“I’d Rather DIE Than Bend The Knee!” – On Super Bowl Show (Transcript)

He doesn’t want illegals deported from this country. Well, too bad because the majority of Americans do want that and are not shy about pushing for it, and that’s why president Trump got elected.

So he and his little buddies over at Green Day never miss a chance to bash the United States of America. He got selected because Jay-Z, for some reason, has got the choice over who performs at our Super Bowl, who’s another problem. Don’t even get me started on his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Why is he choosing who’s appropriate for American children to watch during our seminal sporting event? And I’m sorry, Piers, but to get up there and perform the whole show in Spanish is a middle finger to the rest of America.

Who gives a damn that we have forty million Spanish speakers in the United States? We have three hundred and ten million who don’t speak a lick of Spanish. This is supposed to be a unifying event for the country, not for the Latinos, not for one small group, but for the country.

We don’t need a black national anthem. We don’t need a Spanish speaking, non-English performing performer, and we don’t need an ICE or America hater featured as our primetime entertainment.

The National Language Question

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. What is the national language, officially, the national language of the United States of America?

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, English. And there’s been a push for many, many years to make it official—

PIERS MORGAN: You don’t have one. You don’t have one.

MEGYN KELLY: If you would have let me finish my comments, I would have pointed that out to people who have been pushing to make it official.

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. So you’re trying to make it official.

MEGYN KELLY: This attitude that I—you and Great Britain have lost your culture. You ceded your culture to a bunch of radical Muslims who came in and took over, and now it’s gone. We’re not allowing that here. Whether it’s Hispanic, whether it’s Muslim, it’s not happening in the United States of America. That’s why president Trump was elected.

And whether it’s Bad Bunny, who is American but refuses to speak English in his performances, or anybody else, we have to keep the Super Bowl, which is a quintessential American event. Football, that kind of football, is ours. They call it American football.

And the halftime show and everything around it needs to stay quintessentially American. Not Spanish, not Muslim, not anything other than good old fashioned American apple pie. There should be a meatloaf, maybe some fried chicken, and an English speaking performer. That’s what the Super Bowl should be.

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. Two things. One, you’ve conceded you don’t have a national language in the United States officially. And secondly, the language you do want to be your official language is my language, the language of the country you think has gone to part. So my obvious follow-up is, Megan, why do you want English as your national language if you think England has gone to hell in a handcart?

MEGYN KELLY: Piers, I think those medications for your hip have gone too far. You need to—we need to dial back a pill or two. Okay? We want something that we can all understand. I don’t think Bad Bunny used his appearance to bash America, but I can’t be sure because I didn’t see any subcaptions on his Spanish language.

The Pavarotti Comparison

PIERS MORGAN: But what about Pavarotti? What about Pavarotti, who Donald Trump, in 2016 in particular, would use at every campaign rally? He’s used the RNC, right, as a triumphant club thumping anthem.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, no. Hang on. Not only Pavarotti. I’ve been in lots of Trump rallies. Pavarotti gets—

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. But so—

MEGYN KELLY: Maybe two songs.

PIERS MORGAN: What—but when he sings “Nessun Dorma” in Italian, I don’t see you leaping up and down and going, I can’t understand a word of it. You’re probably singing along.

MEGYN KELLY: Was he being the Super Bowl halftime show? Well, would you have minded if he was?

PIERS MORGAN: Yes. I would have, because we feature English speaking performers at the quintessentially American event of the Super Bowl. We do Michael Jackson. We do Whitney Houston. We do great bands that love America, like American—

MEGYN KELLY: That’s a different situation. This guy who can’t stand the country comes out and starts speaking in Spanish, and I’m sure the people in South Florida really enjoyed it. The people in an American territory, Puerto Rico, really enjoyed it. But the people in the heartland had no idea what the hell was happening.

This is a guy who loves to parade around in a dress, who, again, hangs out with Jay-Z and his Epstein loving pals who gets up there when he’s not bashing America with his pals at Green Day who are from the far left People’s Republic of California, who have never missed a chance to rip on Trump, MAGA, half the country or ICE.

That’s not representative of what the heartland wants to see, and the heartland always gets the middle finger from people like Jay-Z, like Roger Goodell, who should know better, but he’s a panderer who runs the NFL.

And that’s why you had probably closer to ten million people turning the channel and turning to the Turning Point event, which was pro-American, which was absolutely beautiful, which had several references to God and faith and this country, which had a tribute to Charlie Kirk at the end of it, and talked about Jesus and how he can change your life.

That’s what America’s all about. We were founded as a Christian nation. We’re still a Christian nation. And what we want is somebody up there to celebrate how freaking special this country is, not a bunch of people who can’t stand us and who—over what? Over our desire to get illegal immigrants who are raping and molesting our children out of our country. That’s all ICE is doing.

Bad Bunny’s American Success Story

PIERS MORGAN: Let me present a different view of Bad Bunny, which is he’s the son of a truck driver and a teacher, born in Puerto Rico. He’s an American, born there, naturalized American. He is the most successful artist in the world. He’s the most streamed artist globally on Spotify for four consecutive years, nearly twenty billion downloads in 2025 alone.

He has sold one hundred and twenty-three million equivalent album sales. He’s won Grammys. He’s won everything. He is a fantastically successful American story, isn’t he? And isn’t the fact that he ends up performing at the halftime show exactly the kind of journey that America was founded on, which is a guy comes from very little, born in America, who actually makes it to the biggest pinnacle because he is—

I mean, look, love Kid Rock. Okay? And I actually really enjoy the Turning Point show as well. I like them both. But Kid Rock’s not had a hit single in the last eleven years. This guy is right now the hottest star in the world, and he should be on the halftime show. I can’t think of a compelling reason why not.

MEGYN KELLY: Because he’s too divisive, Piers. That’s—I’m giving you the reason. Maybe because you’re not an American, you don’t get it. He is too divisive a figure. No one would begrudge him his personal success story. Good for him. Great. We love that here in America.

Just like we love when our half-pipe freestyle skiers make it to the Olympics, despite all odds. They overcome them, and they may. But when you go overseas wearing the American uniform and you bash America on foreign soil, when you’re wearing our stars and stripes, we get very upset here in America.

It’s not that we don’t stand for free speech or differences of opinion or love rags to riches stories.

Megyn Kelly on American Patriotism and National Events

We do all of those things. But there are certain things that we expect of the people who are representing us when they’re overseas as Olympic athletes or when they’re in the middle of the Super Bowl, which is our event. That is a heartland event that gets every, usually, man, but lots of women too, on their feet, feeling patriotic year after year. It’s one of the reasons why we love it.

And the last thing we want is someone who’s a harsh partisan who we know can’t stand the country. And you’re wrong. He wasn’t totally patriotic at that event. He ended it by saying, “God bless America,” and then listed all the countries in all of the Americas, which is not how we here in the United States view the USA. We actually do believe in American exceptionalism, and we believe we actually do have a higher claim to morality than some of the countries he was listing, like Mexico.

PIERS MORGAN: But you wouldn’t want him to have his First Amendment rights infringed on his ability to criticize certain policies of a particular—

MEGYN KELLY: Of course not. No one’s talking about that. But he has no right to confirm a decision. An American citizen? Really?

