Dark Predictions for NYC & Immigration Tearing the UK Apart | Piers Morgan

Summary

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The Rubin Report: Dark Predictions for NYC & Immigration Tearing the UK Apart

Guest: Piers Morgan
Host: Dave Rubin
Date: November 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this candid, unfiltered conversation, Dave Rubin sits down with Piers Morgan to discuss free speech, the decline of woke culture, political correctness in the US and UK, immigration crises, and the Israel-Gaza conflict. The wide-ranging discussion tackles the rise of populism, media responsibility, and how polarization shapes public discourse. The dialogue oscillates between friendly sparring and rigorous debate, particularly on contentious issues like immigration and Israel, while maintaining mutual respect and a commitment to frank truth-seeking.

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Major Themes & Discussion Points

1. The State of "Wokeism" in the UK and US

• Piers Morgan’s Book Title ("Woke is Dead")

  • Morgan clarifies that the title is more aspirational than factual.
    • “I don't actually think it's dead yet. I think we're going to be playing whack-a-mole with Wokeism for a while yet.” (Piers Morgan, 02:02)
  • Notes public tolerance for wokeism is “massively collapsing,” citing cultural shifts and polling data showing it's now perceived more as a slur in Britain.
  • Sydney Sweeney incident highlighted as emblematic of pushback against cancellation attempts.
    • “Anybody else who stands up to it, I'm gonna support them, whether it's through buying their albums or going to their movies.” (Piers Morgan, 02:27)

• Political Left, Islamism, and Communism

  • Rubin suggests “woke” ideologies have merged with socialism/Marxism:
    • "Now it has sort of burst forth into what its end game was, which was really socialism or Marxism or communism." (Dave Rubin, 03:31)
  • Morgan analyzes the populist appeal on the left (e.g., Mamdani in NY), relating it to Sadiq Khan's repeated victories in London due to weak Conservative opposition.

2. Immigration and Social Cohesion

• UK’s Immigration Challenges

  • Morgan argues massive legal migration (~1 million net in 2024) strains the UK’s infrastructure, especially NHS and education, exacerbating the feeling that Britain is “creaking at the seams.”
    • “We're a fifth of the size of the United States and yet we are having a net migration in one year of a million people. That's a huge burden to put on the infrastructure of [the] country.” (Piers Morgan, 07:29)
  • Critiques government policies allowing unlimited dependents with skilled migrants.
  • Distinguishes between peaceful, assimilated Muslim communities and ideological clashes in some areas.

• Comparisons to US and Broader Europe

  • Rubin fears the US (NYC) and UK (London) are becoming more unstable due to unchecked migration and inability of mainstream parties to address core grievances.
  • Morgan suggests the failure to control immigration has fueled more extreme or fringe actors (e.g., Tommy Robinson), but warns against simplistic “civil war” predictions.

3. The Tommy Robinson Debate

• Media Representation and Complexity
  • Morgan details why he’s critical of Robinson—fraud convictions, defamation, being a “woefully exaggerating” figure—while conceding Robinson was right on scandals like the grooming gangs.
    • “One thing he's not is a good guy... He was a convicted football thug, he's a convicted fraudster. It's not even his real name.” (Piers Morgan, 14:52)
  • Rubin argues Robinson is one of the few actually standing up for UK values, reflecting American outsider admiration.
  • Acknowledgement that government inaction elevates polarizing figures.

4. The Role of Media and Debates

• Hostility, Echo Chambers, and Debate Format

  • Rubin expresses fatigue with multi-guest shout-fests on Morgan’s show, questioning if the format helps or harms discourse.
    • "I view it now as it's adding flame... that nothing good is coming out of it." (Dave Rubin, 26:13)
  • Morgan defends bringing “ideologically impossible” sides together as valuable if occasional points of agreement are found, citing Bill Clinton’s negotiation style with Putin as inspiration.
    • “When you have the four people... about a big issue, I make no apologies for it getting passionate and fiery.” (Piers Morgan, 29:49)

• Differences in Left vs. Right Debate Tactics

  • Both note left-leaning guests often resort to shouting and personal attacks, contrasting with right-leaning participants’ calm.
    • "You remaining icily calm drives [Cenk Uygur] completely nuts.” (Piers Morgan, 30:27)

5. Israel-Gaza & Proportionality in War

• Accountability and Moral Complexity
  • Extended, tense debate about proportionality, war crimes, and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
  • Rubin presses Morgan on calling Israeli actions “criminal starvation” and “completely disproportionate,” demanding evidence of mass starvation and challenging the narrative of aggressive settlement expansion.
    • "So if someone killed your wife and your daughter... what would be your proportionate response?" (Dave Rubin, 36:51)
  • Morgan defends his criticisms, arguing the blockade and bombardment harmed civilians and inflamed antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, while repeatedly emphasizing his historical support for Israel.
    • “I believe the three month blockade earlier this year was a criminal blockade. I believe it was deliberate starvation of a people.” (Piers Morgan, 37:40)
  • Both agree Hamas is a “despicable terror group” and that the only long-term solution is political, not military.
  • Mutual frustration at international media access and verification in war zones, with Morgan calling for more external reporting.
  • Discussion on how both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have squandered opportunities for peace.

6. Accountability & Evolving Public Positions

• Media Responsibility During COVID

  • Morgan openly admits he was wrong about several COVID positions, particularly around vaccines and transmission.
    • “I was too, believing in what the experts were telling me. That will never happen again.” (Piers Morgan, 21:39)
  • Both reflect on the need for humility and the dangers of “overly censorious” stances, on COVID, on BLM, and on other rapidly evolving situations.

• Changing Attitudes and Adaptability

  • Morgan emphasizes the importance of getting people from all sides on his show to challenge his own (and audience’s) preconceptions.
  • Rubin notes polarization makes good-faith debate harder, and sometimes feels his participation in hostile panels only fuels further division.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the Resilience of Wokeism:

  • “I think we're going to be playing whack-a-mole with Wokeism for a while yet.” — Piers Morgan (02:02)

• On the Sydney Sweeney Cancellation Attempt:

  • "She's only got infinitely more famous and more successful... I’m seeing a lot more of that in England." — Piers Morgan (02:27)

• On UK Immigration Numbers:

  • “We are having a net migration in one year of a million people. That's a huge burden to put on the infrastructure of [the] country.” — Piers Morgan (07:29)

• On Tommy Robinson:

  • “One thing he's not is a good guy... There are lots of parts of what he says which I think he's right about. But the idea that he's the standard bearer for... a solution... I think is for the birds.” — Piers Morgan (14:52; 15:34)

• On Public Debate Format:

  • “I don't like it when it becomes too much of a circus. I don't like it when people shout over each other because the viewer can't really understand what's happening.” — Piers Morgan (26:30)

• On Shifts in Discourse Around Israel:

  • “I became increasingly critical of Israel. I've been steadfast in my hatred of all things Hamas.” — Piers Morgan (50:44)
  • “Do you believe that Israel is now a safer or less safe place for Israelis and Jews than it was before? I would argue... less safe.” — Piers Morgan (43:53)
  • “Not that I know.” (on whether Israel has prosecuted the war wrongly) — Dave Rubin (47:04)

• On Media Accountability:

  • "I was too, believing in what the experts were telling me. That will never happen again. I'd be far more questioning..." — Piers Morgan (21:39)

• On Remaining Friends After Debate:

  • "You and I can have a spirited fiery debate, right, without any problem. And I know at the end of this we'll shake hands." — Piers Morgan (51:13)

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Key Timestamps for Reference

• Wokeism, NYC, UK Political Shift: 02:00 – 05:40
• Immigration Crisis in UK & US: 05:40 – 09:30
• NHS Pressure & Population Strain: 09:30 – 10:04
• Solutions to Immigration Challenges: 10:04 – 11:28
• Tommy Robinson – Right and Wrong: 12:46 – 16:44
• Debate on Debate Formats & Polarization: 25:12 – 30:57
• Israel-Gaza/Proportionality Dispute: 33:20 – 49:01
• COVID Mea Culpa & Public Responsibility: 20:33 – 22:21
• Closing Comments on Debate & Friendship: 50:44 – 51:47

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Tone and Closing Reflections

Both Rubin and Morgan maintain a direct, often blunt style without malice. The discussion’s most heated section centers on Israel and the ethics of war, with each holding firm but listening. The episode wraps with an affirmation of friendship and respect amid sharp disagreement, underscoring the show's core ethos: the value of open, honest debate even between adversaries.

