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Unknown A
So we're asking for rare earth and.
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Unknown B
Oil, anything we can get. He doesn't care about Russia or Ukraine. So this is a robbery. Now? Tesla has lithium go in its batteries. Elon wants that. Lithium.
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Unknown C
I do think it's kind of gangster to try to, like, strong arm Ukraine into giving us what really isn't rightfully ours.
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Unknown A
NATO has generally been kind of a force for good.
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Unknown C
Yeah, no, I find it to be very immature thinking to say NATO's either good or bad. Pierce, you and Tucker had your argument about this, but if you want to say NATO's a defensive alliance, I mean, I guess except for all of the times when it's not.
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Unknown D
There's no going back from a parade celebrating the mutilated, strangled bodies of babies.
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Unknown B
What Hamas did is so stupid. But are we ever going to talk about the 15,000 dead children that Israel. Israel slaughtered?
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Unknown A
There will never be peace in this region as long as the Palestinian people do not believe Israel has a right to exist.
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Unknown B
When is it going to get through your head that Palestine doesn't exist because of the murderous terrorist state of Israel?
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Unknown E
On the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Trump is clear about what he wants. An end to the war. The US President has doubled down on his false claim that President Zelensky is a dictator and. And that Ukraine started the conflict. Zelensky says he'll give up the presidency for peace and offered to do so immediately in exchange for membership of NATO. If it's about peace in Ukraine, and you really want me to leave my position, I'm ready to do that. Secondly, I can exchange it for NATO membership. If there is such an opportunity, I'll do it immediately without a long conversation about it. I am focused on Ukraine's security today and not in 20 years. I don't plan to be in power for decades. Spoken like a true dictator. I'm sure we can all agree. Well, the US And Ukraine are also sparring over whether tens of billions in US Aid, much of its spent in the US On US Weapons, will have to be paid back.
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Unknown E
Trump's coarse words have muddied the waters, but the negotiating stance is becoming clearer. The United States wants a share of Ukraine's vast mineral wealth, and it also wants Europe, not Washington, D.C. to guarantee its security in future. And the president's personal attacks on Zelensky may be the uncomfortable cost of bringing Putin to the table. If he's not there, the war can't end. Trump said in a statement on Monday that the minerals deal is an economic partnership to ensure the American people recoup tens of billions of dollars. He also said that he's now in serious discussions with Putin about ending the war, and the talks are proceeding very well. Well, so far so good, but dealing with devils carries risks. Lay Baron. The latest chilling scenes from Gaza. Hamas turned the release of four dead hostages, two of them children, into a sick parade. One coffin contained the wrong remains.
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Unknown E
Others were stuffed with Hamas propaganda. Three empty commuter buses in Tel Aviv then exploded in a botched terror attack. You can believe in the art of the deal, but not the people the United States is dealing with. Well, the founder and CEO of the Young Turks, Chenk Yuga, host of the Part of the Problem podcast, Dave Smith for Free Press, writer and author of Second how the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women, Batya Ungar Sagan, and the host of Social Contract, and former Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh all join me. I'm also joined by the retired US army brigadier and a former assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, General Mark Kemet. Well, welcome to all of you. I want to start by playing a clip from an interview I did with the former British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. There is this weird disconnect by many in America, particularly on the conservative right, who do not share our view, who seem to think that Zelensky is the real villain here and that Putin was provoked into doing this to safeguard his own security because of NATO encroachment and so on.
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Unknown E
What do you say to that specific.
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Unknown C
It's totally mad. It's totally mad.
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Unknown E
It's through the looking glass.
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Unknown C
It's the complete opposite.
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Unknown F
And by the way, to say that.
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Unknown C
I had some role in persuading the Ukrainians to fight for their country is a great it's obviously totally implausible, but it's also a great big, fat steaming lie.
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Unknown E
Well, let me start with General Kimit on this, just from a pure military perspective. General, and thank you for joining me tonight. Who started this war?
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Unknown F
Well, first of all, I think it's pretty clear that the Russians invaded in 2022. There's some questions, I'd say, historically, about what happened in 2014. But if you're talking about what happened three years ago, it was clearly the Russians. There was no warning about it. There was no provocation on the part of Zelensky. There was certainly no movement of Ukrainian forces to threaten the Russians in the east. So this one goes to this one definitely goes to Putin.
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Unknown E
And in terms of where we are in this potential peace settlement, it seems to be more and more that the jungle drums are beating. I got this feeling from Boris Johnson. I got it actually from interviewing President Zelensky 10 days ago or so. There's a kind of general acceptance of various things, even if they're not being stated explicitly. One is that Ukraine will not, as part of a settlement, get full membership of NATO. That seems to be completely off the table. Secondly, there's likely to be a freezing of the territorial lines where they are right now, in other words, where they barely moved in the last virtually a year. Actually, that kind of Eastern slide, the 20% that Putin's taken, where things have been pretty well at a stalemate, that that will remain under Russian occupation, but probably not without any sovereignty transfer to Russia, and that America will recoup some of the money it's put up to help protect Ukraine and to continue supplying protection, perhaps as part of a united force, including Europeans, going forward by taking a chunk of Ukraine's mineral revenue going forward and minerals themselves.
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Unknown E
That seems to be where we're heading here. Is that your reading of this? And how workable would that be?