PIERS MORGAN: That’s just all of the— The First Amendment has nothing to do with—

MEGYN KELLY: The First Amendment has nothing to do with it. The First Amendment is about government censorship of speech.

PIERS MORGAN: Hang on. Hang on. Anyone who’s been critical then of the US government should not be allowed to perform at the halftime show. Is that your position?

MEGYN KELLY: I don’t think that’d be my selection. I do think you should find somebody who is more of a unifier, and there are plenty of them. There are still millions, millions of people out there who have very strong political opinions, but they don’t voice them publicly because they realize they’re in a line of work where that could be alienating to their customer base. The same is true for these performers.

And if you want to be super outspoken, if you want to be a Jane Fonda, then go for it. But don’t expect yourself to be placed in the middle of what’s supposed to be a nonpartisan event and be a so-called unifier. We put up with this year after year after year. But right now, we’re in a serious battle over immigration enforcement, something the country voted for overwhelmingly. And to pick two acts who are as outspoken against that as these two and plop them in the middle of this event is a middle finger by Roger Goodell.

It’s picking a side in the most divisive debate we’re having right now in the country, and it was wrong. It was a mistake.

PIERS MORGAN: Good. Well, I’m glad we reached a point of zero agreement on that. Well, let’s move to an issue where I think we will agree.

Hunter Hess and Olympic Representation

And this is the separate issue of Hunter Hess, the US Winter Olympic skier, who said this at the weekend:

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

HUNTER HESS: It brings up mixed emotions to represent the US right now, I think. It’s a little hard. There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. I think for me, it’s more I’m representing my friends and family back home, the people that represent it before me, all the things that I believe are good about the US.

I just think if it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the US.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PIERS MORGAN: You see, I think when you’re representing your— I’m trying to think what would I feel if that was a Team GB guy saying that about Britain? And I wouldn’t like it because I think if you’re representing your country in a global event like the Olympics, just avoid criticizing your country while you’re doing it. It seems to be a pretty straightforward transactional deal.

MEGYN KELLY: Do you know what athletes over here would give to don the stars and stripes and go represent the United States at the Olympic games? Anything. Anything. Those things get decided by one one-hundredth of a second when it comes to speed or landings, etcetera. And this guy, he gets the privilege of going, and he has forgotten the most important lesson of the great Herb Brooks who coached the Miracle on Ice team that won against the Russians in 1980, in an event so historic, and they’ve made several movies out of it and documentaries beyond, which is the name on the front of your jersey is a whole hell of a lot more important than the one on the back.

You go because you’re representing the United States of America, not the guy back here. No one gives a damn about you, Mr. Hess. You’ll be forgotten in about two minutes whether you win gold or not. That’s the truth.

But your bad behavior about your country and the flag that you have been sent to represent will be remembered for a long time. You have single-handedly managed to alienate more than half the country because it’s not just conservatives who are outraged at this. There are still a lot of old regular, moderate, liberal Americans who don’t like this crap. If you can’t represent the country proudly, don’t go. And he says, “Oh, I’m representing my family and my friends.”

They don’t have the power to let you wear those stars and stripes. They are not empowered to grant you that uniform and let you say you represent the United States of America and run in the red, white, and blue or ski in the red, white, and blue. They can’t do that for you. Your friends and family can give you the hot cocoa when you come in from the mountain, but they can’t give you the stars and stripes and America on your back. So if you can’t represent that country proudly, get that jersey off of your back and give it to someone who can.

I think I speak for most Americans when I say we’d rather lose. We’d rather come in third or second or not place at all than win with a guy who can’t stand the country he’s doing it on behalf of.

The Double Standard Question

PIERS MORGAN: Let me ask you a difficult question one of my team asked me because I kind of agree with you. And one of my team said, okay, but what would you feel if someone from the Russian team or the Chinese team suddenly spoke out against their governments? Would we say the same thing, or would we actually cheer them on? It’s an interesting question.

MEGYN KELLY: Well, I don’t think we’d have to debate it because they’d be dead before the beginning of their heat. I mean, China does not tolerate that, and really, Russia doesn’t either. It’s only America that— of course, that’s the bitter irony. Like, you know, there’s an ice skater, Piers, some no-name loser, who got out there and ripped on America too because she’s pansexual.

No one even knows what the hell that is. It’s fake made-up bullshit. So she gets out there to say, like, “Oh, I’m queer. I’m pansexual. And it’s been a really tough time for people in the LGBTQ community lately.”

Really? What gay rights have you not enjoyed as an American citizen? Nothing. It’s a lie. She’s, first of all, trying to glom onto what’s happening in the trans community, which the LGB people have broken up with, but she hasn’t gotten the memo because there’s complete parity and equal rights for all gay people in America.

There’s an issue over trans people because that’s a whole different kettle of fish, and even our Supreme Court has recognized that as of late. In any event, she’s trying to glom on because she loves victimhood, so she’s tried to raise it as a fake issue because that’s just what she wants to do. Do you think you could do that in Russia? You think you could even speak out— will anybody from a country where they criminalize gay rights speak up? No.

They won’t. And as an American, I have no problem with that. There’s a time and a place. You should speak up for it when you can. When you’re in your country, if you want to fight for freedom of speech, you want to fight for civil rights, go for it if you can.

The beauty of being in America is you can. You can burn our flag. You can stand on the sidewalks. I love protest. I would be fine with the anti-ICE protesters if they would just behave like normal humans instead of biting off the fingers of the ICE agents.

I have a problem with that. That’s not protest. That’s criminality. So these people who want to go over there and criticize China or criticize Russia, okay, you should do that in your countries. You should do that when and if you can.

And if you can’t, it’s a much bigger problem. The Iranians are dealing with that right now. As Americans, we can criticize our government to high heaven anytime we want to, all over our airwaves, in our thoughts, on our streets. It happens every day. That’s part of what’s so gorgeous and awesome about our country.

But these know-nothings don’t understand that and want to go over there and tell audiences that include people from China and elsewhere about our human rights violations, which are amorphous and unnamed, like from this queer pansexual.

Kara Swisher’s Criticism

PIERS MORGAN: Megyn, as you know, I love you, and I particularly love you when you’re on such feisty form. And I love arguing with you, actually, apart from anything else. But not everyone is a super Megyn Kelly fan. You’ve been taking a lot of flack recently. And I want to play a clip from Kara Swisher from the podcast, Pivot she does with Scott Galloway, who’s actually coming on my show a little later today. So I want to get your response to this.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

KARA SWISHER: Hey, Megyn. Good to give you content. You’ll attack me and not Scott, who’s appropriately critical of you, but that’s fine. Whatever you want, girl. Next up, Bill on Megyn’s show. Have you been on her show?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: No, of course not. Why would I? Why would I sell myself?

KARA SWISHER: I get it though. I think she’s very talented. She has turned into something else. Scott, you’re not paying attention.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: No.

KARA SWISHER: I would argue over the last few years, Megyn has gone very, very conspiracy theory and has decided the more insane incendiary shit I say— Is it that she’s making money, or has she seriously lost her shit?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Yeah. I don’t know.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

PIERS MORGAN: Megyn, they think you’ve gone bonkers. What is your response before I speak to Mr. Galloway a little later?

