Dr Phil On Oprah's Weight-loss Scandal, 'Broken' America And More

given how dominant Tik Tok is on young people is there an argument to ban it our number one adversary programming an entire generation with information China's been buying up Farmland around American military bases and you think this is very concerning why is this just coincidence that they happen to buy the land I don't want to become a conspiracy theorist but I don't want to be naive either I don't my Bigg a problem Phil is the is what Elon Musk calls the woke mind virus I think it has been weaponized people are now pursuing narratives that are trying to hijack core values in this country I don't want to be unkind to Oprah one of the key faces of Weight Watchers and it turns out you've been secretly on a zenic that is a deceit on the American people isn't it what the hell business is it of anybody Oprah could have kept her mouth shut not said a word to anybody doesn't o anybody an explanation he's long be known as America's shrink now the legendary Dr Phil has decided this time to put the United States onto his couch his new TV network will tackle taboos and debate the thorniest issues dividing the country after decades counseling stars and subjects on prime time TV he's dispensing tough love on everything from cancel culture and childhood anxiety to the rising threat of China and the crisis at America's border now Dr Phil goes uncensored Dr Phil great to see you how are you good to see you my friend how's it going well I've known you a long time uh I've known your tremendous uh ability to condense very complex issues into quite simple scenarios that can be resolved America is a very complicated issue isn't it in totality what is your take it really is what is your take Phil on where America is right now well I I'm glad you asked that question in the way that you did because I think America is experiencing like a lot of countries in the world but I think even more so in America I think a lot of change right now uh you know we're all experiencing change from technology Pierce we we know that for sure um I think that a lot of unintended consequences are really impacting family and I think family is the backbone of any society and I think family in America is under attack I think it's under attack as part of unintended consequences from technology uh we can talk about that and I think some of it is a a an intentional assault on family values in America and I and I focus on family because I I do think it's the backbone I think if if the family uh falls apart and starts to erode uh then I think everything falls behind that I think it all goes down the tubes the family falls apart yeah I mean you call the book we've got issues how you can stand strong for America's soul and Sanity people talk about artificial intelligence and we can come to that they talk about climate change they talk about these things which could be an existential threat to the world how big a threat do you think to people's well-being particularly young people is the cell phone I think it's probably the biggest change we faced uh since the Industrial Revolution um the the biggest change and I know the Industrial Revolution can be uh divided up in maybe three or four industrial revolutions but uh I think it's the biggest change when when it when the smartphone happened in ' 0809 um kids started they stopped living their lives and started watching lives being lived and and then when they started doing that they started comparing themselves to what they were seeing on these screens and what they were seeing on these screens were not real they were fictional uh we had so many of these influencers and all putting these lives out there that were just produced they were made up and so kids by comparison were saying wow um I I don't have these fancy clothes I don't go around in private jets I don't live the way they do so their self-worth really suffered and we saw anxiety depression loneliness reach the highest levels since records were started being kept we saw young people go into a mental health crisis and it's just kept getting worse and then when Co happened it really spiked because of the mismanagement of covid uh which I think was atrocious I think the way young people were treated during this extended quarantine yanked their support system out from under them needlessly and put them in a real bind by pulling away their Social Development emotional development educational attainment uh and and left them uh in a crisis that they're going to suffer for the rest of their lives and so will this country uh so I think it had a profound effect people just started Focus I mean think about it everybody's would go through life this way then when the phone came everybody started walking through life with their head down looking at this screen uh they started dating later they started getting their driver's license later they started having sex later they started everything got pushed aside by living virtually and in terms of the extraordinary explosion in anxiety I've seen this amongst young people uh people I know uh unable to deal with what I would categorize as normal life issues and really finding just existing very difficult despite in many cases having on the face of it very you know content and comfortable backgrounds and Lifestyles um how much of it is another part of what a smartphone does it I think you and I have discussed this before actually when I did your your podcast which is the sensory overload of negativity