Peter Thiel talks to Piers Morgan about Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione.

It's an interesting discussion, but many people are getting hung up on Thiel's very awkward, disfluent manner of speaking:

Morgan shows Thiel a clip that Luigi Mangione shared on social media. It's a clip of Thiel himself, and Thiel says it's the first time he's heard about the alleged killer's interest in him. In that clip, Thiel says:

The woman who says she's the Martha from "Baby Reindeer" — which Netflix bills as a "true story" — gets cornered by Piers Morgan.

I'm jumping to a point 34 minutes in where Morgan questions Fiona Harvey about the tens of thousands of emails the writer Richard Gadd says she sent to him. Harvey, a lawyer, is threatening to sue, and she knows that if the emails were sent they will be produced in that lawsuit. "These are easily provable things," Morgan says. "He's either got them or he hasn't." Watch the dramatics and tell me if you think she's credible. Either she or Gadd is lying.

Yes, Gadd is an artist, and he should be able to use his own life as source material and to process it into an interesting show, but he has stated that the story is true and the show, which is very successful, is promoted as a true story. Gadd has asserted that he has changed things to protect the privacy of real people, most notably "Martha," a vivid and fascinating stalker, but Martha was easily identified as Fiona Harvey. Direct quotes used in the show appeared in Harvey's social media.

The obvious complexity is that Harvey is saying both that she is and she isn't Martha. You have to first identify her as the character before you can accuse Gadd of lying about her. If you watch the clip, you'll see how difficult her position is. But maybe she's a liar and a stalker. If not, what is she? Should she be on TV explaining herself, cornered and (to my eye) terrified? If she is Martha — and if Gadd's presentation is true — she has serious mental problems.

Glenn Greenwald, approving of the restoration of Alex Jones' X account and, speaking of defamation, calling somebody who's just interrupting "deranged."

I spoke to @piersmorgan about the decision of @ElonMusk to restore Alex Jones' account on X.

Piers has done a great job airing all views lately, but this is the 2nd straight time I ended up on a panel with a deranged person who couldn't control herself from ranting. pic.twitter.com/ztkqt2gM6O

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 13, 2023

"The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand...."

The British government writing to tech firms demanding they financially punish and cancel Russell Brand before he’s been through due legal process over the allegations against him is a very disturbing Orwellian development. pic.twitter.com/6hWPDOF8V3

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 21, 2023

"YouTube really rewards straightforward, untrammeled, and unscripted discussion, and it's really what people expect on the platform."

Says Jordan Peterson, talking to Piers Morgan about how to conduct an inteview. He's distinguishing YouTube from "legacy TV." He's responding to Morgan, who has just acknowledged that Peterson is phenomenally successful on YouTube:

 

They're right about the constraints of television, but I want to show you this amazing segment of television from October 9, 1970, when the host, Dick Cavett — and guests Jeanne Moreau and Lee Marvin — kept almost entirely quiet for minutes on end while Truman Capote stumbled and mumbled his way to the most important question in the world:

Was Capote straightforward? He was untrammeled and unscripted! But straightforward may seem like the opposite of what he was. And yet, his struggle to find his point is real, and isn't that a form of straightforwardness? I don't think he's holding anything back, and I don't think he's using more words than he needs. He's just very, very needy.

"A woman goes through a completely unique experience and surgery and finding oneself doesn’t change that."

"Being a little girl is a whole epic book, you know? You can’t have that just because you want to be a woman."

Said the singer Macy Gray, quoted in "Macy Gray tells Piers Morgan: 'Just because you change your body parts doesn’t make you a woman'" (NY Post).

Here's the whole interview, which begins with her explanation of why she thinks the United States needs a new flag. I'll make it start where Morgan introduces the topic, What is a woman? He asks her for her definition, and she answers before reflecting on what to say about trans women:

 

Morgan moves straight to the question of trans women participating in women's sports. He supports trans rights, but not that. She enthusiastically proclaims, "I totally agree."

Piers Morgan gently rebuffs Sinead O'Connor (whose 17-year-old son died in January).

Link.

"This is supposed to be the year in which Britain celebrates the Queen’s glorious 70-year reign on the throne, a unique Platinum Jubilee..."

"... to remind the world what a magnificent monarch she has been, and what a great institution she heads. But if Andrew had persisted in trying to fight his case, the cascade of humiliating details that would have erupted about his sex life, and his long-time friendship with sex offenders, would have wrecked all that goodwill. Doubtless, [plaintiff's lawyer David] Boies would have quizzed Andrew specifically about conversations he’s had with the Queen about the allegations. The prospect of Her Majesty being dragged into this repulsive sewer at the age of 95, with all the salacious global headlines that would have inevitably ensued, was an outrageous, totally unacceptable situation which could have inflicted terminal damage on the Monarchy.... There can be no way back to any form of public life for the Queen’s second, and some say favourite, son. He must be immediately stripped of all remaining titles and privileges that come with being a Prince and despatched [sic] to the ignominious obscurity that his appalling behaviour demands."