MEGYN KELLY: I mean, I’d love to know what his examples are of that because I’m the least conspiratorial person on camera. I believe we did land on the moon. I believe the Saudis were behind 9/11. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. That’s something my detractors want to say about me because they don’t think I’m critical enough of Candace Owens. That’s really what it’s about. But let me tell you why Kara Swisher actually doesn’t like me.

Because Kara Swisher is embarrassed. Just bringing up my name triggers her because we used to be friends, and I was going to go on her podcast. And I was booked for, I think, a Tuesday. And the previous Friday, my sister, who was only fifty-eight years old, died. And my assistant sent Kara Swisher an email saying, “Megyn suffered a family emergency, and she’s not going to be able to make your podcast on Tuesday.”

And Kara Swisher responded by mocking me, saying she didn’t believe that I had a family emergency, and she thought I was too afraid to go on her podcast because I’d been in the news as being a controversial person for saying the COVID vaccine was causing deadly myocarditis in teenage boys, which we now know was a fact, and I was right about it. And when, ultimately, two days later or three days later, when I got back on Monday and it became national news, my sister had died, did she send an email saying, “I’m very embarrassed for saying that. I’m very sorry for suggesting she didn’t have a family emergency and that she was just afraid of me”? No. She didn’t.

She wasn’t sorry. She had made a fool out of herself, and she’s been avoiding me ever since. That’s Kara Swisher’s problem.

The Candace Owens Question

PIERS MORGAN: And just on Candace Owens, you’ve been very supportive of her, not critical, even though she— I would argue and I have to her face when I’ve had her on the show. I get on well with Candace, but some of the stuff she’s been doing in relation to Erica Kirk, Brigitte Macron and others, I think is really regrettable kind of conspiracy theory nonsense just for clicks and money. Why would you hesitate before criticizing over stuff like that?

MEGYN KELLY: I’ve criticized Candace many times over the years. We’ve had many public fights over the years. But isn’t it interesting that you will, quote, “platform” Candace? She hasn’t been on my show in several years, but I get all the hard time. Why am I getting that? You’re the one, quote, “platforming” Candace Owens. She and I don’t have that kind of relationship. Candace took a bunch of crap because she was very anti-Israel in the Gaza war. And it became a thing where you had to say she was terrible in her positioning.

Megyn Kelly on Candace Owens and Israel

And then after Charlie died, she started questioning whether Israel had any role in it. And that’s when they really tried to amp up the pressure on me to condemn her. And I refused because Charlie was starting to have serious questions about Israel, not just its role in the Gaza war, but its influence on American politicians, something he and I spent hours and hours discussing.

So I had no problem with Candace Owens asking those questions. And I refused to condemn her because I was under pressure from these people who wanted me to.

And then that morphed into then everything Candace said thereafter, with which I may or may not have had serious problems, that I had to where’s the condemnation? Where and it was all really about the Israel thing. And I’d rather die than bend the knee to these people. I’d rather die than bend the knee. It won’t happen.

I didn’t raise my fist and say BLM, and I’m not going to condemn the people they want me to condemn just so that I can get a little pat on their head on my head from them. It’s not important to me. What’s important to me is I live free, and that, frankly, is what it means to be an American.

PIERS MORGAN: Megyn Kelly, that is precisely why I am so fond of you. Thank you very much indeed for coming on Uncensored and giving me such a fantastic interview. Lots of love.

Panel Discussion on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Performance

PIERS MORGAN: Well, joining me now is the host of The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles show, Michael Knowles, Jack Posobiec, the senior editor at Human Events, who will open the alternative halftime show with Kid Rock, Glenn Greenwald, the host of System Update, and Marc Lamont Hill, host of BET News. Panel, thank you for waiting patiently. Megyn had a lot to get off steam there.

Let me start with you, Michael Knowles. This whole Bad Bunny thing, I can’t help but think that we’ve got to a place now in the United States where everybody’s desperation to march to their tribal tune overrides any sense of reality or just staying calm and looking at something objectively.

I watched the Bad Bunny show. I saw nothing problematic about it at all. I saw a Latino rapper at the peak of his powers absolutely killing it in terms of the production. And he’s the most popular artist in the world right now. He belonged there. He owned the stage. He didn’t criticize anybody. It was a message of love, of unity, of marriage. I don’t get the rage about it.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Piers, you didn’t get it because the English and the Americans are two people separated by a common language. So I forgive you for your misunderstanding, but the problem with it was that Bad Bunny hates America. He doesn’t just hate one president or some other president. He doesn’t just hate some policy or some other policy.

He is specifically irate over the enforcement of federal immigration law passed by both parties, enforced in history by both parties, and he has frequently thrown jabs at America up to and including speaking a language that the vast majority of Americans do not speak at this performance.

And then I think the key that he did not have good intentions here came at the end when he said the one fleeting little bit of English in the performance. He said, “God bless America.” And then he followed that up by naming a ton of Latin American countries.

So when we hear “God bless America,” traditionally, we use that to mean God bless our country. He was using this in an ironic way to say, you’re not even America. And then he named Chile, Argentina, some countries that I do like, El Salvador, Cuba, you know, great cigars, and all of that.

He didn’t even make America the final country, the apotheosis. He then went on to say Canada. And then finally, he said, and my homeland, Puerto Rico. So even though Bad Bunny’s an American citizen, he made a point to clarify. He said, I don’t really consider myself American. My homeland is Puerto Rico. It was just a thumb in the face of Americans, I think.

And, you know, there were other problems with the performance. I agree some of the choreography was well done. But the question you’ve got to ask is, what is the Super Bowl halftime show for? Is it just for great entertainment? Is it just for musical prowess? Not really.

The whole point of public games, going back to antiquity, going back to ancient Greece, is patriotism, is to support your country. And this ran totally contrary to that. That was obviously Bad Bunny’s intention. And I just think he had no place there. He can go sing his songs. He can get lots of streams on Spotify, but that’s not what the Super Bowl’s for.

Marc Lamont Hill Responds

PIERS MORGAN: Marc Lamont Hill, I mean, there are fifty four million Americans who have Spanish as their first language at home. That number is rocketing year by year by year. So in twenty, thirty years, it’s quite likely that the United States will have as many people who have Spanish as their first language as have English, which by the way, is my language.

So the language thing in particular, I don’t get. This is a guy who’s the most streamed guy in Spotify history, I think, and he always sings in Spanish. Every album he does, every song is in Spanish. There’s nothing unusual about Bad Bunny singing in Spanish.

And if fifty four million people in America understand it, does it really matter that a few other people like me, for example, watching from London didn’t understand what he was saying but enjoyed the show?

MARC LAMONT HILL: Well, that’s exactly right. I mean, there are a few things here. First, you’re right. Fifty four million people speak it as a first language. Tens of millions more speak it enough to understand it. So it’s not as if he was speaking in some cryptic, indecipherable, obscure language. You’re speaking in one of the most important languages in the world, and certainly one of the most important languages in the United States.

But let’s not pretend that Americans only enjoy music that they understand. I mean, you go to any white bar in America and let it get late enough and “Macarena” come on. I promise you, they will be dancing their asses off, and they won’t know a word of it.

But performances aren’t just about the language. It’s about the dancing. It’s about the set design. It’s about the lighting. It’s about all of the things that made that such a beautiful performance. You mentioned the wedding that took place. All these other things that took place there. I thought it was an amazing performance.

