Pierce Morgan (2:20)

Yeah, I kind of feel that way. Myself. Well, let's get into bigger stuff, which is Iran and the Iran War. Trump is behaving like this war is pretty much over, and if it needs to take a bit longer to strangle the Iranians with the Strait of Hormuz and keep the blockade going, he's got infinite patience. And then he suddenly, out of nowhere overnight, posted a picture of himself with a machine gun, saying, if you don't do a deal, effectively, he's going to go bonkers with guns. Again, presumably involving more military action. Again, a lot of contrary and conflicting messages coming out of the White House and the President in particular. What do you think, Dave Smith, is actually happening here with the Iran war?

Will Chamberlain (3:08)

Well, I think it's not good. And I think that we're at this point, Trump is in between a rock and a hard place. And if you remember, Pierce, about three weeks ago, when Donald Trump gave his. He gave a speech after the markets had closed. This was shortly before some of the more unhinged tweets of threats. And he had been signaling then that, well, essentially he was setting it up to say, hey, listen, we don't really need the straight. Other people's stuff flows through the straight, not ours. And then he said, it'll just naturally open up, be a matter of time, and other people, other countries can. He was basically signaling that we can walk away from this with Iran still having control over the Strait and who passes, and other people can work that out. I think the major problem there, and this is something that Marco Rubio just said in his interview yesterday, excuse me, on Monday, that, well, actually, we can't. We can't walk away if the status quo is Iran gets to decide who comes in and who doesn't, and Iran gets to decide what currency they're trading in. Because, Pierce, if we do that, the reality is then this is a loss unlike any other loss in American foreign policy history. Even if you count Vietnam or Afghanistan or those as losses. I mean, we didn't transform them from a relegated, sanctioned, crippled country into a global power. And if you control 20% of the world's oil, then you are by definition a global power. And so now he's in this terrible situation where all he can do is blockade the blockade. The Pentagon has already told Congress it would take six months to open it up militarily, and that would be after the war is started, not with Iran attacking us. And so now we're at a point right now, Pierce, where we really don't know how catastrophic the damage that's already being done Is in these last two weeks, in the ceasefire, less has been traveling through the Strait of Hormuz than at any other point. As you know, Pierce, it's 20% of the global energy oil supply. We don't know how bad the effect of this is going to be down the road and how much more of this we can put up with. So we do have to end our own blockade, but then we go back to the status quo of a Iran controlling it, unless they're willing to capitulate, which every single indication is that they are not. And so not only are we not achieving any of the war aims, but we've got this whole new problem, which is the major problem now, which wasn't even an issue before the war started. I mean, this whole thing is just an indefensible nightmare.

Pierce Morgan (5:32)

Well, one person who is defending it very aggressively is you, Will Chamberlain. You tweeted on April 17 or posted on X. We're getting the enriched uranium, we're getting a stop to enrichment, we're getting an end to the funding of proxies. We destroyed the air force, navy, air defenses, defense industrial base and sea leadership, all done in six weeks. Geopolitical masterstroke. The only problem with that is I don't think the Iranians have got the memo about any of that, because from where I look, they've still got the enriched uranium. They've made no pledge to give it up. They don't even want to talk about nuclear power. They haven't agreed, as far as I'm aware, to any end to funding of proxies. And they're still firing off missiles and apparently have a big ballistic missile capability remaining. So that clearly is still something they have. And the Strait of foremost remains closed. With all the global economic mayhem that is causing. I'm not entirely sure this constitutes all done in six weeks or a geopolitical masterstroke. Why are you under that impression?

Dave Smith (6:36)

Well, at the time, Trump had a negotiated agreement, I think, with the golly boff clique, but they got removed in a counter coup by the irgc, and the IRGC wanted to fight on a little longer. And so now they're dealing with one of the most punishing blockades in naval history. It's costing them something like $400 million a day and is really risking within the next, probably within the week, almost irreversible damage to their oil wells because they simply don't have a place to store all their oil. So the idea that we have to remove this blockade because oil prices are high right now, is absurd. Whatever damage the United States would suffer from this, which is actually not really that big, honestly, because we are the world's biggest oil producer, the world's biggest oil exporter. When oil prices go up, there's a lot of Americans that benefit too. So. But Iran, I mean, almost all their oil export needs to go through the Strait of Hormuz. They don't have any ability to meaningfully transit it outside of it. Moreover, they're a one node economy. They're, they're basically another oil producing economy. We have the ability to completely squeeze them. And the idea that they can survive this for, I mean, I'd be shocked if they could survive it for another month, let alone six. It's. I think they're in really, really the problem will we have all the military capability, they have none. It's a. We're in great shape right now.

Pierce Morgan (7:50)

No, I know. Yeah. The problem is we keep hearing it's all about to end. It was going to be two to three weeks, then it's going to be six weeks. Now it's like, well, it could be months. I mean, maybe years.

Dave Smith (8:02)

You know, the enemy gets. This is how all night in Monty Python, like the enemy gets to say, well, exactly. They decide they don't want to surrender. They just eventually, eventually they regime changed by rising up with their own people. But like you have.

Pierce Morgan (8:14)

But that's.

Dave Smith (8:15)

As long as they hold on some power.

Pierce Morgan (8:16)

Let me finish my point. Yeah, okay, sure. You've just, you've just, you just made my point for me, which is that is exactly what's happening. The enemy is having its say. We saw the same pattern in Vietnam and the same pattern in Iraq. And this is the one thing Donald Trump always said he wouldn't do. He wouldn't drag America into pointless, expensive Middle Eastern wars. Again, he has with the biggest possible opponents.

Dave Smith (8:40)

This is far from pointless.

Pierce Morgan (8:41)

And he wasn't going to have a. He wasn't going to have a never ending. Well, it's pointless if you don't end up with the enriched uranium and you don't end up with any absolute pledge not to build a nuclear weapon. And there's no sign of them doing either of those things. So let me bring in Buckley Carlson. Buckley, great to have you on Censored. I've interviewed your brother Tucker many times. Never had the pleasure of you on the show, so it's great to have you. And I watched your interview together the other day where Tucker, of course made a lot of news with his apology for supporting Trump and specifically because of what's happened with Iran. What do you feel when you hear you've got Wilt Chamberlain? They're absolutely buying into all this narrative that this Iran war is going great, the Iranians are just about to compete.

