On this week's episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host Stephen Colbert is joined by a very special guest, former British Prime Minister Nigel Farage. They discuss the Syrian crisis, abortion laws in the US, and more.
00:05:28.000Everyone's abortion crazy, which actually brings me to the question today before we bring everyone in.
00:05:31.000Considering the recent kind of abortion bills that have been in the news, I don't want to know whether you're pro-life or pro-abortion, but where do you think this argument is actually really taking place policy-wise?
00:05:41.000Do you think it's about a woman's right to choose?
00:05:43.000Do you think the legislation actually revolves around when the termination occurs?
00:05:46.000Or do you think that the left just wants to kill babies up until birth period and the conservatives are just as extreme on the other side?
00:07:22.000That was what got me most impassioned with that speech.
00:07:24.000But here's the thing, his videos have been leaked, and awful research like this actually regularly gets leaked to the press, which is unfortunate for Bernie because it included a second video.
00:07:33.000I want to kiss you, but I want it too much!
00:08:41.000Most affected, of course, are Americans across the upper Midwest who have seen multiple deaths due to the current polar vortex and record cold spell.
00:08:47.000Least affected is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
00:09:31.000It's because you do not understand the fundamental difference between weather and climate.
00:09:35.000In other news, we always comb through all of the late night shows every week so that you guys don't have to know.
00:09:42.000I was looking at Colbert, Myers, Kimmel, and they were all talking about this, and of course immediately throwing it on climate change in Irish.
00:09:49.000We're not going to get into the climate change right now.
00:09:51.000But they go, oh, of course these people, they don't understand the science behind it.
00:11:34.000The move comes amid a backlash against the group tied to fans believing the band should cancel their performance as a show of solidarity for Colin Kaepernick.
00:11:42.000So, to be clear, it seems like they might perform, or it seemed like that this morning.
00:14:04.000They had a headline about Planned Parenthood focusing on non-abortion services, and LeAnne Owen then contradicted it, corrected them with a tweet claiming that abortion was, quote, their core mission.
00:14:14.000Yeah, basically just confirming what we already knew, right?
00:14:17.000This is really important for people to note.
00:14:19.000The safe, legal, and rare has gone out the window.
00:14:21.000And if you look at the bills from, we'll get into them in a second, the bills from New York, now there's a bill in Virginia, and there's, I think, is there six or seven proposed bills in Rhode Island brought again?
00:14:29.000I think we're up to, I think it's up to seven.
00:14:31.000Okay, there are quite a few, and they're just as bad.
00:14:33.000So I think a few points to keep in context here.
00:14:36.000Democrats, and I mean the DNC platform, let's not talk about, well, you don't want to generalize, man, on the extreme right.
00:14:41.000No, no, the DNC, the Democratic platform, they are pushing abortion up until birth.
00:14:50.000Kathy Tran talking specifically about the abortion bill in her state.
00:14:55.000So the way, the suggestion that we've made in the bill is to say it's in the third trimester and at the, you know, with the certification of the physician.
00:16:23.000There are doctors out there that want to be advocates for this, and activists essentially, and they're going to do it for whatever reason, right?
00:16:28.000We're going to see economic health pretty soon here, right?
00:16:31.000That's the third thing that we're going to see.
00:16:37.000People say, do you really think it's going to get that extreme?
00:16:39.000Well, okay, we'll move on to the next point, but considering that smiling is now seen as the sign of white supremacy, I was like, well, hold on a second.
00:17:36.000When we talk about third trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physicians, more than one physician, by the way.
00:17:48.000And it's done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that's non-viable.
00:17:55.000So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen.
00:18:01.000The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.
00:18:14.000So I think this was really blown out of proportion Hold on a second.
00:18:21.000He literally says non-viable in the first half and says, by the way, then we might resuscitate the baby, feed it, give it a feeding, make sure that it's alive, and then leave it to die as we have a discussion.
00:19:04.000If there's the slightest silver lining in people saying that we should literally kill people, If this wakes people up and they pay more attention to issues, because I've noticed a lot of apolitical friends in New York are expressing their disgust of the New York bill.
00:19:20.000I'm going to go on a limb that there are voters in Virginia who consider themselves to be pro-life but voted for the governor just because orange man bad.
00:19:28.000Hopefully now people are waking up and, you know, there are worse things than Donald Trump being a d*** on Twitter.
00:19:53.000It shouldn't be, considering that Democrats have repeatedly voted against measures like the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which protected babies after they were born alive.
00:20:05.000This has been the MO of those in power for a long time, by the way.
00:20:07.000It's just they haven't had it completely unfettered.
00:20:09.000And if you want to know what it looks like, just look at New York.
00:20:11.000Yeah, and this could basically single-handedly give the election over to Donald Trump.
