President Trump reportedly berated members of his own party yesterday in a bad-tempered meeting with Senate Republicans on the Iran War. Several Republicans defied Trump to pass a War Powers resolution which – symbolically – orders him to end military action or get their permission first.
But while the endless MAGA schisms are fascinating, they are not the main barrier to peace – and Trump knows it. Israel is bitterly opposed to the US deal with Iran and has made its feelings known.
Successive US presidents stood by Israel throughout the war on Gaza, even as many of its traditional allies expressed shock and alarm at the scale of civilian suffering.
But just as the US met the limits of its power in the war on Iran. Israel is discovering that the limits to its power are met by challenging America’s interests.
Piers Morgan speaks to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a twice-winner of the Pulitzer Prize, who faced a ferocious outcry for his work last month and Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute John Spencer.
Then, for the first time in our Uncensored London studios, Piers sits down with mathematician ”’Eric Weinstein”’, who’s both a close friend of JD Vance and a strident supporter of Israel.
Outline
00:00 Introduction
03:45 Nicholas Kristof interview begins
04:25 Nicholas Kristof on receiving threats over his report on the treatment of Palestinians
06:20 Nicholas Kristof on dogs being trained to sexually assault Palestinian prisoners
07:34 Nicholas Kristof on the intensified threats he’s received during his whole career
09:51 AD: DOSE – save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to dosedaily.co/PIERS or entering PIERS at checkout
10:54 International journalists being barred by Israel from entering Palestine
14:00 The role of Netanyahu in ethnically cleansing Palestinians
16:15 The war on Iran
19:30 John Spencer interview begins
22:00 The IDF targeting Palestinian civilians
28:35 How many civilians have been killed in Gaza?
34:07 Dr Eric Weinstein interview begins
35:11 Eric Weinstein on the narrative of London being overrun by immigrants
39:50 The UK grooming gang scandal
44:00 The disconnect between Netanyahu and his government
45:20 The role of the MI6 in Iran
47:30 The Strait of Hormuz and a deal in Iran
54:20 Is Netanyahu covering something up in Gaza?
59:40 Israel committing war crimes
01:02:04 What is Quantumania?
Transcript
00:00:00
Nicholas Kristof: I went to the West Bank to talk with Palestinians who experienced sexual assault firsthand by Israeli soldiers, settlers, and prison guards. That was meticulously fact-checked. I stand by that piece. The Times has stood by that piece.
00:00:16
Eric Weinstein: What Israel is trying to communicate is, “Please don’t tell us how to survive because if we listened to you, we would’ve been dead 10 times over.” And Israel is not wrong about that.
00:00:25
Piers Morgan: How many civilians-
00:00:25
Nicholas Kristof: If-
00:00:25
Piers Morgan: … have been killed in Gaza?
00:00:27
Nicholas Kristof: If, if you just do c- literally, like, my kindergartner math of doctors-
00:00:32
Piers Morgan: Uh, but John, just to be clear-
00:00:33
Nicholas Kristof: … you know, how many d-
00:00:33
Piers Morgan: Do you have a number or not?
00:00:35
Nicholas Kristof: 50,000 minus the number of combatants that the IDF have said.
00:00:40
Piers Morgan: I’ve asked you multiple times how many civilians have been killed, and you don’t know. Therefore, your assessment is bullshit. President Trump reportedly berated members of his own party yesterday in a bad-tempered meeting with Senate Republicans on the Iran war. Several Republicans initially defied Trump to pass a war powers resolution which symbolically ordered him to end military action or get their permission first. But while the endless MAGA schisms are fascinating, they’re not the main pa- barrier to peace, and Trump knows it. Israel is bitterly opposed to the US deal with Iran and has made its feelings known. The ink was barely dry on the memorandum last week when Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted, “With all due respect to the Americans, Israel must make it clear to the entire world that the blood of our sons and the security of our citizens are not forfeit. All of Lebanon must burn.” Besides the casual threat of genocide, Israel’s opposition to peace has practical implications. The US clearly can’t keep the Hormuz Strait open with military force. Iran is ready and very willing to close it if the Israeli bombs keep hitting Lebanon. That’s why Vice President JD Vance, who’s charged with selling the deal and getting it done, is losing patience.
00:01:59
J.D. Vance: Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.
00:02:22
Piers Morgan: Well, successive US presidents stood by Israel throughout the war on Gaza, even as many of its traditional allies expressed shock and alarm at the scale of civilian suffering. But just as the US met the limits of its power in the war on Iran, Israel is discovering that the limits to its power are met by challenging America’s interests. All of a sudden, Trump and Vance are sounding a lot like the many commentators who’ve been chided as Islamists or anti-Semites or criticizing the most moral army in the world.
00:02:48
Donald Trump: Too many people are being killed, and you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses.
00:02:57
J.D. Vance: You know, you’re, you’re a country of, of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.
00:03:07
Piers Morgan: Well, for now, the vice president is bearing the brunt of the backlash. Congressman Randy Fine called his recent comments disgusting and inappropriate. Little Ben Shapiro called him, quote, “weak and ridiculous.” Later in the show, I’ll be joined here in the studio by Eric Weinstein, who’s both a close friend of JD Vance and a strident supporter of Israel, for his analysis. But we begin the show with somebody who understands very well the implications of interrogating Israeli operations. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, faced a ferocious outcry for his work last month amid the appalling attacks on his employer and his family. A former Biden envoy likened him to a Nazi propagandist. Well, Nick Kristof joins me now. Nick, great to see you again. I used to interview a lot when I was at CNN. Uh, it’s great to see you. Uh-
00:03:52
Nicholas Kristof: Good to be with you
00:03:52
Piers Morgan: … and when it all bl- when it all blew up last, last month, you know, I’d, I told people, “I know Nick Kristof. I’ve known, known you well. I’ve interviewed you many times. You don’t win two Pulitzer Prizes by just plucking stuff out of thin air and publishing it.” Um, well, just, uh, obviously, it’s the elephant in the room, so let’s get it out the way. W- what is your feeling now, we’re a few weeks later, about the enormous furore that erupted over your report, which was entitled The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians, and was about the treatment of Palestinian inmates in, in Israeli prisons?
00:04:27
Nicholas Kristof: Well, I had certainly expected a enormous amount of pushback, as had the Times, but, um, you know, what happened, I think, exceeded that. Um, now, that includes, um, the threat of multiple lawsuits, including, uh, threats from Prime Minister Netanyahu. So, you know, I don’t wanna, uh, go into it too much. But I would just say that, look, uh, that was meticulously fact-checked. It was based on, uh, conversations with 14 people who had been sexually assaulted, uh, whose accounts were carefully corroborated. Uh, the Times has stood… I stand by that piece. The Times has stood by that piece. Uh, subsequently, the UN issued a report on sexual violence by Israel against Palestinians that put Israel on a blacklist for precisely this, and, and disclosed new rapes of Palestinian prisoners. And, um, so, you know, I think it holds up. And I mean, look, at the end of the day, Piers, you know, I mean, I’ve covered prison rape in the US. I’ve covered sexual violence in Burma, in Sudan, in Ethiopia, all over the world. And when you dehumanize people and when you provide impunity for prison guards and soldiers, then terrible things happen.
00:05:47
Piers Morgan: The, the, the specific allegation which got most attention- And exposed you to most attack, I think, was the allegation, uh, from an unnamed person in the report who said he was raped by a dog on the command of a handler inside prison. On that specific… I know you don’t wanna get into the, the wider details because of the lawsuit, and I understand that completely. I’ve been on the receiving end myself, and you have to be careful. But on that specific allegation, what do you say to people who say, “Well, that’s just obviously preposterous. That could never have happened. No dog can be trained to sexually assault a, a human being”? What do you say to that?
00:06:27
Nicholas Kristof: Well, [laughs] um, I, I’d say that, in fact, the evidence is contrary to that, that, uh, we know from history that, for example, uh, Nazis, like Klaus Barbie, did use dogs to, uh, rape their victims according to testimony of, uh, survivors who’d endured, endured torture by the Nazis. Likewise, the Chilean regime, uh, used… likewise had dogs rape political prisoners as a way to abuse and humiliate them. And in the medical literature, there are at least three journal articles about, uh, humans suffering rectal damage from, uh, penetration by dogs. So, you know, this is not something that is i- impossible. There have been a number of Palestinians who have, uh, testified about this.
00:07:19
Piers Morgan: Uh, d- have you ever, Nick, in all your career… And you’ve written a lot of contentious stuff over the years, but you’ve also won awards for it. Um, and have you ever in your career been on the receiving end of such a ferocious attack? And if the answer is no, what’s it been like for you on a human level to, to go through what you’ve been through?
00:07:40
Nicholas Kristof: Um, this, this would be… I mean, look, um, you know, I’ve been shot at. I’ve been in things that seem a lot more dangerous than getting mean tweets directed at me.
00:07:53
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm.
00:07:54
Nicholas Kristof: Um, it has made me see the degree of kind of bad faith attacks. Um, you know, [laughs] one of the things that my family has always been proud of is that, um, my dad’s family spied on the… They were Armenians. They spied on the Nazis during World War II, and my dad was imprisoned on orders of the Nazis as a result. And then, um, you know, as a result of this, uh, on the contrary, my dad is being portrayed as some kind of a, a Nazi, and I’m a sort of second generation Nazi. [laughs] And you know, it… I mean, I, I can, I can take this. I dish it out. But it does sort of underscore just the absurdity of some of the accusations that, uh… the depths to which people will go.