and I think you gave an example of like when you were young if something bad happened locally you know say someone got eaten by an alligator on a golf course it would be very unlikely that anyone outside of that locality would even hear about that incident whereas now kids from Mumbai to Sydney to New York to London will be watching the the alligator eat this golfer on their smartphone within 20 minutes um and they're getting that 24/7 and then you add in a war like Ukraine or Gaza and the amount of stuff that I see on my phone and I'm a you know I'm a hard-bitten old journalist but if I was an impressionable 19 20y old watching the horrific imagery coming in 247 from war zones that alone is going to screw people up never mind all the fear of missing out stuff well you're exactly right and I saw a great example of this right after 911 um I I was still doing Oprah at the time and we did a a show about 911 with um uh Mrs Bush myself and Oprah and we had a group of really young children there which uh Amplified it even more and what we learned they were just watching on television then not the smartphone but on television but they they taught me lesson that I'll never forget we sat there and talked to these young children and it became apparent because they watched it on ABC NBC CBS CNN all these different channels those young children thought every building in America had been knocked down they didn't realize that these were different angles of the same building they didn't realize that they were seeing it over and over and over from different angles from different points of view and they thought they were all different buildings they actually thought all the buildings in the United States had been knocked down because they were bombarded with so many images and I and that's that's an analogy to the to the smartphone in that these kids get all of these happenings all these images Amplified so much that it takes on a life of its own and I think they overreact to it and I I saw a stat the other day that said a significant percentage of young people uh around 18 years of age get 100% of their news from Tik Tok yeah so if it's being programmed if it's being if if you've got propaganda being fed to them then that's all they have that and I learned a long time ago working with juries that people make up their mind based on what they see and hear not on what they don't see and hear and and that's a real problem they don't realize that there's something else out there that they should take into account there is a debate there is a debate Phil about about Tik Tok isn't there in America um with many congress people wanting to ban it actually um because they think that that China is trying to surreptitiously attain information about Americans you've got many people like Donald Trump and VI ramaswami on the right disagreeing and saying that companies like Facebook and the way they accumulate information Google uh X and so on are just as culpable in this area but given how dominant Tik Tok is on young people and it is it's the number one news source in the world now for under 24s I read given that fact is there an argument to ban it or you know you you're like me We Believe in free speech and we believe in in people having the right to access information if they want to is it is it contr to that well I'm I'm really concerned about the Free Speech aspect of this uh but I'm also concerned uh that we do have uh our number one adversary uh programming an entire generation uh with information uh and I don't think it's an either or situation I am also very concerned um about What's happen happening uh on Facebook Instagram uh those sorts of things because um you know I I've written this new book we've got issues how to stand strong for America's Soul insanity and this is a very prescriptive book yeah I hate people that criticize and don't have a better don't have a better plan uh you know Sam rer former speaker of the house is texting he said any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a carpenter to build one back and I I I I think I want people to be carpenters and I look at uh some of the research that's been done on uh Tik Tock and these other platforms they feed young people information that upsets them and and why would they do that well because they click more when they're emotionally invested they click more than if they're watching puppies do cute things they'll watch that for a little while and go yeah that's really cute but then they lose interest but if they're emotionally invested if they're all upset about it if if they're um really anxious about it they're going to click more and hit and hit and hit so that means more ad dollars and the research shows that the algorithm will feed them upsetting information to keep them clicking and we know that when they got these smartphones and got involved in this anxiety depression and loneliness went to the highest level it's ever been as I mentioned before so uh they know that they got access to the same research that I do uh but they keep doing it so I I do think that there is a right to free speech but I I think at the same time we have to realize that our young people are being fed to the mill um would you B Tik Tok Phil from America I would not ban I would not ban Tik Tok but I think I would uh certainly uh go on a very aggressive campaign to educate young people about what's going on children don't young people certainly teens are pretty rebellious against Authority they don't like being