Dave Smith (9:26)

You guys are promulgating a narrative, too.

Pierce Morgan (9:27)

American Israel.

Dave Smith (9:28)

It's just narratives going both ways. Like, I hear an Iranian narrative coming from my narrative.

Pierce Morgan (9:33)

My narrative is only based on what I see with my own eyes, which is the spirit of Hormuz remains shut. It remains shut. And that was the thing. That was the massive miscalculation, which is all the Iranians had to do was shut down the Strait of Hormuz and. And attack their neighboring Gulf states, and they could cause total mayhem. And that has been the thing, which I don't think was properly calculated. But, Buckley, what is your view about what it is, and how do you think people like Wilt Chamberlain have got themselves into a position where they are seeing one set of affairs here, of circumstance, which a lot of other people simply aren't seeing?

Buckley Carlson (10:14)

Well, I think it underscores that cartoonish posturing and declaring victory 10, 11, maybe 30 times actually has no bearing on the facts. And it's consistent with what Donald Trump has done in the last 16 years, which is completely betray not just his voters, but also Americans in general and squandered American power, American power that he was actually wielding on our behalf. It's not his to wield alone. He does so with our consent, our vote. And Americans have been consistent over the last decade that this was going to be a bad idea. Now, how they couldn't have anticipated that the Strait of Hormuz, which has been geographically located where it has been since the beginning of time and in Persian control and Iranian control for the last long time, why did they think that they could control it? And ignoring that as a basic fact is, to use Wilt Chamberlain's words himself, obscene and absurd.

Dave Smith (11:22)

Well, that's just incoherent because it's totally false. Obviously, the Navy had a plan for this, which is why they had a counter blockade ready. Moreover, the idea that Trump didn't campaign on preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon is ridiculous. There's, like, minutes of public clips of him saying over and over and over again, iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And that's why Republicans are behind him. The latest polling still shows something like 80% of Republicans are approve of Donald Trump's handling of Iran. Like, the idea that he's betraying his base, it's just not borne out.

Pierce Morgan (11:49)

Most Americans, most Americans for the first, although I was going to say abruptly for the first time ever, a majority of Americans from the start of this have not supported this war. And one in four Republicans, actually I've seen in some of the polling, have grown to be opposed to it because they don't understand how this plays out and ends. So we are into very uncharted territory. Donald Trump's personal approval rating has hit record lows now this week because of this. And so I think that there's a kind of. There's an asymmetric war going on, and there's also an asymmetric opinion war going on on the conservative right in America, which is fascinating to watch as well. Buckley, what did you think when Tucker said to you that he, you know, he was, he felt genuinely sorry and remorseful that he had so fully endorsed Trump and that had he known what he was going to do with Iran, he wouldn't have done. And I know from interviewing him quite recently that he repeatedly tried to stop Donald Trump doing this. What did you feel when you heard your brother say that, given how influential he is on the conservative right?

Buckley Carlson (13:04)

I thought it was an admirable expression of Christian principles to apologize when you've done something wrong. He's had. He had a huge impact. He worked hard on behalf of Donald Trump, as so many have, and what did they get met with but contempt and disdain from Donald Trump? Does Tucker bear responsibility? Do I. Do all the other people who worked for Trump worked on behalf of Trump bear responsibility? I think so, in varying degrees. Obviously, it's binary, as every election is, and I think we probably would have ended up in exactly the same situation if we, if we'd elected Kamala Harris and all of her absurdity. But people who've defended Trump for the last decade aggressively, at great expense to their own personal safety, their comfort, their employment, their friendships, sure. I don't see it enough to answer your question more clearly. You don't see it in America at all. You don't see it among American leaders. You never hear someone say, gosh, I'm sorry for actually being a proponent of this person or this policy that didn't work out when it's obvious it hasn't. So I wish more people would adopt that attitude, frankly.

Pierce Morgan (14:20)

Dave Smith, there's another way of looking at this, which is that if it does take six months or a year, then in warfare terms, that still would remain a reasonably short amount of time. And if the upshot of it is that the regime does get toppled and the people do get their country back. And the enriched uranium does get handed over, and there's a lot of big ifs in this sentence, but if all these things do end up happening in the strait of almost reopens, but Iranians don't have control over it, and the IRGC gets pretty well dismantled, if that was to all happen in a year's time, would the world owe Trump an apology and say that with hindsight, he showed the courage that no American president has shown in 47 years and he should win awards for it? I mean, is there a set of circumstances where that happens?

Will Chamberlain (15:16)

So are you asking me if there's a chance that Tucker Carlson will be apologizing for apologizing, and then he'll have to support. Yeah, I mean, if, Listen, if, for the record, let me say I, I apologize for supporting Donald Trump and said I regretted it back last summer and it did not make nearly as much news. So I would like to point that out. I was, I mean, you support him for like.

Dave Smith (15:37)

So it's really not that big of a reversal.

Will Chamberlain (15:40)

It was, no, it was a good, it was a good six months. He had, he had me going there. But, yeah, that was about it. But, yeah, that's. By the way, I'm embarrassed for the six months. I'm quite proud of the time before then, if anything. But, no, I will say this. Look, Pierce, I mean, if these seven things that all seem crazy unlikely right now, all were to happen. So you got a lot there. We extracted the enriched uranium. We got this straight back open. This regime has fallen, and something not catastrophically worse than it has replaced it, as has been the case and every other regime change in the last 25 years in this region. If all of that happened, Pierce, all of it, probably at this point, a year from now, we'd go, wait, how much did the whole thing cost? How many innocent people got killed in the whole thing? And what did we really get out of this? You're saying we took the nuclear threat, which you claimed had been obliterated six months before you launched this war, off the table? And honestly, I mean, if, at the very minimum, at this point right now, Pierce, if you got this thing going for another year, you're going to be looking at what, few hundred billion dollars of a cost? If you added up the cost right now, we might be at a few hundred billion dollars. Are bases destroyed in the region? How many more retaliations from Iran? I mean, look, there's so many questions there, but the bottom line is that where we're at right now, it Seems the only way to achieve any of these war goals are this. This wild. Like bet on. On intimidating the Iranians into capitulating. But will already kind of gave the. And you jumped on it rightfully. Pierce will g away when he said the enemy gets a say too. That's right. So he can predict all this stuff. Like a couple weeks ago, he's saying we're going to have the enriched uranium. Nope. That turns out that I still think we will enemy. Well, okay. But it didn't turn out now. Now you're saying maybe they have. Okay, you just said Iran. You'd be surprised if they have a month left. In a month when this government is still standing, you will move the goalpost to something else. This is what you guys do through all of these wars. They did it for 20 years in Afghanistan. The

Dave Smith (17:41)

reason why this whole.