00:08:41
Piers Morgan: The, the sort of perverse irony is that Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government, they, they have barred and continue to bar international journalists from operating freely in Gaza. The only journalists allowed in are with the IDF, embedded with full control by the IDF. Nobody else is allowed to go in and do their job, even though we’re supposedly in a ceasefire period. It’s made no difference. And at the same time, he’s threatening… We’ll see whether he goes through with it, ’cause he’s threatened this before and then didn’t go through with it. Um, but he’s threatening to use the full instrument of the Israeli government to sue you and The New York Times over this report. You know, like I said, i- there’s a perverse irony there of somebody suppressing freedom of speech in Gaza by not allowing journalists to do their job, and in a way, using the whole force of his government to try and I guess silence you, scare you off, bully you, whatever you wanna… whatever context you wanna use. What do you feel about Netanyahu… Well, what do you feel about both of those things, one, the ongoing ban of journalists being allowed in, and secondly, the fact he’s using the government to sue you guys? [whooshing sound effects] Support for Uncensored comes from DOSE for Cholesterol, a simple and reliable way to take control of your own health. Cholesterol can be an issue for many people, some for lifestyle reasons and sometimes just bad luck, but you can get ahead of it. DOSE for Cholesterol is extremely convenient. Just a small daily shot which tastes like mango. No pills and no powders. It uses naturally occurring ingredients, like turmeric, so you know that you’re not putting chemical garbage into your body. This is a way to take more control of your own health, which could help you delay the more intense conventional remedies. They’ll send it straight to your door for zero hassle. New customers can save 35% on your first month’s subscription by going to dosedaily.co/piers or simply entering PIERS at checkout. That’s dosedaily.co/piers for 35% off your first month’s subscription. [whooshing sound effects]
00:10:46
Nicholas Kristof: I mean, I’ve tried very hard to get into Gaza since the beginning of the war, you know, volunteering with medical organizations, this kind of thing. And um, like myself, you know, all journalists have been barred. Many aid workers, uh, have been barred. Doctors have been limited, even when they volunteer to go in. But it’s not just Gaza. Um, you know, in prisons, uh, the Red Cross, uh, had been, uh, banned from visiting prisoners. Uh, lawyers had often been banned. And that’s the kind of context in which you get impunity, in which you get abuse.
00:11:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:11:23
Nicholas Kristof: And so I would just hope that these kind of allegations about serious sexual violence of prisoners, um, would be investigated and would lead to access by the Red Cross, by lawyers. In fact, the Israeli Prison Service wasn’t even letting its own Israeli inspectors, uh, access.
00:11:44
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:11:45
Nicholas Kristof: And you know, the… Just investigate, and if you think I’m wrong, then prove me wrong. But, uh, open up the doors and, and allow the… kind of access by the Red Cross and others.
00:11:58
Piers Morgan: But, but this principle of using a government to sue journalists, to sue a newspaper over a report, what do you feel about that?
00:12:07
Nicholas Kristof: Well, um, it’s a threat. I mean, we’ll see if it happens.
00:12:10
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:12:10
Nicholas Kristof: Uh, I mean, I, I… look, I have full confidence in what I wrote. Um, I know people, you know, as I said, I’ve been, you know, worse things happen than getting sued. Right now, we have journalists, uh, in, uh, covering wars around the world who can be killed tomorrow. Um, you know, I’ve been denounced, but a lot worse things are happening to journalists around the world.
00:12:35
Piers Morgan: It, th- it’s, it’s very interesting to watch the changing mood about Israel, particularly in America, where for the first time you see a majority of Americans have a negative opinion of Israel. And I saw Joe Scarborough, um, talking on, uh, MS now yesterday, uh, about the Bibi Netanyahu effect, as he put it, which is if you wanna know why Israel is so unpopular, if you wanna know why in New York you’re seeing a lot of wins for Mamdani-supported, um, you know, congressional candidates-
00:13:03
Nicholas Kristof: Right
00:13:03
Piers Morgan: … uh, it, it’s because, and he said all roads lead to Netanyahu with this relentless bombing. Let’s take a little look at what he said.
00:13:11
Joe Scarborough: If you wanna blame anybody, Jonathan, I think you have to blame Benjamin Netanyahu. The idea that you’re gonna be able to brutalize children and women in Gaza with bombing that looks indiscriminate on TV day in and day out for years, that you’re gonna be able to level half of Lebanon, that you’re gonna be able to continue to allow thugs to run wild in the West Bank and, and, and, and, and, and brutalizing Palestinians, brutalizing Christians in Bethlehem, brutalizing, uh, Christians across that area along with Palestinian Muslims, especially Palestinian Muslims, blowing up Catholic churches in Gaza, it… You can blame all of this on Benjamin Netanyahu and-
00:13:56
Piers Morgan: Well, what do you f- feel about what Joe Scarborough was saying there? ‘Cause I, I reposted it saying I completely agree. I mean, I just think that i- in the end, if you look at the actions of this particular Israeli government, I think Netanyahu did this dirty deal with these unbelievably hard line characters like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, whose mission seems crystal clear. They just wanna basically ethnically cleanse the Palestinians out of Gaza, out of the West Bank, out of Southern Lebanon. And Netanyahu, for political power preservation purposes and to avoid presumably as well the, the criminal trial that he’s facing but keeps being put off, that it, it kind of suits him to keep bombing places.
00:14:38
Nicholas Kristof: So I think that there is something to that, and I think that Netanyahu has certainly, you know, made things much worse ever since he first came into office in the 1990s. But I also think it becomes too easy and a little bit too glib to focus everything on Netanyahu. I mean, the truth is that the war in Gaza and the way it was carried out, leveling entire city blocks, you know, that had the support of a broad swath of Israelis.
00:15:05
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:15:06
Nicholas Kristof: Um, much of the settlement policy has very broad support. I think likewise, a very aggressive policy in Lebanon has broad support. And so I think that if we have a new Israeli prime minister, as we may have this fall, um, you know, I think there will be some improvement, and Ben-Gvir won’t be in the cabinet, one hopes.
00:15:27
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:15:27
Nicholas Kristof: But I think that there will still be some really hard line policies, uh, toward Gaza, toward Lebanon, and th- this is not just personal, although that magnifies it, but also structural. And your, and your point about how US opinion has changed, that’s absolutely true, and it’s interesting ’cause it’s not so much an ideological divide.
00:15:46
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:15:46
Nicholas Kristof: It’s really a, a generational one-
00:15:47
Piers Morgan: Yes, it is
00:15:48
Nicholas Kristof: … that even young Republicans are much, much more skeptical of Israeli ties, uh, than, you know, than, than older folks. Uh, so it’s really, uh… And the Democratic Party, because it was being led by Biden, who was so supportive of Israel, it hasn’t really fully made that transition. But Democratic voters themselves are, um, you know, they’re gonna pull the party toward this much greater skepticism toward Israel.
00:16:14
Piers Morgan: Yeah. W- just quickly, Nate, what is your overview of the Iran war, um, which Donald Trump is clearly desperate to get out of? You know, the, the, the narrative which was painstakingly laid out actually by The New York Times in a brilliant piece quite early on that, that Trump, you know, ultimately it’s his decision to take American forces into war, of course, but that he had been persuaded of the merits of doing this with the Israelis by Netanyahu, by the head of Mossad in this big meeting in the White House Situation Room, and that Netanyahu laid out this series of events. You, you take out the ayatollah and the top people, then the IRGC kind of collapses from within, the people rise up, and it’s all gonna be a clean, you know, revolution. But of course, the only, the first bit happened, and in fact, the ayatollah got replaced by his even more hard line son. The rest of it didn’t happen, and you have this asymmetric war where the Iranians worked out if you just shut this little strait of water and chuck a few missiles and rockets at the neighboring Gulf states, they can hold everyone to ransom. Um, you know, what is your overview of this war? Has it been, as some people believe, a, a catastrophic failure?
00:17:20
Nicholas Kristof: It’s been absolutely a catastrophic failure. I mean, in a sense [laughs] we have had regime change.
00:17:25
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:17:25
Nicholas Kristof: We now have a harder line regime in Iran, one that is more repressive, one that is more likely to pursue, uh, nuclear weapons. I think it’s, you know, the, the risk that Iran has nuclear weapons in five years is now much greater than it was in January. Um, and meanwhile, we’ve handed Iran enormous amounts of leverage because it has turned out that it can close the strait. So now as we implement this new accord, whenever there is some disagreement-
00:17:54
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:17:54
Nicholas Kristof: … and there are bound to be many, then Iran will, uh-
00:17:59
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:17:59
Nicholas Kristof: … you know, say, “Look, maybe we’re gonna close the strait now.”
00:18:01
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:18:01
Nicholas Kristof: “Uh, ships, look out.” And then I think the Trump administration is gonna be inclined to back off.
00:18:08
Piers Morgan: Yeah. Um, it’s been great to talk to you, Nick. I’m about to interview somebody else who takes the position that Netanyahu has also endorsed, which the- is that the IDF is the most moral army in the world, that they kill fewer civilians, uh, in a ratio to combatant/terrorist, whatever people wanna call, uh, the other side, um, than, than any army in hi- in modern history. Do you agree with that?
00:18:34
Nicholas Kristof: No, I completely disagree. And I would note that I, I know who you’re gonna be interviewing.
00:18:38
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm.
00:18:39
Nicholas Kristof: And, you know, he is the one person [laughs] that Israelis always quote for that position. He’s not at all representative of what, uh, military leaders or retired military leaders or officers, um, think. And, um, you know, I mean, again, you look at… I, I know Gaza, and see entire blocks leveled-
00:19:02
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm
00:19:02
Nicholas Kristof: … to see what’s happening in Lebanon. Uh, y- you know, that is not moral. And to s- you know, one child a day has died in Gaza since the ceasefire.
00:19:14
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:19:14
Nicholas Kristof: One child. And, um, [smacks lips] you know, I, I find that just horrific.