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End of Summary.

Transcript

[Dave Rubin]

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[Piers Morgan]

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[Dave Rubin]

Morgan Here we go. We have two interviewers and I'm gonna interview you. Although you never know. You could flip it on me at any moment so we never. Well the last anything could happen here.

[Piers Morgan]

Last time I was in Miami I was interviewing a serial killer for a crime documentary. I'm getting a very similar vibe.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, as you know, but at any.

[Piers Morgan]

Moment you might try and lunge at me.

[Dave Rubin]

I am noted as like the serial murderer of interviewers. So no, I'm glad to see you. Obviously we've done each other's shows many there's plenty of things we agree on, disagree on. I wanna kind of dive in on everything. But first let's talk about the book for a moment because it's called Woke is Dead and I was thinking it's an interesting title at this moment because it seems to me in New York right now Woke has just come back in the most nefarious, almost final form way. The combination of kind of woke and Islamism and communism and all that stuff. And then on the other side of it, Trump has eliminated a lot of woke. So tell me about sort of where the title came from and what do you make of.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, it's more an aspiration if I'm honest. I made the point in the book. I don't actually think it's dead yet. I think we're going to be playing whack a mole with Wokeism for a while yet. There are a lot of people who haven't got the memo. Mr. Mandani is one of them. But I do think the public tolerance of wokeism is massively collapsing. I mean, look at Cindy Sweeney, for example, as we're talking. She gave an interview to gq, a GQ interview.

[Dave Rubin]

We'll put her boobs up on B roll.

[Piers Morgan]

And the GQ interviewer clearly wanted her to apologize for the jeans ad. Sydney Sweeney was having none of it. What's happened to Sydney Sweeney since that attempt to cancel her over that ad? She's only got infinitely more famous and more successful. That's an example of what I mean by woke. Being dead two, three years ago, she might well have been canceled. Now people are standing up going, I've had enough of this. And actually, anybody else who stands up to it, I'm gonna support them, whether it's through buying their albums or going to their movies or whatever. I'm seeing a lot more of that in England. A survey came out today, actually reported in the Times of London, and it showed that the way the public in Britain view wokeism has markedly shifted in the last four years. So there's twice as many people now think that wokeism is a slur, not something as a badge of honor. So it was 24% thought that in 2020. Now it's 48% again. You're just seeing a rising tide of the way people view wok as now something that's more of a slur than it was something to be proud of being.

[Dave Rubin]

What do you make of the Mamdani version of it that we went from Woke, like all the gender nonsense and everyone's racist and all that stuff, which I'm completely with you. You know, the political correctness around that has largely shattered, but that now it has sort of burst forth into what its end game was, which was really socialism or Marxism or whatever, communism, whatever you want to call it.

[Piers Morgan]

In a way, you're seeing a battle with the heart and soul of the Democrats. I think looking at it from the outside, you know, New York is a Democrat city. The only two candidates who could possibly have won that were both Democrats. One's a moderate Cuomo, and one's obviously progressive, far left, brazen socialist. Mamdani. I think a lot of it was a bad choice of candidate on the moderate side. We have the same thing in the uk. That's why Sadiq Khan keeps being elected as mayor of London, because the conservatives keep putting up absolute doofuses against him. I Think you could say the same. I think Cuomo's damaged goods shouldn't have been the candidate against him. On the moderate side, the other winners for the Democrats, interestingly, that night, were mainly moderates, not the progressive left. So you're seeing somebody who is dynamic. He's very charismatic. He's very dynamic. He has never run a whelk stall. Are you familiar with welk stalls?

[Dave Rubin]

No, but he's never run anything. So I'll go with the guy in.

[Piers Morgan]

London, they sell whelks. They're like little cockle deals. Right. He's never even run one of those. It's like a joke we do in England. Right. You've not even run a welk stool, actually quite hard to run a welk stool. But he's never run anything. He's never done anything really, other than he is dynamic, he is charismatic and he can pull people along. He's a populist wokey. Right, Right. And they can carry young people with them. Right to the point of the reality check. I get the affordability thing. I get the fact young people are angry, they can't pay for stuff, they can't get rentals and so on. Of course, I get why they gravitate to somebody who says, I'm going to sort all this out. You're going to get all this stuff for free. But we know that doesn't work. There's nowhere in the world you can point to where socialism of the kind that he is spewing actually can work. In the end, he'll just have to do what the Labour Party's now doing to people in Britain, which is they promised the earth and now they're making everybody pay the earth for it.

[Dave Rubin]

So my fear is that New York is going to become London. Like, I'm really not.

[Piers Morgan]

London's not as bad as you guys all think it.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, every time I go, it seems worse now, not in terms of necessarily government control over anything, but you do have. You have a huge, I would say, Islamist or jihadist problem. It seems to me that every time I go, it's more visible and more obvious. Clearly there's some sort of cultural problem on the street. There's also a free speech issue in your country, which I want to talk about. But, but explain to me if London's not as bad as. As we think it is. What, what is the London?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, London, I mean, just. I always tell my American friends to put it in context, on the Islam Islamist issue, it is true. There are, I think, 80 something Sharia courts have been reported to exist in the UK.

[Dave Rubin]

So you have courts that exist.

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, but they're not legally, they're not legally binding outside of their own communities. Right, sure, but, but it's. Yeah, it's comfortable about. Because you obviously don't want rival laws being established in your own country where people in that community do not obey your own laws but abide by their own. Obviously that's untenable. We have a lot of Muslims in Britain, most of whom assimilated extremely well and exist perfectly well with everybody else and exist very peacefully. But inevitably, the more people you have from any community, the more issues you're going to have which are not so good. And you've seen that in certain parts of Britain. Now I think there's a general sense of communities where you feel like there's a clash ideologically between these communities and I guess you would say old fashioned British communities. And I think that's where the flashpoint has come. A lot of that is down to successive governments, conservative and left, I think, having appalling issues in how they regulated immigration. And it goes back to Tony Blair in the early 2000s, actually, the original problem, he opened the floodgates to Eastern Europe, actually, but then floodgates opened everywhere. Then you've got illegal migrants coming over on the southern border on these small boats from France. That's become a huge problem none of them can tackle. But legal migration, I think net migration in 2024 was nearly a million people. Now, to put it in context, you're a country of 340 million people. We're a country of just under 70 million people. We're a fifth of the size of the United States and yet we are having a net migration in one year of a million people. That's a huge burden to put on the infrastructure of country.

