Piers Morgan: Polishing Trump's Turds

to get Pierce Morgan to have the tables turned on him for a while now and so he booked this date.

“You know, not planning that the Grand Platinum campaign is going to blow up the night before”

and so I didn't kind of want to waste time with him on that. So if you want Platinum takes, we've got plenty options for you. Me and Sarah, over on the Bullard takes feed, did almost an hour on Platinum alone, the next level, which comes out on Tuesday, nights, Sam is in for JVL, we're all still sending our love to JVL on this family, but we'll be discussing Platinum more there, we'll also be discussing Mitch McConnell, who is MIA, so there'll be some discussion of that as well. So if you look at

for Platinum, McConnell takes TNL or head over to the Bullard takes feed on this show, it's a double header, we're getting the serious business about military affairs in the world with Mark Hurtling and segment two, so make sure to stick around for that. But up first, it's Pierce Morgan. Alright, here's the host of Pierce Morgan Uncensored on YouTube, it's Pierce Morgan himself, the tables are turned. Welcome to the show. A bit apprehensive about this, because I somebody

realized you've never interviewed me, and I thought you were my show many times, thank you,

but this is like the real poetry turn gamekeepers we would say England. I love that. I love that you're apprehensive. Well, I'm going to start with a compliment, we're going to start, you know, we're going to butter you up at the beginning, because we may have some disagreements to get to. I've been trying to have you on since your interview with Russell Brand, it was a real moment of professional jealousy for me, for this reason, for people who didn't watch it, you are asking

him about what Bible verse he was referencing, and let's play what happened. Thank you for asking me. Thank you. No, it was this from as I am. You're right, but it did say, you know, be chilled, so as I lose the chill man, they don't like that do they in the old gallery, but remember you just said it's a hired spot. This is from Isaiah. The verse that I was looking at that day was not there's a

contract actually. I can't actually find the verse that I that I had that day.

“That goes on for over a hundred seconds here. How did you do that? What was going through your head?”

How did you summon the will to just sit there and let him turn the pages for almost two minutes? Well, as you know, in our game, silence is normally the enemy, right? I mean, everyone talks about dead air. And it can be just a few seconds. When I was a CNN, if you had three, four seconds of silence, it was something that would launch an investigation into. So obviously, my team were in my ear saying, you may want to get in now, let's get in now, you know, because it was as it went on.

But I could just sense this was something quite magical and firm, which was that this grifter, and I think we can safely say is a grifter, who had become a born again Christian, seven months after all these allegations flew against him, had gone into court in England, clutching this Bible, which had all these little notes attached to it, and passages on the land of sauna. And so I asked him, the obvious question, which was, well, you know, which of the

passages brought you most sucker at your difficult moment? And he said, well, there's one in particular. Now, if you were a genuine born again, Christian, and you were really, as he claims to be, completely immersed now in daily life with your new relationship with God and the Bible and Christianity and so on, you would probably remember the verse that you're talking about, which

was the one that was most important to you in your hour of darkness. But not only could you not

remember it, you couldn't remember where the hell it was in the Bible. So as he continued to

“Russell, pun intended, I realized this was very illuminating, because I think what it really showed,”

and this was the view of most people who watched it, was that it's probably all a bit of a grift, and that he's not really reading the Bible every day, and he's not really into this quiet the way he would like us to faint now. Maybe I'm wrong. But that was certainly what I'm feeling. And I think you got that one right. And you know what Tim, after four decades of being in the media, it was very unnerving to discover that, actually, the most powerful weapon I have in my

toolbox was silence, and that maybe I should just shut up more. It's also human nature to try to bail people out, even if you realize it's a quasi-adversarial interview, I sometimes you just can't overcome. So I was impressed. You also did the office look straight into the camera at one point. It was a 10 out of 10 out of 10, so we got to hand

It's a Louisiana thing. I do know what's going on. It's a native boil. Some guy comes up to me, he's like, "Are you the gun? Pierce Morgan?" And I was like, "Yeah, that's only

“everyone time." And no offense to this, Pierce, but I was like, "Why do you watch the show?”

What do you get out of it?" And he says, "It's kind of like for me Jerry Springer, but politics. I just kind of like watching the food fight." And on the one hand, I understand that, on the other hand, I wonder if that gives you any, I don't know, self doubt about the seriousness of the value of what's happening. Well, I think that people like Joe Rogan and others have

abused that analogy of Jerry Springer politics. First of all, I knew Jerry Springer very, very well. I loved

Jerry Springer. I actually was on America's Got Talent, where Jerry Springer, I was a judge and he was the host. We lived in the same hotel, the Beverly Walsha, in LA for years, or used to meet three times a week for dinner. So when I get compared to Jerry, I'd take that as an enormous compliment. Jerry Springer was a former mayor of Cincinnati. He was a news anchor for 10 years, very serious news anchor. And was one of the smartest people I've met in my life, and made hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, his show wasn't for everyone. And I don't think my show is like the old Springer show,