00:19:21
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm. Nick Kristof, great to talk to you again. Thank you very much indeed for coming on Uncensored.
00:19:27
Nicholas Kristof: Good to be with you.
00:19:29
Piers Morgan: Well, joining me now is John Spencer, executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute. John, tha- thanks for coming on the show. You’ve been on before. I appreciate you coming back. We had a little exchange on X, and you laid out a, a very firm conviction that in your estimation, the IDF is the most moral army in the world. And I was struck really, I guess, by the fact that all the people that you cited who you’d spoken to were, of course, on the pro-Israel, pro-IDF side. So of course they’re going to say that. And the criticism that I would level back at you about your claim was simply that if you’re only gonna do that, talk to the people that are effectively have a horse in the race, and journalists aren’t allowed into Gaza to work it out for themselves, then it’s hard to believe it. What would you say to that?
00:20:23
John Spencer: Well, hi, Piers. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate, um, you in doing that. I, I, I will have to correct you on misquoting me. That, that quote about being the most moral military in the world, that’s probably from my friend, uh, Colonel, Colonel Richard Kemp from the-
00:20:36
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:20:37
John Spencer: … the British Army who led Afghanistan forces during the Afghan War. My quote that you called nonsense was that the, uh, Israel and the IDF have implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in history. Now, that’s a provable fact. You asked about the people I’ve interviewed.
00:20:57
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:20:57
John Spencer: So over 100 interviews, although your previous guest said that he had 14 interviews resting on three journal articles, and I wish I would have a New York Times spread based on hundreds of interviews, and I listed them for you in that X post. Not just the prime minister, both chiefs of the IDF, the, every division commander in Gaza, battalion commander, company commander, doing what we call primary source resource. So I’m not asking them about what-
00:21:24
Piers Morgan: But they would all say that, John, wouldn’t they? I mean, my, you know, my instant reaction when I read it was-
00:21:28
John Spencer: Yeah
00:21:28
Piers Morgan: … of course they’re going to say that to you. Of course they’re gonna present-
00:21:31
John Spencer: Say, say what?
00:21:32
Piers Morgan: They’re gonna present-
00:21:32
John Spencer: Say-
00:21:32
Piers Morgan: … a series of facts to you-
00:21:35
John Spencer: Yeah
00:21:35
Piers Morgan: … which endorse this belief that, you know, whether you call them the most moral army in the world, or whether you call them the one that has, you know, spared the most civilians, when the re- the reality on the ground, and I think it’s why Netanyahu won’t let journalists into Gaza to operate freely, the, the reality is very different. As even Donald Trump said last week, you know, it, why do they keep leveling whole buildings to go after one Hamas guy or couple of Hezbollah people, right? They are in the process of targeting the enemy, they are killing enormous numbers of civilians. Now, you know, I’ve had people say to me, “Yeah, but what about World War II? What about Dresden?” All that, I completely agree. But of course, that was precisely why the Geneva Convention was brought in, to prevent that kind of thing happening again. And many people think that the IDF has been indiscriminate, not because they’re deliberately targeting civilians, but because they are targeting one, two, three, uh, enemy combatants, and in the process killing huge numbers of civilians. And, you know, whether you call that targeting civilians or willfully ignoring the civilian casualty reality on the ground, I mean, it makes little difference to the victims, does it?
00:22:53
John Spencer: So it’s a great question, so post-World War II. But let me address your question about me just doing interviews, since I have traveled, and I mentioned this to you-
00:23:00
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:23:00
John Spencer: … although you argue that journalists can’t go into Gaza unless they’re escorted by-
00:23:04
Piers Morgan: They, they can’t go in freely
00:23:06
John Spencer: … freely, right. So you want them to embed with Hamas and, and operate freely.
00:23:09
Piers Morgan: Well, I want them to do their jobs as they do in every war zone in the world. I mean, th- these are people-
00:23:13
John Spencer: Yeah
00:23:13
Piers Morgan: … who do this as a matter of course. I know a number of war correspondents. They’ve never had a situation where w- particularly when it moved to a supposed ceasefire-
00:23:22
John Spencer: Right
00:23:22
Piers Morgan: … they’re still not being allowed in. I think I know why they’re not being allowed in, and I’m, I’m curious whether you share my concern that there can be only one reason why a government wouldn’t want journalists to operate freely when there’s a ceasefire, and that is because they do not want people to know what really happened.
00:23:40
John Spencer: No, so I, I wouldn’t agree with that assessment. A- although there are other combat zones, and you and I have actually discussed Ukraine and the coverage that I’ve had-
00:23:47
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:23:47
John Spencer: … in Ukraine, on the frontline of Ukraine, where journalists aren’t allowed. Um, so it’s not that they’re, this is a unique and the probable answer on why isn’t just what you listed. But the embeds that I have done, I’m not a reporter, I’m a war scholar. I went into Gaza multiple times, over six times. So when I was asking a division commander, “What are you doing here?” I’m actually also opera- watching them operate. And to your previous guest’s question, which I really wanna talk about, is that you and others have pinned me as the only person, right? I’m the only one that says this thing when there’s actually-
00:24:23
Piers Morgan: Well, I didn’t say that
00:24:23
John Spencer: … been four.
00:24:24
Piers Morgan: I didn’t say that. Nick-
00:24:25
John Spencer: Well, he did
00:24:25
Piers Morgan: … Nick said that.
00:24:25
John Spencer: Your previous guest, right?
00:24:26
Piers Morgan: Yeah, yeah.
00:24:27
John Spencer: So do you know S- uh, Sir John McColl? I, I know you’ve been on a panel with him.
00:24:31
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm.
00:24:31
John Spencer: Right? The former deputy NATO Supreme Commander, who was very skeptical, almost had similar thoughts to you.
00:24:36
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:24:36
John Spencer: Then went to Gaza, went into Gaza with six other NATO members, and came out and said, “No, the harm mitigation measures,” which is really important-
00:24:46
Piers Morgan: Yeah
00:24:46
John Spencer: … ’cause we’re gonna talk about post-World War II. Would you call the Korean War a genocide, Piers?
00:24:52
Piers Morgan: Well, I, I think the, the definition of ge- I, the reason I have held off calling what happened in Gaza a genocide is because actually no country/state has ever been found guilty of waging a genocide. That’s just a fact. As a country, right? So-
00:25:09
John Spencer: Yeah
00:25:09
Piers Morgan: … I, so I think that, yeah, it’s important that when people throw these kind of words around, they understand what it means, and they wait for a, a proper adjudication by proper authorities on whether it meets the criteria for genocide. I have used the phrase ethnic cleansing because I think that is more pertinent to the language, particularly we see from certain members of the Israeli government. But and let’s be honest, John, when you saw that statement from Ben-Gvir about Lebanon and burning it to the ground, that is the w- the language of a genocidal maniac.
00:25:41
John Spencer: It, it is. A-, um, but I, I don’t wanna live in the world where, you know, outlier politicians that make statements that if you took them to words-
00:25:50
Piers Morgan: But he’s the security minister of Israel.
00:25:53
John Spencer: I think Naftali Bennett replied to your X post and said-
00:25:56
Piers Morgan: Yeah, but I did-
00:25:56
John Spencer: … he made that title up for himself
00:25:56
Piers Morgan: … but he didn’t answer that point, and I replied to him saying, “But hang on, this guy is the security minister for Israel.” That is his job in the government. He’s not a f- he’s not a fringe member of the government. He’s actually the security minister.
00:26:09
John Spencer: That title, though, isn’t what you’re ma- inferring. That’s what Naftali Bennett, no friend of Netanyahu, said.
00:26:13
Piers Morgan: No, no, he’s not.
00:26:13
John Spencer: That’s more like the head of the police. He’s not in the chain of command. So when you criticize that list of people, I was demonstrating that I’ve interviewed or observed in combat operations both the political leaders that are in the chain of command and the actual field commanders operating and s- watching them take in- unordinary, extraordinary steps that no military has done in ages before.
00:26:38
Piers Morgan: But do you think, John, so, so John, on that point, do, do you-
00:26:40
John Spencer: But Piers, you said post-World War II. Can I answer that really quick?
00:26:43
Piers Morgan: Sure, sure, sure.
00:26:43
John Spencer: ‘Cause you said the Korean War, right? So yes-
00:26:46
Piers Morgan: But you said the Korean War. I didn’t mention it
00:26:47
John Spencer: … things that we did in World War II, Dresden, uh, and you know, even the, uh, the blitz of, um… We don’t do that anymore, right? The Geneva Conventions.
00:26:54
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:26:54
John Spencer: The Korean War was a 37-month war.
00:26:57
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:26:57
John Spencer: Two million civilians were killed in that war. That’s 54,000 civilians a month-
00:27:02
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:27:02
John Spencer: … every month of the war. 2,000 civilians a day. More than actual combatants. Th- these numbers, these lies, damn lies, statistics, even if we wanna talk about the numbers of children, which is, according to United Nations, anybody below the age of 18, half of the population of Gaza is below the age of 18.
00:27:22
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:27:22
John Spencer: And Hamas is historic for deploying soldiers from 12 to 18. The average age of a Hamas recruit right now is 16. So, well-
00:27:31
Piers Morgan: But do you believe… Okay, but John, do you believe that the ratio of civilian deaths to enemy combatant terrorist deaths, in Gaza for example, is the, the best ratio, if you like, that we’ve seen in modern warfare? Do you, is that your belief?
00:27:49
John Spencer: And so I stated that early in the war-
00:27:52
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:27:52
John Spencer: … when there are people doing false comparative analysis. I write case-
00:27:55
Piers Morgan: But do you still believe that about Gaza?
