it's not evil. >> what on earth will bill maher say tonight? >> i want them to think i broke into the studio and made them mad. if i'm not doing that, i'm not doing my job. >> that's his show. this is my show everything from the president to the government going bust. morgan freeman and extraordinary 40 year career and work honoring nelson mandela, a man that hollywood calls the voice of god. i had to ask him to do this. >> this is piers morgan tonight. >> welcome. i feel like you're such an institutional guest for larry before that i -- the first time i had the pleasure of you here. >> great to be back in the time slot. >> i thought about the way we could start this. i think there's probably nothing more pertinent, i would say, than the state of america's debt. i want to play you -- >> a sexy topic. >> a sexy topic. probably, everyone talks about everything else at the moment. >> and the drama. >> the key issue, if north america goes bust, that's it. >> it's astounding to me we're actually having an argument over whether america should pay its bills. >> isn't it? i totally agree. >> it shows you where the insanity has gone gone in this country. i don't think people realize it and i don't think they follow and issue like that, especially people pushing to hold the line. so what if the debt ceiling -- i think they think it's money we haven't spent yet, that if we just cut it off, starve the beast, our fiscal house will be fine. this is money already spent. george bush and the republicans, they spent money and ordered a lot of food and got up from the table before the check came. somebody has to pay it. >> the person who has to pay it is president obama. if i was a republican, the way the jobless is 9.2% and state of economy, turmoil around the world continuing, the way to probably beat him is to take him on, on the economy. the best way to paralyze him is to continue doing what they're doing. it's not in their interests to do a deal, is it? >> no probably about it. that's exactly what they're doing. ann couture was on our show and she had written a book about "treason" once. >> she actually thinks we're bombing egypt. >> as long as you're going to be the one to invoke treason, are the republicans really doing what's in the best interests of america or the best interests of their party to win the next election. they know the economy has to stay sucky in 2012 for them to win. if the economy is doing a lot better, obama wins going away. i don't think they're doing anything. john boehner tweeted to obama the other day, when he was doing his town hall on twitter, you know, after record spending binge, where are the jobs? i don't know. you're in the congress, isn't it the congress's job to presents a jobs bill. >> i like this quote from warren buffet. the way to get rid of the deficit, pass a law any time more than 3% of gdp, all members of congress are ineligible for re-election. i like that. that's how a businessman would run his company. >> that's another fallacy. somehow businessmen are going to be good at running the government. they're not the same thing. you can't fire the congress the way you can fire the board. mitt romney is running on that silly idea, i ran a business, i know how to create jobs. actually what he did was fire people. he knew how to destroy jobs to create profit. >> we will come to the candidates in a moment. i think it's quite a clever strategy by him to focus purely on economy and present himself as the guy that understands it. isn't that a clever bit of politics by him? >> clever for a country that doesn't pay attention and where people don't think too much about any issue. the truth is that government is there to do the things that are not supposed to turn a profit. i heard tim pawlenty say the same thing. amtrak. amtrak doesn't make a profit. it's not supposed to make a profit. like saying why doesn't the marine corps make a profit. the difference between government and private enterprise. >> unlike in britain where you have the class system, depending where you went to school and what your parents did and who you were bred into, that is often how you get on in life. in america, i spent four or five years immersing myself in this culture. class system is based on hard work, success and achievement. not surprising to me the people governing the country pander to that by this rhetoric everything has to make a profit. that's the way you have a yardstick of success here, isn't it? >> if you're talking about social mobility, that is always defined as the american dream. the ability of one generation to do better than the generation that spawned them. that was something always quintessentially american. we're tenth in the american dream right now, tenth in social mobility compared to other countries around the world which is like sweden coming in 10th in swedish meatballs. it'sjust a shame. >> and donald trump, i know your views on the presidency campaign were strident. i like him. when he was lashing into china, i thought he missed a point. i said it seems to me the trick america should be deploying surely as one of the great producers in the past is to produce stuff countries like china need. the reason i say that again to you, a brilliant report this week in china their need and demand for american crops for example corn is absolutely going through the roof. this is the way america should be thinking, identifying what these countries, not emerging countries, china has emerged. what do they need america can provide them and put the foot on the gas. >> or green technology. stem cell research. one of the reasons why america falls behind every year more and more is because we're a superstitious hyper religious intellectually backward people not compared to a lot of countries but leading countries in the world we are. if we could