[Dave Rubin]

So what do you think the resolution of that is? The reason I'm not bullish on the UK in general is that I see no resolution other than what will ultimately be a violent resolution.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, I think people talk about civil war or something, I don't think it's going to come to that. But I do think you need to have a much tougher government run immigration system than we have currently, both legal and illegal. The big problem with the legal migration, we were letting people in who were highly skilled and might contribute well to society, but we allowed them to bring almost unlimited dependence with them. So they were bringing huge numbers of their family with them. And this puts incredible pressure on things like the National Health Service. Well, the National Health Service the nhs, which was the pride of the world, actually, you know, if you go and break a leg in London, next time you're over, God forbid, I don't want you to, and I'm not going to be breaking it for you, but if you broke your leg in London, you would get free health care in a very good hospital immediately.

[Dave Rubin]

We've got some decent hospitals here, we'll take care of it.

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, but I remember I stuck your.

[Dave Rubin]

Ankle on the way out.

[Piers Morgan]

Oh, hang on. I remember breaking some ribs, falling off. A segue, of all things. Can you believe how embarrassing that was? Of a segue?

[Dave Rubin]

That's pretty.

[Piers Morgan]

In Santa Monica. And all I remember is I was fitting in and out, I collapsed my lung, broke five ribs. It was horrendous. I was fitting in and out of consciousness and all I remember is a guy in a suit with a. With a form saying, can you pay for this? Right. But you don't get that in England, Right, that if that same thing happens in England, we treat you, Dave Rubin, we repair you and that's it. So.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, they would have treated you either way. They might have just thrown you to a different hospital.

[Piers Morgan]

Right, right.

[Dave Rubin]

They looked at you, they were like, yeah, this guy looks.

[Piers Morgan]

But they wanted my money, got some cash. And that's a cultural difference. So we're used to the National Health Service and at its best, it's amazing, but it was designed in the 50s for a population of 50 million people. We now have a population of nearly 70 million, so that's happened in 75 years. So the infrastructure of the NHS is creaking at the seams. If you start adding a million more people a year coming in, wherever they're coming from, you're going to start having huge pressure on the nhs, on the education system, on other public services. And it just. It feels like Britain, to me, the real problem, it feels like it's creaking at the scene.

[Dave Rubin]

Right, so just one more on this, then. So really, like, in the most granular way, what do you do? It seems to me that no one in Europe, because the same problems that you just laid out there, Germany's having their version of it, France is. What do you do? I mean, actually, what do. If you were Prime Minister, what would you do?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, it's difficult. I don't pretend for a moment it's easy. But you certainly, on the small boats issue coming in, which is, to me, it's part of the problem, but it's not like the problem, because you're getting 50, 60,000 people coming in illegally on the southern border. You've had 10 million come in in the Biden administration. So it's all relative.

[Dave Rubin]

They think it might be 20 million. The numbers are just impossible.

[Piers Morgan]

So they clearly just completely deliberately lost control of the border, it seemed to me. We've not had that. We've had successive governments trying to control it. We've got to try and do a deal. I keep saying, what would Trump do? He'd say to Macron, right, here's the deal. If you don't stop these people getting on these boats your end, which is the only way to really stop it, once they get out there into the English Channel, really, there's hardly any way to stop it. So you got to stop at the French end before they get on the boats. You just say, right, do what Trump would do, 1,000% tariffs until he sort this out. I suspect it would get sorted very quickly. Remember the backdrop of Brexit and how much ill feeling dealing that cause with the rest of Europe, with the UK coming out of European Union. So the French have no great allegiance to us now in terms of helping us. Why would they? Right. We're no longer part of the club, we've left the club. So it's like, screw you, you've got a problem at your end. We don't care.

[Dave Rubin]

They're not big on helping in general.

[Piers Morgan]

Exactly. So that's a very French response. But I would do the Trump response, right, just tariff the hell out until they stop it. In terms of legal migration, they're beginning to get there. But in terms of the assimilation of communities, I think that is. That's the problem that is rising down. I don't think you can have a situation where you have communities operating, as I say, with their own Sharia, law courts and so on. I just don't think that's going to work in a country like the uk. They've got to do something about this. Now, how you do that without inflaming a lot of tensions on both sides, I don't know. Because at the moment you've got people like Tommy Robinson, who over here is kind of sainted, let me tell you. I do not view him as a saint. It's like he's got a message that in certain parts of his message, he's right, in other parts, he's woefully exaggerating situation for his own gain and he's probably the worst possible messenger. However, when he talks about the grooming gangs in the north of England, which were horrendous and were covered up. And were all British Pakistani men doing this to young white girls? He's right. So there are lots of parts of what he says which I think he's right about. But the idea that he's the standard bearer for kind of a solution to this, which doesn't result in a violent solution, I think is for the birds. Because his whole history says otherwise. Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

So what is it about him that you don't like? I know you guys have a bit of a history and I think maybe you banned a show or something. Because I see him as one of the few people standing up here.

[Piers Morgan]

I know he wants you to see him.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. So I'm.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, he's incredibly disingenuous. Like if you. If you talk to Toby Robinson. I've asked him on my show now, every week I call him Bottle Job on X. Right. I was like, come on, Bottle Job. You familiar with the phrase bottle job? It's an English phrase that means he's got no bottle. He lost his bottle. He's got no guts. Right. And there's a reason he won't come on my show, but does everybody else's shows. Other people haven't scrutinized as I have, actually, his track record on stuff and what the reality is. Take the story he loves to tell on American Airways about the young Syrian boy who. Who he lost a court case to. He made a documentary about this boy and about how violent he was and so on and so on. It was full of lies. The Syrian boy sued him. He won. Six figure payout. He knows this Tommy Robinson, his real name, by the way, is Steven Yaxsey. He's not even called Tommy Robinson. A lot of it's a facade. He sued him and the film was a deliberate defamation because it was a breach of a court order. That's why he went to prison. He wasn't sent to prison prison because of a free speech argument. He was sent to prison for contempt of court because he repeated lies he'd said about this young Syrian kid, which were proven to be untrue in a court case, which is why the kid won the court case. So Tommy Robinson was to present himself as a great freedom of speech king. And a lot of Americans lap this up because they don't actually look into the facts of it. I just urge everybody, go and study the story, go and study the court case, study the resolution, study the contempt of court law in the uk. He knew what he was doing. So, look, I can't speak to that.

[Dave Rubin]

But what I can speak to is from an American perspective. When I see someone out there who's leading these marches with your flag, who's proud of your country, who wants to address all the things that you just laid out there as problems, I see that as someone that's a good guy. I can't speak to all 10 of the things that he's talking about.

[Piers Morgan]

I would say this. I think there are certain things he's right about and there are certain things he's wrong about. One thing he's not is a good guy, right? He was a convicted football thug, he's a convicted fraudster. It's not even his real name. He deliberately defamed this kid and then went to, to jail because he breached a contempt of court. So I don't think he's a good guy. However, on things like the grooming gang scandal, he was loudly shouting about this long before many in the mainstream media were doing so. And he was shut up. And there were attempts to silence him and censor him. And he was absolutely right about that. So, you know, he's a complex character, Robinson. I would love to have him on my show. I'm sure he watches this show. Ye, I think he likes you.

[Dave Rubin]

He likes me.

[Piers Morgan]

Right. So Tommy, if you're watching Stephen, well.

[Dave Rubin]

That'S good to hear.

[Piers Morgan]

Tommy, come on, you and me, one on one. There's a reason you don't want to do it because you know that I will ask tricky questions about a lot of the stuff you claim is your version of events, but we both know isn't. So look, I don't pretend for a moment he doesn't resonate with a lot of British people, nor do I pretend for a moment there aren't certain elements that follow him who are violent right wing thugs who just want to punch up and actually want racial lack of cohesion. But I, I do think that he himself is becoming a bigger and bigger figure in Britain because of the failure of successive governments to control immigration. So it's not like he's wrong about everything. He's not right.