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Unknown F
Well, if you're asking me, first of all, the battle lines have been at a stalemate for almost two years now. I wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal in July of 2022 predicting that we are going to see this World War I fight Landers Field trench warfare. So nothing has happened on the ground of any consequence. But I think you've outlined what the basic framework of the American position is. And I think it's important to understand that the view from the conservative right is that if we're going to support a country in Eastern Europe like Ukraine, there should be a return on that investment, that the American tax benefit shouldn't have a total cost to them if there's a return on that investment, mineral wealth. I think that's where the businessman Donald Trump comes in. I think he described it right. It will probably end up as a frozen conflict.
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Unknown F
The Europeans right now are talking about not only a frozen conflict, but a situation where it could well be the people peacekeepers are put into the Donbas so that both sides withdraw outside. So it looks much like, say, Kashmir or the area between North Korea and South Korea. But that has to be negotiated. I think we're a long way from a settlement before we actually see what the architecture of the deal looks like.
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Unknown E
Yeah. Let me bring in some of the rest of the panels. Joe Walsh. I mean, I hoped and prayed that Ukraine could repel Russia, but my army brother, who I've cited a lot, but he was a colonel in the British army, fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and knows more about these things than I do. He said from the very start, there is not a chance that Ukraine is going to beat Russia. They just do not have enough firepower to do this. And he said that steadfastly through it to the point where I understood that he's right. And I don't think anybody thinks that Ukraine can now win this war. Which brings me to Donald Trump and his blunt instrument way of dealing with these things. We saw it in, in Gaza, we're seeing it again with Ukraine. I don't like the way he talks about President Zelensky.
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Unknown E
I don't know why he has to demonize him in all this. I think calling him a dictator when you're not calling Putin dictators is ludicrous. I think saying Ukraine started this is also ludicrous. However, if the bigger picture for Trump is taking a battering ram to an intransigent military scenario just painted so well by General Kimmick, where it's just going nowhere and excuse me, I spoke to Trump on the phone a few weeks ago and he told me about the reports he was getting about the killing on the ground and he said it was exactly like World War I, just big open fields and both sides gunning each other down, thousands of casualties a day. And he said this cannot go on. So I think he genuinely wants to end this senseless slaughter. And I not seen a better idea, frankly, to getting this sorted than the kind of scenario that Trump has laid out, which is we get minerals and we supply some security and the Europeans have to step up to and supply security and that's how we move forward.
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Unknown E
Do you see a better way of resolving this? Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. Our sponsors mean we can bring it to you for free. Support for today's show comes from Beam, who can help you out with an issue of utmost importance. Sleep. Good sleep, as I can confirm, is the foundation of physical and mental health. Our daily performance depends on it. That's why we are delighted to talk about Beam's Dream Powder. A science backed healthy hot cocoa for sleep is tested for high quality efficiency and formulated to ease your body into rest, supporting the four stages of a sleep cycle to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Many other sleep aids cause next day grogginess. But Dream contains a powerful all natural blend of reishi, magnesium, L theanine, apigenin and melatonin. It helps you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up refreshed if you, like me, need a good lie down after an uncensored debate, you can try Beam's best selling dream powder with 40% off for a limited time.
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Unknown E
When you go to shopbeam.compiers and use code PIERS at checkout, that's shop beam b e a m.com peers p I e r s and promo code PIERS at checkout. Now on with the show.
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Unknown A
I don't know, Pierce, but even if you buy that benign view of Trump that he just wants to end the war, I still don't know how you explain what he's done and said in the past month. If you wanted to end the war, then why are you only beating up on and badmouthing and lying about the country that was invaded? Lying about. Lying, Pierce, that Ukraine started this war. I'm coming to you today, Pierce. The UN Just passed a resolution earlier today on the three year anniversary calling on Russia to simply withdraw from sovereign Ukraine. The United States of America voted against that UN resolution. Think about that. The United States joined Russia and North Korea in voting against a simple resolution that says Russia get out of sovereign Ukraine. Every freedom democratic country in the world voted for that resolution.
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Unknown E
You know why America has voted against it? It's because they know it's not going to happen. And they are trying. Trump is trying. And I believe this. I think he is a guy who prefers peace to war. I think he proved that in his first term. So regardless of the rhetoric, which I think is very unfortunate, I do think that the idea that America right now in this process is going to suddenly vote with the UN which they feel is pretty discredited anyway, that they're going to vote with a UN resolution to kick Russia out, knowing it's not going to happen. How does that advance the cause of peace? It won't.
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Unknown A
It's a resolution, Pierce, honoring the third year anniversary of Putin's invasion. For the United States to simply say on the third year anniversary that it was wrong for Putin to invade and he ought to withdraw that, that seems like a fairly easy thing for the United States of America to do. But Trump can't do that because he will not distance himself from Putin.
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Unknown E
Biden wouldn't have done it either.
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Unknown A
I think he would have.
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Unknown E
Really. I don't think so.
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Unknown A
Would have.
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Unknown E
I don't think so. But let me bring it, Let me, let me bring in Batya. I mean, Batya, look, this is. We're at a very febrile moment in this whole war, but we could also be at the beginning of the end of the war. And if that is what is going on here and there's a recognition on all sides, it's got to come to an end. And we're now just trying to work out how that happens. What is your feeling about the kind of settlement it looks like is on the table?