00:27:57
John Spencer: Absolutely. Um, because it’s a-
00:27:58
Piers Morgan: Okay, so my question for you is very simple then
00:28:00
John Spencer: … it’s a aggregated-
00:28:01
Piers Morgan: Okay, but my question for you is very simple
00:28:02
John Spencer: … Piers, what is the-
00:28:03
Piers Morgan: No, but hang on, John. Let me finish what, let me finish my question
00:28:05
John Spencer: … do you know what the civilian combatant ratio in Gaza was?
00:28:06
Piers Morgan: I will let you answer. I will let you answer, but let, because you’ve said that-
00:28:09
John Spencer: Yeah
00:28:09
Piers Morgan: … let me just give you my question, which is this.
00:28:11
John Spencer: Sure.
00:28:12
Piers Morgan: To, to make that assessment, you would have to know how many civilians have been killed, wouldn’t you?
00:28:18
John Spencer: Yep. Yep.
00:28:18
Piers Morgan: So how many is it?
00:28:21
John Spencer: So I take both the, the numbers that we all have available.
00:28:24
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:28:24
John Spencer: I just ha- I don’t filter m- them through some prism-
00:28:27
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:28:27
John Spencer: … of intentionality and already criticize the figures.
00:28:29
Piers Morgan: But no pro-Israeli guest has been able to tell me the numbers, so maybe you can enlighten everybody.
00:28:33
John Spencer: No, no, no, I, I-
00:28:34
Piers Morgan: How many civil, how many civilians-
00:28:35
John Spencer: It-
00:28:35
Piers Morgan: … have been killed in Gaza?
00:28:37
John Spencer: Sure. Um, so I take the Hamas number that they provide, which doesn’t distinguish between civilian and combatants, and then I take the, the one that Israel provides. I have done enough research on all the numbers of any urban battle to understand when do we have a number and then how is it determined by Hamas-
00:28:56
Piers Morgan: Sure, so how many civilians have been killed?
00:28:59
John Spencer: According to Hamas, 72,000.
00:29:01
Piers Morgan: And what is your belief?
00:29:03
John Spencer: That, that, I, my belief is that we don’t have a number, but if we take Hamas’ number and then we compare it to Israel’s numbers of combatants, how many fighters do you think Hamas has, Guy? 2,000.
00:29:14
Piers Morgan: Well, no, but, but, okay, let’s take, let’s take the Israel number of combatants. So I, uh, I’ve asked Israeli ambassadors how many civilians have been killed. They can always tell me how many Hamas have been killed.
00:29:24
John Spencer: That’s right.
00:29:25
Piers Morgan: But they can never tell-
00:29:26
John Spencer: You know why they can’t tell you how many civilians have died?
00:29:27
Piers Morgan: But oddly, oddly, they can never tell me how many civilians have been killed. So my simple question for you is to make the assessment that the ratio-
00:29:35
John Spencer: Yeah
00:29:35
Piers Morgan: … has never been better than it is in Gaza in terms of-
00:29:38
John Spencer: Yep
00:29:39
Piers Morgan: … combatants killed compared to civilians, you’d have to know both numbers. You have to, right? So my question, again, is simple. How many civilians have actually been killed in Gaza?
00:29:51
John Spencer: So this, that would be a question-
00:29:53
Piers Morgan: You don’t know, do you?
00:29:54
John Spencer: Fair, fair comment.
00:29:54
Piers Morgan: You don’t know.
00:29:57
John Spencer: So when people talk about how many civilians have died, you just started the show talking about-
00:30:02
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:30:02
John Spencer: … an indiscriminate number, a high number of civilians. You, too, don’t have access to information to know that that body that we’re talking about-
00:30:08
Piers Morgan: No, but you’re the one making the claim that the ratio is the best we’ve seen. I don’t think it’s unreasonable-
00:30:14
John Spencer: Yeah, using-
00:30:14
Piers Morgan: I don’t think it’s unreasonable, John, in that context of that claim to simply ask you that obviously to, to make that assessment, you must know how many civilians have been killed and how many Hamas terrorists have been killed. If you don’t know, I don’t know how you can make the assessment
00:30:31
John Spencer: I mean, I, I guess you could challenge the qualitative analysis of any war in the history of war
00:30:36
Piers Morgan: I’m only asking you about your claim. You said it was the best ratio-
00:30:39
John Spencer: Yes
00:30:39
Piers Morgan: … and yet I’m simply asking you, okay, so what is the ratio? How many civilians, how many Hamas?
00:30:47
John Spencer: A- and I’m trying to explain to you the qualitative analysis that-
00:30:49
Piers Morgan: But do you know the answer or not?
00:30:51
John Spencer: Yes.
00:30:52
Piers Morgan: What is it?
00:30:53
John Spencer: It is based on Hamas’ number-
00:30:56
Piers Morgan: No, just give me a number of civilians who’ve been killed that w- for you to make your judgment that the ratio is the best in modern times, okay, that’s your claim. I respect your f- right to have a claim, but to back it up, you have to know the two numbers. You have to be able to tell me this number of civilians were killed and this number of Hamas, and then we can all decide whether that is the best ratio of modern times.
00:31:18
John Spencer: Sure.
00:31:18
Piers Morgan: But if you don’t know, now’s your chance to say, “Actually, I don’t know.” ‘Cause I don’t think you do, do you?
00:31:23
John Spencer: No, that’s, so that, that’s an interesting, um, viewpoint if you didn’t know that I’m, uh, that I’m comparing the numbers we all have available to the same numbers that we all have available-
00:31:34
Piers Morgan: Right, so how many civilians-
00:31:35
John Spencer: … in any battle or war
00:31:35
Piers Morgan: … have been killed? You, you said you’re a, a scholar of war, so as-
00:31:39
John Spencer: Yes
00:31:39
Piers Morgan: … a scholar of war who says the ratio has never been better-
00:31:42
John Spencer: Yeah
00:31:42
Piers Morgan: … one last time, how many civilians have been killed?
00:31:46
John Spencer: So in, let’s talk in the Battle of Rafah.
00:31:49
Piers Morgan: No, no.
00:31:49
John Spencer: The, as you can ex-
00:31:49
Piers Morgan: Let’s just talk, let’s talk about in Gaza since October the 7th.
00:31:54
John Spencer: Yeah.
00:31:54
Piers Morgan: W- in the war, how many civilians have been killed?
00:31:58
John Spencer: If, uh, if you just do g- literally, like, my kindergartner math of the numbers that are available and subtract the number of combatants-
00:32:07
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:32:07
John Spencer: … ’cause there are no civilians in, in war, Piers. There’s combatants or non-combatants. Non-combatants are those that are not participating in the war.
00:32:15
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:32:15
John Spencer: Such as in Gaza, if you’re holding a civilian and you’re a doctor-
00:32:17
Piers Morgan: All right, but John, just to be clear-
00:32:18
John Spencer: … you know, 40-
00:32:18
Piers Morgan: … do you have a number or not?
00:32:22
John Spencer: 50,000 minus the number of combatants that the IDF have set.
00:32:27
Piers Morgan: 50,000 is what? What number’s that?
00:32:30
John Spencer: It is the number that Hamas says is left over of the number of combatants that Israel says.
00:32:36
Piers Morgan: Sorry, so how many-
00:32:37
John Spencer: You, you want to throw out-
00:32:37
Piers Morgan: So just to be clear, how many-
00:32:38
John Spencer: Yeah
00:32:38
Piers Morgan: … let’s, you don’t wanna use the word civilians. How many non-combatants have been killed? I, I’m struggling to get my head around your maths.
00:32:46
John Spencer: According to Hamas, all of, all of the deaths are non-combatants.
00:32:50
Piers Morgan: Okay. So how many do you think it is?
00:32:52
John Spencer: So 70,000 according to Hamas.
00:32:53
Piers Morgan: How many do you think it is?
00:32:56
John Spencer: It’s less the number that the-
00:32:57
Piers Morgan: Well, how many is it-
00:32:58
John Spencer: … Israel has publicly-
00:32:59
Piers Morgan: … John? I mean, to have, to have said the ratio’s the best we’ve seen, you’ve gotta know the number, and if you don’t know the number-
00:33:04
John Spencer: So-
00:33:04
Piers Morgan: … obviously your assessment-
00:33:06
John Spencer: … let’s quote me-
00:33:06
Piers Morgan: … is bullshit.
00:33:08
John Spencer: Piers, so y- sure, if the entire history of war is bullshit, every case-
00:33:13
Piers Morgan: I’m not talking about the entire history of war. You said you’re a war scholar.
00:33:16
John Spencer: World War II, Piers-
00:33:16
Piers Morgan: You’ve been to Gaza six times
00:33:18
John Spencer: … how many civilians died in World War II, Piers?
00:33:18
Piers Morgan: Right, you have stated-
00:33:20
John Spencer: How do you know-
00:33:20
Piers Morgan: … the ratio is the best we’ve seen. I’ve asked you multiple times-
00:33:24
John Spencer: Yeah
00:33:24
Piers Morgan: … how many civilians have been killed, and you don’t know. Therefore, you don’t know the ratio. Therefore, your assessment is bullshit.
00:33:35
John Spencer: Uh, sure, sure, Piers, the, the entire study of war is bullshit.
00:33:40
Piers Morgan: I wasn’t talking about the entire study of war. I was simply talking about the war in Gaza. John Spencer, thank you very much.
00:33:44
John Spencer: No, no, but you, you say civilians have died.
00:33:45
Piers Morgan: We’ve run out of time, I’m afraid. But I gave, no, I gave you multiple chances to answer, and you couldn’t answer. Uh, but I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you very much. Well, as we discussed earlier, the vice president’s tough talk on Israel has earned him the ire of many of the Iran war’s most ardent cheerleaders. Dr. Eric Weinstein is both a friend of the vice president and a supporter of Israel, and I’m delighted to say he joins me in the studio. Eric.