“except in one sense, which is most people, I think, at the moment get fed a diet through their”

algorithm or their choice, which is of either people on the left or people on the right, and they're banging a drum, which will continually hit the same beat of Trump's biggest disaster in the history of mankind, or Trump can do no wrong, extrapolated out to all the other issues. And I think that's a problem, actually. And I think it's becoming an increasing problem in cementing tribalism, quite toxic tribalism. In a way we've gone back, we were aggressive 2,000 years when tribes

used to exist on their own, all shared the same views, all dressed the same spot, the same as on. And then they slowly went out and encountered other tribes, and the only solution they found was to kill each other. And it's a little bit like that, I think, on social media. So I think I actually have a valuable place in the public space in this, which is I sit in the middle. I'm a genuine centrist. I voted in the past for conservative and left-wing candidates in the UK,

for example, from Margaret Fathcher on the right to Toneber on the left. I always tend to gravitate

towards a leader more than a party, because I think a great leader can make a huge difference, and a terrible leader can have the opposite effect. And similar to the centrist, I do love a good debate. I used to get thrown out of my local pub when I was a teenager for arguing with people to obnoxiously on a Friday night after 10 points of scrumptious. So I do like to do a good announcement, okay, let me finish my point. So my point being, it's but it's not just about

noisy debates. Anyone who watches the so regularly, one though, we regularly do big one-on-one interviews with, you know, I went to Key, an interview in Zelensky, I've done Trump for several times, I've done Kanye West several times. I do lots of one-on-one interviews with people. Russell Bram is a good example, two hours of Russell Bram. So it's not all about the noisy debates, but I do think the debates do one thing, which is really important, which is I bring people with normally with

big loud followings on big platforms, that lots of followers, and they rarely go at each other, and I think for the viewer trying to work out where they sit, it was not parked into a tribe necessarily, they at least get to weigh up those sides of an argument. I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I guess it's not exactly like firing line with William Hathbuckery though, and some of the people you're having on are like full of shit, you know, and we're not full of shit, they might be,

but they also have very big following. So I'll give an example, like some of my Andrew Tate, right, has, you know, millions and millions of followers, and was clearly for a long time having a big influence over young men around the world. And he's facing very serious charges now, but you know, if you go back to us three years, he was probably the most famous person on the planet after Trump. And I took a decision to interview him repeatedly, and two things have happened in the process

of those interviews. One, I went and after him, nobody else has, particularly about his

razor misogyny. Two, the number of people who watched the interviews came down from 10 million

down to under a million, showing his deteriorating popularity. And three, the number of young men who come up to me in the street asking about Tate has massively dropped as well. I think I've played a significantly significantly significant part in demolishing the bullshit around some light, Andrew Tate by platforming and going after it. So my position about platforming people is

“not that you shouldn't, I think you should be a platform on anyone you like, but if you just”

give them a free run, you're just giving no feel of oxygen to whatever bullshit theories they have. I take a view if you challenge them properly, you're providing a good public service. I agree with you on the platforming argument. We 100% agree on that. I think it's worth challenging people. Sometimes modern your show, my critique is a particularly during this Trump era. I think there was a little bit different on Biden was in because there's plenty of things legitimate

well, the ice killed two people in the streets. That's segment one. And then it's like segment two,

we have to find balance. So let's talk about some crazy liberal school district in San Francisco where they tried to take Abraham Lincoln's name off the school or something. How interesting that you would cite that as an example of something that's wrong, where I would say to him, and I'd love you dealing, you're great when you come on my show and I love what you do here. But right there's the problem, you would only want that show to be all about Trump,

“bashing, and that's fine. That's what he's doing. I'm just saying, you're increasing like crazy,”

like stupid things. And the other story can be just as interesting to a large constituent of my viewers. Why would I be so? I mean, do I should I part myself? Should I part myself? Should I part myself into the bull walk camp? Should I bring up a little mini-me, a little mini-me? Obviously, obviously it's interesting because you're feeding them, you're feeding them sucker to use your words. You're giving them something that you can take and if they're right, the liberals

are crazy. Let's talk about this random person. Spoiler alert. A lot of liberals are all crazy. What's sure? But a lot of conservatives are crazy. A lot of people are crazy humans are crazy. Yes, I'm talking about trying to make a judgment call on like, what is important and what is not? And I feel like a lot of times like this idea that these woke excesses,

you know, there's some movie, you know, the Odyssey has a black first in it. And a lot of this

stuff is stupid and the grand scheme of things compared to like life or death decisions that are happening in the White House. If you don't mind me saying, again, say it's respectfully, it's a little bit of pomposity to that statement. In other words, you have decided you know better than me what you

“think is important. And I would say that that is not necessarily true. A lot of the woke issues,”

actually, are things of legitimate mass concern. I'll give you an example. The ongoing fury around trans athletes and women's sports. I know you're going to say this. Well, because isn't it simple, I call many segments of you had on the show about many, many women's sports. Many versus how important that is to people in society. I just think that there's like a, this is not a black. This is not a balance. I'm not saying don't talk about this. It's also like who cares. Yeah, but that's, but this is the classic

era that my liberal friends may. I'm by the way, I'm a recovering liberal. So I'm sitting in the kind of Bill Marley liberal immigrants. So we're going to, we're going to, but I would say that if you actually go out in the street and ask to thousands of people what they think about that, they would care and be they think is complete nonsense. And what my liberal friends do, the terrible mistake you make and refrain when you try to say nobody cares is you're missing

the fact that they do care. And you know, it was people like Joe Biden when he, when he hitched his mask to saying that it was fine for trans women to compete in women's sports. Actually, America's when this is nonsense, which is why he lost. My point is not that nobody cares. My point is that like in the grand scheme of things, you're covering a news show, having so many segments about like the fifth place performer and a women's swim match is like as I, they're, they're plenty

of stupid things happen. Again, respectively, who are you to tell me what my running order should be? Well, why should you? I mean, I'm telling you, you're running on or should be, I'm just saying it speaks to the idea that I, I think that it's creating a fake balance. It's like, okay, well, it's running fast. On the one hand, Trump got us into a stupid war. On the other hand, they're, oh my goodness, there was a lacrosse match that had a girl in it and West Virginia.

You know, I used to be at CNN for four years. I was on Good Morning Britain for five years. And I can tell you, it's exactly the same at all, at those places, right? CNN has a mix of light and shade, serious and silly. Good Morning Britain, more so, because it was a morning show. The idea

“that you should only feed people with a diet of what you have deemed is serious and important.”