I also just want to push back against this idea that Bad Bunny hates America. If Bad Bunny were to be someone who hated America being from a colonized land of Puerto Rico, it would be understandable. But I don’t want to conflate a principled critique of America or immigration or ICE with hating America. I have the same critique he does. Does that mean I hate America? Does everybody on the left hate America?

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Yes.

MARC LAMONT HILL: I’m sure people on the right would say—

MICHAEL KNOWLES: And that’s they’re coming.

MARC LAMONT HILL: Exactly. Exactly. But that’s what makes the argument so unhelpful for the bigger conversations because we position anyone who disagrees with American policy or challenges American power arrangements as being a hater. And that’s the issue.

PIERS MORGAN: Is great. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. But I think that conversation has become so expansive that it outlives its usefulness. We just lost Jack briefly. I’m going to take his. We’re going to try and get him back.

Glenn Greenwald on Tribalism

PIERS MORGAN: Glenn Greenwald, it was a really interesting thing to watch it clean without having any social media reviews to look at further. I just watched it. You know, first thing I did this morning, I watched it. And I really enjoyed it. And then I turned on social media and suddenly I had to hate it or I had to love it. But there was no middle ground. There was no nuance. There was nothing allowed.

The president said it was the worst halftime show ever. Just objectively from a piece of theater, it’s very hard to argue. Look, I think Michael Jackson did the greatest one ever, followed by Prince. Other people have different favorites. But as a piece of theater, I thought this was the best I’ve ever seen. It was so elaborate, so smart, so clever.

And I didn’t get a sense of hatred. In fact, quite the opposite. I got a sense of love and marriage and harmony and unity. And I don’t even agree about the America’s stuff because, you know, the Americas are the Americas. And what’s wrong with actually a Latino rapper acknowledging that the Americas go a little bit further than just the United States of America?

GLENN GREENWALD: Exactly. Yeah. I think to me, that’s kind of the heart of the matter. I personally didn’t like the halftime show all that much. It’s like a musical perspective. It’s not the music I like. I’m not of the generation that likes Bad Bunny. That’s totally fine.

I think the question is, why does everything now have to be put through this prism of this existential right, left culture war? We can’t even have the same halftime shows anymore at the Super Bowl.

Kid Rock is an extremely ideological and politicized figure. Had he been the host of the or the presenter of the Super Bowl, the main presenter, I assume that the American right would have been fine with that even though he’s been extremely critical of American policy under Democratic presidents.

Music and art of all kinds typically has a politicized component to it. We’ve had a ton of non Americans be at the halftime show before, Rihanna and Paul McCartney and The Who and Coldplay. It goes on and on. Here’s an American presenter who’s extremely successful.

And I just think the problem is everything gets catastrophized into this intense culture war where you can’t just say, I like the show or I don’t. I like this artist or I don’t. The reality is he’s a gigantic, extremely popular musician among tens of millions of Americans, arguably the most popular, one of the top five, and that’s what the Super Bowl is naturally looking for.

Jack Posobiec on the Alternative Show

PIERS MORGAN: Jack Posobiec, welcome back. We lost you briefly there. I’ve got to say, you know, you were also instrumental in the rival show, the winner. I really enjoyed that too. I watched all that in full as well. And I really enjoyed it. I love Kid Rock. I’ve interviewed him. I think he’s a great character.

But I think the point Glenn made there is perfectly made, which is if he had been selected Kid Rock to perform the halftime show during a Democratic presidency, like say Joe Biden or Barack Obama, you know, he’s on record as being virulently critical of all those presidencies.

Would the same rules apply? Would the conservative right be happy with that? Or would they apply intellectual honesty and say, actually, it applies to our side too. If you’ve been really critical of a president or a presidency, then de facto, you’re criticizing the country, you disqualify yourself from being able to perform the halftime show.

In other words, I think there is an intellectual dishonesty here and it’s very tribal. And in this case in particular, I don’t see how anybody who watched it with an open mind could not conclude it was just a very fun entertaining fifteen minutes as was your show.

JACK POSOBIEC: Well, yeah, I appreciate that. And, you know, I think part of this too is, you know, we want to make sure that we’re comparing apples to oranges because, you know, country music and rock music have not been featured at the Super Bowl in decades.

And this was a key reason that when you looked at the show that we put on, you’ve got Kid Rock who, you know, kind of straddles that bridge between rock and he does little rap sometimes, certainly in his earlier stuff. And then he also has country music with his newer stuff moving obviously now into Christian with his latest song, which is tearing up the charts right now “Till You Can’t,” that cover that he did added to it with the tribute to Charlie.

And so this is a group of people, this audience of people, which by the way, overlaps very much with the demographics of who watches the NFL, who watches the Super Bowl, that has been completely underserved.

Because for years, the Super Bowl, going back to 2019, signed a deal with Roc Nation that’s run by Jay-Z as Megyn Kelly was talking about that a little bit a while ago, and they’ve completely rejected these type of artists. So country music, rock music, not shown the type of music that middle America, average Americans, what they would refer to as flyover America.

Stephen Colbert was attacking people the other day saying, oh, these are a bunch of unknowns. You know, can’t even pronounce their names. Right? And then we got more views than he did. And by the way, the numbers just speak for themselves.

It was the number one entertainment event in YouTube history, the number one US livestream in YouTube history or excuse me, YouTube history, number one American event in YouTube history, number one English language livestream in YouTube history. So the numbers speak for themselves. There were a lot of people who switched over last night.

PIERS MORGAN: Why can’t we just enjoy both? Why does it have to be politicized or as Glenn put it, catastrophized where everyone races to be kind of virulent when actually what’s there to be virulent about? I mean, if Bad Bunny had turned all political during the performance, I’d agree with you. It would have been inappropriate.

JACK POSOBIEC: Well, he was politicizing it before. That he was the one who politicized in the first—

PIERS MORGAN: He wasn’t Grammy. The first time that Bad Bunny has played a Super Bowl.

Right? He performed with Shakira back in 2019 when she was up on stage. You had, like, you know, a smaller part of backup singer, but he wasn’t being political back then. So nobody really batted an eye.

Nobody had a problem with it. And Shakira, obviously, she’s, I think, Colombian. Jennifer Lopez played there. She has a Puerto Rican ancestry, and nobody cared. It was just a nice Latin music show.

The point was that he was being political all the way through. His choice back, I think it was October when they announced him, is really what drove so many people to say, you know what? I don’t want to watch a show like that. We’re going to turn the channel. We’re going to put on something else.

And we were able to really step up and meet that demand for something that’s just pro America, is in English, celebrates the country, and by the way, reaches out to a group of people that have been overlooked for decades by the NFL.

PIERS MORGAN: So Michael Knowles, to be clear, I mean, well, hang on one sec. I just want to get on Michael. You know, made this point to Megyn Kelly earlier is, in a way, he’s the perfect American story. He was born in Puerto Rico, part of the United States. His dad was a truck driver. His mom was a teacher. You know, he wasn’t born with any money or any privilege.

He worked his way to the top. He worked hard. He got a break. He took it. And he’s become the biggest star in the world. I mean, if you look at just his downloads on Spotify, he’s number one. He’s the guy. And therefore, he’s earned his ticket to the Super Bowl.