00:34:08
Eric Weinstein: Piers, great to be here.
00:34:09
Piers Morgan: This is a, it’s like having a state visit. Um-
00:34:11
Eric Weinstein: Normally I’m put into a, a mysterious van, and I never know if I’ll emerge.
00:34:15
Piers Morgan: [laughs] You, you, you were very Eric when you arrived. You looked at me and said, “God, you’ve got a massive head.”
00:34:20
Eric Weinstein: [laughs]
00:34:21
Piers Morgan: But then you caveated it by saying, uh, obviously if you had one that big, it would have a lot of brain in it.
00:34:25
Eric Weinstein: Well, I, I, I-
00:34:26
Piers Morgan: [laughs]
00:34:26
Eric Weinstein: … I’m clearly playing second fiddle.
00:34:29
Piers Morgan: It’s great to see you. Uh, you’re in London to take part in the ARC conference-
00:34:33
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:34:33
Piers Morgan: … which is Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Now, this is an annual gathering that unites thought leaders from around the world to promote traditional Western values, free enterprise, and individual responsibility. Now, there are a lot of people in America who have been led down a path, I think wrongly, that London in particular is the kind of epicenter of the end of Western civilization as we know it, that we’ve been overrun by marauding foreigners, particularly Muslims, and there’s no way back. We’re under siege. We’re collapsing. Blah, blah, blah. I live in London.
00:35:09
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:35:09
Piers Morgan: I have done since I was 20 years old. I don’t recognize this characterization of my city. Do y- do you sense that when you’re here?
00:35:18
Eric Weinstein: The food got a lot better. [laughs]
00:35:19
Piers Morgan: Yeah, it did. It did.
00:35:21
Eric Weinstein: Uh, yeah, I mean, I think, I think Edgware Road, um, you know, has, has been an epicenter of great cuisine, and I think London’s gotten a lot more interesting. I think what people are really reacting to is things that they don’t know how to talk about.
00:35:32
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:35:32
Eric Weinstein: And so as they react, they become less, less good versions of themselves. I think one thing is that there was a sense that during the, the Tony Blair era, there were forces reshaping the society that nobody seemed to have asked for. I think that that’s true. I do think that, um, there was a lot of binge immigration, so that, uh, one of the great features of the UK is is that there’s a UK software product that you could load onto anyone’s shoulders.
00:35:58
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:35:58
Eric Weinstein: You know, we have, like, Stephen Bartlett-
00:36:00
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:36:00
Eric Weinstein: … uh, who certainly doesn’t look like a traditional Anglo-Saxon-
00:36:03
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:36:03
Eric Weinstein: … in the US but, you know, comes across as perfectly British. And so part of, part of what the problem is, I believe, is is that you took in too many people too quickly, didn’t give enough time-
00:36:13
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:36:14
Eric Weinstein: … for the assimilation, because nobody wants to, to lose that special quality that is British sensibility. I don’t think we’re, we care quite so much as to who’s running the program on which computers, but that would be a- an absolute tragedy. And I do-
00:36:28
Piers Morgan: I mean, I mean, what’s interesting, I mean, like, you know, th- there’s absolute merit to, to that. It’s what most people, I would say, genuinely feel concerned about. We’ve let too many people in too fast, and it has changed- The way our country feels to people. Um, but how do we deal with this in a way where the solution is not a kind of anti-reaction to having foreigners in our country, where if they come from a different culture-
00:36:55
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:36:55
Piers Morgan: … they’re the enemy, and we gotta get rid of them all?
00:36:58
Eric Weinstein: Sure. I mean, I think part of… So, I mean, I have an, a- an unorthodox piece of advice. I brought two cab drivers to tears crossing London this trip, um, by s-
00:37:09
Piers Morgan: And not giving them a tip, or…?
00:37:10
Eric Weinstein: No. Well, I, I sort of-
00:37:11
Piers Morgan: [laughs]
00:37:12
Eric Weinstein: I certainly tried that. Um, by speaking in rudimentary Urdu and being unfl-
00:37:17
Piers Morgan: Really?
00:37:17
Eric Weinstein: … unflinching about the problems. Yeah, sure. And, uh, I, I think that, for example, a lot of what’s going wrong in the UK is that you’re talking around your Muslim population-
00:37:28
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:37:28
Eric Weinstein: … rather than talking to them, because many of them are incredibly ashamed of some of the things that are being ascribed to all Muslims.
00:37:36
Piers Morgan: Right.
00:37:37
Eric Weinstein: Right? And so, um, you know, strangely enough, uh, I had a, a Bangladeshi, uh, cab driver last night who knew some Hindi and, and some Urdu. And, um, you know, he, he’d basically spent his whole life here. And when I tried com- communicating with him, I, I managed to tell him that my wife’s uncle, uh, had taken the surrender of East Pakistan as a Jewish general in the Indian army-
00:38:01
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:38:02
Eric Weinstein: … and had not accepted, uh, the surrender of the sidearm of this surrendering general because they wanted to k- preserve honor. And, uh, he says, “Why am I so emotional? Why am I crying? Uh, how do I keep in touch with you?” I think that, you know, in, in many ways, the problem is if you’re going to let in all of these people-
00:38:21
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:38:21
Eric Weinstein: … it’s time to go back to being the UK. The UK used to have a foreign service that prided itself by understanding every culture with which the British Empire was in contact. And my feeling is, is that m- more traditional white Anglo-Saxon, uh, English a- a- a- and the like need to learn, um, the languages of the subpopulation, communicate directly to them, and also learn the sort of ethnic sensibilities, because shame and family are powerful ways to restore order. I think that by poking a hole-
00:38:54
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:38:54
Eric Weinstein: … in the social order to defend the imagined racism, you’re gonna create real racism. There’s something i- i- if, if the landing pictures at Heathrow-
00:39:05
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:39:05
Eric Weinstein: … spoke of British confidence and strength rather than, “See how diverse we are”-
00:39:11
Piers Morgan: Yes
00:39:11
Eric Weinstein: … uh, you would look less pathetic. You look somewhat pathetic from overseas.
00:39:15
Piers Morgan: Yeah, and I think the f- it’s not helped that we’ve had seven prime ministers in 10 years-
00:39:19
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:39:19
Piers Morgan: … which is clearly ridiculous.
00:39:21
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:39:21
Piers Morgan: It’s ridiculous. I mean, it just shows a rudderless country, doesn’t it?
00:39:25
Eric Weinstein: But you really do have to deal with the fact that the grooming gang thing-
00:39:29
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:39:29
Eric Weinstein: … was, uh, let’s assume it’s exaggerated.
00:39:33
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:39:33
Eric Weinstein: It’s, there’s a core of truth there that i- if-
00:39:35
Piers Morgan: Oh, no, no. It, it-
00:39:37
Eric Weinstein: If, if, if we don’t actually steer it-
00:39:38
Piers Morgan: It undeniably happened
00:39:39
Eric Weinstein: … and it undermined con-
00:39:40
Piers Morgan: Thous- thousands of young, almost exclusively young white girls were raped and abused by almost exclusively gangs of British Pakistani Muslim men.
00:39:53
Eric Weinstein: So let’s just say-
00:39:53
Piers Morgan: That is, that is inarguable. The, the, the stuff that is problematic to me is that you get people with their own agendas who suddenly come out with their own report, which says 250,000 girls were ra- That’s not a fact. That’s just them extrapolating certain numbers and guessing.
00:40:10
Eric Weinstein: No, no.
00:40:10
Piers Morgan: And I think we should be, I think people should be more precise about what is factual, which we know from the investigations how many have been arrested, how many times they were accused of committing crimes and so on, which is a huge number.
00:40:22
Eric Weinstein: It’s huge.
00:40:22
Piers Morgan: The whole thing is disgraceful. And the cover-up-
00:40:24
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:40:24
Piers Morgan: … was completely disgraceful. But I do think it’s important that we don’t then wildly exaggerate with guesswork when you’ve got a real set of details you can, you can tackle.
00:40:35
Eric Weinstein: I, i- in many ways agree and disagree. The problem is, is that when you indulge in what I would call the hyper-liberal form of illiberalism-
00:40:44
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:40:44
Eric Weinstein: … where you have an exaggerated liberalism-
00:40:47
Piers Morgan: Yeah, yeah, yeah
00:40:47
Eric Weinstein: … you, you’re just tolerant of everything, you are consigning the next generation to hyp- hypoliberalism-
00:40:54
Piers Morgan: Yeah
00:40:55
Eric Weinstein: … which is what you and I are also… I mean, I, I-
00:40:58
Piers Morgan: Yeah. I, I-
00:40:59
Eric Weinstein: I sense we are in violent agreement, as they say.
00:41:00
Piers Morgan: I think we are. We are. There’s no question. I mean, I, I’ve tried to explain to people the grooming gang scandal was a, a horrendous scandal on a very widespread spread level. It went on for many years. There was a cover-up from top to bottom of law enforcement, of authority, of, of politicians, of police and so on, and it was a complete disgrace. And it was done because people didn’t wanna say who was doing these crimes and operating these gangs and who they were doing them to for fear that it would create racial tension, when of course by not dealing with it, it’s created way more racial tension.
00:41:34
Eric Weinstein: Exactly what you would expect.
00:41:34
Piers Morgan: So it had the opposite effect to what they thought that their cowardly cover-up actions would, would create.
00:41:41
Eric Weinstein: I, I like what you’re saying. I fear that there was more social engineering going d- on, on our side of the pond with the Clintons-
00:41:48
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:41:48
Eric Weinstein: … and your side of the pond with Tony Blair.
