what's happened to your. Your parents here, your family, your friends? And what's allowed you to develop this mindset where you're prepared to just come on a camera like this in an interview watched by millions of people and just brazenly say, I don't want to be anywhere near Jewish people and not understand the enormity of what you're saying and have no sense of remorse, no sense of shame, no sense of guilt. You don't give a fuck, do you?

[Austin Franco]

Listen, Pierce, when you have a genocidal country that's made up of 90% Jews that insist upon killing Palestinians and reporters and dragging America into wars abroad, no, I'm not going to want to associate with those people. And you're seeing this among the youth, all right? You're seeing with this. With the emergence of America first. And this is a common sentiment that is held. If you think this is just me, you are completely wrong. It might not be held among your children, but it is held among the youth. And I've talked with plenty of people who have come out in support of me who are tired of these games, all right? Playing, you know, going in wars abroad for foreign countries. They're tired of it all, and they're tired of seeing their country destroyed by third worlders, all right? They can't find a job and they have nothing to lose.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, so just to be clear, what's your view of the war in Iran?

[Austin Franco]

I think we should have no part in it.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, good. So because America's gone to war in Iran, presumably by the same argument you've just put forward, you would not want to be associated with any American for the decisions taken by this American government. You want nothing to do with any Americans. Is that your position?

[General Wesley Clark]

No.

[Austin Franco]

America is made up of a multicultural society.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, you know what, Austin? You know what, Austin? You know, Austin, I knew you'd say no because you're just not only stupid, but you're a massive hypocrite because you're blaming 15 million Jews for the decision making by a prime minister and a government in Israel which has nothing to do with the vast majority of Jewish people worldwide, many of whom hate it as much as I do. But when the same logic that you've espoused is applied to a war in Iran waged by this American administration, your position is not you want nothing to do with Americans. Is it because you're a hypocrite and you don't understand the difference. Cause frankly, I think you're too wound up in enjoying the ride of being the most famous anti Semite in America. I just find it incredibly depressing that a young man given the privilege that you've had to go to a top university could be this thick or worse, not care about what you're saying and the consequences of to a huge number of people around the world who see a young, arrogant kid who wants to brazenly espouse antisemitism in interviews like this, and shame on you and shame on everyone that has made you like this. And you know what? I was prepared to give you a bit of a fairer hearing about the people calling for you to be canceled and unemployable and so on. You kind of make yourself unemployable.

[Austin Franco]

I. I'd like to say I wouldn't employ you cutting me off.

[Piers Morgan]

I wouldn't employ. I wouldn't. Had you. Had you said, I'm sorry, had you expressed any remorse, had you done any of those things, I'd say, yeah, you know what? You've been dealt a harsh lesson in life, but you've learned your lesson. Move on. You haven't learned your lesson, Austin. You've doubled down. You're proud of it. And so for that reason, I don't give it myself. So we're gonna. I don't care. You've explained yourself. You're an anti Semite and you're a hypocrite. And you know what? Future employers. Future employers can watch this interview and they can decide if you have the values that they wish to have in their company. Good luck with that. Good luck with it. That's the end of this interview. Thank you.

[Austin Franco]

Okay. Thank you, Piers.

[Piers Morgan]

Piers Morgan. Our sense that is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan uncensored 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, uncensored media has never been more critical, and we couldn't do it without you.