Will Chamberlain (17:42)

I know. That's why I'm.

Dave Smith (17:43)

You can keep going.

Will Chamberlain (17:45)

I didn't say it's a quagmire. My point is that your bet? Listen, I made this point over and over about the 12 Day War and I got ridiculed for it when I said look, the reason why that was such a risky thing that we shouldn't have done is because the enemy gets a say to exactly your point. Now, in that war, Iran chose to make sure they didn't kill any Americans, make sure that it wasn't something that was going to escalate the war. And I said, wow, we put a lot of faith in this crazy government to do that.

Dave Smith (18:13)

You said they had escalation over us, which is insane. They don't.

Will Chamberlain (18:17)

Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is closed.

Dave Smith (18:21)

Our base that in the original.

Will Chamberlain (18:22)

We're in a gridlock right now.

Dave Smith (18:24)

Get our oil from the Strait of Hormuz. They lost their entire senior leadership class. What about our friends who do.

Buckley Carlson (18:30)

What about the friends in the region, by the way, left behind this.

Dave Smith (18:34)

The friends are on our side.

Will Chamberlain (18:35)

Arrogant.

Dave Smith (18:36)

Okay, let me just left opec. They're going to be alone. You guys are just. You guys are talking 10 years old cold.

Will Chamberlain (18:42)

Let's go. No, no, they're not. Well, let's go one at a time so we don't just talk over each other like. And I'll listen to you too, but so just no listen. I think it's a very arrogant and simplistic view to go, hey, if the Strait of Hormuz has had the lowest level of ships going through it in the last week to just go, eh, whatever. That's bad for the global economy. That 20% of the oil is like held up. You're like, dude, you do not know how bad this is going to be. Have people go, everyone at home who has a 401k, go look through all those companies that you own. You know how many of them are in foreign countries. Countries in Asia, in Europe are panicking right now over this oil situation. The Gulf states are panicking right now. And Pierce, this won't show up in the markets. If you remember, during COVID during lockdowns with the stock market went to record highs after we were pouring trillions of dollars into the, into the economy. It wasn't for a full another year when the price inflation started destroying Americans left and right. And we have no idea what's coming down the road. We do not know how long we can keep. It'll be a cataclysm for the global economy. And you're way too confident. You don't know. You're just good for us.

Dave Smith (19:45)

You're way too conservative. Hang on.

Pierce Morgan (19:50)

Well, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let me ask Will a question. We've got a slight delay between me and you guys, so I'd have to bear with me because I'm about half a second behind you. Will, the reality is this isn't it. If I presented a set of circumstances to you where Donald Trump comes in for his second term in office, hits the ground spectacularly well, shuts down the southern border, pretty much stops all illegal immigration coming over that border. Off to a flying start, then a few things start to happen, then a lot of stuff starts to happen. And now here we are a year and a bit afterwards. So nearly 18 months now into his second term, his approval rating is at a record low. He's trapped in a Middle Eastern war of the kind he said he wouldn't get involved with. Cost of living is now increasing again in the United States. And in fact, inflation has not been eradicated. So it was going up anyway, but it's now going to be eradicated at a greater rate because of this enhanced, I should say inflation because of this. That we're going to see the consequence of, for example, the lack of fertilizer coming through is going to have an obvious effect on the global food market, including in the United States. So yes, it's true the United States is pretty well oil self sufficient, but there are so many other parts of the world which are absolutely reliant on the Strait of Hormuz, being open for gas, for oil, for fertilizer and so on. The longer this goes on and the Iranian regime's only objective is to survive. The longest this goes on, the worse it gets for the United States and the global economy and to anyone who pretends otherwise, and for Donald Trump's approval ratings and for the Republicans, chances of hanging on to either half of Congress in November. And I think that the longer this goes on, now we're into nearly into May, then June, July, August. I mean, you're into the midterms. Before you know it, this becomes politically and economically unbelievably damaging for Donald Trump. You must see that. Sorry, Will, I can't hear you. Can you?

Will Chamberlain (21:59)

Yeah, I think you got muted, Will.

Dave Smith (22:01)

I lost my mic for a second. Sorry.

Pierce Morgan (22:04)

You seem to have self muted, which is a new phenomenon.

Dave Smith (22:07)

No, I just randomly hit my cord. I agree with your basic statement. The idea that if this war is still going and nothing has changed in six months and this is the status quo in November, you're right. It will not be good for the midterms. It will not be good for the President. I just think the odds of that are incredibly, incredibly small. Again, the war has only been going on for two months. The blockade's been in place for less than two weeks. Roughly two weeks, which is roughly around the time analysts that I were seeing. Around two weeks is when the oil storage wells start to fill up. And again, we're seeing these interesting mixed signals from the Iranian regime. Remember, it was only a week and a half ago when you brought up that. That post I made when Sayed Aragchi went on Twitter and said the Straits of Hormuz are open. And then immediately that got swept aside because there's an IRGC counter coup. Like, there's a lot, a lot has happened in the last two months, and it's happened very rapidly. And there's a lot of uncertainty about, especially inside Iran. And so whatever you guys talk about, this is sort of what I meant when I was saying conservatism. It's whatever you guys talk about. Oh, we don't know, the broader impacts on the whole global economy of 20% bump in oil prices. Like, how can you not see that? The effects on Iran of the Strait of Hormuz are much more dramatic when they lose the entirety of their ability to export oil and it's their entire economy.