And frankly, if the criteria for Super Bowl performance is you can’t be critical of any administration, then you’re going to rule out almost everybody. You know, most of these celebrities, for better or worse, at some stage, criticize a president or a presidency. And it depends whether they’re from the right or left, which one they do.

But, you know, if we’re going to be honest about this, I don’t think that can be a criteria for deselection. Nobody wants them politicizing the actual performance. But if we’re going to say, look, you can’t be critical or politically active at all, otherwise you can’t perform. Who’s going to be left?

The Debate Over Language and Patriotism

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, I agree with you, Piers, that Bad Bunny has benefited greatly from America. The problem is he constantly shows ingratitude, including during the performance. The very fact that he made this little joke at the end, he said, god bless America, but I’m actually going to name all these Latin American countries. And I’ll throw America in there somewhere toward the end, but I’m going to claim Puerto Rico as my homeland, not America, even though I’m an American citizen. That is an expression of the kind of ingratitude that we were expecting from Bad Bunny.

The fact that if we were supposed to have this great unifying performance, the fact that he sang exclusively in a language that most Americans and certainly most Super Bowl viewers don’t speak is offensive. That demonstrates an ingratitude toward the country. And even if he were talented and skilled, and I’m not saying that he is. I find his music awful. I’m totally with Glenn there.

Even if he were talented and skilled, the Super Bowl halftime show is not some purely meritocratic event. We do it for a reason, and we do the Super Bowl for a reason. This is America’s, not the whole hemisphere, a lot of the hemisphere like soccer. This is America, USA, baby. This is our main sporting event of the year. It’s a celebration of America. The purpose of it is for patriotism.

It would be nice if the audience were able to understand the music, and it would be nice if the performer didn’t constantly express antipathy for the country that I think, you’re right, has been very good to him. I just don’t think he’s been very good for the country.

PIERS MORGAN: Did you understand the music? Donald Trump. You speak Spanish? Hang on. Hang on. I’m just asking.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: No. I want to ask Michael to follow up, which is this.

PIERS MORGAN: Can you just answer that yes or no? What was the question? Hang on. Did you do you speak Spanish? Do you understand the music?

MICHAEL KNOWLES: No. I have Italian, a touch of French, and Latin, but unfortunately, Bad Bunny doesn’t sing in any of my preferred languages. Esperanto would have been better.

PIERS MORGAN: Okay. But they should I because you criticize his talent as a go ahead.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, I’ll come back to it.

PIERS MORGAN: Well, I can understand the percussion and rhythm and, you know, melody even in another language, and that was all pretty bad.

MARC LAMONT HILL: But you understand his talent. I speak a bit of it. But you’re saying that he’s a I’m saying that he’s a rapper, and so the skill would be the lyrics, and you didn’t understand the lyrics that you’re saying he’s not skilled at his profession, which is writing lyrics.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Yes. Music isn’t exclusive to a single language. It involves notes and chords and percussion. So you can understand those even in a different language.

MARC LAMONT HILL: Bring this let me bring this up. That’s not the point I’m making. You’re being you’re being obtuse. He’s being obtuse. What I said is not as a writer is to I understand what music means, but what we’re talking about was his writing. You said his skill, his expressed skill is writing music. It’s lyrics. And you I didn’t understand.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: He said it was music. Doubting his skill. You inserted that because you tried to make a point that I refuted.

MARC LAMONT HILL: No. What I’m saying is can we I’m telling you what his what his professed skill is, what his articulated skill is.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: I thought he was a dancer and a singer and a pop star. You’re saying that you’re to narrow it to try to save your point.

PIERS MORGAN: Right. Look. Look. No. I’m not trying to I’m trying to hang on. Alright. Mark. Mark. Look. Let’s just agree whether you like him or not. He’s obviously a brilliant singer songwriter, or he wouldn’t be the most stream downloaded guy in the world.

The point I would make to you, Mike.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: He’s saying he’s not a great songwriter. That’s the point I’m making.

PIERS MORGAN: Well, hang on. Let me please let me ask a question, which is, again, a question I put to Megyn Kelly. Donald Trump, in 2016 on the campaign trail, played Nessun Dorma by Luciano Pavarotti at every single one of his rallies. He’s played it at the RNC. Right? And it’s all in Italian. I didn’t see anybody leaping up and down saying, well, we can’t understand it. Therefore, it’s an insult to all Republicans. What’s the difference?

Comparing Bad Bunny to Other Performers

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, I think there is a difference between whatever Bad Bunny does and a one hundred year old beautiful Italian opera by Puccini. But even putting that aside, president Trump plays the Dorma at the end, a beloved song in America. Well, the difference is one is a much higher form of art and a much more beautiful song that is much more widely appreciated in America for a hundred years. And that’s the point I’m making.

Even beyond that, though, this is an important clarification. President Trump plays this beloved song in a foreign language once at his campaign events. The rest of the events are in English. You know, I’ve been to some of them. And so had Bad Bunny done one number in Spanish or something, I don’t think anybody would really be complaining about that.

The fact that his entire performance at the apotheosis of American sporting events excludes English, which is the language of the United States, tells you that he’s making a political point. Lady Gaga well, I know Lady Gaga sang her song in English. That’s true, but Bad Bunny did not sing in English. And so the criticism here is of Bad Bunny. I suppose there are other criticisms of Lady Gaga, but she was friends with Tony Bennett, so she gets a pass from me.

MARC LAMONT HILL: So can I respond now? I think yeah. I do think you’re struggling a bit on this, I have to say.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: No. Not at all. You understand. Here’s the distinction is Nessun Dorma is one, a very famous popular song. But this is one small moment, a little cultural flavor, a little spice in president Trump’s campaign events. The rest of it is in English, which is accessible, and he’s promoting it.

I’m not saying we can’t have a little variety or exotic flavor in life, but it’s kind of like the old melting pot imagery of America. If you put a little foreign spice in, that might improve your food. If the entire meal is just curry or something, it’s going to be a little too much. It’s going to be too many tamales in the pot is going to ruin the Super Bowl performance.

MARC LAMONT HILL: Hey, Piers. Can I ask Michael a question? That’s really disturbing and disgusting.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, I said I’m able to respond.

GLENN GREENWALD: Hey. Let me let me bring in Glenn quickly, then I’m going to observe the Scott guy. If you look if you look at the last twenty years of Super Bowl presenters, huge numbers of them have been non American going back, like, to the aftermath of nine eleven when we had the Rolling Stones and U2 and Paul McCartney and the Who, all kinds of groups that are not even American and there’s all sorts of other ones as well.

And those are extremely politicized musicians to say nothing of people like Madonna and others who have hosted halftime shows. I don’t understand why they are totally fine. These non Americans, these foreigners, these people who are highly politicized, and then suddenly Bad Bunny who’s an extremely popular artist among most American, maybe not everybody here, but among most Americans, that’s why he’s so popular hosting Saturday Night Live, a central figure to American entertainment and culture is suddenly such a problem. Like, what is the difference between him and past musicians?

MICHAEL KNOWLES: I’m happy to explain. So all of the foreign artists you’re citing.