[Dave Rubin]

I don't want to spend too much time on him. But I think actually if there were other people in your country that seemingly were standing up for your country properly and dealing with these issues, then that probably his face wouldn't be out there as much.

[Piers Morgan]

I think that's entirely right. And I think it's incumbent on the elected officials. I say to Tommy Robertson, go and run for office. You know, if you, you know, because it's interesting people, even people like Nigel Farage you now have all attraction with the Reform Party. He has no truck with Robinson. He won't take his. You know, they're very split.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

So it's not like there's a sort of. On the right, an agreed position about this stuff. There's not a lot of people view Robinson like I do, including Farage. But I think that it. It's disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to say that there are not certain things he's been absolutely right about. The grooming gang scandal was horrendous. One of the worst scandals Britain in modern times, and he was one of the loudest people calling it out.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you feel when you interview somebody that. So if you have some of the people on the other side of this, on the sort of more Islamist or leftist side, that you treat them in interviews with the same scrutiny that you would treat someone like Tommy Robinson.

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, I try and be intellectually honest.

[Dave Rubin]

Like when you have like a Blizzerian or Candace or some of these people.

[Piers Morgan]

I go after him. I did Bazerian. I went after him. I think in a way that it's interesting. I watched the Tucker interview with Nick Fuente. I won't platform for Entez and he wouldn't come on. But I accept Tucker's argument.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you know what just happened now? He's going to say he wants to go on because you just said that. Okay, so now they're going to clip this and that's what he's going to do.

[Piers Morgan]

Fine, then. Okay. If you want to come on, just bear in mind I will go after you about all the hateful statements you've made, including your love of Adolf Hitler. So it'll be a slightly different tone to the interview. My only critique of what Tucker did was I just think he gave him a bit of a free run and didn't pin him to the floor in a way that, ironically, Tucker did to me. When we interviewed. Interviewed each other in the desert, we played that clip.

[Dave Rubin]

It got bizarrely hostile.

[Piers Morgan]

But he was kind of tough. I didn't mind. I liked it. I enjoyed. I liked Tucker. But he was tougher on me and Ted Cruz than he was on Nick Fuendes and Vladimir Putin. There's a disconnect there. Right. Which I think is a valid criticism. Right.

[Dave Rubin]

Which then Megyn Kelly asked him about at the live show. And he basically was like, well, go ahead and do your own interview. Which is a little strange in light of how he treated you. But really, Ted Cruz, particularly in a.

[Piers Morgan]

Way I don't tend to critique other interviews for the purpose.

[Dave Rubin]

No, I don't. You can see it's not something I readily.

[Piers Morgan]

In a way, like, you can sit. This is your show, your lair. You can conduct this interview any way you want to do it.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[Piers Morgan]

I don't think it's really incumbent on me to tell other people how to do their interviews. Tucker has a massive audience. It's just I did notice he was a bit tougher on me than Fuentes.

[Dave Rubin]

So what do you make broadly of what seems to be going on with Tucker and in that space, putting aside how someone interviews somebody, just whatever is going on in that area right now?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, it's interesting. You've got Tucker, you've got Candace Owens, you've got these. And they're sort of behemoths in the. The YouTube cyberspace world. They've They've just basically gone huge. They get a lot of the algorithms.

[Dave Rubin]

Also seem to really like them, which is extremely interesting.

[Piers Morgan]

They do. And I'm obviously making a ton of money doing it. And, you know, I've taken on Candace a few times, not least her ridiculous campaign against Brigitte Macron, who she keeps saying is a man. I think the court case will establish she's a woman, and Candace will have to end up paying loads of money. But even then, she will, I can guarantee you, twist it into some kind of Pyrrhic victory for her, albeit she'll owe me $300,000, which is the current size of our bet about whether Bridget.

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, is that right?

[Piers Morgan]

Male or female?

[Dave Rubin]

Okay.

[Piers Morgan]

300,000 to charity dollars. I say that Brigitte Macro is a woman who's had three children. It's quite easy to prove she's a woman.

[Dave Rubin]

Public discourse really has.

[Piers Morgan]

I mean, it's just. It's just, you know. But, you know, I interview Candice a lot. I. I find it incredibly. She's very bright, she's very compelling. She's a great debater, very light. Tucker, do I agree with everything they say? No. Do I think they promote what I consider conspiracy theories? Sometime? Yes. The problem with just condemning all that out of hand is, as the pandemic taught me and others, one person's conspiracy theory can often turn out to be actually a bit closer to the truth than the people saying conspiracy theory imagined. And we saw that a lot in the pandemic. I fell foul of it myself a few times.

[Dave Rubin]

But you've apologized. I've apologized several times.

[Piers Morgan]

I've seen this because, again, you got.

[Dave Rubin]

To be so, you know, I mean, I've Because I've got the tweets here.

[Piers Morgan]

The tweets are still there. Yeah. So I haven't tried to delete them or hide. I owned my shame. And my shame was this about the pandemic. It's not that I don't think that the vaccines worked. I think they did. I think they saved a lot of lives. But it is true that the scientific advice that was being put out.

[Dave Rubin]

I'm not with you on that, but.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. But the point where I absolutely conceded I was 100% wrong and I blame the scientists, But I learned a lesson. Next time I won't be so compliant with what the scientists are saying. But there was a period quite early on with the pandemic when the science advice promot noted by governments around the world was if you had the vaccine, you couldn't transmit the virus. Therefore, the presumption for the public was, well, you're going to help save lives, because if you have it, you not only protect yourself in a way, but you're also not going to be infecting other people if you get the virus. So, you know, the grandmother at home is not going to get it from you. Yeah.

[Dave Rubin]

I just never believed.

[Piers Morgan]

Right. So that was. That turned out to be totally untrue. But in the period before it was declared untrue, and in fact, it made little difference to transmission whether you had the jab or not, I became incredibly censorious, ridiculously. I look back and I just cringe at what I was saying. The way I was saying it. I was too, believing in what the experts were telling me. That will never happen again. I'd be far more questioning next time, far more journalistic, I think. So unashamed, I said, look, it's fine. I got it wrong. And I leave those tweets up and there are certain people who just literally post them every week to clicks and it's like, why are you bothering? I've already said, I know I was wrong. It shouldn't have been done.

[Dave Rubin]

Like, do you think some of the reason that you missed it on Covid and like, there's, you know, BLM stuff that you've said that's kind of sort of, I would say, insane or really misguided. Do you think some of that is just because you came from the mainstream world, so the ecosystem you were just sort of circled around what I think is so many wrong people?