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Unknown D
So, Pierce, I so appreciate you being willing to admit this about Donald Trump because you have been such a stalwart defender of the Ukraine, and yet you are 100% correct. Donald Trump hates war. He thinks it's totally wasteful. He thinks it's bad for business, and he wants this to end. You know, from the point of view of the American people, there has never been widespread support for this. The American people have never understood why this is our job to fund this. And I think Donald Trump expected when he came into office, to find Zelensky the one eager to have this settled, and Putin the one sort of holding off and being recalcitrant. And when he found the opposite, and when he found Zelensky totally unwilling to do the most basic act of gratitude and give the United States a stake in these minerals, I think Trump got very angry about that.
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Unknown D
Now, I want to address something that I think I agree with people. It seems a little mysterious. I hear people saying this all the time. Why is he demeaning Zelensky and building up Putin? I think the answer to that is because Donald Trump is a deal maker, and he does not view international relations the way that the liberal post world order saw things. You know, the Obama administration, the Biden administration, they have this view of diplomacy that you need to sort of have two equals at the table or as equal as possible. And so if your ally is the one who is stronger, you gotta bring them down a little. If the person that you're not dealing with is weak, you lift them up a little, you get people to an even, even playing field, and then you can make a deal. And I think Donald Trump sees things in the exact opposite way.
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Unknown D
He sees them from a real estate point of view. You're never gonna get a deal if both sides have equal power. What you actually is a power disparity, because then the weaker party has more of an incentive to compromise, and the stronger party is going to compromise as well, because they get to remain the stronger party. And I think he is playing Putin like a fiddle. He knows that if he goes out there and builds up Zelensky and makes Putin feel the exact same fears about NATO not being that buffer zone, and NATO, Ukraine not being a buffer zone, Ukraine being part of NATO. Putin will never come to the table. But if he says to Putin, I respect where you're coming from, I don't care about the history, I just want this to end, then that is what's going to get Putin to the table.
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Unknown D
And I think he assumed that because Ukraine has gotten $200 billion out of the American taxpayer that they would be willing to come to the table too. And I think he's very upset that Zelenskyy has not turned out to be that way.
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Unknown E
Okay, Cheng, you were laughing, but I mean, they could. That. That could be entirely accurate.
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Unknown B
No, there's no chance that's accurate. Sorry, Batya. Okay, so look at the beginning. This was a giant mystery. I didn't understand what was going on. I might have said this on your show, Piers. I was like, why would we be attacking our ally? Put aside the fact that they're our ally. It doesn't make any sense. In negotiation, you want to put leverage on the opposing party, Russia, so that they are willing to get to a deal that we can live with and our ally can live with. Putting pressure on your own ally who's in the weaker position makes no logical sense in a negotiation ever, Ever. It's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do. So putting aside any feelings about Zelensky and Russia, this isn't about that. Just in sheer negotiation, it makes no sense. Okay, so. But now I've solved it. Cuz it's clear now what's happening.
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Unknown B
Because they want the mineral rights. So he's putting pressure on Zelensky because he doesn't give a damn about what kind of deal Russia and Ukraine strike and how much land one keeps or the other. Do you know what's in the mineral? We keep calling it mineral rights. Titanium and lithium. Oh, what? Who needs lithium? Oh, right. Tesla has lithium go in its batteries. Elon wants that lithium. So the deal that they. That our Treasury Secretary pushed across the table to Zelenskyy when they were one on one and try to bully him into signing was we spent 100 or $200 billion in Ukraine. There's conflicting numbers. But look, we all want peace. We all want to stop spending that money. That's legitimate. The negotiations are perfectly legitimate. The drive for peace, perfectly legitimate. He pushes across a deal for $500 billion in mineral rights. And here's the most important thing that American voters have to understand.
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Unknown B
Those minerals do not go to us, the American taxpayers, the American citizens. They go to American corporations. We are going to get zero dollars out of that. But Elon Musk is going to get fabulously even richer. He wants that lithium and he doesn't care about Russia or Ukraine. So this is a robbery now. And that's why they're pressuring Zelensky instead of Putin.
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Unknown E
Okay, Dave Smith, it's a robbery. Piers Morgan Uncensored is now proudly independent. If you like the show, we ask for only one thing. Subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Now, let's get straight to the point. Support for today's show comes from a business focused on a critical issue. Prosperity. U.S. national debt is at crisis levels. Inflation has made life more expensive for everybody. And the stock market is precarious enough to make anyone's financial future feel grim. So what is the solution? Well, a simple one is to opt out of the chaos and invest in something solid and reliable physical. Gold and silver. And there's only one name you need to remember. American Heart for Gold. This company has earned the trust of thousands of customers with an A rating from the Better Business Bureau and glowing reviews. You can see for yourself.
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Unknown E
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Unknown C
Well, look, I mean, look, I don't, I don't completely agree with Trump's proposal. I do think it's kind of gangster to try to like, strong arm Ukraine into giving us what really isn't rightfully ours. And it's kind of rightfully the people of Ukraine, by the way. I say this not like as a commie at all. So when I'm saying right, I don't mean like the people own it or something. I mean like whoever homesteaded it or something about Lockean property rights. But you know, there's been this major change in Donald Trump's rhetoric towards Zelensky through the campaign and through the very beginning of his administration, he would always just say he had a great relationship with him and he thinks he can get a deal done. Something there has changed for sure. But in terms of the stuff, look, if you're trying to negotiate a piece to this and you accept that we're not going to get the Biden Nancy Pelosi pipe dream, which was always a pipe dream, your brother was correct about that, Pierce, that we were going to repel Vladimir Putin from Crimea.