PIERS MORGAN: Do I can I jump in and run at some point from England? One second, Mark. As Mark Glenn was asking me a question. The one similarity that they all have is they all speak English, and our country, in fact, comes from England. So we have a shared cultural patrimony, and all of those artists are beloved in America. They’re all libs. There’s no doubt about it.

But they’re kind of polite about it. They’re not in your face. They’re not, for instance, pushing transvestitism and, like, guys grinding on each other and, like, attacking our base and federal law enforcement. They’re not pushing that like Bad Bunny. So Madonna.

MARC LAMONT HILL: It’s just different in kind. Madonna is not we have very different movies.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Madonna is deviant sexual stuff. Madonna is deviant. I agree.

PIERS MORGAN: If I could point out the elephant as the token Englishman here, if I could point out the elephant in the room, which you’ve just hinted at, you don’t even speak American. You guys speak English. You speak a foreign language, which is mine. It’s my language.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: We perfected that language, Piers. That’s the distinction.

PIERS MORGAN: Actually, you actually, in many ways, you’ve ruined it, and you know you have. Right. Whole fire panel. I’m going to come back to you in a moment.

Scott Galloway on Resist and Unsubscribe

PIERS MORGAN: I want to be joined now by professor Scott Galloway, whose new campaign, Resist and Unsubscribe, calls on Americans to cancel ties with a host of brands in protest against ICE and President Trump. Scott, welcome back to Uncensored.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: It’s good to be with you, Piers. Glad to see you back in action.

PIERS MORGAN: Thank you. I would say fit and raring, but I basically hobbled up my high street for twenty minutes a day, and that’s the limit of my range. But I’ll take it. Small acorns. Did just first of all, do you have a view about Bad Bunny about this whole debate?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: You know, I was in the UK. I didn’t even watch the show. I saw clips of Bad Bunny. He’s the most popular artist in the world. I just hope he had a nice time. Hope the fans had a nice time, and it’s just sort of disappointing that everything has to digress into a politicized argument.

I hope you know, my favorite commentary on the Super Bowl was from the account that’s supposed to be Elmo, the Sesame Street character, and that is that he hoped that both teams had a really fun time. I just don’t I just don’t care. I’m glad the majority of America now under the age of eighteen is now nonwhite. The NFL was a brilliant move to bring on an artist that’s the most popular person in the world.

So people watch it, seem to enjoy it. It’s not my kind of music, but I heard Tom Petty or George Michael wasn’t available. So more power to them. I actually I didn’t know much about him, but I got to say I really enjoyed it. That’s before I looked at social media and was instructed to hate it or love it.

PIERS MORGAN: So let’s get to what your campaign’s about, resist and unsubscribe. Now for those who are not familiar with it, just in simple terms, articulate what the campaign is trying to achieve.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I’ve been upset by some of the actions of the Trump administration, specifically as it relates to kind of a mass secret police, I think, terrorizing American cities is how I would describe it. And I think action absorbs anxiety, so I’ve taken my modest footprint and asked people to resist and unsubscribe. If you look at where Trump has backed away from policies, it’s not because of protests or even the courts. It’s been when the markets respond.

Scott Galloway on Economic Resistance and Big Tech

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So when he backed away from the notion of annexing Greenland or away from punitive kind of irrational tariffs, it was when the bond market or the S&P collapsed. And right now only ten companies make up forty percent of the S&P and those companies are highly dependent upon subscription revenues. So I wanted to send a signal that people have kind of this weapon hiding in plain sight and that is their non-participation, specifically to unsubscribe from big tech platforms.

So I built a site Resist and Unsubscribe where you can learn how to easily unsubscribe from different big tech subscription platforms. I’m getting about a hundred thousand unique sites a day. I think we’re going to get somewhere between three hundred thousand and a million on subscriptions. But I want to send a signal to Americans that the most radical act in a capitalist society is non-participation and that you have power to decide where you want to spend your money and where you don’t want to spend your money.

PIERS MORGAN: Do you own stock in any of the big tech companies? You personally.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I do. And I’ve decided I’m going to sell. I own stock in Apple and Amazon. I started selling my Apple stock. To be honest, Amazon’s a tough one for me because it was my big tech stock of 2026. I want to be clear, Piers. I don’t have perfect moral clarity around this, and I’m not telling people which platforms they should unsubscribe from or if they shouldn’t go into work.

I’m a guy like you who has some economic security, so I don’t want to lecture. I don’t want to be generous with other people’s time or money. What I’m suggesting is that if like me, you go on, you can find out that you might have three Apple TV plus accounts, you didn’t realize it. And maybe you don’t need three LLM subscriptions. I found out when I unsubscribed from Amazon Prime, I was a member of Amazon One Health, and I’ve been paying two hundred dollars a year for the last six years.

Do you need two ride hailing programs? But I’m going to be transferring my assets out of Goldman Sachs into the RBC branch in Minneapolis. I’m going to sell down my Apple and my Amazon stock. I’m going to try and lead by example here, but I want to be clear. I’m not perfect.

I will still always opt for my economic security. But the people who take time on a Saturday to protest, the people who are registering people to vote, the people who have some people decide not to go into work, that’s a real sacrifice. What I’m stating is the biggest impact relative to the amount of disruption in your life is simply to unsubscribe from one or more big tech platforms. Do you need six streaming media platforms? But circling back, yeah, I’ve begun selling down my big tech stocks.

Michael Knowles Responds

PIERS MORGAN: Let me bring the panel back. Michael Knowles, what’s your response to this campaign by Scott Galloway?

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, I think it’s a desperation play, particularly after President Trump won the popular vote, the popular vote, particularly on the issue of mass deportations and illegal immigration. Because what it sounds like the professor is doing is calling on people to punish tech companies, not merely for supporting Trump or in some cases, in any way supporting Trump, but because he rightly observes they’re propping up the US stock market.

And so the upshot of all of it is that the left wants to tank the US economy in order to punish President Trump for the crime of having been elected by most American voters. I get it. You know, if my party had just been vanquished at the polls and if the other party had unified government, I might be trying to make these desperation plays too.

I think it’s contrary to the common good. I think if the US economy actually did take a serious hit, that would really hurt people, some of the people that the professor claims to speak for. I think it’s unpatriotic generally, but I kind of get it because they’ve tried their electoral and political and legal means. They tried to take out Trump, ten ways from Sunday, and it hasn’t worked. So I guess the last attack is let’s try to destroy Amazon dot com.

Heated Exchange Between Galloway and Knowles

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Yeah. We don’t know each other, but I can guarantee you there’s almost nothing that’s desperate about my life.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Not your life.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: If you look at polls, what I’m saying. If you look at polls, I would argue that polls are not the president’s friend right now. And what we have is probably the most unpopular president at this point in the presidency in history. And two, everyone has the right to decide where they’re going to spend money and where they aren’t.