Will Chamberlain (23:22)

Wait, but Will, I think that's. I'm glad you asked that question because I think this kind of gets at the heart of it, because it's not a question of, well, if we're damaging ourselves, but we're damaging them more Therefore, that's good. Like, we. We have the military capability to blow up the entire world many times over. But if you. If we were to do that, we wouldn't say, hey, that was a military victory because we blew a bunch of stuff up. The point is that we're no closer to any of the war aims than we were at the beginning. And now we have a whole new problem that we didn't even have back then. And by the way, those problems weren't nearly enough to launch a war of aggression over. The whole thing is madness. And you can sit here and try to spin it however you want to, but the bottom line is that the commander in chief, who you're supporting here, has declared victory, as Buckley put it multiple times already, declared the thing over, made all types of threats that he's not even following through on, threatening war crimes and terrorism, and then just backing off of that the whole time, lying through his teeth to the American people. The regime has not fallen. It is a war. The strait is not going to open by itself. And meanwhile, we're no closer to getting their enriched uranium. We're no closer to getting them to stop supporting Hezbollah. In fact, Donald Trump. Look, if this is. Well, yes, it is, dude. In fact, Donald Trump had to even start warning the Israelis to stop because he was so concerned that that was going to blow up this cease fire and he needed to take a break from the military action. The bottom line here, Pierce, as you've covered very well on this show, is that somehow Donald Trump allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to con him into this war, which he has openly been spending my entire life trying to drag my country into, lying through his teeth about how they're weeks away from a nuclear weapon for 40 years. And somehow him and the Mossad chief were able to convince Donald Trump of this ridiculous notion that it was a. It was a definite. It was a slam dunk, that you could get a regime change through the sky and that the regime changed.

Dave Smith (25:18)

He wasn't convinced of that. You didn't even read the New York Times article. That's just flat out false. Like you're just. No, you didn't read it. Yes, I did.

Will Chamberlain (25:26)

Yes, I did read the article.

Dave Smith (25:28)

Yeah, apparently not, because it made very clear that the Americans did not credit Netanyahu and the statements did it anyway. Yeah, because he thought it was on his own.

Will Chamberlain (25:39)

He called for the people to rise up. Listen, I mean, literally.

Pierce Morgan (25:43)

Okay, let me bring up.

Will Chamberlain (25:44)

The department themselves just admitted we fought this war for the Israelis. This is the most obvious. Okay, I Just can't even believe you deny this.

Pierce Morgan (25:51)

Well, I think, I think what is obvious is it came out of Marco Rubio's mouth that that was what had happened. He couldn't have been clearer until he,

Dave Smith (25:58)

until he literally had a whole three weeks ago.

Pierce Morgan (26:04)

Let me bring, I, I want to bring Buckley back in, but I want to just, first of all, first of all, Buckley, before I come to you, I just want to ask Dave Smith about something that Mark Levin has said, because the reason I got you three guys on was because you all have a sort of different perspective about the, about Trump, the maga, conservative right, and so on. And Mark Levin's been leading the charge, obviously, for Trump and Iran and so on, and he's just called you out Dave Percy, along with Tucker. So I'm calling out Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Nick Fuentes and the other podcast reprobates and drawing a clear line between strong political commentary and what I see as reckless rhetoric. You can be aggressive, you can be passionate, but when commentary fuels distortion, extremism or confusion, it has real consequences. This is about responsibility in media, accountability in messaging, and protecting the integrity of real debate in America. Just before I go to Buckley, what is your response to Mark Levine?

Will Chamberlain (27:02)

I mean, Pierce, he literally goes off on this whole thing about how like, hey, you can be pointed, but you gotta be responsible about what you say. The video opens with him calling us the woke Reich. The video opens with him calling us Nazis as he.

Bill O'Reilly (27:16)

At.

Will Chamberlain (27:16)

As he. In the same episode, Pierce advocates for tech censorship because we're all a bunch of Nazis. He's calling us woke and saying that our rhetoric is too far. I don't know. Honestly, I've. As somebody who's read a lot of neoconservatives and war hawks over the years, and as someone who clearly is like, opposes them politically, I. And there's been some pretty dumb arguments advanced by neocons before. None of them have ever gone full Mark Levin. It's. He is, he has become a complete clown, like a caricature of himself. If he wants to call out, he said, he starts by going, I'm calling out Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. How about, like, come have a conversation with one of us. Let's discuss these issues. The bottom line is that Mark Levin is getting destroyed in the marketplace of ideas. And so now he's. He refuses to debate anyone. Tucker has made the invite to him. He admitted this. Tucker text him, reached out. Hey, it'd be good to lower the temperature. Why don't we have A real conversation here. We can talk about our disagreements. I've offered many times, but I'm sure Fuentes would, too. You know, you want to just sit here and smear people, and then when you're losing the argument, call for censorship? I'm sorry. I'm advocating for free speech and against a war. Pierce, that was a lot like the Nazis, right? That makes me a Nazi for not wanting to fight a war of aggression and not wanting censorship. Like, how upside down is this whole world where you could accuse someone else of being a fascist, as you support the most fascistic policies that are available to you every opportunity?

Pierce Morgan (28:50)

Well, yeah, and also I think. Look, with all due respect. Well, Buckley, I'll come to you. I mean, all with due respect to Mark Levine. I mean, his own rhetoric can be highly incendiary, as he knows. Buckley, in your chat with Tucker, you talked about what you saw as the erosion of traditional conservative values in favor of MAGA populism. Do you think we're seeing the beginning of a move back to a more traditional conservatism? And if so, who would spearhead that in the next general election? Could it be your brother, for example? I put it to him directly, and he kind of gave a slightly obtuse response, and I wouldn't ask you to speak for him, but do you think he could, as his brother? Do you think he could be the person that can perhaps steer the conservative right to a different place?

Buckley Carlson (29:41)

Well, I think he articulates it well and consistently and compellingly. But before we talk about that, can I just say, can we just lay to rest all the lying about how we got into this war and who influenced us? Please, Will. Yes, we all read the New York Times piece, but we all saw Marco Rubio actually say on camera that we did it as a response because Israel was going to do it.