00:41:50
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:41:50
Eric Weinstein: And I still think we don’t know the, the source of it. I was able to tr- for example, trace some of the hyper, uh, liberal immigration in the sciences-
00:42:00
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:42:00
Eric Weinstein: … to 1986 secret study of the N- NSF, where the National Science Foundation was plotting to lower the wages of American scientists-
00:42:08
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:42:08
Eric Weinstein: … using an invidious mechanism of visas as payment, where visas are no good to anyone who’s actually a native.
00:42:16
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:42:16
Eric Weinstein: And so what you see is high trust is even more important than diversity to a society.
00:42:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:42:23
Eric Weinstein: When you undermine high trust-
00:42:24
Piers Morgan: I totally agree
00:42:25
Eric Weinstein: … then the problem is, is that you open it up, uh, to say, “I have no idea what’s true, and I heard this from my friend at the bar.”
00:42:33
Piers Morgan: Well, never has this been more pertinent, I think, than with the Iran war, where it’s almost impossible to know what is really going on or who is telling the truth. Now, I say that in the context that JD Vance, the vice president, has become the poster boy for this war on the Trump administration side. Obviously, it’s a deliberate thing. He’s been out there trying to sell this deal, explain what’s going on. Um, you know him well. I wanna play a clip from J.D. Vance, which is quite critical of Israel. I think it’s quite interesting
00:43:04
J.D. Vance: Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.
00:43:27
Piers Morgan: Now, you reacted, uh, to this by posting on X, “Israel, which I love, needs to snap out of its delirium ASAP. J.D. Vance is sending a message. Israel needs to listen, not respond, not argue, but listen. Bibi needs to be out of office. The new PM needs to understand that hybrid war/cheap drones and missiles changed everything,” which I completely concur with. Um, you know, it’s been fascinating to me to see this utter disconnect between Netanyahu and his government, particularly fueled by these, to me, psychopaths of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, that as Israel’s reputation around the world has got steadily worse to the extent that m- the majority of Americans have a negative view of Israel, and I think it’s predominantly driven by the rhetoric of these guys and, and the actions of this government, that no one there seems to either get it or care. Is that a fair characterization?
00:44:23
Eric Weinstein: Uh, I think there are people who care who don’t get it.
00:44:27
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:44:28
Eric Weinstein: And there may be people who get it who don’t care.
00:44:30
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:44:30
Eric Weinstein: And I, I, I, I would put forward the following… Let me say some outrageous stuff given that I’m actually-
00:44:36
Piers Morgan: Yes, please, please.
00:44:36
Eric Weinstein: All right.
00:44:37
Piers Morgan: Come on, Eric.
00:44:38
Eric Weinstein: This is a largely a UK problem, Piers. This is a problem of the legacy of Operation Boot. And MI6, uh, really did a number on Iran, uh, over the nationalization of oil-
00:44:51
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:44:51
Eric Weinstein: … back in the ’50s, and we are looking at the long tail of that. And the, the MI6 and the UK that did that does- doesn’t exist anymore. The two countries that best understand the clerical threat in Iran are Israel and the United States.
00:45:07
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:45:07
Eric Weinstein: And right now, because they are so out of keeping with the rest of the world, those two countries are correct-
00:45:13
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:45:14
Eric Weinstein: … and the rest of the world is not getting it. Let me tell you a terrible joke. Uh, how do you say London in Farsi?
00:45:21
Piers Morgan: Go on.
00:45:21
Eric Weinstein: Diego Garcia.
00:45:24
Piers Morgan: [laughs]
00:45:25
Eric Weinstein: I’m telling you.
00:45:25
Piers Morgan: No, that’s quite a good joke.
00:45:27
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, but the, the point is, they’ve just communicated that they can reach you.
00:45:31
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:45:31
Eric Weinstein: Uh, you, you underestimated their reach.
00:45:34
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:45:34
Eric Weinstein: And in their framework, they’re not psychopaths. They’re extraordinarily skilled players.
00:45:40
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:45:40
Eric Weinstein: But in our framework, their belief in an afterlife, in the idea that religious life is at the center of government, um, you’re dealing with a game theory of players that you will not be able to control and who can reach Europe and who will be able, um… You know, there’s an unfortunate term associated with pornography called edging.
00:46:00
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:46:00
Eric Weinstein: They have been edging for decades that they are a short distance away from a nuclear weapon, and that has become a, a claim. The claim is, oh, Chicken Little, we’ve always… No, no, they are always close to a nuclear-
00:46:13
Piers Morgan: But there are unstable countries who have nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. North Korea has nuclear weapons. And the answer is that people don’t go and invade them or try and overthrow their regimes, right? I mean, we look at I- Iran’s been dealt with in a different way, and from where I’m looking-
00:46:32
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:46:32
Piers Morgan: … 16, 17 weeks in-
00:46:34
Eric Weinstein: Right
00:46:34
Piers Morgan: … since the war started, to me it’s been a, it’s been a disaster.
00:46:38
Eric Weinstein: Well, they’d, they had no… They had one plan, and the one plan was, we have a one-time opportunity to decapitate this regime.
00:46:45
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:46:45
Eric Weinstein: And had they done that during the 12-day war-
00:46:47
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:46:47
Eric Weinstein: … it probably would’ve worked. But the, the, Iran is so skilled.
00:46:52
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:46:52
Eric Weinstein: I, I have such respect even for my enemies, right?
00:46:54
Piers Morgan: And a grudging respect. I agree, yeah.
00:46:56
Eric Weinstein: Yeah, so what I would say is is that they did something no one counted on bec- but we-
00:47:00
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:47:00
Eric Weinstein: … works in the Iranian mindset. The clerics didn’t say, “Okay, we’re gonna get hit again. How do we save ourselves?” They said, “You know what? They’re probably gonna wipe us all out. They’ve demonstrated an ability to do it. How do we make sure that our regime survives our own deaths?”
00:47:14
Piers Morgan: Yeah.
00:47:14
Eric Weinstein: So rather than trying to save their own lives, they decentralize.
00:47:18
Piers Morgan: But didn’t they also work out very quickly that they had, it turned out, the most potent weapon of all, and it was the Strait of Hormuz?
00:47:25
Eric Weinstein: Uh-
00:47:25
Piers Morgan: And if they combine that with attacking their Gulf state neighbors with a few missiles and rockets, they actually held everybody quite literally over a barrel. And the worst thing about this deal is that it looks to me like they will maintain the ability to turn that strait on and off with impunity, and there’s not much anyone can do about it.
00:47:44
Eric Weinstein: Well, I, I, man, I do have to say that, uh, Straits Hormuz and Taiwan are, are the probably the two most gamed scenarios among people who, uh, who speculate on such things.
00:47:56
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:47:56
Eric Weinstein: So this certainly wasn’t a question, uh, that hadn’t been considered. Everybody’s done it to death. I think that what’s really going on is is that there was one plan, which is one and done.
00:48:06
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:48:06
Eric Weinstein: It’s gonna be a lightning fast decapitation.
00:48:09
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:48:09
Eric Weinstein: And then all the people who are rioting, uh, back in, you know, December, January-
00:48:13
Piers Morgan: Would rise up
00:48:13
Eric Weinstein: … who will rise up.
00:48:14
Piers Morgan: Yeah.
00:48:14
Eric Weinstein: But, but the CIA and the Mossad didn’t run them guns, and they found that the, you know, there was always more support for the, uh, for the regime in Iran than, uh, in Tehrangeles, as we call it, uh, people claim.
00:48:29
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:48:29
Eric Weinstein: And as a result of this, we probably got the first step right and we thought there would be no second step.
00:48:36
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:48:36
Eric Weinstein: And you know, the problem is that Israel is wrong about some stuff here, more right about the danger of Iran-
00:48:44
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:48:45
Eric Weinstein: … than anyone else. It was a botched, ham-fisted op- uh, operation in terms of the follow on. The initial thing was executed to a fairly well. So you have this complicated mix, and we’ve been, we’ve taught people That you can only think in simplicities. Oh, Netanyahu is, uh, holding something on Trump and, and i- is actually secretly in control of the US. Not true. Um-
00:49:06
Piers Morgan: But did Netanyahu paint a picture of what could happen, as the New York Times reported quite early on in the war-
00:49:14
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:49:14
Piers Morgan: … that just manifestly turned out not to be accurate? In other words, if you decapitate the top, then the IRGC collapses from within, the people rise up. It’s all reasonably straightforward. None of the rest of it happened.
00:49:26
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:49:26
Piers Morgan: And it seemed to me, as the weeks and months went on, Trump began to realize it wasn’t going to happen, and then how do you extricate yourself from what has become a real mess? Now, he took a decision-
00:49:37
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:49:37
Piers Morgan: … in that moment, it seems to me. Well, JD Vance can deal with the fallout of this. [laughs] You know Vance really well. What’s going on here? I mean, is that something that Vance will be comfortable about doing? Because this deal doesn’t seem to be pleasing pretty much anybody. Um, wi- will he be comfortable? Is he being set up for a fall here?
00:49:58
Eric Weinstein: I refuse to speculate. I’m just gonna opt out of certain things-
00:50:02
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:50:02
Eric Weinstein: … because I have a personal connection to-
00:50:03
Piers Morgan: Sure
00:50:04
Eric Weinstein: … JD Vance, which I’m not going to share-
00:50:05
Piers Morgan: Sure
00:50:05
Eric Weinstein: … with your audience. Uh, what I believe is, is that he’s in an extremely tough spot. He chose his world, words very well. He’s associated with the so-called America First, uh, wing-
00:50:17
Piers Morgan: Yeah
00:50:17
Eric Weinstein: … of, of MAGA, which is actually a reboot of a Nazi-adjacent, uh, movement to stay out of World War II.