From "COWARD'S WAY OUT/Prince Andrew’s a snivelling little coward whose denials weren’t worth the paper they were written on, says Piers Morgan" (The Sun)(commenting on Andrew's settling the case for what is said to be £12 million).

What is cowardly about sacrificing his right to defend himself, spending a great deal of money, and withdrawing into obscurity for the sake of the Queen? It sounds as though Morgan is miffed at that he won't get the spectacle of a public trial with all the gory details and royal squirming that he'd been hankering after.

"What would you say to people who may feel that while you're standing by your friend, it appears you gave validation or safe haven to something that he has uttered that is racist, even if you don't agree?"

Said Sheryl Underwood, quoted in "'The Talk' goes on hiatus after Sharon Osbourne defends Piers Morgan/On Wednesday's episode of 'The Talk,' Sheryl Underwood and Sharon Osbourne got into a heated exchange" (NBC). 

I hope you have a sense of how convoluted that is. The accusation of racism against Piers Morgan is already flimsy, but Sharon Osbourne is getting intimidated for saying something supportive about her friend — as if the new rule is that you have to proactively denounce people, or you yourself will become the target. Not only is the first person (Morgan) denied a fair hearing, but the second person (Osbourne) — the one who tries to slow things and ask to look carefully at the accusation — is deemed an accomplice. 

We saw that term "cancel adjacent" the other day. Osbourne is caught on camera experiencing the terror of being cancel adjacent.

Osbourne said: "I feel like I'm about to be put in the electric chair because I have a friend who many people think is racist, so that makes me a racist."

From the NBC article:

"Let’s do an IQ test," said Donald Trump...

... when Piers Morgan, on "Good Morning Britain," said that London's mayor Sadiq Khan has been "quite critical of you" and "attacked you for being ignorant."

Trump also said "When he won, I wished him well. Now I don’t care about him," and "I just think it’s very rude of him." And: "I'm not stupid OK? I can tell you that right now," and "I don't think I'm a divisive person, I'm a unifier."

"A Hollywood actor sitting with a paper bag over his head who did nothing as he claims a woman 'raped' him has not been raped."

"People are actually defending Shia LaBeouf. The world's gone mad. He's invented a supposed 'rape' for cheap PR — utterly shameful."

Tweets from Piers Morgan about LaBeouf's "#IAMSORRY" performance. I don't quite have the patience to read this condensed 2-week interview in Dazed and Confused, but I think it has something to do with his ripping off of a genuine artist, Daniel Clowes.

In the end, are guns what killed CNN’s 'Piers Morgan Live'?"

Asks Rick Kissell at Variety.

There’s no way to quantify how much of a factor the discussion of gun control on “Piers Morgan Live” has contributed to its ratings (which were never all that great to begin with), but the show’s numbers have fallen more sharply since it became a frequent subject on the show.

Monday’s installment included discussion of the [Michael Dunn loud-music] murder trial and [George] Zimmerman’s assertion in a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo earlier that day that he was a victim.

HLN host Nancy Grace was among the guests, and she didn’t want to hear more gun-control talk from Morgan. “Are you back on gun control again?... If it weren’t for the British, we wouldn’t even have to have protections to carry guns. It was the British way back when they founded America. They were running through all of our homes trying to take our stuff. So we’re protected under the Constitution. So it’s not really right for a Brit to jump up and start talking to us about gun control.”

Nancy rants, but it's funny. Sit back down, Brit. We're still pissed about things you did 240 years ago. It's a bit early for one of your kind to be jumping up.

The media see the Pope as "a Supreme Court justice that they can't turn."

"They see the pope as a Supreme Court justice they can't intimidate. The Supreme Court scares the heck out of the left because to them it's infallible. Now, they succeeded. Obama and the left somehow succeeded in turning John Roberts when it came to the constitutionality of Obamacare, but they can't turn the pope."

Said Rush Limbaugh, yesterday, after playing a hilarious audio montage of media characters — Chris Cuomo of CNN, Shannon Bream of Fox, Erin Burnett, Juan Carlos Lopez of CNN Español, Gwen Ifill, Allen Pizzey of CBS — reacting to the new Pope.

CUOMO: Where is Pope Francis on the issues that matter most, issues about contraception, women priests?

BREAM: Pope Francis is staunchly orthodox on the issues of abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage.

BURNETT: He opposed same-sex marriage in Argentina. He opposed free contraception.

LOPEZ: He follows a conservative line. He opposes, uh, same-sex marriages. He is conservative on birth control.