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, I think. I think, honestly, it's a kind of fine line, isn't it? Because I think. Think that I try and sit in the center. I think that whenever I've strayed too far left or right, I've normally regretted it. Actually. I think my position ideologically. I don't like to be partisan. I don't like to be positioned into a left or right political box about anything. I try and look at things with intellectual honesty as best I can. But have I always been right? No. Have I made big mistakes? Absolutely. It was interesting. I watched the Tucker thing with Megan and he talked again about how he supported the Iraq war. I vehemently oppose the Iraq war. We've all got our wins and losses in the causes we take. I'm sure you would concede you have had too. Right. So when none of us is right all the time about these things. What I learned from the pandemic was it's very dangerous to be overly censorious based on information in a fast moving health crisis or any story. BLM being another one. Right. Those who last sued themselves to Black Lives Matter, the organization when George Floyd got murdered in the way he did it was despicable and. And horrendous. For us to watch it all happening over the eight minute video, whatever it was, was an appalling thing. I make no bones about thinking that that was one of the worst things I've watched. And actually, yes, it should have been a moment of reflection for everybody about what we do to try and stop this happening. However, the Black Lives Matter movement that developed and the activists behind it, you know, I look at. I do think that, for example, although I was very censorious again about the January 6th riots, make no apology for that. I thought it was horrific what happened that day. However, have sympathy with those on that side is they got treated far more severely than any of the protesters. Beating up police officers or smashing up shopping parades and so on. So there was a real double standard between the way that the left wing protesters on the Black Lives Matter marches were treated to the January 6th rioters, for example. I can expose that hypocrisy quite willingly regardless of which side I see it. So, you know, I try and look at all things as fairly as I think I can. And I try. And more importantly, I think I get people on from all sides of the debates. So that even if I'm myself not entirely certain, you know, I do this with you, yeah, I'll get you on with somebody like Harry Session or wherever it may be and I'll let you guys go at it. And actually I sit there and my brain whirs and I'm like, well, which one of these is actually being more persuasive to me? That's why I think my show, in.

[Dave Rubin]

That case, it's fairly easy.

[Piers Morgan]

I think you probably do resonate better than Mr. Stitcher.

[Dave Rubin]

Although he kills it in the comments. Well, he kills it in the comments section in that everyone hates him. And if you just lay out calm things. Well, so let me ask you about that because I will be completely, totally honest with you. About eight months ago, I basically said to myself, I don't want to do Piers's show anymore because the way the debates go, all of the people, the screaming, the lunatics, the, the jank and just these awful people where you have a certain set of people largely on the right who come on that are thoughtful and can explain their ideas and wadjat and all these nutbags. And I really swore it off. And then I did do it again. I did it the day after Charlie died and I had to demolish Cenk the way I did with receipts. But I view it now as it's adding flame, it's just adding fuel to the fire that nothing good is coming out of it. And in a weird way, I don't mean that as a knock to you. I mean it maybe as a knock to what the Internet has become. What do you make of it?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, I think so, for example, if.

[Dave Rubin]

You ask me right now, Dave, you want to come on my show for a one on one interview the other way or even for maybe a one person debate, which I did with you in person in London, which, with the. With that socialist. And I enjoyed that. But the other thing I think has now become something that is not helping. That's just my.

[Piers Morgan]

Yeah, no, I think it's perfectly fair criticism. And I've seen criticism of my show where people say you're the Jerry Springer of, you know, political debate because you just want people fighting all the time. It's not true, actually. I don't like it when it becomes too much of a circus. I don't like it when people shout over each other because the viewer can't really understand what's happening. I do like fiery, passionate debate between people who are ideologically completely impossible that, that I love. And I do. And I do like one on ones and I do like, you know, just me doing an interview with one person. So I like all different time. This week alone I've had Cristiano Ronaldo week, right? Completely different vibe altogether. I went to Saudi Arabia and sat with two hours with Cristiano Ronaldo. The Greatest football player of all time, in my opinion. Very different, obviously to a four person debate with Cenk Uygur or you or wherever it may. Sometimes I think if the story. Look, the Israel war with Hamas in Gaza has been an extremely toxic and divisive thing. So I think you're getting a lot of people with big followings who only on their own world, to their own sort of echo chambers, pump out their views and they rarely get challenged. I like to think that what my show does, it brings together people on both sides of these debates, whether it's Russia and Ukraine, whether it's Israel, Israel and Hamas, whether it's Trump, whether it's Brexit, whatever it may be. Brings people together who have strong opinions and big followings. So they're getting a lot of traction anyway for their views. And they actually have to meet each other and, and go at each other. And when it gets.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think they're meeting each other?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, sometimes I do love it. I have to say. I do love it. One of my favorite things is when I can get a point of agreement. Right. Because I do think that democracy demands that we try and do that. I do think that a lot of people, they pump themselves up and they start shouting at each other, they don't want to hear another view. I accept that. But sometimes I do get to a place where people can agree on various points. And it reminded me, I remember talking to Bill Clinton when he had about a year or so crossover with Vladimir Putin when they became leaders around the same time. And he said the thing about dealing with Putin was if you just went out and hammered him in public, you got nowhere with him, he said. And we would have these big meetings, him with all his team, me with all my. And we'd go at each other really hard, but we weren't really getting anywhere. It was all posturing theater. And eventually we throw everybody out and it'd just be me and him. So it's an interesting parallel. Yeah. And he said we. And we go hard on each other. He's a hard guy. He said, but then we've reached points of agreement. And I said, did he keep his word? He went every time. Which I just thought was quite interesting. That clip's done gone viral quite a few times, actually. Peter might be a very different character now, but certainly it is. What I've heard from other people about him is he's extremely tough. He's very ruthless. He knows what he wants for Russia and so on. But you can get to a point of agreement and when he shakes his hand, you. That's a deal. Right. And in a way, I see that as a kind of microcosm of what I want to do with the show. I want to bring people together. Look, I want to do big one on one interviews. I want to do interviews with two people, one either side. They're great as well. Do a lot of those. But when you have the four people, two on either side, about a big issue, I make no apologies for it getting passionate and fiery. I just hope that rather than it descending, as it sometimes does into total chaos, that actually I can calm people enough where I can try and bring them to a point where we can at least agree on various points.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[Piers Morgan]

And then, then I think it serves a very valuable purpose.

[Dave Rubin]

Do you think there's a fundamental reason though that the people that tend to be left leaning in these debates are the ones screaming, yelling, saying all the awful things like it's very. Can you think of one instance where someone that you brought out on the right in one of these debates was doing any of. You know, he gets. But it's usually. Yeah, he yells a little bit, but it's like. But he's. It kind of. He's a comic also.

[Piers Morgan]

He does. But he can be.

[Dave Rubin]

But that's fundamentally different than a lot of the crazy shit that's coming into the left.

[Piers Morgan]

For instance, when it's you and Chang, for example, you remaining icily calm.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

Drives him completely nuts.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

But as a viewer, I really like the dynamic of you two. You might find it a little odd and unsettling to do it, but as a viewer, they think you've got cool hand Ruben. You've got mad chink going bonkers. I love check. I get on very well with him personally. Right. I do like him actually. Actually I go and have coffee with him in LA sometimes. He's a charming company. Right. But he just gets very wound up to the point his blood vessels start exploding. You don't. You tend to stay very calm. And I think the dynamic is.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I think when you tell the truth, it's easy to become calm. When you're a lying propaganda, obviously, you.

[Piers Morgan]

Know, he says exactly the same about you guys on the right. So that's what I mean. So if you're a viewer in the middle and you're not actually, you know, self declared partisan. Yeah. I hope you look at you both and actually sheet. Sometimes one will win, sometimes the other wins, sometimes you both get a win. It's an interesting little battle to watch. If you're not on the high.

[Dave Rubin]

So in that moment when I pulled the receipts out, when I read his titles back. So what's going on in your mind when you see one of those moments.

[Piers Morgan]

Is shut up and let Dave do his thing.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, so let's get into one that I have hit you on repeatedly on Twitter. We've had our little things back and forth and again, it's always respectful. But I want to show you one. It's a little compilation. It's about 60 seconds or so. Some of the users, rough stuff.