manipulated they don't like being fed uh what they see and don't see and I think they need to be educated that they are being manipulated I think they'll work this out on their own if people will just let them know what the hell's going on The Wider threat from China you've talked about this uh recently that China's China's been buying up Farmland around American military bases and you think this is very concerning why well I let's look at it on its face um I I I did an analysis of this and look I'm no politician I'm certainly no geopolitical expert at all but also have common sense and I I I know that we can't go into China and buy Farmland but they come over here and and buy Farmland so what I did is I put on a map all of the uh the biggest purchases that China is making a Farmland and then I did an overlay of strategic military installations and that Farmland that's being purchased is surrounding so many of these strategic map we have a copy of your map I'm just going to bring it up here and it is on the face of it actually quite concerning and it does beg the question why has it been left to you to do this why is the United States government I mean paying more attention to what may be happening yeah yeah no kidding I mean let's look at you see the red is the the land that they're buying and then I've identified uh the Strategic military installations and there's a third level that's not shown here um that identifies what's actually happening at these bases and what's actually happening is like training for the stealth bomber um different drone uh programs all of these things that are going on uh that are pretty confidential and pretty strategic now why would they is this just coincidence that they happen to buy the land surrounding these military installations that they have wind farms around some of these where there doesn't happen to be any wind and and and the big fans are just sitting empty I mean they're just not spinning but there are cameras and recording devices on top of the big uh pillars that have the fans on the fans aren't spinning but there's cameras on top of all of it now come on I I mean little Abner could figure this out um of course nobody but you and I are old enough to know who Lil Abner is but I know who he is obviously uh I mean that just doesn't make common sense to me that we would allow that go go into China and try to buy up land around their military installations and see how far you I don't think you get very far um in terms of American politics a massive election coming in November it's got very toxic and tribal even by American political standards hasn't it that the landscape here um Donald Trump by the nature of his character is going to make people feel visceral Pro against him and then you have the issue with Joe Biden and his health and his cognitive ability and so on what is your take on on these two and what it says about America that once again we're going to have Biden be Trump with one in his 80s one about to head to his 80s uh one facing you know 90 old criminal charges the other one barely able to stand on his feet what do you feel about this well that seemed pretty old until recently the old the older I get the younger that seem but uh um you know I I really do think that um it's it's it's a bad commentary on uh where we are and but I think we've put ourselves there by you you said it being so uh tribal and so given to Identity politics and you know I I I always say I don't say much about politics because frankly I don't know much about politics I I don't think that makes me a lot different than people who do talk about them I I I think a lot of people that talk about it don't know much about it either I'm just willing to admit it uh my my focus is on on the the culture and I think one of the things that we need to do and you know in my new book we've got issues uh how to stand strong for America's Soul Insanity I I talk about the fact that uh we do have issues in this country and and look Pierce we've known each other a long time you know I love this country yeah uh I I stand up when the flag goes by I put my hand over my heart when the national anthem plays and I I love it enough to admit that we got problems uh I'm not defensive about that we do we have big problems in this country but I I still love it I'm I'm proud to be an American I'm tired of people apologizing for America every time they open their mouths and I think it's a great country but we've got issues and I think our political system is is pretty broken but I have to tell you I I feel better when we're not all the same party if we got a Republican president and a democratic uh house or Senate I feel a lot better than if they're all the same uh because gridlock keeps them from screwing up too terribly bad uh if if they were all of one party and they could just kind of run their agenda I would be really really nervous I think we are safer when there is that check and balance of a gridlock system um and how big a problem Phil is the is what Elon Musk called calls the woke mind virus and the reason I say that is a study came out of Finland they asked 5,800 college students to rate statements like if white people have on average a higher level of income than black people it's because of racism and a statement like trans women are women they found that those who aligned with woke ideals had higher incidence of anxiety and depression in other words being too woke and chasing the woke mind virus agenda as Elon would put it actually does make you