It's one of the reasons mainstream media, in particular, have been collapsing in popularity, because most people out there don't spend all day obsessing. We agree on this. You can't not walk you past the criticism. You're walking past the criticism, because we agree on this. I don't be silly. It's fine. Yeah. The thing is an excessive focus on random crazy liberal shit. I live in Louisiana. Let me tell you, there's plenty of crazy random conservative shit happening

in middle schools. But anyway, let's let's, it's my show. So, we should talk about Trump. Of course, but I can tell you, I've done a lot more, for example, a lot more on the Iran war

than anything woke related in the last three, four months. And I've been in credit critical

of Trump from the start of it. So, you know, I don't want to come to Trump and about balance to the song, but no very few people have been out there as critical as I have been about Trump, who perhaps people presume would normally slightly slap my way to boredom, because I know it. I totally agree. And I had Sager and Gentian on the show. Maybe about a month ago, and I said the same thing to him. And it's one thing that's hard for me to do is I don't have

Trump bullshiters on my show. And so, I'm looking for people who are sympathetic to Trump, but are also honest about him. Yeah. And critiquing about him. And I appreciate that about your show. To that point, let's go back to some Trump thoughts that you've had around Thanksgiving.

ready to be one of American's great presidents. You said that you've been struck by the realization that he's a changed man. Yeah. I'm wondering how that's looking now. Not great, because he unfortunately

“has reverted to type. But more, more worryingly, I think for his legacy, he has begun to do things”

which he specifically campaigned on the opposite. You know, not going into Warren in the Middle East,

for example. You know, focused on America first and getting inflation down on the Sun.

Well, why would you launch a global trade war? And why would you go to war with Iran if actually those campaign aims? Well, your priority is the opposite. It's going to have the opposite effect as we've seen. So I think it's unfortunate. You know, I did think that Trump marked two, particularly after he survived several assassination attempts. I felt talking to him. He wasn't a bit of a change character. But, you know, there's also the relative check. He's just turned 80. There are many people who

turn 80, who suddenly became become different people. He said some things which have been great successes. And he said other things that have been big failures. He's still not even quite halfway. Well, how long has he got till the next election like two and a half years? So he's still, you know, he's not even halfway through his second term. He's got time to pivot and change.

“Cool. The concern I would have if I was advising Trump is that I think he's looking more likely”

than not. He might lose control of the house and the Senate in the midterms. And if that happens, he'll become a lame duck, which will be for him about his bad as life gets. This is a frustrating thing though for some of us. You know, they'll get accused of having TDS saying that we only want to talk about Trump is it's like, you've known Trump for so long. I knew

to have loaned Trump for a long time. And I have, I had his number the first second I saw him talking

about politics. He is the most obvious person in history. He is not at all subtle. He's not changed at all actually since the 1980s. He's been the same exact. Maybe he's a little bit less of a woman hound now. I don't know why. I don't know maybe it's not working as well or whatever he has different interests. But like besides that, like he hasn't changed at all. Like he's the same. And so how did he run for president three times and have smart people like you get tricked by

him again into thinking that he could be better or different? He's Trump. It's Trump. Well, but because actually he can be quite an occured in that sense. I mean, certainly the conversation happened with him a week after he got shot. He was definitely sounding up so unlike the Donald Trump I knew. He actually sounded quite vulnerable in that conversation. I was quite startled.

And I really did believe that he was second time round. He would do things differently. But would

be more mindful of his legacy having been given a second chance. I'm an interesting question I'd throw back at you too. Is do you think that the way that you guys on the left went after Trump in that first term and during his four years in the wilderness? A lot of it legitimate, a lot of it bullshed. But do you think the intensity of the rage against Trump, the TDS, if you like, actually contributed him being re-elected because I do. So I've felt up the time it was self-defeating.

I felt the fact that so many of my left thought it was quite normal to call Trump the new hit there and call people to support him Nazis and so on was utterly self-defeating. And before you say it, I know JDVans call him a Nazi. Yes, that was wrong too. But the point I would make is if actually all of you had done as a collective body on the left to pick Trump off about stuff that he got wrong

“and focused on policy rather rhetoric, I think you would have been more successful and I don't”

think he would have won a second time. So here's the problem with that. Here's fair. I mean, obviously, it's irrefutable point because he got back in. So sure. Obviously, whatever we did was not successful. Right. But my counterpoint to that is, okay, what do you want me to do? Be a liar, shine his turds, pretend like he's something that he's not. I mean, look, if you're the honest truth is, everybody who goes into work for Trump and then has a falling out with them and leave

sounds like me in the end. I mean, John Kelly, you know, thought he's a fascist, mad desk, scary mooch, are you good at the list? They all sound like me because I'm saying the truth about it. And so like what else am I supposed to do? I like this idea that I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to I candid to him from time to time. It's like, oh, he did a good job. Let me do a test. Tell me one good thing Trump has done. I love that you're trying to take the host seat back

for me again. That's good. It's a skill move. It's fruit from a rotted tree is the answer to the question. Well, give me, well, let me talk, so here are the two things that people say. Wood said. What would you say to people? What would you say? Abraham Accords is something that people say. What would you say? What would you say? Sandwich? No, I think it's certain. I think everything is turned out to be a shit sandwich. So what do you think he's done this being good?

Nothing. I think that it's a disaster. So right there, I'm afraid, is a classic example of a clear symptom of Trump's arrangements. Okay. Well, what do you think he's done? It's good. Obviously shutting the Southern border to stop him. Let's debate that. But I think that's totally wrong. America is a free country. You're an immigrant. Honestly, I'm not sure if you're so happy about his border policies,

why you think that your show should be allowed to be played on YouTube in this country?

worker in the United States. I applied for a visa, sort of the Haitians. The THS did have TPS.

