Donald Trump pushed back on an interview promo with Piers Morgan suggesting the former President angrily stormed out of his interview, but the journalist was quick to respond and now says that Trump’s claim the clip was “doctored” is more “fake news (ironically).”
“My statement to all news organisations wanting my response to President Trump claiming ‘RIGGED PROMO!!’: it was as rigged as the 2020 Election,” Morgan said in a tweet.
On Wednesday, Morgan released a teaser for an upcoming sit-down with Trump, a series of brief clips in which Trump calls Morgan a “fool” for believing the 2020 election was honest. The promo ends with Trump appearing to stand up from his chair and saying “turn off the camera” and “very dishonest.”
After the clip was released, NBC News first reported hearing audio of the final minutes of the interview that appeared to contradict the notion that Trump stormed off mid-interview and cut his time short. In the nearly eight-minute audio clip, later released by Breitbart (via MediaIte), you can hear Trump’s director of communications Taylor Budowich requesting that Morgan ask one “last question” after claiming that Morgan went well over his allotted interview time. The interview finally concludes with Morgan asking Trump about his recent hole-in-one on the golf course, and though Trump can still be heard saying “turn the camera off,” it doesn’t suggest Trump angrily stormed out of the interview.
“For those who want to make Piers look bad, compare his video promo and how it was doctored to the real thing,” Trump later said in a statement. “Hopefully they will now be doing some big changes to their final product. It just shows, however, what I have to deal with in the Fake News Media. He went out of his way to deceptively edit an interview and got caught.”
None of that suggests the interview was not confrontational, and Morgan lashed back out after Budowich accused Morgan of “a pathetic attempt to use President Trump to revive the career of a failed television host.”
“Hi Taylor, the fact you weren’t able to stop the interview, & the fact President Trump had to be told about my previous public criticisms of him by some dodgy bloke in London rather than by you suggests he urgently needs a new Director of Communications! I’d pack your bags, mate,” Morgan wrote in a tweet.
Morgan even wrote an op-ed for the New York Post Wednesday going into detail about the moments leading up to his interview, claiming that Trump was upset about some of Morgan’s recent comments criticizing him and had confronted him minutes before they were scheduled for their sit-down. You can read that account here.
Piers Morgan’s interview with Donald Trump will air on the new service TalkTV on Monday and on Fox Nation.