more anxious and depressed well I'm not surprised um I was not surprised to read that at all I I think that one of the things you know being woke as it was originally defined was a good thing right because being woke described having sensitivity to those that uh had greater challenges in their life whether it was physical disabilities or um facing Social Challenges or whatever and being sensitive to that was a good thing but I think it has been um weaponized I think it has been uh turned on its head and people are now um pursuing narratives that are trying to hijack core values in this country and uh it's gone beyond uh saying look Live and Let Live if we feel this way and this is how we want to live or identify or whatever then we have the right to do that the activists have pushed it beyond that I call it the tyranny of The Fringe um it's not enough to say Hey listen if that's what you want to do it's a free country and you're entitled to do that that's not enough anymore now it's got to be you have to stand up and declare that I'm right you have to stand up and declare that this is the new rule this is the new science this is the new biology this is the new or we'll attack you U with a Vengeance um and I'm telling you pierce I think they pushed too far too hard too long and are getting a lot of push back from that middle that middle 80% that have said look enough's enough and too much is too much well we saw it didn't we f with the with the Dylan malaney budlight uh Fiasco we've seen it with Disney been having a lot of problems when they woked up their movies and there been a huge backlash you're seeing it Tim and again now where I actually chart it back to when Gillette did that advertising campaign during the me too uh uh Scandal yeah and they they basically redid the whole feel of a Gillette advertising campaign from being something that embraced masculinity as a good thing to something that said if you basically too masculine you are automatically toxic and borderline Harvey Weinstein till you can prove otherwise and I I wrote at the time this is an absolutely catastrophic failure to understand its audience and sure enough n billion dollar later off the bottom line they did a screeching U-turn and went back to celebrating masculinity but you know I as a Gillette customer I won't forget what they did or how they tried to make their male customers feel and I thought it was disgrace ful well I couldn't agree more and you saw people that don't want to take the risk of speaking out voted uh with their pocketbooks yeah they voted with because they could do that anonymously and but I think it sent the message that we aren't nearly as aligned as you may think and you know I'm very concerned I've been really looking into what's being taught in the universities today and you know they used to talk about toxic masculinity but now they talk about masculinity as toxic yes and I think that they consider a lot of things masculine like um aggressiveness in business Entre preneurship setting goals and pursuing them uh those things are been taken away from females and so well that's just masculine and that's ghost you you shouldn't do that and I really wonder where those people are going to be five years down the road when those those young men are out married and they have a child and they're having to uh pay for child care or braces or whatever those professors that are pedling that you're not going to be able to find them with both hands and a flashlight because they're going to be gone when these guys are out there trying to compete in a dog eat dog world uh that's very competitive we're not preparing these young people for the next level of life and that's tragic I I completely agree you mentioned Oprah Winfrey earlier you've known Oprah a long time I've known Oprah a long time what did you make of the whole zenic Weight Watcher uh thing that she got herself into I mean I thought she got out of it in very Oprah style which was to turn it all into a kind of uh you know a TV special as Oprah does very brilliantly but did you feel that let's take a look at it first let's take a look at this I took on the shame that the world gave to me for 25 years making fun of my weight was national sport and then I read the headline that Mr Blackwell the tast maker of the time called me bumpy lumpy and downright dumpy cuz when I tell you how many times I have blamed myself because you think I'm smart enough to figure this out and then to hear all along it's you fighting your brain now like I say Oprah did what Oprah does best she she turned it into basically about her being a bit of a victim and people picking on her and this isn't what it seems but on the face of it Phil I don't I don't want to be unkind to Oprah but I think if you're you know one of the key faces of Weight Watchers encouraging millions of American women that they should be losing weight in a certain way as dictated by weight watch and it turns out you've been secretly on a zenic which is a drug that makes you stop having pangs of hunger um that is a deceit on the American people isn't it well I don't know what you what timeline uh you're looking at but I can tell you this when I when I pick up um a a a news article or see something online that says soand so admits to using OIC or whatever you know I as you know I spent a lot of my time in the litigation Arena and I I associate the term admit with a confession of wrongdoing and I I see these different stars and they come out and say uh you know this