00:20:15.000I really don't know why this issue is coming out in force like it is right now, because we're about two years before the presidential cycle.
00:20:22.000Sorry, we're about two years before the election, so the cycle's starting.
00:20:49.000But can we not throw out talking points?
00:20:51.000Can you please talk about this, which was on tape today?
00:20:54.000I want to talk about how you have no say in what women do with their bodies.
00:20:57.000Huffington Post watched this exact same video, and they see it as a win.
00:21:01.000They put that one up on the scoreboard for themselves.
00:21:03.000Speaking of wins, by the way, hit the notification bell if you're subscribed, because apparently it doesn't mean a whole lot on YouTube, and it might get lost in the subscription box.
00:21:13.000You get the full daily show, and it's what supports the content.
00:21:15.000Also iTunes if you're listening to the audio version.
00:21:18.000Yeah, what were you going to say about it?
00:21:19.000To answer Gerald's question, the reason why it's all coming out now, apparently a lot of Democrats feel that because Trump is so weak of a candidate and so disliked, this is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put out all this bad s*** crazy stuff because people are just going to vote, not vote for them, but vote against Trump.
00:21:35.000But by the way, here's what's also really important enough, that abortion up until birth, it's not a far left position.
00:22:23.000When you start to say that you're okay with third trimester, you go out of your way to make it physical health instead of mental health, this gigantic loophole that you know people are going to run through, you have absolutely revealed what your strategy is.
00:22:35.000And one thing that you don't want to do, people dislike Donald Trump, but they are so pro-life that they will get out and vote for him even if they weren't.
00:23:32.000They claim too, the advocates, this is something that's really important, it's just inaccurate, this is one of those issues where the further we advance scientifically, the less ground they have to stand on.
00:23:41.000They make this claim that third trimester abortion is only necessary in some rare circumstances when the baby's going to die anyway.
00:23:47.000No, that's not what's actually happening.
00:23:49.000The Guttmacher Institute, which by the way, pro-choice, pro-abortion organization, says that the data shows, quote, most women seeking later-term abortions are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.
00:24:01.000And I thought we had medical procedures for this if the baby's life was in danger, if mom's life was in danger and going to term with this.
00:24:12.000By the way, do you know there's story after story after story right now in the media that people who are alive 20 years later are saying, the doctor told my mom I was not viable.
00:24:36.000Is that life worth less than the baby in a hospital in Lenox Hill in the Upper East Side simply because they have access to better medical equipment?
00:24:43.000Viability is not a consistent argument.
00:25:33.000Imagine looking back through history and saying, man, the allies in World War II were really single-issue guys!
00:25:40.000Abraham Lincoln was a single-issue dick!
00:25:43.000Here's the thing, yes, I understand, obviously, the economy matters, if you're looking at an election, trade, whatever, but if there are still people who are being enslaved against their will, then that is the only issue.
00:25:54.000It's just like if you cover somebody's mouth and pinch their nose, then all of a sudden you call them an oxygen extremist.
00:27:22.000I believe that aborting a baby at 40 weeks, at 25, at 30, at 35 weeks, certainly after it's born, I believe that is every bit as evil as what Hitler did.
00:31:30.000Well, and I ask that because as someone who was raised in Quebec, where we had these referendums, you know, about leaving, and most Americans had no idea what was going on.
00:31:37.000They went, oh, what's going on there with the referendum and that guy with the mustache?
00:31:44.000So for Americans, Brexit is pretty tough to follow.
00:31:47.000With this film, one thing I will say that I noticed, and tell me if you think this is an incorrect read on it, It's the reason that Brexit happened, the kind of arrogance that assumes that this movement could have only been bred in angst or fear or ignorance.
00:32:00.000That's kind of the point of view the film was coming from and never really tried to look at the opposing viewpoint from sincerity.
00:32:27.000This awful Farage bloke, we've got to get rid of him.
00:32:30.000If we have a referendum, it'll be easy because we'll win and that'll be the end of him.
00:32:35.000And what they underestimated Isn't the ignorance or the lack of education of ordinary people, it's the basic feeling they have to want to be part of a country.
00:32:54.000We don't want to be governed by a bunch of unpleasant old men in Brussels who we can't vote for and can't remove.
00:33:00.000When you think about it, actually it's quite simple for Americans to understand.
00:33:05.000Would America allow a court in Mexico I think Nancy Pelosi might disagree with you.
00:33:22.000If she could hold that court in San Francisco, she'd be like, come on, come on!
00:33:26.000She'd bring some people over from south of the border and they'd be deciding.
00:33:29.000No, I think it's a good way to put it.
00:33:30.000It's just amazing to me that the filmmakers missed that.
00:33:34.000This is why I think things like Brexit happen.