have had stem cell research, there are so many patents but we're falling behind in that area, too. we don't put a premium on science anymore. science is suspect. >> china has overtaken america in the production of scientific research. i found that staggering. i know in schools i've seen in europe and so on, which are full of -- especially the private schools of these very smart and very hard working young chinese who come in. i played a game of soccer with my son recently and i managed to score a good goal and doing my dad triumph thing. two of my sons spontaneously said, dad, that was so chinese. i thought that would be racist. this is the new school ground compliment around the world. being chinese is what being america needs to be. >> i've got to have kids to keep up. >> it is how you find out what the future is. these kids use being chinese as a compliment. this is the best compliment they could pay me. that was chinese, dad. i thought it an extraordinary moment. >> that's one of the scariest things i've ever heard in this time slot. >> why is it scary? >> shows we're falling behind. >> kids have a way of embracing these new economies now rather than seeing them as a great threat. can america afford to see everything economically and militarily as a threat? >> we would have to reconfiggur all our priorities. what do we spend all our money on debt, paying off the debt and military. while they're talking about budget stuff in washington and dickering over $100 million over there, they just passed and nobody questioned it the new pentagon spending bill, $648 billion, which is more than i think the next 17 countries combined or something like that. you know, we could cut this in half, i think, and still be probably safe in the world. who's the threat that's going to invade us? >> many americans, it seems to me, you say this stuff and i bet you get deluged with people calling you unpatriotic, un-american. it's not american to admit that you shouldn't be spending money on the military, that you shouldn't be doing things the old american way. is it time america completely changed its philosophy in these things? >> what's patriotic is wanting your country to succeed. our country is not succeeding right now because our military is too big. by the way, people call it this military, hands off. it's not military. it's defense contractors, welfare for people who make weapons that we don't need. most of our weaponry is ridiculous. it's for fighting the russians in 1978. we don't need that. what would make this country stronger is economics. that's where the future is. that's what makes a country strong. if you're not strong economically, you're not going to be- >> that's where america is increasingly weak by comparison. >> this is one reason. we could solve this debt deficit problem if we do two simple things. tax the rich like they were taxed, not a hell of a lot more, just like under clinton. and bring the troops home. not just from iraq and afghanistan but we have a half a million troops on bases. >> how many do chinese have? >> none, i don't think. >> may have hardly anything, they have no imperialistic ambition. >> this is not the way you achieve it in this world. not the 14th century. >> i was in shanghai. this dinism you felt. this young millionaire, 125,000 millionaires in shanghai. he said, i don't want to kill you, i don't want to take over your land, i want to sell you a duvet. he laughed. he said we want to be number one in selling you duvets, i want to sell you everything in your home. i don't want to kill you. >> that's how they will be number one. they are building $300 billion of high speed rail. this country trying to get the money to build, i think it's $8 billion. they wanted to lay it between l.a. and las vegas, which i think is funny those are the two cities that have to be connected or maybe l.a. and san francisco. we have none at the moment. >> we'll have a little break. when we come back, i want to ask you, which of these two people do you think has the best chance of putting america back on its feet. sarah palin or michele bachmann. >> well, that's what they call a hobson's choice. 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>> i would need a gun to my head. i hope sarah palin gets in so they split the vote. bachmann, at least she's somebody who can read, she has a job, she was a lawyer. she's in congress. she's not someone who just sits there and reads the prayers on her blackberry like sarah palin. we're splitting hairs here. >> could sarah palin become president? is it possible in the current climate? >> absolutely. yes. people who say this one is a joke or this one is a joke, i remember when i was 12 years old in 1968 and ronald reagan was first considering running for president, i remember what a joke that was, ronald reagan, you mean the "bed-time for bonzo" guy? i think he did become president. absolutely. if she could get the nomination and anything could happen. this republican party is not your father's republican party. somewhere on the line they got on a short bus to crazy town. if someone gets the nomination of one of the two major parties, especially in a bad economy with a black president, yes, she could become president. >> is america more-or-less racist now since obama's been in power? >> that's a great question. i don't know. i think it's more sneakily racist. i actually have more respect for the old school racist like strom thurmond and jesse helms who are more up front about it opposed to the rand paul type guys who say things like, i would have marched with dr. king. you don't get points for what you would have done in your imagination. i would have helped jesus escape but i wasn't around. >> are there ever any of the republican candidates so far that have emerged that you would see as potentially not