And we have a very fragile economy right now, which is ten companies propping up the S&P and responsible for seventy percent of the earnings. And if somebody decides that they want to send a message to the administration and a message to the president and a message to these tech leaders who have been texting me how upset they are about these policies but not speaking out publicly, then I think that’s their right.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: And an economic—

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, having a mass secret police shooting mothers in the face or denying a person’s first—

MICHAEL KNOWLES: You’re referring to border patrol—

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Please stop interrupting me. I let you—

MICHAEL KNOWLES: I’m just trying to clarify.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Prattle. I let you prattle on with your tirade. Let me finish.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: I’m trying to understand what you’re attempting to say. You’re referring to border patrol as secret police.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Denying a person’s first, second, and fourth amendment rights, putting tent bullets in them, a person, an ICU nurse who’s taking care of veterans, bringing the chaos of the border to every city, pretending having a mass secret police, tariffs that they absolutely know economic success and are declining or hurting the prosperity of Americans. I think there’s a lot to choose from here.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Okay. So I wanted to clarify because you say that you’re very upset and we need to tank the US economy in order to stop these awful—

SCOTT GALLOWAY: I did not say we need to tank the US economy.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: You said you want to damage the companies that are propping up the US economy. So I’ll just make the point. Say it’s your right to support or not support companies. Say it’s not, but you’re calling on them to do it. So you’re encouraging them. This is not a neutral action. You’re saying that you want that to happen, and you want it to happen because President Trump is deporting people, not through a secret police, through a very public police, which is border patrol and ICE.

Obama deported more people than Trump. Excuse me, professor. Obama deported more people than Trump. US Congress and the laws that President Trump won the popular vote to enforce after years of lawless neglect by Joe Biden. That’s what you’re saying. And your example that you point to is when a woman drove her four thousand pound SUV into an officer, and he rightly shot her because of that.

You’re saying that this is justification to ignore the law, ignore the 2024 election, and destroy the US economy. Real smart stuff.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: So you believe you—well, there’s just not a lot of common ground here, sir. You believe that woman was properly shot?

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Absolutely. Yeah. I think if you drive your car into a cop, you’re probably—

SCOTT GALLOWAY: We justified in shooting. Let’s agree. Let’s agree to disagree. And if you want to support these firms, you can. I’ve decided not to.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Alright. I think you’ve made an unpatriotic decision, and I’m pretty certain you’re going to fail, but it’s certainly your right to try.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I appreciate you granting me that right.

Piers Morgan Questions the Strategy

PIERS MORGAN: Scott, just finally, I mean, I’ve seen what you said about this on your own website. “The most potent weapon to resist the administration is a targeted month long national economic strike, a coordinated campaign that attacks tech companies and firms enabling ICE to inflict maximum damage with minimal impact on consumers.” In sum, “the shortest path to change without hurting consumers is an economic strike targeted at the companies driving the markets and enabling our president.”

Is there not a danger that if this is successful and there is a big month long economic strike that it could precipitate a much bigger problem with the market and ultimately end up really damaging your average consumer? In other words, how do you control it? If it starts going into free fall, if you did have huge take up, what’s the control valve? How do you not become Doctor Frankenstein?

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, I think it’s pretty easy. I think when the president moves back from the kind of edge of fascism, when he stops this nonsense talk about annexing Greenland, the markets immediately recovered. When he decides that these irrational sclerotic, very anti-capitalist, socialist like tariffs where we’re alienating our allies. When the bond market crashes, he pulls back from that and the bond market recovers.

So I think that any damage inflicted on these companies’ growth or on the markets could easily be walked back by deciding that, okay, federal agents should not be wearing masks. I don’t think it would be very difficult at all. One, I love that you’re getting this movement, the credit that I hope it achieves, but like all of these other decisions, they’ve been easily walked back.

I’m not looking for a change in government. I’m not looking for people to be imprisoned. I’m looking for some basic decency and a respect of coequal branches of government and for him to listen to the US populace who distinctly believe and clearly have stated that they think that these mass police actions have gone way too far.

PIERS MORGAN: Professor Scott Galloway, great to have you back on Uncensored. Thank you very much.

SCOTT GALLOWAY: Thanks, Piers. Good to see you back.

The Trump Meme Controversy

PIERS MORGAN: Let’s go back to the panel. I actually want to move on to a different issue, which is the issue of the Trump meme that he posted around midnight, which featured—well, we’ll show a bit of it here, but it featured the Obamas as apes in a jungle, as cartoon apes.

Now as we know, originally, the White House tried to explain this was part of a wider meme, which it was, which featured a number of politicians in the jungle. Although it was quickly pointed out there were no apes in the Jungle Book, so it didn’t quite work. But it was part of a wider meme. That was the original explanation with no apology or anything.

But then as the backlash began to spread not just from people on the left, but also from Republicans, Donald Trump came out and said that actually it had been posted by a staffer late at night erroneously. It shouldn’t have been done, that he hadn’t seen it.

Now as with all these things, let me start with you, Marc Lamont Hill on this. As with all these things, I thought the best thing to do was to go and look at the original. Look at the original, which I did. The original clip which Trump reposted was sixty seconds long, of which the Obama bit was the last three or four seconds.

It is entirely plausible to me that Trump never got to that bit, that he saw the stuff at the start, which was all about Biden and all these things he’s been claiming about Biden’s administration being hopeless and so on. It’s quite possible to me that Trump, who hasn’t got a great attention span, never got to it. It’s also quite possible he’s not telling the truth about the erroneous staffer, and it was him that did it. We don’t know.

And it’s definitely a fact that the White House came up with one explanation and then he contradicted that with another. So I’ve seen the argument that obviously this, people say this shows he’s a disgusting racist and blah blah blah. But do you accept the possibility that he just never saw it and that actually, in the end, very late, they did delete it and they acknowledged it shouldn’t have been posted?

Marc Lamont Hill’s Response

MARC LAMONT HILL: I can’t imagine that the most thoughtful, nuanced, educated, and curious president in American history, the most stable genius in the history of the US presidency, didn’t carefully read every single thing that gets posted on Truth Social. I believe in his commitment to the job, and therefore, I’m willing to accept that he saw it.

But let’s say, however implausible it is, that he didn’t see it, that a staffer posted it. My first question would be, well, what kind of staffers do you have who would have this type of judgment? Now everybody, Democrat, Republican, hires bad people. So I wouldn’t hold him purely accountable for hiring a bad person, although I would suspect that the person he hired is not only bad but racist.

But if that were the case, the next step would be to say, “Hey. I hired a staffer who did a really awful thing.” Or not him himself, but perhaps the press secretary would say, “Hey, we made a bad choice. Somebody did something awful. The president didn’t know about it. We got rid of them yesterday. And this is a non-issue.” In fact, he may even look like an anti-racist hero.

But instead, they tried to convince us that we shouldn’t believe what we saw with our own eyes. They convinced us that we misunderstood, that we were taking it out of context, that if we could only understand this movie or if we could only understand how media works or memes. There are all these narratives coming not exclusively from the White House, but from other sources as well, that the problem was us, that our sensitive eyes and ears were the problem.

And it was only after the backlash started coming from people like Tim Scott and others who said, “Look. Even we think this is bad. We love kissing the president’s butt. We don’t think anything is racist, and we still think, I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t put the Obamas as monkeys.” It was only then that they were able to take this third tack. It’s the lying and the dishonesty and the misdirection that makes it hard to believe or trust any of it from them.

The Meme Controversy: Examining Intent and Context

And that’s why I’m frustrated from this. Jack Posobiec, it’s quite hard to know what to believe here, isn’t it? Because of the changing narrative from the White House itself. And Mark raises a good point. If it was a staffer who did this erroneously late at night, given the obvious damage it caused to the reputation of the White House and the president, because it’s blatantly racist, that part of that meme at the end.