00:33:36.000Things like Donald Trump come as a surprise to the media and not to people who are actually doing the voting.
00:33:41.000Okay, before we kind of move on to what's happening today, for a lot of Americans who are uninitiated here, can you give us a cliff note timeline?
00:33:49.000We have a lot of new viewers who probably weren't here the last time you were on the program.
00:33:52.000Cliff notes, what Brexit up until now exactly transpired?
00:33:56.000Because right now I know a lot of people are finding this hard to follow.
00:34:08.000I've just had a taxi driver, a London black taxi driver, he said to me, oh Mr Farage, tell me, what's going on?
00:34:15.000I said, well, I hope you might be able to tell me, because, you know, it's two and a half years on since the vote, We've got 57 days to go until Brexit's due to happen and at the moment nothing has been agreed whatsoever.
00:34:32.000Our government are proving themselves to be completely incapable and I'm getting the feeling that the UK around the world is looking a bit like a laughing stock.
00:34:44.000I don't know that it's looking like a laughing stock.
00:34:46.000I think it is looking to many on the outside as sort of an example of dysfunctional government.
00:34:52.000I think that's how a lot of Americans are looking at it.
00:34:54.000They're not necessarily taking the issue of Brexit, of independence, as seriously as they can because it's hard to get through.
00:35:01.000The government just doesn't seem to be working there.
00:35:46.000Whereas in America, whether you like or dislike the Donald, he says something and he goes out and he tries to do it.
00:35:56.000And I've got to tell you, your democracy, despite your 35-day government shutdown and all the rest of it, your democracy at the moment is in a much better place than ours.
00:36:08.000Yeah, I think people take it for granted.
00:36:11.000And I also think people take for granted sometimes that your speeches are often very, they hit people to their emotional core, even though they're intellectually based.
00:36:21.000But one that you gave recently to the EU was about the condescending attitude toward Theresa May.
00:36:26.000You gave an impassioned defense of her.
00:37:02.000And rather than saying, OK, Theresa, let's sit down, have a cup of tea, let's talk about this, they talk down to her as if she was a 12-year-old schoolchild.
00:37:46.000So, as I speak to you now, it's 24 hours on from that speech I made.
00:37:52.000Last I looked, it was 3.25 million views on YouTube, and rising very, very rapidly.
00:38:00.000At the moment, the BBC, who I prefer to call the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation, our state broadcaster, and I'll tell you what many of your viewers won't know, is we have to pay £150 a year to watch the BBC, and if we don't, we get put in prison And thus far, it's a fact.
00:38:25.000And thus far, despite the fact I've got millions watching this, and goodness knows what it'll be by the end of the week, Our state broadcaster has decided it's not worthy of coverage, which just about sums up the problem.
00:38:40.000Well, isn't there some beauty in that?
00:38:42.000We were just talking about this yesterday when people think that this division in America, they go, man, this is something we really need to fix.
00:40:03.000And I was raised in Canada, I don't know how familiar you are with CBC and Radio Canada, and I don't remember who it was, whether it was the NDP or Trudeau himself, but I remember one party promised $100 million in grants to CBC if he was elected, and the other promised $150 million.
00:40:17.000I'm pretty sure it was Trudeau who promised $150 because he won.
00:40:21.000Yeah, look, the great thing is we've now got social media.
00:40:25.000We've now got what you and I are doing.
00:40:27.000We've now got alternative means, you know, of making up our own minds.
00:40:30.000And the truth of it is, if it wasn't for this medium, Brexit would never have happened.
00:40:36.000The new Italian government would never have happened.
00:40:39.000So we are now living in a more liberated age, though the worry, of course, is The Zuckerbergs and others are now beginning to make our lives a bit more difficult.
00:40:50.000Have you taken some hits recently yourself on a personal level?
00:40:53.000Have you seen things with your pages and your YouTube feed, things like that?
00:40:58.000I would say, on average, the content that I put out is reaching about 25% fewer people.
00:41:06.000So I would say that's the hit that I've received because of the algorithm changes and one of my great hopes, and only America can sort this out, the rest of the world follows, but it is Silicon Valley that leads the way in all of this, and my big hope is that President Trump runs again in 2020 And he runs with a Bill of Rights for social media users, making sure that the Zuckerbergs of this world can no longer pretend to be a platform for all ideas, when in fact
00:41:41.000So would you like to see them, there's some arguments even among conservatives here stateside, and now you see Cortez tossing her hat into the ring where she's upset because she's been fact-checked by Washington Post.
00:41:50.000By the way, it's not because Washington Post is a bastion of conservatism, it's because they're saying, Cortez, come on!
00:41:55.000You're going too far around the bend here!
00:41:58.000Would you like to see them regulated as public utilities?