Dave Smith (30:03)

That was the reason for the time, literally, discussion.

Buckley Carlson (30:07)

Everybody lied about it. Everybody has lied about it subsequently. And then the general counsel or a legal counsel at the State Department published a memo that declared that unequivocally. So it's on record. I think we should probably stop lying about it now.

Dave Smith (30:21)

I think, again, that was about the timing. And moreover, like, it's the Gulf allies who want this, too, in particular. That's like. If any of it's, like, the biggest driver of this, honestly. MBS and mbz, both of whom realize that if we leave and if we aren't willing to stand up to Iran, then they're going to be left at the mercy of the Iranians and They're incredibly important allies. Netanyahu's very important influence, too, in this front, but so are these other guys. There's a reason President Trump is constantly doing all this diplomacy with Arab countries and a reason they're coming over to our side again. Remember, the UAE just left opec, groundbreaking moment, really completely breaking the sort of resistance axis, using oil against us. This is yet another example of how things, I think, you know, you guys are blackmailing so much about the Straits of Hormuz and oil, like a remarkable event that means the UAE can massively expand its own oil production. So you can have a remarkably few of these things that President Trump is his own man. He's not some idiot. That New York Times article demonstrated it. And he went to war because he believed it was necessary to do this. Because left unmolested, Iran would endlessly continue their nuclear pursuit, and it didn't matter how many demonstrations of, like, military capabilities.

Pierce Morgan (31:30)

Yeah, but I think Will. I think Will. Hang on, hang on. Don't all talk at once, please. I'll come back to you, Buckley. I'll come back to you. I mean, the point I would make to that, Will, is that may well be true. Okay. I think he is his own man, and he obviously felt the moment was right. However, I think that Israel, through Netanyahu in this White House situation room and with the head of Mossad joining them, remotely painted a scenario to President Trump that if they took out the Ayatollah when they had this opportunity to do so, and the top leadership, that the IRGC would collapse from within. The people would rise up, there would be regime change, and everyone would be far too distracted to worry about the Strait of Hormuz. None of the rest, none of the rest of it happened. So it may well be that Donald Trump, for the best of intentions, having talked about this for many decades, genuinely felt this was a chance for all that to happen. Because the Israelis, through their intelligence, the Mossad, the finest intelligence agency in the world, by their own statements, that they painted a picture to him which he felt would happen, and it simply hasn't materialized. And I think that may well be the reality. Buckley, just coming back to my point about where this all leaves the conservative right, because it is fascinating to watch the American conservative right kind of eat itself alive a bit, where you've got your brother, you've got Megyn Kelly, you've got Candace Owens, all these people lining up to attack a Republican president over going to war against Iran, and you've got people like Mark Levin and Others on the other side staunchly supporting him. There's a real schism now in the conservative right. How does this play out, do you think?

Buckley Carlson (33:12)

Well, I think you define it well when those are the borders. And on the one side you've got people who were stalwart, not fans of Donald Trump, but fans of his program that he articulated so well and strongly and in the face of just overwhelming and murderous opposition over the past decade. And then you've got people, sham frauds like Mark Levin and others, Ben Shapiro, who didn't support Trump, didn't support the populist agenda, didn't support the program, were disdainful of him and the America first ideals. So, yeah, I think in the few, I would say there are a lot of people who are interested in having a Republican Party or at least a party that gets back to the principles that say let's operate on behalf of America and Americans first and foremost. Pretty easy to do, Pretty easy to make America great again if you stick to those principles. It's a shame that Donald Trump hasn't. I just want to say two other things. I disagree that Donald Trump wanted to do this, not only because he articulated it so many times and so aggressively and push back against the John Boltons and others during the first term, but I'm certain that right up until the moment that we attacked Iran in this non war war that we're involved in, he didn't want to. He was resistant to it. He understood that Americans were not on board. He understood Americans and his voters were absolutely opposed to it. And he understood that not only would be bad for us and American power, he understood it'd be bad for our allies, but more importantly for his own political agenda.

Dave Smith (34:50)

You're suggesting about Donald Trump was blackmailed. Just say it. You don't have to. Like.

Bill O'Reilly (34:54)

Those are your words.

Buckley Carlson (34:55)

Well, I'm not suggesting that he's being black.

Dave Smith (34:57)

What are you saying? Or are you just making

Buckley Carlson (35:02)

pressured. We don't have to speculate where that pressure is coming from because we were just talking.

Dave Smith (35:08)

Just say what you mean. Stop being a coward. Say what you mean. Stop being a coward. Say what you mean.

Buckley Carlson (35:13)

I'm not being a coward. He was pressured by Israel and others around him on behalf of Israel. Israel.

Dave Smith (35:18)

And so he couldn't say no to them. Why not?

Buckley Carlson (35:20)

I beg your pardon?

Dave Smith (35:22)

Why couldn't he say no to them? What's your theory?

Buckley Carlson (35:25)

That's you can speculate about the kind of pressure he's been.

Dave Smith (35:28)

How about you speculate? You're the one who's Proffering the theory.

Buckley Carlson (35:32)

It's not a theory, it's fact. It's already been said.

Dave Smith (35:34)

Oh, that he's being, that he's being blackmailed that he couldn't say no to.

Will Chamberlain (35:39)

You're asking him to speculate and then criticizing him for speculating.

Dave Smith (35:44)

I mean, like, I don't know, President of the United States and a billionaire real estate magnate. This is just Russiagate recircle. The idea that you guys pretending to be such great mind.

Buckley Carlson (35:53)

Oh, I like that.

Dave Smith (35:54)

Rehashing the democratic playbook of 2016 is just like so telling. Guess what

Buckley Carlson (36:03)

undermined America for. Yes, you know what, Trump's first term.

Dave Smith (36:07)

Israel's just taking the place of Russia. But it's a ten year old theory.

Will Chamberlain (36:10)

It's.

Buckley Carlson (36:11)

Can I just say this will.