[Piers Morgan]

Basically waging war on a very small area of land densely populated by 50% children. And in the process you're killing thousands and thousands of children and will continue to do so. And I have resisted going as far as you have done in your criticism of the Israeli government. I resist no more. I think we've reached common ground about all in view is happening and has been happening through this period of this blockade, which frankly is just starvation of the people there, including so many innocent young women and children. And I think that the incessant bombing and killing, we don't know how many civilians have been killed, but it is on a daily basis. It looks like hundreds of people every day with no apparent attention. Seems to me to have any real plans for how this ends or what actually happens, when it ends. How many children have you killed, Pierce? Israel is not for children every single day, Pierce. This is a blood label you're putting on Israel. I know it's not true. No, it's not actually. And what you're trying to do is be very weasely with your words. No, I'm not. They then moved into a nearly three month blockade, which to me is a criminal starvation of a populace which should never have been allowed to happen. The bombardment one has been utterly relentless. All over Gaza. They're obliterated. 70% of Gaza, I think is completely disproportionate to what happened to Israel on the 7th. These hard, wide hardliners on the Israeli government cabinet, the way they've been talking about, quite brazenly and openly about ethnic cleansing.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so it's weird to even have to like show that. And we sit in a room.

[Piers Morgan]

Can I make one point about. I don't mind at all. I understand everything I said. But it's interesting you've only shown my rhetoric this year from the three month blockade on.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no. So.

[Piers Morgan]

And I would say it would be fairer if you'd also shown my passionate defense of Israel. Well, you addressed it to the maintain for a Long time, by the way. And used to get absolutely hammered by the pro Palestinian side in a way that I've since this year had more hammering from the pro Israelis signed so.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, you addressed it there. That's why we put that clip in. And I think that's just because there has been a shift. That's what I wanted.

[Piers Morgan]

No question.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. So I think that is kind. So first off, you acknowledge that there's been no starvation, correct? No, you don't acknowledge.

[Piers Morgan]

I don't acknowledge that.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, there was starvation of the Israeli hostages. But you, you.

[Piers Morgan]

Yes.

[Dave Rubin]

So where are the. Where are the videos and images of the starving gazin?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, I've seen a lot. But you would dismiss them all as fakes?

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, I wouldn't. I mean, you can. If you can show me one, I'll tweet.

[Piers Morgan]

Okay, here's my problem with this. So the problem is all the. My number one problem with this. You can say there's no starvation. I can say the starvation. The UN says there was starvation, but you guys don't believe a word the UN says. The other official bodies say there was starvation. You don't want to hear a word they say. Israel denies everything. And in the end, the biggest problem is that Israel will not allow to this day international journalists into Gaza to do their jobs. And I keep asking, why is that? Because you and I can.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, because they're virtually all activists, not journalists.

[Piers Morgan]

No, no, I don't mean Palestinian journalists. I mean international journalists. No, I mean the international.

[Dave Rubin]

So where are the media?

[Piers Morgan]

AP let in, The BBC let in. Sky let in. Well, it's also war zone. Yeah, but they operate in war zones all over the world.

[Dave Rubin]

But so when, so when this all ended a few weeks ago, when Trump does this thing, where. Where are all the thousands of starving people? I mean, we're seeing videos of restaurants that are.

[Piers Morgan]

Let the journalists to do the job.

[Dave Rubin]

But I mean, right now, where are they? These people have phones.

[Piers Morgan]

How do you know?

[Dave Rubin]

Live stream. What do you mean?

[Piers Morgan]

Do you see where they are?

[Dave Rubin]

Of course they're. What do you mean? There are plenty of videos.

[Piers Morgan]

They are not allowed to do their job today.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no.

[Piers Morgan]

And I have a big problem. As a former editor of a national newspaper.

[Dave Rubin]

The Gazans have phones and they're showing videos of.

[Piers Morgan]

You can say that no Gazan has starved at all. That's entirely your prerogative. The reports by almost every official body say the opposite. But you don't believe them. My view is you're entitled to not believe. Believe anyone. Right. It's fine. I have that thing with Meghan Markle. Didn't believe her either. Cost me my job. However, the best way to get to the truth is let journalists who are used to covering in war zones, let them go in and do their job. Particularly now we have the ceasefire. So let them go in. There is a reason the Israeli government is not letting the media in. And I fear. I know what it is. They are terrified about what the world will uncover.

[Dave Rubin]

I just think that's just, you know what I mean?

[Piers Morgan]

I just think there's one way to find out.

[Dave Rubin]

But there are thousand. There were quite literally, I think almost 2 million Gazans there. They have phones, they're releasing videos now. They're at restaurants, they're out and about. Why did none of the Hamas fighters, when they're releasing the people look hungry? A lot of them look fat. They have fresh clothes, fresh airplanes, lots.

[Piers Morgan]

Of images of Palestinians looking hungry.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

And you wouldn't dispute that 20,000 plus children have died. Right.

[Dave Rubin]

So whose fault is that? Because this seems to be the one that most people are annoyed at you about. Because you keep saying proportionate. That's the word that has bothered me with this. So if someone killed your wife and your daughter and kidnapped your son and raped and pillaged your whole community and all that stuff, what would be your proportionate response?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, you've got to get it into the context of why I criticize what happened. I do believe the three month blockade earlier this year was a criminal blockade. I believe it was deliberate starvation of a people deliberately denying them food and aid.

[Dave Rubin]

Has any other country in the history of the world been told to feed the people that if you look at.

[Piers Morgan]

The Navy Convention, actually operate well, but then no other country in the world to have the control that Israel has, has over Gaza. Right. Which again is a whole separate issue.

[Dave Rubin]

Egypt could open the door.

[Piers Morgan]

Of course it could. And it should and it should.

[Dave Rubin]

Nobody's annoyed at Egypt.

[Piers Morgan]

I don't dispute that for a moment.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah.

[Piers Morgan]

And look, I've always supported Israel and its right to exist. And when this happened, October 7th, one of the worst things I've ever seen. And I steadfastly supported Israel's right to defend itself, and I still do. However, I kept asking from early on, what would be a proportionate response?

[Dave Rubin]

But who has ever been asked to.

[Piers Morgan]

Have a proportionate response?

[Dave Rubin]

So they should have murdered a thousand people and raped women?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, let me throw it back at you. In the history of the Israel Palestine conflict, 75 years or so, there has never been a Response from either side to an atrocity by the other. Both sides claim the other sides committed atrocities. Right. There's never been a response, anything on this scale. So we had on October 7, 1200 people were killed. We had nearly 7,000 more wounded. We had 255 sick people who were kidnapped, including a baby, including Holocaust survivors. Absolutely, absolutely horrific. But the reason I ask about proportionality, show me another moment in the 75 year conflict where the response has been to kill 60 times as many people and where you have a. Well, hang on, let me finish. Where you have a government with people like Smodrich and Ben GVIR who begin publicly openly talking about ethnically cleansing all the Palestinians from Gaza, about annexing the west bank, about taking complete control of all of it, to the point that Donald Trump had to step in and say that is not happening. And credit to him for doing that. Sure.

[Dave Rubin]

Random, random ministers talking about senior people in the government. No, no, no. But them talking about things is different. I mean, I hear that, I hear that a lot. But is there literally, can you name one Palestinian leader, either Fatah or Hamas that isn't for a complete genocide?

[Piers Morgan]

Is there one that isn't in for a complete genocide?

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah. Of the Israeli people, is there one. Can you name one Palestinian leader that isn't for a complete genocide of every.

[Piers Morgan]

We under. No. Elusive. What I think about Hamas are. But I think Hamas are a despicable terror group.

[Dave Rubin]

But so what would its proportional response?