“They did the same thing. We're sending them back. Why don't we, we should send you back, too?”

I'm here legally when I work in America. So the Haitians have got temporary protected status. Now we're sending them back. Why do you think that disagree with me? Because you just said his immigration policy was the thing that you think it was the one stopping millions of people coming over the Southern border illegally without going through any process was wrong. It happened under Biden to catastrophic levels. I agree with that. I think Trump

closing down the Southern border to the extraordinary tidal wave of illegal immigrants. It was already solved before it came in. It wasn't already solved. It was. Why can't you just keep him credit for doing that? Because I'll tell you why. As a fair critique of Biden. I grew through critique of Biden. The Biden policy got out of hand.

Much too late. This is a critical criticism of him. Biden went to the Congress and tried to

come up with a solution. Trump scuttled that solution. And then he did it via executive order. And the border crossings at the end of 2024 around election time were nothing problematic. We are a free country. The idea that right now it's preferable to have negative immigration in this country. It's what we have right now. More people are leaving than are coming in. That is horrible for our economy. It's outside of the American tradition.

The only people who are letting in are white South Africans. It's fucking crazy. It's un-American and it's wrong. His policy is wrong. It's also un-American, especially for those who have come into the country legally and don't properly. It's also un-American to just allow millions of people to come in illegally over an open border. No, as Ronald Reagan said so clearly, without a border, you're not a country.

“Great. So you should agree. I like the Reagan and Obama,”

water policies, not the Trump border policy. Do you have any other ones you think is doing well? Well, okay. You mentioned Obama as a glimmering shining light of immigration policies. Okay. Let me take my favorite question to my liberal friends. How many people did Obama deport in eight years? Well, I'll report it a lot. How many? How many? I don't know. This is not, I'm not doing the Tucker Carlson Tech,

Christian, it was millions. It was millions. It was millions. It was millions. It was three million.

Yeah. Okay. Now, the significance of that is that made him pro-Rata to this day by far the biggest supporter of people. It's why America is here as an intellectual history. No, but you started to do this. You started to do this. You started to do this. You started to do this. You started to do this. You started to do this. You started to do this. You're starting to do this. You're starting to do this. You're starting to do this. You're starting to do this. You're starting to do this.

You said you want appears. The numbers were so great because at the border they came in and got turned around. And that counts as one. What Trump is doing is not only shutting down the border, but also menacing people in cities in the interior of the country. I don't agree with that.

“But I don't agree with that. Okay. Well, that's what he's doing. That's the difference.”

And this I'm misheard you just praised Obama for turning people around the border. Yes. I'm criticized Trump by and said you're shutting down the border completely. Yeah. Because we're a country of free people. We should let everyone in. So which one is it? Does it depend to the president? Yes. I didn't say we should let everybody in. I said that right if you just look at it and hold. You're talking about the number of people Obama

deported sure. We also were letting people into the country as we should during the Reagan. This was bipartisan during Reagan. That's great. We should have an immigration process. By the way, Obama tried to go to the Republicans back then and tried to cut a deal where we let Dreamer stay in the country. And the Republican hardliners that turned into Trump were the ones that stopped comprehensive immigration reform. It was my people, the moderate

Republicans that tried to work with the Democrats to have a reasonable immigration policy. That got scuttled time and again by these nativeists that don't want anybody in the country. And so my question back to you is if you look at this from the biggest picture, right? Like this movement towards the nativeism that you had in your country and we had an ours that started with Brexit and then resulted in Trump. We are now 10 plus years into that over 10 years over a decade

in. If you look back on that and you said, hey, we could go back to 2013 and do this over again and not do that. Would you take that deal? Well, it's more complicated because right in the middle of that, you have a four year tenure by Biden, which particularly in relation to immigration, was it complete disaster? Okay, no, no. I'm not talking about just immigration. I just mean as a as a project, as a political project, Brexit and Trump are related. We agree on that,

right? That's this kind of nativeist sovereignty, sovereignty, excuse me, idea on the right, like this nativeist right. But Brexit has been a disaster and Trump's been a disaster, right? They both have failed. Both projects have failed, right? Well, the Trump project is ongoing.

This judge at the end of this second term. What I would say? How is the trajectory?

Well, I think he's better to judge presidents at the end of a term. Well, let's see what he does in the last two and a half years. I suspect he'll be pollacked by what happens in the mid-terms. What do I Brexit? Brexit, my position on that is I voted to remain in the European Union. I didn't think Brexit was a good idea. I didn't trust the

and 10 years later, since that referendum took place, there's been no sign to me of it being

anything other than a failure. So my argument to the new incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the new Labour Prime Minister would take his position a couple of weeks, is if you would have another referendum, as I think stopping you, I reckon you would have a 70% landslide vote by the British people to go back into the European Union. You can't you see the same clearly with our failed experiment with the native as I'm not Americans, so as your business is not mine.