Pierce Morgan (36:15)

All right, don't all talk at once. Don't all talk at once, please. I don't. Bring in Dave Smith. Let me bring in Dave Smith. I just want to say Dave Smith on this one point about what happens next. So Polymarket have the current prediction odds of JD Vats being the next leader of the Republicans as the nominee, 39%. Marco Rubio at 22%. Tucker Carlson is currently a third place on 6%. I heard Scott Galloway in his podcast yesterday painting a picture where he believes that Tucker is absolutely preparing to run for president. And that with his enormous online following plus his mainstream media following from when he was the number one rated guy at Fox and so on, and his sort of more traditional Christian conservative right credentials and the fact that he, you know, many people think he's more aligned to what Trump promised to be but hasn't turned out to be that actually Tucker might end up being the nominee. Could you see that happening?

Will Chamberlain (37:15)

Oh, I mean, well, if you're asking on inside information to Tucker, I mean, I am the closest to him on the panel. I would say that I, I don't particularly, I don't, I don't think Tucker is going to run is the impression I got. I would love that if he did, he would have my full support. No question about that. I think that there is this, this delusional attempt which I'm not sure. You never know with Donald Trump because he says everything. You don't know exactly what's in his head. But he has mentioned like at least four times that CNN poll that had him at 100% of MAGA Republicans or something like that. But the reality is, as you already mentioned, Pierce, he is, look, Donald Trump is about as popular as George W. Bush was after two disastrous wars and destroying the economy. He is.

Pierce Morgan (38:04)

This is.

Will Chamberlain (38:05)

He is conducting a war of choice that is the most unpopular war in American history. And again, Pierce, to my point, we haven't really seen what happens with this. Now. Now, I really think the best case scenario is that Donald Trump just stops. He does just let someone else figure out how to open up this strait. We end the blockade, we come home, we quit doing it, and we tell Israel we're not going to support them doing any more of it either. I think that's the best case scenario. But even if that happens, I still think Donald Trump is going to go even further down in the poll. So, in other words, the point I'm getting to is that I don't think Rubio or Vance or anyone attached to this administration has a shot at being the next nominee. I think if things continue on as they are right now, it's going to have to be somebody outside of. Of this administration, with the exception of maybe Joe Kent or someone like, who resigned and discussed when it was happening.

Dave Smith (38:55)

And I just want to say libertarian fantasy land. Libertarian fantasy land.

Will Chamberlain (38:59)

Sure, sure. We'll see. We'll see. Well, he's already.

Dave Smith (39:02)

We can make a.

Will Chamberlain (39:04)

Sure, sure, absolutely. He's about as popular as George W. Bush was. Okay. Anyway, so by the way, to Will's comment that this is just like Russiagate. Like, if you say Israel has influence over Donald Trump, that's the exact same thing as saying that he was in a conspiracy with the Russians to overturn the election in 2016. Something, by the way, that I have

Dave Smith (39:22)

a great Russia black. Do you not remember the pj?

Will Chamberlain (39:27)

Yes, but, but again, well, instead of

Dave Smith (39:29)

interrupting what I said using Trump.

Will Chamberlain (39:30)

I know, but if you just. But if you just let me finish my point, that wouldn't really work here. See the difference? And this is someone who every single day called out Russiagate for the hoax that it was the deep state attempted coup of a democratically elected president. Every day on my show, I called that out through all of Russiagate. And yet, you know what, Will? If Donald Trump had said, hey, these Russians who care about Russia more than anything else have given me hundreds of millions of dollars. And every day they come to the White House and they lobby me to do stuff on behalf of Russia. And I always say, yes, I always do it. Yeah, Russia Gate would have had some more legs to it. If there was an entire Russia lobby in this country who had been pushing for a war of aggression for 30 years, and then Donald Trump launched it. Yeah, Russia Gate would have some more legs. On it. I'm sorry, man. Just saying that there is foreign influence somewhere doesn't mean.

Dave Smith (40:20)

Dominated the national conversation for three years. You must have amnesia. What you guys are doing is extraordinarily similar. This is.

Pierce Morgan (40:26)

All right.

Will Chamberlain (40:27)

This is.

Pierce Morgan (40:29)

I think the difference.

Dave Smith (40:30)

Trump is.

Pierce Morgan (40:30)

Hang on. Timeout.

Dave Smith (40:31)

Yeah, time out.

Pierce Morgan (40:33)

I think this. I think the difference. The difference is in Russiagate, we didn't have. Neither did in Russia. Gate. We didn't have. Wait a minute. In Russiagate, we didn't have the Republican Secretary of State confirming Russia to the world in the way that we had Marco Rubio. Let me end by asking. Let me end by. I've got to wrap it up. Let me end by asking Buckley. The question I want to ask you, but a slightly different way, is, are you 100% certain that Tucker won't run for president in 2028?

Buckley Carlson (41:07)

I'm not 100% certain of anything. I don't have control over this or much else. So he's saying.

Will Chamberlain (41:14)

He's saying there's a chance.

Pierce Morgan (41:16)

Would you like him. Would you like him to buckle?

Buckley Carlson (41:20)

Pardon?

Pierce Morgan (41:22)

Would you like him to run for president?

Buckley Carlson (41:25)

Not especially. I'd like. I'd certainly like to help. I'd like him to help articulate exactly what the next president should be focused on. I think he's capable of doing that, probably better than really a few other people in public at the moment. But speaking of articulating things. Well, Dave Smith's point was excellent. And yes, I think Donald Trump should do the right thing and get the hell out of Iran and declare victory for the 37th time and this time actually mean it. But maybe he could also apologize to America and his voters while he's doing it. Maybe he could actually come to Jesus. I know we're not supposed to say that in public anymore, but maybe he should. He could repent for the mistakes that he's made and he could apologize.

Pierce Morgan (42:06)

Well, I think. I think Russell Brand would certainly endorse that final point. Wilt Chamberlain, just finally, are you prepared in six months time, if the Iran war has dragged on and it costs Republicans both halves of Congress, are you prepared to make a public apology on uncensored, for being so resolute in your conviction it was all going to end brilliantly?

Dave Smith (42:30)

I won't make an apology because I don't.

Buckley Carlson (42:32)

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big Wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good

Dave Smith (42:38)

in this world, stop with Mint.

Buckley Carlson (42:40)

You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.

