On one level, the claim by media personality Piers Morgan that Donald Trump “stormed off” the set when he brought up the 2020 presidential election is just plain creepy.
But if the only side of the story you get is from Morgan trying to goose ratings for his new show — the side the mainstream media wants you to see — Trump comes off as an unhinged maniac.
But thankfully — in the interest of an accurate and complete historical record — the Trump team made an audio recording of the interview that, lo and behold, does not show the former president “storming” off the set. What it shows is Morgan telling Trump four times “this is the last question” until an exasperated Trump just gets up and leaves.
First up, Morgan’s sensationalized version of events.
Incensed Trump tried to end things by declaring, “That’s it!” before I reminded him that we hadn’t discussed his hole-in-one, which he then sat down again and did — briefly — before abruptly jumping to his feet, looking hateful, and barking at the shocked crew: “TURN THE CAMERAS OFF!”
Then he turned on his heel, and sloped angrily off through a side door, loudly muttering, “SO dishonest …”
It wasn’t a rhetorical observation.
Apparently, he was later heard denouncing me as a “scumbag” and saying he wished he’d never done the interview.
In fact, as the audio of the interview released later by Trump’s office shows, there was a much different ending to the interview.
Talk TV, which is set to debut Monday, teased the interview — billed as “the most explosive interview of the year” — in a video summary that is dramatized with cinematic music and portrays Trump as being angry about the content of questions Morgan asked. The video and the alleged walkout were reported in an article by the New York Post, which is also owned by News Corp.
“Turn the camera off,” Trump says at the close of the video clip as he appears to rise from his chair. “Very dishonest.”
But the audio of the end of the interview appears to tell a different story. The two men laughed and thanked each other, the recording shows. There are no signs of Trump’s storming off set.
“That was a great interview,” Morgan says in the audio at the end.
Trump agrees with a “yeah.”
“Thank you very much. I really appreciate it,” Morgan says.
That’s when Trump says, “Turn the camera off.” By then, the former president had already risen from his chair, according to his communications director, Taylor Budowich, who supplied the audio to NBC News.
Is Morgan so stupid that he didn’t know Trump’s people were recording the interview? That’s obvious from the bald-faced lie told by Morgan to promote his show.
As for Trump’s saying “very deceptive,” he made the comment after a frustrated Budowich called out Morgan for dragging out the interview and falsely and repeatedly saying he had one last question, only to ask more.
Trump had expected the interview to last 20 minutes, Budowich said, but it stretched on for more than an hour. Toward the end, Budowich called for the last question, but the audio appears to show that Morgan asked several more, including one related to “Celebrity Apprentice.”
“Is that the last question? You’ve said ‘the last question’ four times now,” Budowich told Morgan. “So I feel like you’re lying at this point.”
Despite the obvious lies that Morgan told after the interview, most mainstream media outlets played the story as if it were difficult to glean the truth from the two different narratives.
So sad. So predictable.
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