Secondly, if I did think that it makes zero difference to the fact that Trump will remain president songs he says alive in the next two and a half years. If you had a referendum aspect to your presidential system, fine, you don't. You relate to presidential four years,

and I think president should be judged at the end of four years. With the World Cup happening

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it tried to be to conservatism was this kind of small sea conservative notion that came from from you guys was working. When you make a big change, don't know what the unintended consequences

“should be. You should make gradual change. You should be prudent. That is in the spirit of”

thatcher and the spirit of Blair. What happened with Brexit and Trump wasn't conservative. It was an arson. It was like we're going to blow up this system and try to build a new system in our image. It's just obviously now working in either a king. Well, but I would say in relation to thatcher and Blair, they both had moments where they blew up too. In fact, you're notoriously over the poll tax, which was one of the most divisive and heated taxation systems that ever

came into the country. That's pretty remarkable change. Hang on. And then Tony Blair legally invaded Iraq, which was his legacy and was one of the biggest foreign policy disasters of my life time. Am I opposed that? A very loud result of a daily mirror at the time. Even the people I voted for had moments where they blew up. Leaders blow up, they do dumb things, right? The question becomes, but that's all Trump business. Blow up, blow up, blow up, blow up, blow up. It's

any of the things that's tear things down. It's doge. It's going to end USAID. It's all impulsive. It's not conservative. It's not a way to run a company. It's not conservative. I agree with it. I agree. It's not conservative and a lot of the things that you don't like about

“stuff he's done. I would agree with. To avoid the charge of TDS, you have to find it in your”

soul to find some things he's done, but you're correct. Now, some things are just rotten. Some things are just rotten. The project is rotten. So it's kind of like even if there is something like an element of the project that had a good outcome, it's part of a rotten project. I blame the left entirely because if you believe that Trump has been a dismal failure and he's a rotten apple of all the rest of it, we'll find you had an opportunity to force out your president

by before it was too late when he was obviously completely gargar. No one on the left wanted to say what was happening in front of their eyes. And then you left it so late that Kamala Harris got coronate. It was clearly totally unsuited to take on Trump and got the beating that I think she and the party deserved. And my question for you guys now is it still remains the big theme on the left is Trump bashing and reacting to every single thing he does, most of which, by the way,

he does deliberately to wind you all up. I mean, I've been sure what is done. I want you to talk about

“what you need. You need to find a new Clinton, a new Obama, new Bill Clinton, a new Obama,”

somebody sent a left who can galvanize a genuine constituent of Americans to say,

"I prefer that way." Here's what I have with Trump. Here's okay, fine. I agree, but it's offering

a clear eye critique of the Democrats that I agreed with while polishing Trump's turds.

changed man that he could be one of America's great presidents. He obviously was going to be one of America's great presidents. You asked me whether still stood, I said no. I meant before the election, you're saying it's the Democrats fault that he's in. I'm saying, well, it's partly the fault of the people like you who are polishing his turds during the campaign and making him seem better than he is. I didn't polish his turds in the campaign. Go back and read what I said.

I just felt he would be different second time round, and unfortunately, two dates

I don't think he has been. He's played to his worst sensibilities rather than his best. No, I still haven't played again now. So I've TPing right about him. How is this at work? How do I have to arrange with syndrome but also keep seeing him more clearly than you? Well, you might be, but your failure to accept he does anything right is a terrible indication of your chronic teeth. Do you have a second thing that he's done right besides the border?

I would say that he's, well, you can let me finish. I would say the way he got the remaining hostages out of Gaza for Israel was a major achievement in Gaza and the Israel relationships going well. Do you think that's doing great? I think that part of his going terribly, but if you ask him, was it good to present in other states managed to get those hostages out? I'd say yes.

“And you should give him credit for that. And as you can't give him credit for that, you have TDS.”

Well, sure. It's good that the hostages are out, but that doesn't mean his Israel policy is good. Again, again, you can have good outcomes underneath bad policies. That's the whole point underneath, you know, a corrupt system. His relationship with BB is totally corrupt and it's, I was been a disaster. And I think you agree with that. I've heard you talk about it. Yeah, look, I think the Trump deserves credit for getting the hostages out, but I think that the

decision to go into war and Iran with Israel after Trump was persuaded by Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be a good idea. As turned out to be a terrible decision. I said that at the start. I believe it today. I think it's real potential, unfortunately, for Trump to become his legacy.

And I wish he'd never done it. And across the Middle East, like, he just has these corrupt

relationships. We don't really know if that's financial with BB. Obviously, BB was influencing him. We have cutters playing now, his son-in-law's in business with the Saudis. How can you prosecute a war judiciously when you're getting paid off by everybody in the region? Well, I think the United States has to do business with countries in the Middle East.

“That's what the Trump family does, though. The Trump family doesn't have to do business, though.”

Well, let's wait and see whether what they're doing is corrupt or not. There will obviously be investigations that this, as they were into the Biden family. It seems to be up to this. This is nothing like the Biden family. Well, you didn't think it is. Cool, see that. The UA, I know this, the scale in the UAE crypto deals like $500 billion. Was Hunter negotiating for the country like Jared Kushner?

You said he was corrupt. That's wait and see if anyone ever establishes it was actual corruption. What is more needs to be established? Jared Kushner's not a member of our government. He's negotiating, as part of this Iran war, while taking money from the Saudi government. That's all established. Well, I would like to see these things properly investigated, which I'm sure they will be, particularly if Trump loses the mid-terms.

Then you're going to see all sorts of stuff going on in terms of legal actions and possible impeachment and so on. We know that, but I would also stress to you. How much time did you devote? Maybe you did, no, Mr. Did you devote a lot of time to going after the Biden family for the obvious corruption of Hunter Biden having your job at an energy company in Ukraine without

“any experience or did you just conveniently overlapped him?”

You don't have a gun to with me on that one, too. You can get me on something, but the barisma thing I think was bullshit, but Hunter kind of hates me now and on every podcast he goes on, he brings it up. I'm in his head for some reason. Anyway, I've taken too much of your time. Well, hopefully we can continue this. It's not scary to come on the ball or podcast. I love ball ball. I listen. I'm a big fan of yours. This is why I love having your

Michael. Thank you. So you've got Norway. The colonis are coming at you again, like 1066. So how are you scared of Holland? Well, I'm actually scared of Holland. He's a massive viking, but also they're Captain is Martin Odegaard, who is also Captain of my clubside arsenal. So I'm worried. He's just won us the Premier League. So yeah, they're good. But you know what? I've got a feeling that it's going to be serendipity here where England, when the World Cup in the United States

right after you've all been celebrating 250 years of your independence from my great country. And if that happens, I want two things to happen as a consequence. One, you get compelled by law to rename soccer football. And secondly, you are compelled to bring back the British monarchy.