this female uh movie star admits using OIC or this male actor admits using this um what the hell business is it of anybody what somebody's doing in terms of their medical management and what does it mean admit using it is there is there some wrongdoing in somebody well I okay so I would count with their physician something with their physician I would say generally you're right but on the Oprah case and again I've got an enormous respect for Oprah she's an absolutely brilliant uh business woman she's a brilliant television person Etc and has done me a few big favors over the years but if you're representing Weight Watches and that is not actually how you yourself are losing weight and you get caught out having denied you're using one of these drugs and then you have to admit it you're kind of admitting not a crime but you are admitting that you've been deceiving people aren't you well she didn't have to say anything at all I think what Oprah did was discover that there was a really uh some breakthrough breakthrough science that has identified that there are certain functions at a neurological level uh that cause people to be weight loss resistant and they have spent years degradating themselves putting themselves down suffering uh in terms of of self-worth self-esteem self-blame being the bud of criticism and jokes and she discovers you know all of that time that I've been degrading myself um I I've I've learned that there's something more to it than that and so I'm doing something about that and so I'm here to tell you of this Revelation that I've had and share that with you so you can Escape that suffering the way I have Oprah could have kept her mouth shut and not said a word to anybody doesn't owe anybody an explanation doesn't have to say anything about it but she chose to do so uh because she discovered something that she thought a lot of people particularly women uh were suffering through and she's I think she thought look I'm going to take some heat for this but I owe it to people uh to to share this Revelation and give them an exit ramp just like I've taken and I commend her for doing it I mean obesity is a massive problem in America isn't it uh how much of obesity is down to in in the United States is down to diet fast food all the obvious things and how much of it is down to mental strength the ability to you know reject the Temptation if you like of all the fast food and so on I think it's a complex issue and I I think there are some people um that they they have a metabolism that you know they could eat u a cow and um everything that goes with it and not be affected whatsoever and then there are some people that can you know walk by an ice cream parlor and you it just seems by osmosis they just absorb it and can't get rid of it um and I I I think that there's a a whole Spectrum there and whether you're on U an OIC type drug or not uh you're going to have to uh make lifestyle adjustments uh or you know there's no there's no quick fix there's no easy way out you're still going to have to do the things that are necessary for long-term success and uh there's a behavioral component there's a mental component there's a medical component there's a neurological component and it's not just one size fits all the uh other thing I wanted to talk to you about there's so many things I could talk to you about but you went down to the Border in uh on the southern Border in the United States obviously it's completely out of control doesn't matter whether you're on the left or right there's been a combined failure I think to properly regulate the border for decades now under endless administ ations from both sides but when you went down there again you're a guy that takes a complex issue and can often provide a simple solution and I've seen you do it it's a magical gift that you have for doing this but the southern border again very complicated issue what's the answer well you know I look at America as my home and uh if I had guests or I had people come to my home and knock on the door uh before I let them in I'd want to know who they were wouldn't you yeah I mean if somebody comes your home you'd want to know who they were and uh right now um that border is not really a border we have ports of entry and um they're you know located in different spots where you go through and you process and and make application uh but then we've got you know hundreds of miles of uh the real Grand River uh in Texas and then you've got um you know thousand miles of Border however many miles you've got across U you know Arizona and California that aren't ports of entry and I think people are just pouring across it and I understand why people want to be in America as I said I love this country I I get why they want to be here uh but uh when you when you come in uncontrolled we have no idea uh who's coming in uh I I I I think it is an out of control situation and I think the Border needs to be controlled and I I talked to Brandon Jud who is um the head of the union for the uh the the federal border guards down there uh I believe is his correct title and I ask him what do you need can this get under control and you he's been down there on that border for long time years and years and years he said we don't need any more agents we don't need any more money we don't need any more laws we just need to enforce the ones that are on the books right that's all and we'll we'll get this under control and we can get it under control right now we right now I think the border is controlled