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Unknown C
This was all just ridiculous. And hundreds of thousands of people died in the pursuit of this unachievable policy. And if we can all accept that, that we're going to get some type of settlement here, that we're going to have to negotiate an end to this war and that Ukraine isn't going to be able to defeat the Russians militarily, then obviously it makes absolutely no sense to sign onto these virtue signaling UN Resolutions. It makes absolutely no sense for him to be just out there insulting Vladimir Putin, which seems to be the demand from so many progressive Democrats. Like, listen, it's not a question of whether you think Vladimir Putin is good or bad. And I would agree with you, I mean, me and you do not see eye to eye on this issue. Pierce, I agree it's not, it's not accurate to say Zelensky started the war.
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Unknown C
There are many factors. But Vladimir Putin is the one who invaded the country. But the point is, if you have a hostage negotiation, if someone with a gun runs into a school and holds a bunch of kids hostage and you send in the negotiator, you don't start insulting the guy and just virtue signaling for no reason and talking about how terrible it is to hold kids hostage and what a monster he is. And I'm such a better person than him. I would never do anything like that. And the truth is you do in some cases try to flatter the guy a little bit, try to get the best deal that you can get. You're trying to save lives here. And I'm not going to speculate like Cenk did on, you know, I don't think this lithium is going to end up being turned over to Elon.
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Unknown C
And I think it's quite possible that Donald Trump does have some good motives here and that the truth is that Joe Biden's policy with regard to Ukraine is the most reckless policy in the history of the modern American policy in general. To be on a proxy war with the two countries with the not 90% of the world's nuclear arsenal to be in a proxy war over whether the Donbass region is ruled by Kiev or Moscow never made any sense whatsoever. And there have been close calls all throughout this thing. If you think about the Nord Stream pipeline, where we made the attempt to blame that on Vladimir Putin, which was never true. If you think about those missiles that hit Poland, which were Ukrainian missiles, which Ukraine immediately said was Russia, there were very close calls here. If you study the history of the Cold War, we came very close to nuclear war on a couple different occasions.
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Unknown C
And so I'm sorry. If Donald Trump is trying to bring an end to this war, then I think if he's successful in that, it'll be the greatest accomplishment of his life. And I'm all for trying to end this war.
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Unknown E
Okay, General Kimmitt, I mean, I'm very.
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Unknown B
That's not the question. No, he's misdirecting, though. That's not the question. We all want the war to end, and I don't need him to yell at Putin. I don't need him to sign anything. I just need him to do rational negotiations so that everyone on here is happy and the war ends. And I don't need, like, Ukraine to win on every negotiating point. I just want to get the peace. If you want to get the peace, holding up Ukraine for a $500 billion robbery, that is obviously going to go to help American corporations like Tesla who need that lithium. That makes no sense. And that hurts the cause that you care about, Dave, and that all of us care about.
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Unknown E
I'm not as convinced. Check. This is all just some play by Elon. I mean, I think if America could do a deal that gets a lot of Ukraine's minerals in return for the substantial support America's given to Ukraine and would then continue to give, it seems to me, a pretty pragmatic deal, Actually. My question for General Kimmet would be this, which is, I wouldn't trust Putin as far as I could throw him. And I think his actions in Georgia, in Crimea, now Ukraine, full Ukraine, all this suggests to me is the theory that many people have about him, which is that he wishes the Soviet Union had never been broken up, that he is intent on expanding Russia's territory, and that if he gets away with keeping 20% of Ukraine, then he'll either come back for more or try and get it somewhere else and try and expand Russia's power and territorial reach elsewhere.
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Unknown E
And I've got to say, I'm very cynical. I think that's exactly what he'd like to do. Am I Wrong to be cynical?
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Unknown F
No, I don't think you're wrong at all. Now look, he's paid a pretty heavy price in terms of what he's lost in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of dead, probably 10 times that amount wounded. But you've got to understand that the Russians can take pain like nobody's business. What he has lost in Ukraine is a fraction of what they lost in World War II. And he is testing NATO, there's no doubt about that. If he wanted to attack, he could continue this attack not in Ukraine, but up in the Baltics and take back that critical area up in the Baltics that gives him access to the Atlantic and the North Atlantic. The only thing I think that is holding him back is that it's not a matter of what he would lose. It's a matter of the fact that he goes from fighting one country, Ukraine, to fighting 27 countries in NATO.
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Unknown F
So I do think that he, he is, he does not think for a moment about what he's lost in Ukraine and the effect it has on his population. That's the beauty of being an authoritarian leader. But I do believe that he has those long term aspirations, as so many Russian monarchs have had throughout history, of expanding the Russian empire well beyond where it is now. But I will tell you that I disagree with what Boris Johnson told you about, and to use your term, NATO expansion. The fact is that one could make a legitimate argument that the Russians have had a paranoia throughout history about the encroachment of the West. The word Ukraine means the frontier. The Russians have always wanted a frontier between themselves and the West. And if you want to make that argument that there was some legitimacy of his concern of NATO enlargement, in short, try to dismiss it.
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Unknown F
I would remind Americans about the Monroe Doctrine. We go ballistic when foreign countries get anywhere near the United States, as we've done in the past. We invaded Grenada, that great existential threat to America. We invaded Panama, yet another threat to the freedom and liberty of Americans. And the only time we really had a legitimate reason for doing that was in 62, when the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles on Cuba. But let's be honest, Americans have the same paranoia about encroachment into our hemisphere as Putin does into his, what he believes is his hemisphere as well.