Why is that person not being fired?

JACK POSOBIEC: Yeah. Look, Piers. I caught this a little bit late as far as everyone, you know, when it was going viral. And I didn’t even realize to your point that it was at the end of a longer video, which, you know, I think anyone’s been on social media long enough.

They’ve probably had something like that happen where they post something, where you watch part of it, and you think, oh, this is great. I’m going to retweet it. I’m going to embed it. And then suddenly there’s something that pops up at the end that, you know, you didn’t intend to. I do kind of buy that that’s probably what the explanation was as to what happened.

You know, I probably think they just missed the end. It was one of those auto play deals. But at the same time, you know, that being said, you’ve got to tighten up the social media team, whatever that is. You know? So if this was a staffer, you’ve got to tighten that up.

And certainly, there’s been turnover already in the social media team around the president, around the White House. Wouldn’t be the first time. And as a staff, that you do actually have to overview what is getting posted on your accounts. You have to view what is going up, what is going out because that’s going to ultimately reflect on your administration. It’s going to reflect on your White House.

And so if you’re doing social media for the president, guess what? That’s your job. First and foremost, your full job.

Glenn Greenwald on the Conspiracy Theory Angle

PIERS MORGAN: Glenn Greenwald, I mean, like, I wonder how many people went and looked at the whole meme that was posted by Trump on his truth social. Because I do think it changes the potential context.

Because it is sixty seconds long. The Obama thing just pops up out of nowhere, completely disconnected to what you’ve previously watched. It’s almost like it’s, you know, a conspiracy theorist, and it may not be a mad conspiracy, would almost suggest this is being done deliberately to trap the White House or trap Trump or trap people on the right to post this.

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, it could be. I’ve seen that positive. It’s not a mad idea. You put something right at the end of something they all love to look at, which is the earlier part of the meme absolutely is into the MAGA playbook about how awful Biden was. And then at the end, you put something in there very quickly, which is incredibly racist and offensive, and you hope people don’t notice, which it looks to me like they didn’t.

Do you believe, Glenn, that Donald Trump saw that bit of the meme, saw the Obamas as apes in a jungle, and still posted it himself?

GLENN GREENWALD: I honestly don’t. And the reason why I don’t is because Donald Trump has been in public life for ten years. He’s obviously made a lot of statements that have been controversial, polarizing, lots of people found offensive, lots of people found racist. But this is a level of sort of bluntness and overtness just like, hey, I’m going to post a video that shows the Obamas as apes. That just seems unlikely to me to have appealed to Trump as something that he ought to post.

There have been people who have isolated this video and seem to have demonstrated that it comes as kind of continuation of the video into a next video that it wasn’t even part of the original video. But the fact that Trump took it down, that the White House took it down is the kind of expression of regret that you rarely see from Trump, I think, indicating that this is a line that he would not typically have crossed if it had been something that he had actually seen and had registered. I absolutely believe it’s something that he just didn’t end up seeing despite the change in explanations.

The one thing I want to quickly add, though, is I do think that there has been a lot of kind of increased transgression when it comes to overtly racial themes in our discourse in large part because there’s been a lot of censorship, a lot of suppression, and that creates a backlash where people say, no, I’m going to prove that I can talk about this.

And then the other thing is there have been kinds of racist discourse from the other direction that are completely acceptable. There was a video circulating of a democratic state legislator saying, we all, we minorities all have the same oppressor. These are white people. We have to make sure we unify and take over the country and render white people a minority. And when you start to kind of ratify or endorse that type of racial discourse in one direction, I think the reaction is obviously going to be where if that kind of racial discourse is allowed, we’re not going to care so much about racist discourse from another group. And that’s a big part of the dynamic here.

The Hitler Comparison and Double Standards

PIERS MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, Michael Knowles, just finally on this. I mean, I did see some people arguing. I thought there was a merit to that argument. That people on the left think nothing of portraying Donald Trump as Adolf Hitler, who murdered twelve million people, including six million Jews in the Holocaust.

I’ve seen loads of memes of Trump as Hitler and Nazis and so on. And, you know, I’m not comparing Nazism with racism, but they’re both very, very, very offensive. And I have never seen the level of outrage about comparing Trump to Hitler that I’ve seen having the Obamas as apes, which is clearly a racist trope.

You know, I don’t think Trump saw it, but I do think it would have served him in good stead to have actually just said, you know what? This was done completely inadvertently. I didn’t see it, the end of this. And I’m very sorry for the completely understandable outrage it caused. It was totally unintentional. It would go so far if Trump just occasionally did that. If he just accepted, he screwed up.

You know, and just, but he’ll never give an inch. And it’s because he says the other side don’t, but I just wish sometimes, as someone who’s known him a long time, come on, Donald. You can do it. Just say you screwed up and you’re sorry.

MICHAEL KNOWLES: Well, deleting the post, I think it wasn’t giving an inch, but it was giving half an inch. And the fact that everyone on this panel basically agrees that Trump probably didn’t see this, he probably didn’t actually post this himself, I think tells you there’s a reasonable degree of consensus on this issue.

Obviously, the separate video with Obama’s the monkeys, that was a part of a separate meme that came after, which is something we haven’t talked about. And it’s worth pointing out, I actually not only did I go watch the first video that Trump posted, which has nothing to do, was clearly some kind of autoplay afterward. But I went to see the one that it referenced.

And if you watch that whole video, yes, it’s got all these Democrats of all racial backgrounds as various animals. But then I thought, okay. Well, it’s still kind of bad if only the black people are portrayed as monkeys. Right? Even if you have other Democrats in there.

But I looked, and it’s not true. Actually, Joe Biden is portrayed as a monkey as well, and Hakeem Jeffries is portrayed as not a monkey. So it doesn’t actually, in context, even break down along racial grounds. Obviously, it’s distasteful. The president thought it was distasteful. He took it down.

But, yes, that’s actually a degree, I think, of grace and introspection that you don’t really see from the other side, which, to Glenn’s point, now has a state legislator going around saying that everyone needs to gang up and kill Whitey, and the other side, which is called Trump Hitler, and to a large degree, justified even his assassination. It was probably good for Trump to take it down, but this has been blown so tremendously out of proportion. They don’t even recognize what the original meme was about.

The Problem with Catastrophizing Everything

PIERS MORGAN: Well, you know what? It’s like all of these things. I just think people, they race immediately to the, as Glenn I think used such a perfect word, to the catastrophizing of everything. That any type of nuance or attempt to understand these things gets completely obliterated in the race to be the one that can have the most savage critique.

And I do, I just think that is the problem. And the trouble with it is that when people are actually deliberately racist, then it gets lost in the wash. You know, it’s a bit like if you keep calling Trump a Nazi or Hitler. Again, you’re just diluting what Nazism was really about, which was extermination of six million Jews and six million more people.

I’ve had this argument with people for years now. It’s the dilution of people that really perpetrate this stuff. Focus on that. I think we’d all be a lot better for it. I’ve got to leave it there. The panel’s been great. Thank you all very much. I really enjoyed that debate. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good to see you back, Piers.

PIERS MORGAN: Piers Morgan Uncensored is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we offer only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate, and entertain, and we’ll do it all for free. Independent uncensored media has never been more critical, and we couldn’t do it without you.

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