Will Chamberlain (42:51)

@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

Dave Smith (43:00)

See full terms@mintmobile.com make public apologies. I actually have to wrong someone to make an apology. I think apologies need to be private. But I will, I will come on and concede error. How about that? Is that sufficient?

Pierce Morgan (43:11)

I'll take it. I'll take that. That would be intellectually honest of you. I got to leave you there. Fascinating conversation. Thank you all very much.

Dave Smith (43:21)

Thank you.

Buckley Carlson (43:21)

Thank you.

Dave Smith (43:21)

Thanks, Pierce.

Pierce Morgan (43:24)

Well, I'm now joined by the host of the no spin news, Bill O'Reilly. Bill, how are you?

Bill O'Reilly (43:30)

The same, which is tragic. Piers,

Pierce Morgan (43:37)

That is a great answer.

Bill O'Reilly (43:38)

Bill O'Reilly yeah, no evolution here,

Pierce Morgan (43:44)

not even after the triumphant visit by my king, which many are seeing as a precursor to us reclaiming the United States and you lot admitting it was all a terrible mistake and returning to a monarchy, a British monarchy.

Bill O'Reilly (43:58)

I think King Charles doing a very good job trying to amend the relationship between the UK and the usa. Trump likes the king personally. And with your other people leaders over there, that wouldn't happen. So it's instructive. We need to have the UK as an ally. So I think all is going in a positive way on that visit so far.

Pierce Morgan (44:30)

Yeah. I mean, I thought they actually have an unusually warm almost bromance relationship, don't they? They get on very well. They're around the same kind of age. They've both been public figures for a long time. They've both taken a lot of brick bats over the years. I think there's more in common with those two than people would perhaps like to concede.

Bill O'Reilly (44:52)

Well, Trump likes the monarchy. Good. As his mother. You know, I wrote a book, the United States of Trump, and I trace back he's always been favorable to it. But at this point, you know, NATO has just blown itself up and we got to put that back together. I think the president knows that and King Charles is doing his best. So the cliche in America is it's all good so far.

Pierce Morgan (45:22)

Let me ask you this, Bill. I got into a debate with Sean Hannity last night on Fox about Britain's failure to, as he saw it, to do the right thing and be full square behind Trump and the Americans in the attack on Iran. And I said, look, I think it was wrong that we didn't allow the United States to use the bases. When President Trump first asked, we weren't being asked to commit to joining the attack, just to use, let America use the bases. I thought that was wrong. But you know, we have long memories in the UK we do remember the Iraq war, the same kind of promises about imminent use of nuclear weapons by weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. And we committed to that. And it became a huge disaster, not least for Tony Blair, the prime minister that committed British troops to that. He's still loathed by many Britons to this day because of it. Do you think it's reasonable for an ally like the United Kingdom to occasionally say, even to a great ally like the United States, look, we'll give you a little bit of help, you can use the bases, but we're not going to join a war if we have a problem with that. Should you feel compelled as an ally to always just join a war in that circumstance?

Bill O'Reilly (46:38)

That wasn't the ask, though. The ask was just be accessible, let our military planes land and refuel. The ask wasn't send troops or ships or anything like that. But in a sane world, a world that really understood what was happening, every nation on earth would be aligned against Iran because it's no game that they, they are playing with uranium. This is no game. This is no Saddam Hussein situation. This is entirely a destructive situation that could take out hundreds of thousands of people. Now if you don't believe that, it's because you don't want to believe it. There's your belief is not based on anything other than you don't want to believe it. And let me make my point. So Mossad is a very, very good intelligence operation that has flooded the zone in Iran. And U.S. intel, the CIA and the NSA are equally as good and the IAEA based in Austria, Okay. All say the same thing. There's no dissent. The Iranians are close to developing a nuclear weapon. So if you walking down Piccadilly Square don't want to believe that, well, okay, but that's on you. It's not based on anything. So I'm a fact based guy. As you know, I look at the data and every nation should be trying to neutralize Iran. Every single one.

Pierce Morgan (48:34)

Let's turn to one of the other big stories of the week. They're kind of interlinked really. The White House Correspondents Dinner. I think you were there. This is the third time that Donald Trump's come under an attack of this nature. There's a lot of talk about the Secret Service. Doing a great job and so on. I'm not really buying that, Bill, because I see a Secret Service who have one job, to protect the President, who allowed a kid to get on a roof in Butler, Pennsylvania, 150 yards away and actually hit the President with a bullet and kill somebody else. I see them not checking a perimeter of his own golf course before he played it and allowing a guy to sit for 12 hours in a bush about to kill him. And if it hadn't been for one eagle eyed Secret Service agent, then he'd probably be dead. And now here you've got this deranged nutcase who comes all the way on a train from California books into the hotel where this event is happening. Nobody checks his room, nobody knows he's armed to the teeth. He runs through the security point which has a little flight of steps down to the main ballroom. Five shots are fired by Secret Service, none of which hit this guy. And in fact, it looks like they may have hit one of their own with this volley of bullets which missed the target. And if the guy hadn't fallen over, he may have got down the stairs and may have gotten to the ballroom and committed some kind of atrocity, perhaps even killing the President. None of this to me looks like a Secret Service at the top of its game at all. In fact, quite the opposite. What is your view?

Bill O'Reilly (50:03)

Well, on the butler thing, that was a massive screw up on the part of the Secret Service. The guy in the bush, you know, they got him fairly early. They were surveilling. So on Saturday night, I was standing at the doorway where you are permitted entry into the ballroom. 2,000 people, 3,000 in the rest of the hotel, 5,000 altogether. And I hear the shots, okay, and they're allowed. And I look up and there's an escalator that comes down from the main floor of the hotel into the ballroom that was manned, top and bottom. Okay? It was, man. Guy could never have gotten through that security that they had on the escalator. There were very few ways down to the ballroom. It's not like you just wander on in there. So the guy had no shot, pardon, a terrible pun of getting anywhere near President Trump. And right after the shots were fired on the main floor, the Secret Service stormed into the ballroom and covered the President. Now, I stood up. I wasn't one of these guys that was biting a carpet under the table because I've been doing this for a long time. And you got to see the story, which I did. And then I immediately spoke to the marshal who was at the bottom of the escalator about what was happening upstairs. And he had an earpiece like I do now, and he was telling me in real time what was happening. I can't take it beyond that. No. Maybe there was friendly fire and maybe the Secret Service agent was shot by one of his own. We will find that out. But I can tell you with a surety that there's just no way, if you're going to allow hotel guests into the building, which the Hilton did. Okay, how you can stop it? The guy came down a back stairs, all right? That's why he took the train from Chicago. He didn't want anybody surveilling him. But there was no way he was getting into that room.