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Unknown E
Yeah, I do get that argument. I know it's the one that he peddles loudest with his own people. But I think the paranoia, stroke, desire to not see any impending encroachment as they see it on their border. It's probably real. It doesn't mean they're right to do what they did. It just means the paranoia is, is you can understand why some of them, if you feel that way.
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Unknown C
If I could just, just quickly add. Right, because. Because I think sometimes, and even in your question to Boris Johnson, sometimes people go like all or nothing with this. Right?
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Unknown E
I agree.
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Unknown C
It's not. It was. Was Vladimir Putin provoked? And therefore if he was provoked, he's a great guy and he was justified to invade the country like that. Those second two parts don't follow. But the point is, and I would highly recommend just to back up what was just said here, if anyone wants to go read, because the CIA director for all four years of Joe Biden's administration, who was the CIA director while this entire war was going on, Burns, right, He is the one who authored the NYET means yet memo that was sent to Condoleezza Rice. And this was not for the public. We only know about this because Julian Assange leaked it. But he said he was at the time he was the ambassador to Russia. And he put up this entire document where he was like, look, these plans of including Ukraine in NATO is going to be a disaster.
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Unknown C
And I've been over here talking with everybody in Russia, not just Vladimir Putin, even his sharpest liberal critics, they all agree that this is the brightest of red lines for them. They will not tolerate Ukraine being a part of America's military alliance. And I just don't understand why. No, of course we would not tolerate that either. If China or Russia wanted to bring Mexico into their military alliance and then just announced, as they did two months after this memo at the Bucharest summit, that they were going forward with that. And then there was. And then they poured tens, maybe over $100 million into a street protest which overthrew the democratically elected president of Mexico who was going to make a deal with us and then went in the other, we would have the execs. And I don't think Washington, D.C. would be above invading Mexico if that's what they needed to do.
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Unknown C
We would never tolerate that. And we could recognize that Vladimir Putin is no angel and also understand that the west put him into a situation where he reasonably could claim, I cannot tolerate what your plans are here. What's the point of us doing this? It makes no sense. It's not in our interest.
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Unknown E
Yeah. I mean, Joe Walsh, the other part I would add.
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Unknown F
And one thing I would add as well. Yeah, Bill. Yeah. What I would add as well as Bill Burns was working for James Baker. When James Baker told Genscher as part of the reunification of Germany, that we would not seek to expand NATO to the east again. Wise people like Bill Burns, James Baker understood this basic, perhaps unfounded but, but genetic predisposition closing approachment of NATO, Ukraine, their frontier.
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Unknown E
Yeah, Joe Walsh. I mean, the other part of this that I think is significant is we've got the British Prime Minister going to the White House on Thursday. The Emmanuel Macron was there Monday. And Trump is quite right, in my opinion, about the disparity between what America contributes to NATO in terms of resource money, weaponry and so on compared to the European countries. And through his own hectoring about this, many of the other NATO countries are now paying a lot more money than they were before into NATO. But he's also right that ultimately Europe should be moving quickly to be able to secure itself collectively from people like Vladimir Putin. And I don't understand why there's any kickback to that. I think the. What the UK spends about 2.3% of GDP on defense. It's nowhere near enough. We live in dangerous times. And I think that Trump is very, very accurate in saying Europe is not punching his weight and needs to do that.
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Unknown E
And you know, people dismiss it as America first isolation and so on. Well, yeah, but it doesn't mean to say he's not right. You know, I do think that many European countries need to wake up.
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Unknown A
Well, Pierce, and they have and they have. The last four years, while Trump wasn't in the White House, European nations dramatically increased their share to NATO. Europe has contributed more to Ukraine than the United States did. But Pierce, to this notion, has this notion of encroachment of NATO.
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Unknown E
Yeah.
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Unknown A
Excuse me. You either believe NATO's a good thing or a bad thing. There's a reason why countries like Finland and so many other European, other European countries want to be in NATO. It's a good thing. It's a defensive alliance for freedom loving democratic nations encroaching upon Russia. NATO's a good thing, Pierce. It makes all the sense in the world.
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Unknown E
But what about the point. Yeah, but hang on. But what about the point point Dave Smith made, which is surely correct. If it was America and there was a country doing this, I think America would respond very aggressively to what they would perceive as an encroachment.
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Unknown A
Well, again, that aside for one second, what are we to do? Finland wanted to join NATO. Finland now shares almost a thousand miles of border with Russia. And Putin screamed the high heavens that if Finland joined NATO, there'd be hell to pay. Nothing's happened.
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Unknown C
Never.
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Unknown A
What do we do? Here's what do we do, Pierce, if peace.
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Unknown C
The answer is obvious. Look, look, Joe, I mean, look, aside from this, I mean, I got to say, I just. I find it to be very immature thinking to say NATO's either good or bad. Like, I don't think that's ever how you should analyze the world. And, you know, you can say, I know you and Pierce, you and Tucker had your argument about this, but if you want to say NATO's a defensive alliance, I mean, I guess, except for all of the times when it's not. You know, except for Syria. Excuse me. Except for Serbia and Libya and Afghanistan. But, okay, if you want to claim NATO as a defensive alliance, look, what we should do is not expand it. And I'm sorry, but who cares if other countries desire to join Naito? That's not how we should be making these decisions. Of course, lots of countries would love to join NATO.
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Unknown C
I'm sure a huge majority of them, because, yeah, you get your defense subsidized and you get protection from the most powerful government in the history of the world, the United States of America. But that's not the question. The point is, why would we want to expand NATO right up to Vladimir Putin's borders?