life-threatening? >> hopefully mitt romney. we depend on him to be a giant shape shifter and liar he's always been. there's not an issue, you can go down the line when he was the republican governor of liberal massachusetts, there is not one issue he hasn't done a complete 180 on, from abortion to gun control to campaign finance, whatever it is. i have to think if he got into office, maybe he would be somewhat of a normal president. you don't know because he has to answer to that crazy party. >> has there ever been a president in your life-time who has been properly principled in your eyes? >> jimmy carter was an amazingly principled president. did what he said. didn't fire a shot. did not fire a bullet, a missile while he was president. he said, as the world's superpower, we have an an obligation not to attack other countries unless we are attacked. history has not been kind to jimmy carter an that is the fault of history. >> is that part of the problem of being the guy at the white house, there is a -- i was reading george bush's book. >> it attracts criticism? >> not that. there's a kind of expectation from this mass populus you have to do certain things. i read about the aftermath to 9/11, for example, when i actually read george bush's account, i was more understanding, not accepting because i kind of share your view of what went on afterwards but more understanding of why he is a guy from texas felt compelled to do what he did. he felt he had to do something for his american people. >> yeah, he did have to do something. he didn't have to do what he did. what he should have done, right after 9/11, when everyone was in the mood to sacrifice, ask the country to sacrifice. he told everybody to go shopping and then attacked the wrong country, from the get go, i go esto avenge his father, whatever the hell the reason was. he should have done something and also should have learned about it. this is the man who said at the point where they were thinking of attacking the country, they told them about sunnis and shiites, he said, i thought they was all muslim. really? we're attacking a country, you're the leader of our country, attacking a muslim country and you don't know about the shiite-sunni thing over there, to me impeachable. >> how do you think obama is doing as president? >> i love him. you can't not. coming in after bush, you have him there, a guy you can relate to. he's intelligent, he can speak english. i don't think about george bush at all anymore, which is great. he's like an uncle who molested me and i blocked it out. you can just tell, you'd like to have dinner with obama, anear -- aerodyte guy. >> he's a good figure head around the country? >> he's just terribly disappointing as a negotiator and liberal. it makes me laugh when they say he's a socialist. he's not even a liberal. he's a centrist at best. he's constantly voicing the republican opinion. paul krugman called saying why is obama carrying water for the republican party? why if they're having a giant discussion about the debt and deficit, why is obama saying the stupid things that they say. we have to treat our government like a family does? that's stupid. you don't -- a family doesn't run up a deficit, whereas we know a certain deficit is good for a government. this silly kinard about we have to be super kind to the rich because they're the job creators, which is bs also. and that sometimes you have to, even when you have a debt, spend more money, to get the economy going again. >> i agree that on one level the criticism that seems most accurate to me is he can be diffy dent in decision making and hasn't helped america with the economic strife and when you think that, he came out with the stunning strike that came out wrong. >> that's low hanging fruit. doesn't cost anything. everyone wanted to see it done. >> if it had gone wrong and americans gotten killed, it would have cost him the election. >> he has a pair on him, obama. >> audacious. >> the editorial that got the most reaction when i said, it would be a shame if four years of democratic rule came to an end in 2012 without trying democratic policies. that's the problem all progressives have. a democrat gets in and we don't attempt democratic policies. >> what does that mean? crystalize that for me. >> stop talking about the debt and deficit. when dick cheney was in office and they were running up all the debt, you can look this up, there are facts outside of the fox news bubble, actual facts and numbers, most of the debt was run up under bush. dick cheney said, quote, deficits don't matter. why can't obama say that? why is it okay when cheney says it and when president black man says it. i'm not saying it's all race. seems a little weird, suddenly he gets in office and debt and deficit is intolerable. republicans have some nerve. bush came into office, debt was 5.6 trillion, took a surplus and turned it into a 10 trillion dollar debt, almost doubled it with stuff they didn't pay for, didn't pay for wars, tax cuts for the rich which should be called tax spending for rich, the prescription drug program all that unpaid for. suddenly, obama comes into office and they act like he's newt gingrich's wife at tiffany's. he didn't spend -- his big spending the stimulus was mostly a republican spending plan. >> how would you describe your policies? are you a socialist? are you a liberal? are you both? >> first of all, every modern government nowadays is a hybrid of socialism. the post office, marine corps, the veterans administration. >> what tag are you proudest of putting yourself to? >> i think i'm just practical. i think i'm just -- i don't think i'm an ideologue. >> your ideology is you hate republicans. >> no, i don't. >> you do. you hate their ideology. >> that's different. i hate stupidity and stuff that doesn't work no