Pierce Morgan (52:20)

In regard to President Trump himself, I thought he was. He was on great form with the king, laid on a lot of pomp and ceremony, a lot of history there, obviously with his family and with the royals and so on, which I think he loved that. That's him at his best. He was charming, he was funny, he was, you know, he was very convivial. But at the same time, this whole backdrop of the Iran war, the damage it's doing to him in the short term, politically, the approval rating has hit a new low in the last week. You've got, you know, prices for people at the pump and food and so on beginning to edge up again. That's likely to get worse, not better. In the short term, you've got the midterm elections coming. He may lose both the House and the Senate, the way things are looking, which would render most presidents pretty, well, a lame duck. You know the president, well, you talk to him a lot. Is he getting twitchy about the way things are going here?

Bill O'Reilly (53:17)

That's not the right word. He's getting anxious. When it first started, I said to my audience here in the colonies, this is the biggest gamble that Donald Trump has ever taken in his entire life, because things get out of control in the Middle east very easily. It's a very hard containment there. And you've got a brutal regime that will slaughter its own people, and you've got a lot of conflicting interests that the president's going to have to control. So what the likely scenario now is that the United States is strangling Iran economically, yes, we're suffering here, but we can handle the suffering. The gas prices are up and food will probably go up a bit. We can handle it, but Iran can't handle it. Okay, so you're going to see in the next week or so, I think It'll happen that quickly. The reports of more negotiations in this and that because Iran's not going to be able to feed itself. There's no food and they're not going to get any food in. So the President is relying on US intel and these people who say Israel is calling the shots. I mean, this is just ridiculous and they don't know anything. Okay, Israel's not calling any shots. The only intel that Trump acted upon was the location of the mullahs when they were first killed in the first salvo because Mossad knew where they were. But anyway, if my scenario and the President's scenario comes to fruition that Iran does give up, which it's going to have to do, it's just a matter of when, okay, then oil prices will drop very significantly and everything will go back to so called normal quickly. Now, nobody can predict when that will happen. There was a poll out yesterday from Harris Harvard that says in the midterm elections it's 50. 50. You would think it would be way to the Democrats favor. It isn't because the Democrats have no leader and they continue to do things that are unsettling to the majority of Americans who are not ideological. However, there's another poll out that says this is the worst financial situation for Americans in 25 years. So now you have battling polls, and if that 25% number holds, then the Democrats will likely win the midterms and that will be the end of the Trump administration.

Pierce Morgan (56:07)

Just finally, Bill, we were debating earlier in the show about who is the most likely to be the next Republican nominee. J.D. vance is still number one in the polling for that, followed by Marco Rubio. Tucker Carlson, your old fox colleague, is third now at 6%. What do you think? I mean, is it, is it unfeasible that Tucker could end up being the nominee?

Bill O'Reilly (56:31)

Look, I don't follow that world. It's an interesting world. But I have better and more difficult things to do, like gather facts so anybody can run for president. Donald Trump proved that. He opened the door for anybody. Any populist candidate in America now has a pathway. But it's inconceivable to me that the system in Washington would embrace any kind of social media guy. And I want to single out Tucker Carlson. It could be anybody. All right, the influencers. It's not the way it goes as far as Vance and Rubio are concerned. Rubio has momentum and Vance does not. However, it's three years, just about three years before the 28 thing swings into action. So I would say it's even money on those two guys right now. And there could be a few other populist candidates from the right that emerge, but a lot of this is just a waste of verbiage. You know, this one might run or that one anybody can run. But you got to raise a billion dollars, okay. And you've got to be a person that's taken seriously. So those are two things that are fairly difficult to attain here in the colonies.

Pierce Morgan (58:16)

Yeah. Finally, Bill, I don't know if you saw my any of my interview with Russell Brand, but particularly the clip where he spends over two minutes trying to find a passage in the Bible, which many people are saying may have been the longest amount of dead air ever aired in a television news interview. So I was just curious, have you ever had a longer period of sustained silence as a broadcaster during an interview with anyone?

Bill O'Reilly (58:44)

No, because I'm a blabbermouth. I would have filled it. But I believe that most pundits should emulate you and have as much dead air as they can because they say nothing. They don't know anything, and they don't care that they don't know anything. It's all about money. That's what it's about in America, and I suspect it's that in the UK as well. So just so viewers understand, when you go out on your own, which I did, and I formed my own news agency. Not a punditry. It's an actual news agency. We run a news program. And now We've expanded into YouTube and exploded on a lot of different fronts. I make a ton of dough doing that, Pierce. A lot of money, okay. And if you become famous in this area of social media, you can make a lot of money, too. And that's what it's about. So most people don't have the wherewithal to form a news organization. I did and I formed it, okay. It's easier to go solo and just rip up everybody and get your name on social media while so and so is smearing that or doing this, doing that. That's Kimmel's game. That's what the games are. They say to stuff, nobody watches them on tv, but boom, it goes out on social media. And you can sell ads off that if you have a platform on YouTube or any of the social media X. And that's what this whole industry is all about. A lot of people don't understand it.

Pierce Morgan (60:35)

Yeah. Absolutely right. Bill O'Reilly, great to talk to you. Thank you very much.

Bill O'Reilly (60:40)

Thanks for having me, Pierce.

Pierce Morgan (61:06)

Well, it just means you can't call me a British because I'm technically an Irish one.

Will Chamberlain (61:11)

That's fair.

Pierce Morgan (61:12)

I'll take that one. David, good to talk to you. Take care.

Will Chamberlain (61:15)

Good to talk with you. Be well.

Pierce Morgan (61:18)

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