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Unknown A
And look, the truth is that it's already expanded. Right.
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Unknown B
Vladimir Putin's border.
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Unknown C
I didn't say it was.
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Unknown A
If you can't. David. But, Dave, again, every time I'm on with you, you accuse me of immature thinking. Granted, nothing is totally black and white, but would you not say, generally, over the course of history. Here we go again. NATO has generally been kind of a force for good. Yeah. No, no, you can't say that. Okay.
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Unknown B
Yeah, okay.
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Unknown C
No, I don't. I don't agree with that. I don't believe that NATO has been a force for good. I believe it's the. It's the exact type. It's the exact type of entangling that our founders were unanimous in recommending that we don't get involved in. And Cenk, you can. You can say I'm wrong, but, dude, you're as anti war as I am, so why are you standing up for the.
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Unknown B
Let me tell you why.
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Unknown C
American empire.
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Unknown E
You know what?
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Unknown A
This is Davey saying we're both.
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Unknown B
No, hold on. So. So listen, listen. I know you're both wrong and you're both right. So. So, listen, I love. First of all, just quick side note here that nobody can tell who's left or right anymore.
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Unknown E
This is beautiful. That's exactly what I was thinking. The whole political Pendulum has completely gone crazy. Where, if you. If we had this debate 20 years ago, everyone would have known who the right are and who the left are. It is impossible anymore to define people in the way that we used to. And I like that.
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Unknown B
I love it. I love it because we're now using our minds and independent judgment and actually talking about policy rather than strict ideology on either side. So now, look, I agree with Joe. The UN Is very important. I know I'm a lone voice here these days in American media, but I 100% believe in the world working together. I think NATO is very important. I'm very supportive of NATO, and I think it has definitely been a force for good and has protected the alliance. Having said that, Dave is right. Just because you like NATO doesn't mean that NATO has to get closer and closer to Russia. I mean, Joe, you were saying that if you like NATO, then you should be for NATO expansion. How about if NATO said, okay, we'd like to expand into Chechnya in the middle of Russia? That's mental. That doesn't help the alliance.
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Unknown B
It hurts the alliance. It makes our job of defending both Europe and America harder, not easier. If we go and randomly put Taiwan in NATO, that makes no sense. So we've got to be judicious about who we put into NATO. And then now, when we get back to, okay, NATO and America and Russia, the opposite side have to get to an agreement, and that's good. We're all going to save money. We're all going to get to peace. We're going to save lives. We have to get to an agreement. But back to the negotiation. If two companies are having trouble getting to an agreement and they bring me in as a mediator, and then instead of helping them get to an agreement, I go, now I want money for my company. Well, that doesn't help the negotiations at all. It makes the mediation and the negotiation much more difficult.
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Unknown B
Because now you've entered a third party in there that had no business there, and he's demanding, like, some outrageous number, and then he starts attacking the people who brought him into the negotiation.
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Unknown E
Just.
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Unknown B
So, look, we all want to get the case without encroaching on Russia.
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Unknown C
But, Jake, it makes no sense to see America as the neutral negotiator in that. Like, we're not coming into a deal to. To broker a piece. We are the other side of the negotiating table. Ukraine would have had to do whatever Russia wanted to do if we didn't give them a blank check. So it's just not exactly analogous I mean, look, again, I think, Dave, I.
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Unknown B
Agree with you on that, but then why are we attacking our own ally? That doesn't make any sense at all, other than the mineral rights. Lithium is in the batteries in Tesla, just in case you don't know.
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Unknown C
Well, this is. Well, also, I mean, never underestimate the fact that we are dealing with Donald Trump here. And if you said something to piss him off, he didn't attack you for a couple weeks.
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Unknown E
You know, on that very point.
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Unknown B
There was about the money.
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Unknown E
Well, there was a report in the Financial Times actually overnight. Right to that point, Dave, which was that apparently Zelensky, when he was first told that the Americans wanted half, $500 billion worth of minerals, lost his rag so spectacularly with whichever American official was relaying this information. You could hear his voice apparently screaming down the corridors. And that presumably got relayed to Trump, who already has a bit of a bad feeling about Zelensky, going right back to when he first came into power. And the whole thing with Hunter Biden and Trump is, you know, he does take stuff very personally. I always say he's got the thickest skin of anyone I've ever seen in public life, soaking up stuff that would kill anybody else. But he also has the thinnest and he harbors grudges, and he'll use that against him. And I think that's a lot of what's going on with Zelensky I think he took against him personally.
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Unknown E
But that doesn't mean that ultimately at the end of all this, there might not be the best possible deal that Ukraine right now could probably hope for, which may involve a bit of transaction on minerals, but ultimately may bring the war to an end that's killing so many of their people. Anyway, look, I want to change just briefly to the other war, which we mustn't forget, which is the war between Israel and Hamas. And Bassey, I'll start with you on this. Netanyahu has suspended the release of Palestinian prisoners because of the, as he puts it, the repeated violations by Hamas involving the ceremonies which he says have been dishonoring the Israeli hostages, cynically using them for propaganda. So he's now delayed the release of the, of the 600. I think it was Palestinians that were due to be released in exchange. Now, that's obviously a ratcheting up of tensions here, but I've got to say, just watching this from a distance, these scenes of Hamas in full force with all their regalia, putting coffins of babies underneath, pictures of Netanyahu looking like the Devil beaming that to the world, sending back the wrong remains of
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Unknown E
that poor woman whose children were also murdered, etc. Forcing one of the released hostages, it seems, to kiss Hamas terrorists standing there. You know, we got to. I'll show that clip, actually, before we discuss that, let's just watch that moment. Now, you heard the deafening rolls of approval there for what appears to be a consideratory kiss by this hostage, Omar Shem Tov. But his father's come out and said he did it under duress. He was forced to do it. We don't know yet. We want to hear it from him, but it certainly looked that way. Somebody goes up to him, talks to him, and the next thing, he's doing that for the cameras. And it's obviously a huge propaganda moment for Hamas. So, I mean, Basia, it's all messy, it's all horrible, but the overriding imagery is that Hamas haven't gone anywhere. This war was supposed to be the end of Hamas.
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Unknown E
They don't look like they're over and they look like they have a lot of popularity still with Palestinian people in Gaza.
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Unknown D
You know, it says in Genesis, God tells Abraham, whoever blesses you will be blessed and whoever curses you will be cursed. Cursed. And I keep thinking of this as the perfect metaphor for those scenes from that parade. Because of course, to attend a parade in which the bodies of babies which have been strangled and mutilated are celebrated is accursed, right? To bring a child to a parade celebrating the strangling and mutilation of babies bodies is cursed. To live under a barbaric rule like Hamas that would put on a show like that is to be cursed. To be so morally then Israel's 10,000 times more cursed punishment. And I think that is the point here, Pierce. This is the beginning of the end, not just of Hamas, but of the left that defended them. Because, you know, the left thinks Israel is the Palestinians curse. It is the left who have cursed the Palestinians with their support because they are prolonging the moral depravity that has earned the disgust of every good human being on planet earth.
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Unknown D
And I am so grateful that my government, Donald Trump, the United States of America, stands with the Jewish people against such pure, absolute evil because it truly is going to be a new era. There is no going back from a parade celebrating the mutilated, strangled bodies of babies.
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Unknown E
Okay, Chang.
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Unknown B
Yeah, so what Hamas did is so stupid, and I totally agree that it's immoral, but are we ever going to talk about the 15,000 dead children that Israel slaughtered? You Want to talk about cursed? If you think the Palestinians are cursed because of 36 children killed during October 7, how cursed is Israel for the 15,000 children that they slaughtered? They crushed their skulls. They lit them on fire. They destroyed and killed tens of thousands of children. And now you're saying, oh, my God. Because I see one with my own eyes. That's Israeli. Oh, the Israeli lives are worth what, 10,000 Palestinian children? 100,000 Palestinians? Is there any number of Palestinian children that you would have any sympathy for? So screw Hamas, but that does not justify Israel. Slaughter after slaughter after slaughter, and go, oh, yeah, Hamas made me do it. Hamas didn't make you do it.
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Unknown B
Israel is reveling in it. It is now a terrorist state. It's rolling tanks into the West Bank. They've taken Trump's ridiculous plan in Gaza as a green light. And of course, this was all arranged ahead of time. That's why Netanyahu supported Trump. That's why Trump got $337 million from the Adelson family. So now they're rolling tanks into the west bank to slaughter more Palestinian children. So I hate that both sides are doing this, and I hate that Israel is doing it 10,000. No, 15,000 times more, because that's how many more babies they've killed and children that they've killed than the one that the entire US And Western media is focused on. Can we not see that when it's an Israeli baby, that the whole world is like, this is the most important thing in the world? But I don't. And I don't mind that 1%, but then don't tell me that 50,000 parades.
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Unknown D
Were there in Israel celebrating the casualties in Gaza. I mean, how many parades were there, Israelis celebrating slaughter and dodging.
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Unknown E
All right, let me bring in. All right, let me bring in Dave Smith. We bring in Dave.
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Unknown C
Well, because I actually think. Listen. But first off, let me just say I almost. Look, that was sickening, that video, the reports of what was done to these hostages. And I don't know that this. All this evidence has actually been released. And we'll maybe find out at some point, but it's all sickening and horrible, and I hate to even use it to then try to win a political argument after it. I mean, it's just. It is. Look, there is no questioning. It is sickening to see, like, a big crowd celebrating these things. I do think, like, Bach, you make. You make a fair point. It's like, yeah, okay, we don't exactly. We don't exactly see the same type of kind of primitive brutality on the Israeli side. There is this tremendous bias, though, I think toward. I don't know exactly how to say this. It's like a.
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Unknown C
More an anti barbaric bias. So when if Hamas runs in and is just gunning down random people, there's something where that triggers a certain reaction out of something. Whereas, you know, collateral damage or targeted strikes don't trigger that same response from people. The thing is that, like, if it's your kid on the side of that collateral damage, it probably feels awfully similar. And so when you ask, like, are there parades where, you know, for say like Israeli hostages or prisoners or whatever they want to call them? No. I have seen Israeli politicians as well as American politicians signing the bombs, including Nikki Haley before they get launched into Gaza. I don't know. I mean, I find that pretty sickening also. And like, to Jenk's point, there is just like a. Don't get me wrong, okay? I'm trying to like be as charitable to you as I can.