00:50:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:50:24
Eric Weinstein: Um, associated with Lindbergh and the Klan. Uh, JD I don’t think is a, is a bigoted person, but I believe that he has taken the sense that Americans have that they don’t create their own foreign policy. Unfortunately, we have m- memetic terms like forever wars that are really not good terms, that, that capture something, but they also distort just as they elucidate. And as a result, he’s stuck, uh, in a, in a situation where the population ha- has had a sort of self-inflicted 25-point IQ loss inside the US.
00:50:56
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:50:57
Eric Weinstein: And he’s trying to send a message to the insane, like, uh, Ben-Gvir. I have no idea what that guy is thinking. Uh, I do know Is- Israelis pretty well. They have a very strong sense that in order to live in that neighborhood, you have to understand the calculus of the local mindset.
00:51:15
Piers Morgan: Yeah, but when Ben-Gvir issues a statement in which he says, “All Lebanon must burn,” that is… He’s just advocating genocide. He’s saying the whole country has gotta burn. He, I mean, he says it in his own words. And he’s, and he’s, he’s not like… As they try and make out he’s some sort of irrelevance, he’s the Security Minister.
00:51:34
Eric Weinstein: No, no, he… In Yiddish, we’d call him a pesudnak. He’s a terrible person.
00:51:38
Piers Morgan: Yes.
00:51:38
Eric Weinstein: Right.
00:51:39
Piers Morgan: But I don’t think it’s good enough for the pro-Israeli side as they’ve tried to do. I had Naftali Bennett challenge, who I like. I, I think he’s-
00:51:46
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:51:46
Piers Morgan: … he’s come on my show a number of times. I think he’s got a really good chance of being prime minister, and I hope he is. But, but he challenged me and said, “Look, ignore Ben-Gvir. He’s irrelevant.” I was like, “He’s the National Security Minister.”
00:51:57
Eric Weinstein: Uh, he’s, he’s in a very tough spot. He needs to be silenced, and he can’t be silenced. Let’s… Uh, I’d li- rather have a more honest conversation-
00:52:04
Piers Morgan: Sure
00:52:05
Eric Weinstein: … now that I’m in London with you.
00:52:06
Piers Morgan: Sure.
00:52:06
Eric Weinstein: And my feeling is, is that you have to understand the Israeli mindset first of all-
00:52:10
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:52:10
Eric Weinstein: … not just of your opponents, which is, that is the language of the region.
00:52:16
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:52:16
Eric Weinstein: And very often it’s bluster, and sometimes it isn’t. And nobody knows exactly, because in order for bluster to work, you have to have a question.
00:52:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:52:23
Eric Weinstein: Does he actually believe the, the stupid thing that he just said? Let’s, let’s go farther. There is tremendous suspicion in Israel of American and other diaspora Jews, that we are weak, that we don’t understand the calculus.
00:52:37
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:52:37
Eric Weinstein: That we believe that you can replace, uh, the Judaism of either belief in God or picking up a gun and sending your, your children to war-
00:52:46
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:52:46
Eric Weinstein: … uh, with something called tikkun olam and nice thoughts about healing the world, sort of the equivalent of thoughts and prayers.
00:52:52
Piers Morgan: Mm. Mm.
00:52:52
Eric Weinstein: And so in a certain way, what Israel is trying to communicate is, “Please don’t tell us how to survive because if we listen to you, we would’ve been dead 10 times over.” And Israel is not wrong about that.
00:53:02
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:53:03
Eric Weinstein: And so in part, the, the world is also using Israel to work out their own frustrations. I mean, here you have, effectively, uh, an indigenous people come home. Um, you’ve got this incredible expanding colonial empire in green from Morocco to Pakistan.
00:53:21
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:53:21
Eric Weinstein: And you have this question about i- immediately after October 7th, there was enthusiasm. And so in part, uh, Jews have this i- uh, other idea, which is there’s nothing we can do about the outside world. The outside world has lost its mind. And in part, you know, everything that I’ve-
00:53:38
Piers Morgan: But much of the outside world thinks that Israel has currently lost its mind, or rather its, its government has lost its mind. I mean-
00:53:46
Eric Weinstein: Bibi Netanyahu has failed quite badly.
00:53:51
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:53:51
Eric Weinstein: He’s an extremely skilled politician.
00:53:53
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:53:53
Eric Weinstein: He’s tough as nails.
00:53:55
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:53:55
Eric Weinstein: And you have to appreciate that if, you know, if you’re asking me, I’m gonna tell you this good, th- this bad, this true, this not true. But right now what we’re having is we’re having a moronic discussion. If, if I go online and I say anything at all, I’ve got four or five tweets that use the word genocide-
00:54:12
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:54:12
Eric Weinstein: … from some sort of bot network.
00:54:13
Piers Morgan: Yeah, yeah.
00:54:14
Eric Weinstein: So we’re all losing our mind because everything is distorted.
00:54:16
Piers Morgan: But the, but the problem, f- ’cause I’ve, I’ve avoided using the word genocide, for example, about what happened in Gaza.
00:54:22
Eric Weinstein: Because it’s, it’s completely incorrect.
00:54:23
Piers Morgan: Well, well, because it… I mean, as, uh, uh, as well- widely known, no country or state has ever been convicted of waging a genocide. It’s just a fact, so why would you start actually… If it didn’t in Rwanda, for example, why would people start with-
00:54:37
Eric Weinstein: Well-
00:54:37
Piers Morgan: … what happened in Gaza? But however, however, I think a lot of bad stuff has happened in Gaza, and I think it’s reprehensible that Netanyahu won’t let international journalists in freely to, to investigate it, and he must be covering something up, otherwise he’d let them in.
00:54:53
Eric Weinstein: I don’t think so.
00:54:54
Piers Morgan: Well, I, I think he is.
00:54:54
Eric Weinstein: No, but, but let me give you a counterargument.
00:54:56
Piers Morgan: Go on.
00:54:56
Eric Weinstein: The counterargument is, is that the rest of the world is not thinking rationally. Uh, we never talk about the Tokyo genocide-
00:55:04
Piers Morgan: To let the Germans in?
00:55:05
Eric Weinstein: At the end of World War, at the end of World War II. We don’t talk about, uh, the Dresden genocide. When we talk about the, uh-
00:55:11
Piers Morgan: Well, we, we do, but, but in the context of the Geneva Convention-
00:55:14
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:55:14
Piers Morgan: … was brought in precisely to stop these kind of things happening again.
00:55:17
Eric Weinstein: No, no, but my point is, is that when we, when it was the UK and the US, we hit them hard.
00:55:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:55:24
Eric Weinstein: And we had to hit them hard and disproportionately.
00:55:26
Piers Morgan: But there was an, there was an acceptance after World War II-
00:55:30
Eric Weinstein: Of?
00:55:30
Piers Morgan: … that notwithstanding that-
00:55:32
Eric Weinstein: Yeah
00:55:32
Piers Morgan: … that the Geneva Convention was brought in, agreed by myriad countries, to avoid things like the carpet bombing of Dresden or the dropping of atomic bombs and so on.
00:55:41
Eric Weinstein: Let’s talk about the, the resettlement of the Sudeten Germans-
00:55:44
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:55:44
Eric Weinstein: … which was not called ethnic cleansing, because ethnic cleansing, if I remember correctly, is a Romanian phrase that came into currency in the 1980s.
00:55:52
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:55:53
Eric Weinstein: And f- quite honestly, everyone is supposed to be smart enough to know that you have to relocate people at times-
00:55:58
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:55:58
Eric Weinstein: … so that you don’t y- have a re-inflicting war.
00:56:00
Piers Morgan: But how do you, how… The, the problem, it seems to me, for Israel in terms of PR to the world is, on the one hand, there’s this vehement denial of genocide being waged in Gaza.
00:56:10
Eric Weinstein: Correct.
00:56:11
Piers Morgan: Okay. But then you have the national security minister literally, in his own words, advocating genocide in Lebanon.
00:56:19
Eric Weinstein: 100%.
00:56:19
Piers Morgan: So, so the rest of the world doesn’t understand perhaps the subtle nuances of politics in Israel. They just see a senior member of the Israeli government who is openly calling for genocide.
00:56:31
Eric Weinstein: He’s a madman.
00:56:31
Piers Morgan: And so they… But therefore, the problem for Israel-
00:56:34
Eric Weinstein: Right
00:56:34
Piers Morgan: … is that a lot of people go, “Well, they obviously are genocidal maniacs. Look at the security minister. He just wants to wipe out the whole of Lebanon.”
00:56:41
Eric Weinstein: And I hope that that pressure causes Israel to throw that guy out of government-
00:56:45
Piers Morgan: Yeah
00:56:45
Eric Weinstein: … never to be seen again.
00:56:46
Piers Morgan: But, but Netanyahu won’t throw him out, ’cause he’s the reason he got back into power.
00:56:49
Eric Weinstein: And if you remember what I said in my post on X-
00:56:52
Piers Morgan: Yeah
00:56:52
Eric Weinstein: … it’s that Netanyahu has to go.
00:56:54
Piers Morgan: Yeah, I agree.
00:56:54
Eric Weinstein: So, you know, again, my point isn’t-
00:56:56
Piers Morgan: No, I get it. Yeah
00:56:56
Eric Weinstein: … that your intuitions are wrong. My claim is, as a Jew who has lived in Israel-
00:57:02
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:02
Eric Weinstein: … who is left of center, has lots of friends in the administration-
00:57:07
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:07
Eric Weinstein: … I’m in a much more complicated position-
00:57:10
Piers Morgan: Yes, I understand
00:57:10
Eric Weinstein: … to see all sorts of different angles.
00:57:12
Piers Morgan: Yeah.