And I'm happy to serve as your first king since George III. I think the French will probably

come to our aid once again and prevent that from happening. That's tears Morgan. Thank you so much for coming on the show, man. I appreciate it. It's just a little bit for some sober, serious military

churning out content. We're also parenting. We're trying to have a life for trying to grow a little

media company here. So I'm always looking for ways to multitask and save time. I'll listen to another

pod to prep for a guest while I'm on the way to get coffee or cook and dinner. We're doing subscription delivery services so we don't have to go shopping. I don't iron. You know, that kind of thing. We all have our own time saving hacks for everyday life. But if you're a business owner, you can save time hiring with zip recruiters, zip recruiters as a new feature. The quickly lets you see the most interested qualifier candidates first. So you save time by meeting the right

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zip recruiter dot com slash bowlwork meet your match on zip recruiter. All right. And we're back. He's a writer on military affairs for the bowlwork. Boy, we like you to have them. A retired US Army Lieutenant generally served as commander during the surge in Iraq. It's also a commanding general of the US Army Europe. His latest book is

“if I don't return a father's wartime journal. It's of course Mark Hurtling. How you doing, sir?”

Welcome back. Jim, it is good to be with you. Thanks for having me on this morning. Lots going on for sure. A ton going on. As we are taping this on going press conference, the NATO meeting in Turkey with our president and and Erdogan. Among the things he said this morning, I was very disappointed with NATO. Scratch to Iran. Frankly, if it weren't held in Turkey, where my friend happens to be a very strong leader, a very strong person. It's possible that I wouldn't have attended. So he's

only going to the NATO meeting in the autocratic country, apparently. He also went off again on Greenland. He's talking about how it's surrounded by Chinese and Russian ships. Greenland should be controlled by the US not by Denmark. He says we should remove all soldiers out of Europe when you get to your

article on that in a second. Some level is a little bit of groundhog day. Same as it ever was.

But I guess with the new element of kind of the first gathering since the Iran war. Yeah, I was listening to part of the press conference with Erdogan this morning, Jim. It was a smorgas board of contradictions of what he's posted recently. That in combination with continued insults of the NATO alliances, why he's mad at everybody and why he's not mad at Prime Minister Maloney anymore. The numbers throwing out in terms of battlefield

deaths in Ukraine, which seemed to just emanate from off the top of his head and have nothing to do with reality in terms of casualties in that country, even though the war continues. You don't know what to make of it when you see someone like that offering input to members of not just the national press corps, but the international press corps from Europe in Ankara. It's baffling and I'm sure

“that's what the NATO members and the presidents who are there, the presidents and the prime ministers”

feel about how to handle this president who doesn't have a real good feel for what the NATO alliance is all about. Yeah, I mean, spitballing on removing troops like live at a press conference. You wrote about this this week about how, you know, withdrawing troops for Europe, this is something that Hank Sett's been pushing. You talked about how that's not a strategy. I'm just a regular American here, right? I didn't serve in the military. I'm not the command post

experts that you got. I've not been parker pouring over war plans and the different types of ships and planes. So I don't know, you could sell me on the idea that there's a strategic purpose for kind of downsizing what we have in Europe. Maybe that's wrong. I don't know. But even if that was the right approach, it doesn't seem like the way to go about that is like threatening to remove all of our soldiers out of Europe because they won't give us Greenland.

And that is what Donald Trump did this morning at the press conference. That they won't support us in a war that was of his making and which he didn't notify them about beforehand. It's also, you know, NATO, you could call a defense alliance, a security alliance. It's not a calling us whenever you need us to help you with your wars of choice.

“That's what's challenging about that. That's not what article four and article five are meant to”

commit nations too. And rightfully, I mean, in my view, I'm American. Okay. I got it. Our national security issues are our national security issues. But the other 31 countries that are part of the alliance and the other 15 or so that are part of Europe are not just going to

that the UK has been one of the nations that has incurred President Trump's wrath. And in every case

before when they were informed of what the United States were was going to do and in some cases which was contrary to their national security, they would join us. And they did so as part of an alliance that stated back a couple of hundred years. This time, Starmer said no. And in my view, rightfully so when you're not told what the war is about, when you're going into it with Israel and you don't really have an end state when it seems the strategy is is not calculated very

“well and you don't have a state at end state, you're not going to get involved. You should be smarter”

than that. Let's just talk about that kind of how our President should look in Europe and how

this relationship should look. And you, as mentioned, were a community general of our US Army in

Europe. So obviously you've worked with these other countries, these other militaries as counterparties and allies over the years. Is there anything to the underlying point that maybe, you know, we are putting too many of our own resources and men and women into Europe and that Europe should be doing more of that. Like if you take away kind of the hand-handed manner in which Hexeth and Trump have been arguing for it, is there a point to that or do you actually disagree with the underlying

premise? Well, I think there's certainly a point to getting many of the NATO alliance members to

“pony up a little bit more, but that's been happening since 2011 when Secretary Gates”

went to the NATO ministerial and said you guys are not paying your way and it's not a check that's written to a big bank somewhere. It's hey, your security depends on what you do in your budget for your own military forces and some of you are lacking. And in 2011 Gates proposed a two-percent of GDP figure. Now that was a very rounded, generous number. Trump is looking primarily now, it's just the percent, and has made it almost a fixation where instead of understanding what the