by the cartels um I I think the fanel that's being manufactured in China is being routed to the caloa cartel and it's coming across the border uh like it's a a drug Highway we have 100,000 Sentinel poisonings in the United States crazy um it's they're they're picking people up that'll have 10,000 pills uh in in a backpack coming across the border and you know those pills are 100% counterfeit and the DEA says 40 42% of them have lethal doses of fentanyl in them and they're just coming across uh between 2010 and 2020 uh there were maybe 1,00 uh Chinese that came across the Border uh in the first 11 months of 2023 uh there were close to 30,000 now look a lot of those people are probably trying to escape the oppressive government in China uh but it would be naive to think that so many military AG men are coming across the border without sponsorship of the government we have no idea where they're going you think they you think they're you think they're spying Phil uh I think they're organizing in America and there were so many that there were Chinese police departments uh being set up uh on the slide to control these guys we don't know where they are but let me ask you this Pierce if let let's say there's 5,000 of them in the country and they spread out across the country and on a particular day they decide to attack the energy grid uh in different strategic cities around the country uh could they create Havoc um I certainly think they could and I think we would be naive to not consider that I don't want to become a conspiracy theorist but I don't want to be naive either I I think we've allowed uh people people from Syria and Chinese uh and China and other other places that whose interests are not aligned with our own right uh to come across that border and not be tracked in the United States we don't know where they are we don't know what they're doing we do know they own some farmland and we know where that is right but other than that we don't know where these people are and that if that doesn't concern of America and its allies it should and I think we're just foolish and I am very pro-immigration uh let me tell you we got a 1.6 birth rate right now we need 2.1 to support our infrastructure we need immigrants in this country uh we need them to work and pay taxes and have babies and and uh become part of this Society I'm very pro-immigration but it shouldn't be easier it should not be easier to come into the United States illegally than it is to come into the United States legally and that's the problem that's the problem and I and I think we we have some ownership in it because uh it takes 7 to 10 years to get a proper hearing and get in and and some of them said what am I supposed to do for seven to 10 years you know we've got to we've got to meet people where they are and understand uh that some of them truly are seeking Asylum and uh we've got to have some tracking system to know where these folks are yeah I agree U Phil just want to ask you about something that happened in the UK recently puberty blockers have been banned uh now which most people thought is long overd had never been allowed in the first place do you think a similar ban should happen in the United States well it's happened in the UK it's also happened in other countries there that have done um uh done really substantial studies uh with you know large sample sizes that they have tracked across a number of years um and the reason for approving these uh according to the medical associations has been that there's a high degree of suicidal ideation and suicidality among these these young people that feel trapped and so they say you know we've got to alleviate that and so they do um suppression uh hormones they do testosterone blockers in some cases they actually do the surgery uh they've done studies where they have compared uh groups that have gone through these different uh hormone suppressors testosterone blockers and or surgeries and compared them to another group where they did just Psychotherapy uh to deal with the emotional comorbidity that occurs with their uh body dysmorphia and at two years three years five years uh they found them to be in similar positions so they got to the same place without right the suppression blockers or surgeries says it all so they hadn't changed their bodies and wound up the same place it seems to me that that's certainly the better route to go and I think that's why the UK did what they do yeah completely uh Phil it been great catching out with you thank you so much for being on sensored the book is we've got issues how you can stand strong for America's soul and Sanity it's a fantastic book you have a brilliant insight into these problems and I hope people read it and listen to you thank you very much great talking to you pierce brilliant great to see you Phil and best of luck with the new network I'm sure it'll be like everything you do a massive hit I hope so thank you so much thank you for

Channel: Piers Morgan Uncensored

Views: 927,205

Keywords: piers morgan, piers morgan uncensored, interview, debate, piers morgan debate, piers morgan interview, dr phil, oprah winfrey, ozempic, weight loss drugs, dr phil piers morgan, tiktok ban, elon musk, oprah winfrey weight loss ozempic, dr phil mental health, dr phil donald trump, woke culture, mental health, technology, oprah, oprah weight loss, dr phil talking about woke, transgender debate

Id: UNKH7HGdmuM

Length: 40min 34sec (2434 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024