00:57:12
Eric Weinstein: And if you want my, my take on it, overall-
00:57:14
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:15
Eric Weinstein: … the simplicity with which we’ve been taught that we can address these questions is the abomination. Israel is in an extraordinary position. It has to use techniques that it doesn’t wanna use. We should talk about them. We don’t know how. Like, collective punishment-
00:57:30
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:31
Eric Weinstein: … is the problem with, how do you disincentivize a suicide bomber who’s already willing to give his or her life-
00:57:37
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:37
Eric Weinstein: … and, and maybe even is a child, in order to inflict pain?
00:57:40
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:57:41
Eric Weinstein: So a lot of our, our, our go-to shorthands-
00:57:43
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:57:44
Eric Weinstein: … for, we, you know, we don’t want ethnic cleansing. I agree. We don’t want collective punishment. We don’t want this. We don’t want that. We w- like the press. Now you’ve got an enemy who’s using press credentials in part as cover. You’ve got people building tunnels under hospitals and mosques and old age homes, not because-
00:58:00
Piers Morgan: But, but w-
00:58:00
Eric Weinstein: Wait, wait, wait one second.
00:58:01
Piers Morgan: Yeah, yeah.
00:58:01
Eric Weinstein: Not because they are human shields. That’s completely misunderstood. Sinwar is much more impressive. What he did was, he said, “You will have to bomb these tunnels, and what we want is the video.” This is the point-
00:58:13
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:58:13
Eric Weinstein: … I made in that tweet, is that-
00:58:14
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:58:14
Eric Weinstein: … hybrid war means that the video of Israel, Israeli bombs falling on a hospital or a mosque or an old age home or anything like that is worth so much more-
00:58:26
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:58:26
Eric Weinstein: … in a dumb world consuming video in a particular way, that Sinwar, and this is painful to admit, completely outsmarted his Jewish adversaries, who pride themselves on intelligence and strategy.
00:58:38
Piers Morgan: But, but Trump was right, wasn’t he, last week, I think, when he said, look, the problem is, y- you can’t, going after one Hezbollah guy, two Hezbollah guys, and taking down an entire apartment block is ridiculous. That if you keep doing that… I mean, I think it’s ridiculous for a different reason to Trump, which is that I don’t think this makes the lives of Israelis any safer. I think the opposite. I think it creates more enemies over time. If you, if you are… You know, do I think Israel deliberately targets civilians?
00:59:08
Eric Weinstein: Mm.
00:59:09
Piers Morgan: I don’t.
00:59:09
Eric Weinstein: I don’t either.
00:59:10
Piers Morgan: Do I think that they target s- lone terrorists, little group of terrorists, and don’t care about how many civilians are killed in the process of that targeting? Yes, I do, and I think we’ve seen that again and again in Gaza. We’ve seen it a lot in Southern Lebanon now. And we’re also seeing at the same time this appalling, aggressive expansion of settlements on the West Bank-
00:59:31
Eric Weinstein: Mm
00:59:31
Piers Morgan: … with terrible stuff going on, which is clearly war crimes.
00:59:35
Eric Weinstein: So y- you have for… I, I have no question that every war has atrocities.
00:59:40
Piers Morgan: Mm.
00:59:40
Eric Weinstein: And then when you put a bunch of young kids who watched their, their friend get blown to pieces are going to act in ways that are terrible. This is also true. So it’s not just a question of they don’t care. I’m sure that there’s some vengeance aspect to it. I don’t agree that Israel doesn’t care about civilian casualties. They do, but they are definitely, to your point-
00:59:58
Piers Morgan: Mm
00:59:58
Eric Weinstein: … willing to kill a bunch of civ, uh, civilians, to… There, there’s a particular calculus of how much can you afford-
01:00:04
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:00:04
Eric Weinstein: … which the rest of us don’t have to consider. My, my point in all of this, Piers, is that-
01:00:09
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:00:09
Eric Weinstein: … the rest of us have been at peace-
01:00:11
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:00:11
Eric Weinstein: … for so long-
01:00:12
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:00:12
Eric Weinstein: … that we have forgotten what war is. We think of war as a war crime.
01:00:17
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:00:17
Eric Weinstein: Israel is fed up with all of us saying, “Look, we have to survive.” But, you know, if you want my, my, my I- Israel critical perspective-
01:00:25
Piers Morgan: [coughs]
01:00:25
Eric Weinstein: … when you don’t show up for the hybrid side of a hybrid war that involves, uh, PR, um, presaging what you’re going to do, telegraphing here’s how this is going to take place-
01:00:37
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:00:37
Eric Weinstein: … you’re gonna be extremely upset. We’re gonna have, have the following things. If you re- recall with my tweets, right after October 7th, before Israel invaded, I, I said, “This is Munchausen by proxy.”
01:00:47
Piers Morgan: Right.
01:00:48
Eric Weinstein: And you’re, you’re g- you have a guy who’s gonna try to get as many atrocities as he can possibly get, real or optical- On video.
01:00:56
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm.
01:00:56
Eric Weinstein: And, you know, if I pat myself on the back, it took me a little while because he’s so d- damn smart.
01:01:03
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:01:03
Eric Weinstein: And one of the things that I really miss is that the Ariel Sharons of the world really knew the mind of their enemy. They lived in the region.
01:01:11
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm.
01:01:11
Eric Weinstein: And if you wanna look, you know, look at Thomas Friedman’s From Beirut to Jerusalem, there’s a chapter called Hama Rules about disproportionate violence as a language. When Israel gets tarred with the question of this violence is disproportionate, if Israel only engaged in a proportion of violence, it would cease to exist.
01:01:29
Piers Morgan: Just before we finish, I just want to ask you about quantum mania.
01:01:32
Eric Weinstein: Mm-hmm.
01:01:33
Piers Morgan: So you’re actually in the UK in your capacity as a financial expert, and many people think… I had Andrew Ross Sorkin on last week talking about his book 1929 and whether there are parallels, and he said there are clear parallels. As we’re meeting today, there’s a big sell-off in to- uh, tech stocks. We’ve seen SpaceX skyrocket and now falling back. Um, Musk became a trillionaire, but, you know, even he’s not impervious to what’s going on here. Quantum media, what is that in simple terms? What, what is quantum mania? What is this?
01:02:05
Eric Weinstein: Well, in part it has to do with, um, technol- the quantum sounds like it should be more physics, but it’s really an attempt to use the particular properties-
01:02:17
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:02:17
Eric Weinstein: … that we’ve considered to be mysterious or even defects of the quantum theory as a technological edge.
01:02:23
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:02:24
Eric Weinstein: So the idea that one can incu- uh, encode more information in a qubit with, uh, you know, continuous degrees of freedom than zero and one, and the idea that certain things would be easier in a different style of computer. Um, so in part, what we’re talking about is can we break into your, uh, your encryption and read your love letters, your customer database, and your secret plans to attack?
01:02:47
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:02:47
Eric Weinstein: And so what I find amazing, of course, is that the administration in the US has forgotten that science exists. So in general, if you look at their appointments to PCAST, the Presidential Council of Advisors in Science and Technology, there were 13, 12 of which were, like, billionaires and technologists-
01:03:04
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:03:04
Eric Weinstein: … and one guy was a scientist. So at the moment, we have this weird feature where none of these, uh, rich people seem to know any actual scientists. They’re not comfortable. They don’t dine together. The, the poorness and precariousness of academic scientists, uh, means that they don’t vacation in the same places, and as a result, the US is basically, um, c- committing hari-kiri and, and it, it is, it is consigning itself to lose its status as the world’s scientific superpower. What we’ve decided instead is that you can only trust people who are motivated by money-
01:03:39
Piers Morgan: Mm-hmm
01:03:40
Eric Weinstein: … because Lord knows what a scientist is motivated by. It might be truth, beauty, fairness. Who knows?
01:03:45
Piers Morgan: Could we face another ’29-style depression, a proper crash?
01:03:51
Eric Weinstein: You are dealing with something so much more powerful. I mean, my belief is that we are holding no conferences that I’m aware of capable of dealing with the change mediated, uh, in neoclassical economic production theory with the move to AI.
01:04:06
Piers Morgan: Yeah.
01:04:06
Eric Weinstein: We’ve never had any technology chase so many people out. We always said, you know, you can go the next rung up-
01:04:13
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:04:13
Eric Weinstein: … if your rung becomes automated, but th- this is an old problem sort of like the Hilbert Hotel, where if you tell everyone move one room, you know, at some level, you just keep getting chased by the AI-
01:04:25
Piers Morgan: Mm
01:04:26
Eric Weinstein: … infinitely up the value ladder.
01:04:28
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:04:28
Eric Weinstein: We, if we, if Karl Marx and Adam Smith were in a room today, they wouldn’t be going back to communism and capitalism.
01:04:36
Piers Morgan: Mm.
01:04:36
Eric Weinstein: They’d be saying, “My God, we just tra- traded everything we know about capital and labor as inputs to production for some unnews- uh, unknown new system, and we’re not trying to found a new economic theory.” And I, I am absolutely bewildered. Why are we not convening everybody given that the labor market’s about to be completely oblitia-literate? I hope it’s only as bad as 1929.
01:05:00
Piers Morgan: Uh, do you know what? I share your concerns about that. I think to me it’s obvious that’s gonna be the big, the big thing, and we’re not dealing with it properly. Eric, I could talk to you, as always, for hours. We’ve run out of time, but thank you very much. It’s great to see you.
01:05:12
Eric Weinstein: Great to finally meet you.
01:05:13
Piers Morgan: In person. Next time you’re in town, let’s catch a bite to eat and I’ll put the world to rights with you.
01:05:18
Eric Weinstein: Terrific, sir.
01:05:19
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