PIERS MORGAN: He is known to be, duh, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage.

MARIA TERESA KUMAR: He has been against contraception. He's been against marriage equality.

PIZZEY: ...a conservative and opposes abortion!

IFILL: So this is not a pope or a papacy we were gonna see any kind of change when it comes to things like abortion or gay marriage.

They don't seem like they are clowning, though Piers Morgan has the wit to say "duh."

"99.99% of the gun owners of America are wonderful people that you are hanging around with here today."

"Perfectly safe. Perfectly harmless. Wonderful, loving, generous, giving, caring people. Would you leave us the hell alone? Go after the nut jobs, go after the murderers, because I don’t know any. We need to lock up the bad guys and when people show dangerous, murderous intent, which everyone one of these mass-murderers showed."

"If my rule-breaking is ethical and safe (and Idaho-legal), why does it annoy anyone?"

Asks Randy Cohen, the original NYT "ethicist," who admits to treating stop signals as yield signals when he's on his bicycle.

I choose my riding style mindful of my own safety and that of my neighbors, but also in pursuit of happiness. Uninterrupted motion, gliding silently and swiftly, is a joy. 

And you ask why it annoys anyone! There will always be some people who are annoyed by somebody else having fun — you know, the people H.L. Mencken was knocking when he defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." But there's something else about rule-following that matters. If there's a system of rules, individuals can always subjectively, flexibly, pragmatically spin out all sorts of applicable exceptions that let them do what they want. Randy Cohen has used his big brain to determine that he's right about the unnecessary severity of the rule in this case, but he's promoting a style of thinking, an approach to ethics, that others will use in all sorts of self-serving ways. If we're not going to follow the rules anymore... then what?

Interestingly, Cohen ends his little essay with a quote from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who, we're told sometimes bikes to work:

“The advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it’s fun. An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it’s not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it.” 

Now, Breyer isn't saying anything about whether or not he follows the rules, and Cohen seems to be injecting relevance by quipping: "I don’t know if he runs red lights. I hope so." But if you know a few things about Supreme Court Justices and their theories of interpretation, you shouldn't think Cohen dragged in Breyer because he's some random celebrity who, like Cohen, bikes for fun.

Breyer is not a rules guy:

Piers Morgan interviews Justice Scalia, the expert on text, who catches some adverbs and misses some adjectives.

From the transcript:

MORGAN: You are a man that believes fundamentally that the law in America should be based rigidly on the letter of the Constitution. That's what you believe, isn't it, fundamentally?

SCALIA: Yes, give or take a little. Rigidly I would not say. But it should be based on the text of the Constitution, reasonably interpreted....

MORGAN: Why were you so violently opposed to [Roe v. Wade]?

SCALIA: I -- I wouldn't say violently. I'm a peaceful man.

Don't think you can slip those adverbs in on Scalia!

SCALIA: You mean adamantly opposed.

MORGAN: Adamantly.

SCALIA: Adamantly.

He'll provide his own adverbs. He does his judging adamantly and reasonably. Not rigidly and violently!

"Herman Cain Tells Piers Morgan That He Is Anti-Abortion, Yet Pro-Choice?"

Mediate has that headline, as if it's hard to fathom. But I think most Americans are anti-abortion yet pro-choice. I am.

As I view the clip at the link — and it cuts off just at the point where I'd ask a few more questions — Herman Cain believes abortion should be legal. He can maintain his own opinion that abortion is always wrong and, at the same time, that it is the woman's decision and that it is not the role of government to intervene.

In the clip, he says the same thing about homosexuality. He thinks that it's wrong, and also that it's not the government's role to prevent anyone from choosing to engage in homosexual behavior. Piers Morgan drags him into the question whether homosexuality is inborn, and the 2 men never draw the distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior. Whether it's inborn or not, there's a choice about acting out on your desires, and since Cain — I think! — sees that choice as belonging to the individual and not to the government, the science question about the origin of homosexual orientation is irrelevant. I love the idea of freedom of choice, based on a commitment to freedom, as opposed to a concession to the hard facts of biology. (And I remember when people who supported gay rights were enthusiastic about sexual orientation as a choice and got quite angry at a scientist who studied sexual orientation at the biological level.)

What's missing from that Mediaite clip — perhaps not from the interview as a whole — is whether Cain wants to see the Supreme Court overrule the cases that find constitutional rights to choose abortion and to choose to engage in homosexual behavior. You can't tell from the statement in the clip that he thinks there are rights that preclude legislation. Cain might be saying that he wouldn't sign legislation depriving the individual of those choices, but that his disapproval of that legislation doesn't mean that there is a constitutional right — which is what his favorite Supreme Court justice says about such things.