00:42:03.000I think we've reached the point – and I am a Conservative, I'm a free marketeer, I'm a Thatcherite, I'm a Reaganite, I'm of that vintage – but it seems to me there come times when, for the good of all of us, government has to stop a monopoly-type situation or oligopoly-type situation existing in these markets.
00:42:21.000And just as the banks became too big to fail back in 2008, The four or five, the handful of social media providers of these services have become too big for us to maintain a proper democratic debate.
00:42:39.000So the answer is yes, something's got to be done.
00:42:43.000And I've got an instinct here that Trump is brave.
00:42:46.000Trump is not scared of taking on the big corporate classes.
00:42:51.000And I think you're going to see in 2020, in the run up to those elections, a proposal to make sure that we cannot see conservative content being banned from the homes of ordinary people.
00:43:04.000I think increasingly that you're correct.
00:43:07.000You know, it was hard for me to go along that trail because I'm a conservative and with net neutrality when people used to say, well, hold on a second, we have to make sure that all data is, because there isn't enough competition among ISPs.
00:43:17.000And hold on a second, there's actually a lot more competition among internet service providers, not everywhere, but across the country when compared to Facebook, Google, Twitter.
00:44:16.000Well, I think this really does lend itself to kind of what you were discussing earlier, and I know what you talk about a lot, is the lack of transparency.
00:44:22.000A good example is we just recently had Abby Johnson, former director of Planned Parenthood.
00:44:26.000She was employee of the year to Planned Parenthood.
00:44:28.000Now she's written books about Planned Parenthood, about their actual practices, about what services they provide.
00:44:47.000It's also another thing, by the way, if it's NC-17 content, I understand that you have the right to put that in restricted mode.
00:44:53.000But this is a reasonable, long-form conversation, without profanity, that is somehow being throttled.
00:45:00.000And that, to me, the only justification I can see, in the left's mind, is the same reason they don't show your speech on the BBC, is a complete lack of transparency.
00:45:08.000Because when there's transparency, we win.
00:45:11.000Yeah, I mean, you know, they effectively become not just the financial benefactors, but they also become the arbiters of choice.
00:45:24.000And that is the thing that has to absolutely change.
00:45:28.000Otherwise, these amazing changes we've seen in the world since 2016, these liberations of the Brexit vote, the Trump vote, the Italian vote.
00:45:39.000Otherwise, it'll all be stopped in its tracks because there's no way that CNN or the BBC are ever going to give us a fair crack of the whip.
00:46:41.000I just wanted to tell you that on my eBay profile for sale right now is one doggo Argentino puppy named Betty and for the price of the current offer zero dollars.
00:49:14.000But that drowning dance was actually me when I was a kid where when I went underwater for the first time I started panicking because I couldn't move until I realized that I just had to close my fingers.
00:49:24.000So I thought I was going to die for sure.
00:49:26.000I was certain that I was going to die.
00:50:27.000And the two, by the way, in most cases are one and the same.
00:50:30.000I often talk about the truth in the show and how simple in theory life would be if you're seeking it.
00:50:36.000By the way, I know I'm going to get some edgy, smart-ass atheist commenting here saying, well how can you say you seek the truth and you believe in the flying spaghetti monster, huh?
00:52:18.000What I am talking about in life is when faced with an uncomfortable truth, Isn't it interesting how life always offers you an open door next to it?
00:52:31.000I want you to take some time here and think about every single decision that you've made in your life where you had to stand up or walk in truth.
00:53:23.000The truth is, that is still a life, an entirely separate genetic code that cannot speak for itself, and you still have no right to decide whether it lives or dies.
00:53:30.000The truth is that it's hard to bring that baby to term, to deliver it, to take care of it, to figure out what mommy and daddy need to do, how to make a living, how to take care of this life.
00:53:40.000Even finding the right adoption program, bringing that baby to term, and then watching them carry it away to another family who will love and care for it because you couldn't.
00:54:25.000And that's why I hate bumper sticker slogans and false platitudes.
00:54:28.000You really do hear me try to avoid these on this show, because we use these so often to lie to ourselves, to hide the gritty truth, and to polish a lie.
00:55:25.000While the truth may not immediately set you free in the short term, that's a cold, hard truth a lot of people don't want to acknowledge.
00:55:31.000While the truth may burn, sting, or scar, it is ultimately the only path you can walk long term to live your life as freely as humanly possible.
00:55:40.000And again, before we go here, I want you to think of every difficult decision in your life you've ever made standing up for the truth, okay?
00:55:45.000I really want you to picture it in your mind's eye here, okay?
00:56:02.000Because if you pick the wrong path now, there are only going to be more and more paths splitting, getting easier and easier, leading you away from the path of truth and into the permanent shackles created by the lies of the world.
00:56:12.000That's how you kill a 40-week-old baby.