[Piers Morgan]

Well, my point is this. You have a unique population in Gaza where half of them are under 18. There is a unique proportion of kids in this part of the world. Right. So at what point do you try and find a different way to resolve this? It turned out that Donald Trump found a different way to do it. Right. Donald Trump did not agree with Israel continuing to just level Gaza to the floor. He did. Did not agree with Ben GVIR as Modric saying kick all the Palestinians out. Actually he wants to rebuild Gaza now and make it a prosperous place for Gazans to live. Right. But he also wants a two state solution, which I don't think Netanyahu wants in a million years.

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know that Trump wants a two state solution. Well, I don't think he can.

[Piers Morgan]

I think ultimately if he can achieve it where you can protect the security of Israelis, he would. Yeah, that's the only way this ever gets resolved.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, I mean, I don't agree with that. Well, the Palestinians already have a state. It's called Jordan. They have a majority Palestinian population. They're Ruled over in a actual apartheid by the Hashemite.

[Piers Morgan]

This is how people in Northern Ireland used to talk. Right. On both sides. You'd have implacable positions. We can never do peace with these people. They're terrorists. They're terrorists. They'd all loyalists in the IRA called themselves terrorists for seven decades. Right. And eventually you had nuclear thinking by Bill Clinton, by Tony Blair, by Senator Mitchell. And we managed to get to peace that nobody thought was achievable amongst warring people who lived amongst each other. Very similar to how many times to the Gaza, Israel border.

[Dave Rubin]

But how many times should the Israelis offer peace? I mean, I'm sure you're well aware that Bill Clinton says his biggest failing was getting Arafat to not accept. They've been offering 10 times.

[Piers Morgan]

I think Arafat should have taken that deal. I'm completely with Bill Clinton.

[Dave Rubin]

So. But, but again, what is a proportionate demand? So, so what would you, what would you demand if your wife.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, if I'm an Israeli. Here's my question. If I'm an Israeli or if I'm a Jew living out of Israel around the world.

[Dave Rubin]

Right.

[Piers Morgan]

And you know, I was in New York recently. It's more Jews live in New York than live any Jewish community outside of Tel Aviv, I've read.

[Dave Rubin]

Much longer? Not much longer.

[Piers Morgan]

We'll see. They're going to be. I look at it, I think, do they feel safer by what's happened or do they feel less safe? I would argue that the conduct of the way that the Israeli government has waged this war, particularly this year, has actually inflamed hatred of the Israeli government, but also by association, Israel, Israelis and Jewish people. I don't think it's made them more secure. I think it's made them less secure. So in all wars, Dave, at some point you have to have a political solution. The only solution that seemed to be being offered by Netanyahu, Ben Gavir Smodich and the others was to raise Gaza to the floor and to expel all Palestinians. Thankfully, Donald Trump sees it a different way and I thank God that he does, because this had to end.

[Dave Rubin]

I think you're having a disconnect between what Bibi and Trump think. I think they're completely. There is a line on this.

[Piers Morgan]

Netanyahu would annex west bank to tomorrow.

[Dave Rubin]

He's been in power for 20 something years. He could have done at any point. Notice he hasn't. I mean, come on. But, but he hasn't.

[Piers Morgan]

But it's like the argument we haven't dropped an atomic bomb on Gaza, therefore. Obviously. Well, if they wanted love and war. Right.

[Dave Rubin]

No, but I. But, well, there's a couple things here. I mean, first off, I don't think any country in the world has ever been asked to feed the people that are holding its hostage. Right? Like, would you. Has you. Have you ever called for any other country to do that?

[Piers Morgan]

Or anyone.

[Dave Rubin]

Has anyone ever called for that?

[Piers Morgan]

British prisoners of war in World War II were fed. Yeah, but what's the difference what prisoners of war in World War II were fed? So what's the difference?

[Dave Rubin]

Because they were holding hostages, they're holding their people. I mean, to me, it seems that you as a British. You as a British citizen, you as.

[Piers Morgan]

A British people being held hostage in.

[Dave Rubin]

But you. But you as a British citizen, if French terrorists came in and killed a thousand, well, what the equivalent would be? It would be many more than 1200. But let's say they killed 10,000 British people and they took your wife and killed your daughter. Would you be calling for. For a proportionate response?

[Piers Morgan]

No, but then why would you say.

[Dave Rubin]

Do whatever the fuck you have to do to get my wife back?

[Piers Morgan]

You should never ask what somebody who's just lost their family would do in that situation. Obviously, they're going to be speaking from a totally different.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I'm asking you hypothetically if they literally took your wife.

[Piers Morgan]

Yes, but I don't think it matters. What I think is the grieving father or husband of people who've just been slaughtered. Governments should be above that. Take a decision which takes everything into account. And the question I come back to is, do you believe that Israel is now a safer or less safe place for Israelis and Jews than it was before?

[Dave Rubin]

Way safer.

[Piers Morgan]

Is it?

[Dave Rubin]

Oh, they're external enemy. I mean, that's empirically true. They're external enemies. From Iran to Hezbollah to the Houthis, they're basically destroyed.

[Piers Morgan]

You know, there's been reports that for every Hamas fighter that's been killed, terrorist, I call them. For every Hamas terrorist has been killed, they reckon they've been replaced five times of people with the same ideology.

[Dave Rubin]

But that's. But that's like saying you can't defeat Nazis.

[Piers Morgan]

I agree. And I've made that. I've made that point. I've made that point. My. Yeah, but I just do. I do not think, in answer to the proportionate question, I'm very glad the ceasefire came when it did. I'm very glad the hostages got released. They should have been released, obviously, immediately. Should never have been taken in the first place. I'm Very glad Donald Trump made this happen. I fear if he hadn't got involved in the way he did and clearly directed Netanyahu to do this, the hostages would have died. And so, you know, again, I come back to this. What is. What was the Israeli war aim? The government said they wanted to defeat Hamas completely and they wanted to get the hostages out. The hostages are now out. Hamas is not defeated, but they are heavily dismantled. They've accepted they can no longer have power. The Arab countries around them have said they can't have power. The argument now is about whether they should give up their arms. I believe they should be compelled to do that. The unanswered question is, will they do that and who's going to put the most pressure on them to do it? I hope that it's a concerted effort by the United States and by the Arab leaders around the area who say to Hamas, you've got to give up your arms. Then you have the opportunity in Gaza for a peaceful resolution. But I think Israel will look back. I bet a lot of Israelis. So what would you bet? A lot of Israelis and Jews in the last few months who've felt that I've been absolutely right in what I've said. Not all. I've met others who said the same questions you're asking me. I think they're perfectly valid questions. I'm very happy to debate them. But don't be under any illusion. There aren't a lot of Israelis and Jews who agree with me that the Israeli government, which is a hard right government, Smodj and Ben gvir are not just right, right wing, they're absolute far right headbangers.

[Dave Rubin]

But meaning what? Meaning what?

[Piers Morgan]

They have to. Meaning what? They want to ethically cleanse the Palestinian people. Come on, Dave. They do.

[Dave Rubin]

They're in the government and they haven't taken an extra inch of the West Bank. They haven't. They're not.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, actually, that's not true. They've been expanding settlements left, right and center.

[Dave Rubin]

They haven't, you know, they have peers. Have you been to the West Bank?

[Piers Morgan]

You don't think they've been to the West Bank? Expansion of settlements on the West.

[Dave Rubin]

They build apartments. They build apartments in current places.

[Piers Morgan]

Has there been an aggressive expansion of settlements in the West Bank? Give us war.

[Dave Rubin]

An aggressive expansion of settlements.

[Piers Morgan]

Settlements in the west bank during this war?

[Dave Rubin]

No.

[Piers Morgan]

100% there has been.

[Dave Rubin]

Would you say it's a square mile?