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Unknown C
I would rather be next door neighbors with like an IDF soldier than a Hamas militant. Okay, like there is a difference between the two. But when you're talking about the level of human suffering that Israel has inflicted on the people who were not members of Hamas, who were probably more victims of Hamas than anyone in Israel was, on larger numbers at least there is just like, I'm sorry, it does seem after a while, like a lot, as I say all the time, a lot of the people on the pro Israel side just value Israeli life more than they do Palestinian life. And that is your right. That is your right. You know, there is. I understand. I value my children's life more than I value other children's lives. That's okay. That's my right. It's not reasonable for me to require the law or politicians to value my children's life more than other children's lives.
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Unknown C
And I think that's the essence.
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Unknown E
Let me, let me bring in, I want to ask General Kimmy, can I just respond. Well, very quickly, very quickly. Yeah, we're running out of time.
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Unknown D
Very quickly. Dave, the whole of our civilization is based on the difference between barbaric physical violence inflicted by one human against another and the kind of collateral damage that tragically happens from justified warfare as long as it is proportionate. Now, we could debate that. We have debated. The question of proportion is based on that distinction.
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Unknown E
That's it.
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Unknown C
I have.
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Unknown E
I have from the start of this Western civilization. Hang on one second, hang on. I have said from the start of this war that there were two things that really concerned me. One was proportionality, right? We know that 1200 people were killed on October 7th, and another 7000 were wounded. 1200 were killed, of whom a smallish, relatively smallish number were children. What we've seen, and obviously 250 more were kidnapped, including, horrendously, a baby and other children. And that was all horrific. And anyone who thinks otherwise, I have no time for. But I always said one or two things. Well, what is proportionate? And it seemed to me about the middle of last year, I began to sense that this was just getting grotesquely disproportionate, but mainly because I didn't see that the end game was going to be successful. The end game was supposed to be the eradication of Hamas, a terror group.
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Unknown E
There is no sign that they are eradicated. And in fact, US Intelligence, and I'll come to General Kimmet here about this. US Intelligence reports about a week ago suggested that for every Hamas terrorist who's been killed, they've already been replaced by people with similar ideology. So my fear was always that a disproportionate response by Israel would actually fuel the ideology behind Hamas, make them more popular, not less. And in the process, we've seen, as Cheng said, 15,000 children reported now to be. To be killed. And that's just whatever you try and say by justification, it is unjustified to kill that number of children. It just is, isn't it?
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Unknown F
Well, I think we're having a little bit of historical myopia here. Maybe I'm just kind of all to remember the fact that we had 3,000Americans killed on December 7, 1941, by the Japanese. And by the end of the war, we dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And I suspect there were probably about 150 to 250,000 children that were incinerated in that attack alone. So I think that we are perhaps forgetting our own history and what we have done in a scenario of total war for the United States, for Great Britain, and for Western Europe. And candidly, I think it was the right thing to do because it was total war to destroy the Japanese leadership in the Japanese empire, the Jewish state. Israel believes they're at total war with those terrorist groups. But you're absolutely right, PI. Not only was Hamas celebrating that, but remember today, Hezbollah was celebrating the death of Hassan Nasrallah.
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Unknown F
And it sure looked like there were a lot of Hezbollah operators still fighting. It's the terrorist calculus. Kill one, create two. But in terms of the notion of number one, the Israeli response, response to the Hamas attack on October 7th. They see it as total war. They are fighting as if it is total war. The same way America did the same in 1941-1945 against the Japanese alone. We lost 3,000, they lost a million. We dropped two nuclear weapons on Japan.
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Unknown E
Yeah, you make very good points. And Joe Walsh, final word to you.
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Unknown B
I don't think so.
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Unknown E
Okay, we've run out of time, Sally, but Joe, final word to you, just real quickly.
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Unknown A
I agree. Bet you the ideology, the hatred of Jews was there before October 7th. The belief that Israel does not have a right to exist was there before October 7th. It didn't need October 7th to go off the charts. There will never be peace in this region as long as the Palestinian people, the Palestinian people, Pierce, not just Hamas, do not believe Israel has a right to exist, period.
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Unknown E
But there will also never be.
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Unknown C
Nonsense. There will also never be, Palestine doesn't exist.
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Unknown B
When is it going to get through your heads that Palestine doesn't exist because of the murderous terrorist state of Israel? How many slaughtered children do you need before you say, oh right, the Palestinians don't exist? And are the Palestinians in the middle of that slaughter as 15,000 of their children were lit on fire by Israel? Are they supposed to love Israel? Is that the ludicrous, insane demand, oh, you don't love us enough, we're going to kill more of your children? No, this is, all of that's just propaganda.
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Unknown E
I think, I think the bottom line is, the bottom line is the Mongols at the end of this, you only.
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Unknown B
People in Baghdad because it was all out war. That doesn't mean Israel should do it. That doesn't mean the US should do it.
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Unknown E
You only get, you only get to peace when the Palestinian people have the same rights, human rights, as everybody else around them. And that has been the running saw in this conflict. And you can make a great argument for both sides throughout the 75 years. But the one to me unarguable point is that Palestinians in Gaza in particular have been living with diminished human rights to their neighbors and that cannot be allowed to continue going forward. And it's going to be incredibly difficult to get to any lasting peace, incredibly difficult to get to a two state solution. Everybody knows that. But ultimately you've got to afford the Palestinian people the same basic human rights that we all enjoy. And until that happens, I don't see this ever, ever ending. Anyway, we've got to leave it there. Fascinating debate by all of you. Thank you all very much.
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Unknown E
I appreciate it. Here's Morgan unsensed and is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. You enjoy our show. We ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan uncensored on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical, and we couldn't do it without.