32 members do, his fixation on percentages has distorted the discussion of what the alliance is and how NATO generates collective strength and how the members do different things together. And to the audience is listening to this, not all militaries in Europe will build tank brigades or artillery units or huge naval aircraft carriers or submarines. Each one of them have a different culture, a different fiscal constraint. They have other things on their play from a national

security perspective and they do things differently. Some are landlocked. Some are landlocked. Some

are small, like Estonia. I mean, I always use the case of Estonia, a small country who will

less than 2 million people, are they going to give up 5% of their GDP, which is pretty precious to them for this? No, what they do instead is, hey, we will offer you, because we have experience in some pretty good capabilities, cyber defense. So the NATO cyber defense center of excellence is in Estonia. Poland has said back in 2004 that they wanted to build the strongest military in Europe to prevent further invasions like they've experienced multiple times. So for the last

couple of decades, they've been poured a lot of money in it. They are now at 4.2% of their GDP, the highest in NATO. So whenever we hear President Trump saying everybody's now at 5%, that's not even close to being true. Poland is the biggest one of the 4.2%, but that's been a two decades long plan. And by the way, as long as we're talking about that, the United States doesn't hit 5% of GDP in our defense spending. If we did, we would have to spend a half a trillion

dollars more per year than what we're spending right now. And it all wouldn't go to NATO, because we are a worldwide force. So these are the kind of canards that Trump is throwing out there about the NATO alliance and basing it all instead of understanding of what contributions are made by the various countries and how they see national security. He's suggesting all of them should

“be this high level of price and also do all the things the same. Yeah. And I think he exists in the”

same boat too, by the way. Yeah, Trump seems to think NATO's kind of like one of his country clubs. You know, you got to pay dues. If you're not paying dues, you don't get to use the greens, you know, at certain times a day. And it's a little bit of a different deal. You mentioned Poland, part of the reason why Poland is spending the most, because they're threats to the highest, being right on the border with Russia. There's some reporting, I mentioned this to Bill,

to Poland that they think it's possible that Russia might try a limited, incursion into Poland

to just basically test NATO and see if it could cause NATO to crack. I wonder if you have any

“kind of thoughts on that? Yeah, I think that that first of all would be much like their invasion”

of Ukraine, even though Ukraine was kind of a, at the time, not a very capable large force. They were getting there with some of the transformation efforts they had made over the previous five years. But in 2014, Ukraine was not ready for any kind of attack. In 2022, they were partly ready, but they still needed a lot of help. Poland has been building just, I think the best force in Europe, it's not the largest, it's just beneath Turkey. But I got to tell you my assessment, if Russia went

in and crossed the border of Poland, I think there's a doctrinal term for this. They would get their

ass handed to that. I think it's the doctrinal term. Yeah, I think it would cause most of the alliance to come together in an article five, conclusion and say, now you're invading a member, unlike

“Ukraine, now you're invading a member, and I think most members would then join in any kind of”

defense of the alliance. Russia would be destroyed just by Poland in my view. Yeah, I'd love to hear that shout out to the polls. Yeah, it's not hard to imagine at least in our country, like the United States having a mixed reaction to that, right, and having there be some voices from the J.

Advanced Swing within the administration, saying, well, look at this, we don't want to escalate

the types of stuff that you're hearing when Russia invaded Ukraine, right? Like with that delthreat, delthreat nuclear, we don't want nuclear war over eastern Poland. You definitely, I think, would hear that talking point from some in the maga circles. I don't know whether that would prevail, but I think that would be out there. And I think it would. I mean, if Russia were to invade Poland and use nuclear weapons, then you're dealing with a NATO force that has nuclear

weapons in the UK, in France, and in the United States, whether or not we would use that. So I don't think Russia would risk that. It would really be confounding if they did. Let's just talk with the latest in Iran, Iran attacked two ships in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. One of them was a Cutterie LNG tanker, so our new daddies and cutter are still getting attacked in the Strait. I guess it was traversing the Omani route and the Iranians are still trying to control making sure everything

goes on the Iranian side of the Strait, attacking another ship as well. It doesn't seem like the Treaty of Versailles II is really going that well, but wondering what year assessment is of the state of play? Well, my assessment is everything I've seen and I've been looking hard for it is we still haven't concluded an MOU. I mean, there's no conclusions on both sides that what's in the MOU is what they are going to do. Those are discussion points for the further meeting. So we're now

past the two week mark of the MOU wearing out. We're nowhere close to having the 60 day or 90 day conclusion that the President and Secretary Rubio has said we should have. So now we're talking

“about basically nothing has happened in the last two weeks. It also I think one could conclude”

because Iran is still using weapons to fire its ships that they still have a capability and they're standing by their end of what they wanted to talk about in the MOU and who controls the Strait. This is a signal that we still control the Strait. We are still going to threaten ships that have insurance policies and they're not going to want to go through if we threaten them for fear of damage. So the interesting thing is over the last two weeks, I don't see anything

having changed. In military circles, is there any even pitch for what the plan is to get out of here? Are there any strategic options? What are people saying? I got to be careful in saying this. What I know is that the President has asked for different courses of action for what to do next. I'm sure one of those courses of action is let's just leave. But that's not very viable. I mean that's, you know, we're chittingly in the military say whenever you pitch courses

isn't going to be acceptable to the in this case the President. And I think they've probably pitched a variety of courses of action of which none of which bring us out of this with any kind of a win. You and I talked a long time ago about the fact that the best we can get out of this is a draw and I don't think that's even the case anymore. Yeah. You wrote this morning for us about the story of Major Jason Watson who is arrested and the steps of the Capitol calling for Trump

and Vance's impeachment. He was Air Force in uniform when he did this. But he just kind of summarized for people what you're arguing about it. Yeah. I went on MS now the night that he did this and the anchor asked me what do you think about this? And I said it's wrong and he will likely be disciplined for it. And I don't know how that discipline is going to occur whether it's going to be you know an admonishment, a court martial or anything in between. But this is not what the military

“does. And I think there were a lot of citizens of the United States that said boy isn't this a”

brave guy that he would put his uniform on and go on the steps of the Capitol and ask for impeachment. Okay, and allegedly Major Watson had a great deal of an iced about doing it which is good because we teach those who were the uniform not to have any openly political opinion when they're wearing

the uniform because it reflects on an entire two million force and not everyone agrees with you

and plus it causes the citizens of the nation to say can we trust the military to be representative of all of us or are they now taking ideological sides because of politicians? That's the problem with it, you know. I mean anytime somebody in a uniform says something against the government, that's the first step of what one might call a potential coup action. And that's not what the military does. We serve all the military serves all American people, whatever their ideological

viewpoints are and anyone that puts on a uniform and goes to the steps and recommends a political action is in the wrong because it violates several articles of the uniform code of military justice, it violates a department of defense regulation and it violates professionalism. That's not what we did. Is there appropriate or was there not a course for somebody that's in the military to exercise

their first amendment right to protest? I address that in the article and say that unfortunately

sometimes when you join the military you give up or you're restrained in some of your constitutional rights and the first amendment is one of you don't talk about politics when you're in uniform. So the action that one might take is say okay first of all I'm going to talk to my commander of my thoughts. I could say hey I'm a conscientious subjector and won't deploy to any kind of war like Iran that is being waged. I could go to the lawyers in my command. I could go to

write a letter to Congress and say hey I'm in the active service and I don't like this but the final step is you say if I don't like this to the extent that evidently major Watson doesn't the next step is instead of going on the steps of the Capitol you tender your resignation as a military officer and go on the outside in civilian dress and say I used to be in the military and this is

“what I think about this but that's the only step and by the way Tim I think we've probably seen”

and we haven't seen the results of it yet but we've seen probably a couple of retired generals and admirals who are likely going to do that when their retirement papers come

through. People who have retired during this Trump second term you expect to see that?

Yeah and as long as they're waiting for retirement which most of them are I could name three that I know of that may be willing to speak out after their retirements are approved or they're waiting for the end date but I won't but I think some of them have seen some things that they're ready to talk to. We should invite them on the board podcast Ron command post with Mark Hurtling on the board YouTube page people can subscribe now. This is a little bit outside

“of your wheelhouse but something that you wrote about in the article I think just kind of struck a”

thought in me about kind of something that we're discussing in the political space today and that's that's the grand platinum or question and you wrote about you know as somebody in the military you've to balance like having this moral courage versus professional responsibility and I think

can the alleged assault essentially said the same thing. I was talking about how she was grappling

“with that and in her interview with Politico I thought and I said those interesting”

parallel how she was talking about how basically she wanted platinum to win because she agrees

of them politically and she understands like the importance of the Senate and she understands you know how important this is but like she else felt like she had a responsibility to speak out so that people could see the full picture and anyway I just kind of wanted to give you an open-ended opportunity to kind of discuss balancing like these these questions and tricky situations. Yeah you know I teach an MBA course and we talk about values and how every single person has

to have their own personal values. I have four I won't cite them except for one one of my personal

values is personal courage the requirement to speak up and not you know stand back when I see

something wrong occurring but even by applying that particular value of personal courage and by the

“way that's an army value too you have to think about the repercussions and how you do it”

everybody struggles I mean I I read the piece that you're talking about with the young woman everybody struggles with that conundrum of when do you step up when do you hold your tongue and I think everybody finds it sometime in their life it's hard to do and they're kind of fraught and caught in a dynamic of do I speak up or just stay quiet we all have to deal with that

that's not a military value but it is I mean it's something we teach them personal courage

is not just what we do on a battlefield by throwing ourselves on a grenade or facing the enemy it's also providing especially at the general loss or level providing input to our civilian masters you know whether or not they want to hear it so yeah personal courage is a big deal I think for all of us and it came through and this young woman. She really thought to that class and how people balance that's like what what factors to look at or is it really a judgment it's really comes

“down to judgment well you have to identify first of all what your values are and that's one thing”

I find talking to most classes is they haven't even thought about it what are the things you truly believe in and how do you approach those on the street personal courage can get you in trouble you get it sometimes hold your tongue or find a more polite way to say things so it requires a lot of thing in terms of your character build but yeah it's fascinating because all of the students by the end of the leadership course that I teach they have determined what their values are they

define them and how they're going to approach them but I tell them even when they turn in that assignment after they define anywhere from 3 to 7 values I say okay you're still going to have trouble with each one of these trying to live by and it's true we've left me something to think about today I've got a couple of them that are coming to mind but I'm not just going to start to spit ball in a life on the podcast maybe we can do a check-in we can do an MBA class

check-in the next time you're on next quarter and I can report back on the values so I've been reminating on well I will give you one of my other ones not only the person of courage but respect and I respect all the things you're doing okay thank you so much general hurtling it's so great to have you as part of the bowl work thanks for sharing your expertise as mentioned go read these recent pieces of the board dot com and check out the work he's doing on command post

on sub-stack in YouTube thanks so much all right Jim talk later see you later thanks so much for a spirited discussion with peers morgan hopefully he's not scared anymore we'll come back into it again soon and also boy are we lucky to have Mark heartling appreciate him very much we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the show we'll see you all then peace the board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason

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