[Piers Morgan]

I don't know the territory. I just know you say aggressive expansion of settlements, but that's Just.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, Peters. That's just.

[Piers Morgan]

But again, this is the problem. Okay, so here's the problem.

[Dave Rubin]

Have you been there?

[Piers Morgan]

So here's the problem.

[Dave Rubin]

Have you been there? I know people will love that on the Internet.

[Piers Morgan]

You say none of this has happened. You see everything to the prism. There's nothing to see here, G. No.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no, no.

[Piers Morgan]

Israel has done. Done no wrong.

[Dave Rubin]

No, no, no.

[Piers Morgan]

Have they done any wrong?

[Dave Rubin]

I don't know how to conduct a war. Exactly. I know. I know that if. I know that if.

[Piers Morgan]

It's not my question, has the Israeli government done anything wrong in the way they prosecuted this war?

[Dave Rubin]

Not that I know.

[Piers Morgan]

So that's the thing.

[Dave Rubin]

They're desperately trying to.

[Piers Morgan]

So you have a position.

[Dave Rubin]

Existential war. You do what you have to do for your people, as I think is exactly what you would demand of your government.

[Piers Morgan]

Well, except that when my government went to war in Iraq, for example, I led the campaign against it and I was proven right. Right. I think it's more complicated.

[Dave Rubin]

But that's a war across the world where there were no British people being hidden under.

[Piers Morgan]

The war didn't start on October 7th. This is a conflict that's been over seven decades. That's why I compare it actually to the war that was conducted between, say, the IRA and the British government.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, your government did, 75 years ago, offer the Palestinians a state for the first time, because, as you know, the Palestinians never had a state. It was the British man who was.

[Piers Morgan]

I think the whole way it was organized at the start was deeply flawed. But I also read a very interesting piece by a guy called Jonathan Friedland. He's a British Jewish journalist. Journalist, who said he could have written two columns about what happened in 1947. 48, 49, he said. And one would have been very pro Israel and one would have been very pro Palestinian. And he. He said that as a Jewish journalist, I think it was an interesting perspective, is that I've heard both sides argue passionately, but the crux of the combined debate is that it was very badly handled and should have been handled a lot better. You know, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes, but also hundreds of thousands of. Of Israelis and Jewish people, as they were then, but obviously became part of Israel, were displaced from their homes in the region. So there was a lot of displacement of people's lives, uprooting of people's lives, going on, and a lot of, like, enforced things by countries like Britain. You will do it this way. I think it could have been handled a lot Better then a lot of the trouble could have been avoided.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, let's not end on this. No, no, no, I'm happy to do it. I wish we had more time. And this is why I like. I prefer to do things face to face instead of with the screaming lunatics on the other side. I'm telling you, the expansions, like, if you can't even tell me they've expanded a mile, it's because you.

[Piers Morgan]

But I don't know the exact geography. But even a half mile, I do.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, no, they haven't done that.

[Piers Morgan]

But here's the problem. They haven't. My final point is, here's the problem.

[Dave Rubin]

When they say a settlement, someone built.

[Piers Morgan]

An apartment, denied all of these things, to which I simply say, fine, you might be right. The Israeli government's done nothing wrong. There's been no expansion of settlements. The wall's been prosecuted as the most moral army in the world going about its business. To which I simply say, let the journalists in. Let's find out.

[Dave Rubin]

I mean, again, you agree they should be people and dropping leaflets.

[Piers Morgan]

Do you agree the journalists should be letting.

[Dave Rubin]

Well, now, you could let people in. It's a little less dangerous. Let them. Let them run around with.

[Piers Morgan]

You know what, Let the.

[Dave Rubin]

These people have phones. You know these people have phones, Right?

[Piers Morgan]

Yes. I've seen loads of footage which contradicts what you're saying. You wouldn't believe the footage.

[Dave Rubin]

No, you just say you can. We'll stop the camera and then we could. Or. Or we could do it right now. I mean, if you want to bust out your phone and show me all the starving people. What I see are hordes of young men with perfectly cut hair who are in shape, with clothes that.

[Piers Morgan]

I mean, you don't honestly think that life for a young Palestinian kid in Gaza in the last two years has been anything but utter healthy?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, they unfortunately elected Hamas.

[Piers Morgan]

Who then? And I don't disagree with you about a single thing you're about to say about Hamas. I agree with every word you're about to say. Let's part that to one side. I'm not denying for a moment that they are a despicable terror group.

[Dave Rubin]

I think somebody said war is hell.

[Piers Morgan]

It is. But ultimately, you have to resolve it. And I'm very, very. Oh, is that mine?

[Dave Rubin]

They're giving us the signal.

[Piers Morgan]

All right, we got my alarm.

[Dave Rubin]

You got your alarm. All right.

[Piers Morgan]

That's my. That's my assistant beams in, saying, getting the hell out of there.

[Dave Rubin]

All right, 60 seconds left. Well, this is what it's all about, right? I mean, this really is what it's all about. It's. It's what we both do for a living. And it doesn't, it doesn't change my opinion of you in any way or anything else.

[Piers Morgan]

And you know, and here's the thing. We should be able to have a spirited debate about these things, right? And I don't for a moment that ultimately history will prove I was completely right about everything. This is just my honestly held view, though I don't come at it from a partisan perspective. I think if people look at my record over the entire war, for example, I've been very pro Israel for a long time. I became increasingly critical of Israel. I've been steadfast in my hatred of all things amass so people can judge me accordingly. But you and I can have a spirited fiery debate, right, without any problem. And I know at the end of this we'll shake hands.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, of course.

[Piers Morgan]

And if we see each other, you come to London, we go to my pub, we'll have a pint, whatever, have a nice dinner. It should never impact on that. I saw John's. Stewart said a really interesting thing last week when he was talking about, you know, if you've got like, very obviously he's a liberal. If you've got a big right wing, you know, headbanger of an uncle and it's Thanksgiving, do you snub him as a lot of on the left want to do. It's a big thing, the progressive left. You don't. Or you know, the same way that if you're a conservative, should you snub some progressive left woke member of your family?

[Dave Rubin]

Most of us would prefer not to get shot at this point.

[Piers Morgan]

Right?

[Dave Rubin]

Not being weak.

[Piers Morgan]

No, I agree with. Listen, I totally agree. Yeah. And the woke left war on free speech at the cornerstone of my book and culminates eventually in things like the murder of Charlie Kirk, which is where if you try and silence debate and free speech, that's what happens. And if you call everybody a fascist or a Nazi, that's what happens. So that's all covered in the book. But I think what's really important, the point he made was that even if you have an uncle and you're a liberal and your uncle's very right wing, that he may have other qualities like John Stewart's uncle has, which are incredibly great qualities. One, why would you pillory somebody or disown somebody because one part of their makeup doesn't suit you. That's where wokeism has taken us. I think it's taken us to a thinking that if you don't sign up to my worldview, I'm going to shame you, cancel you, disown you, destroy you, maybe ultimately try and kill you. That, as I point out to them, is the personification of fascism. And yet they would say they hate fascism more than anybody else in the world. So there's an underpinning hypocrisy that runs right to the heart of wokeism.

[Dave Rubin]

And it's that fortunately, I'm not a le leftist. Otherwise I could have poisoned your coffee. Yes, it was good to see you, my friend.

[Piers Morgan]

Great to see you.

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[Chris Gethard]

Hi, I'm Chris Gethard and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call. Talk to one of them. They stay anonymous. I can't hang up. That's all the rules. I never know what's gonna happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings, crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's gonna happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous.