Trump Accuses Piers Morgan of 'Unlawfully and Deceptively' Editing Interview Footage, Releases Full Tape
Former President Donald Trump fired back at media personality Piers Morgan Wednesday after a snippet of an interview released to promote Morgan’s new show made Trump appear angry and irrational on the subject of the 2020 presidential election.
On Wednesday, a promotional clip made it appear Trump stormed out of the interview when tough interviewer Morgan pushed too hard, according to Breitbart. The interview was conducted for Morgan’s new show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored.”
However, a piece of audio posted to SoundCloud appeared to show a very different ending to the interview, one in which Morgan pushed the tolerance of the Trump team by repeatedly asking for “one more question” in an interview that stretched for over an hour.
The Western Journal has not been able to verify the authenticity of the audio recording or whether (or how much) it had been edited.
In a commentary published by the New York Post on Wednesday, Morgan described the interview as having taken place April 11. He described much of the meeting as being unpleasant — “extremely fractious” — but did not mention the promotional video.
Trump emailed a blistering statement about the evident deception of the editing.
“Piers Morgan, like the rest of the Fake News Media, attempted to unlawfully and deceptively edit his long and tedious interview with me. He wanted to make it look like I walked out on the interview when my time limit of 20 minutes went over by an hour,” Trump wrote in the email.
“The good news is that the interview was taped by us as a means of keeping him honest. The interview was actually very strong on the 2020 Election Fraud, with me calling him ‘a fool’ if he truly believed those results,” Trump said. “The evidence is massive and irrefutable (check out Truth the Vote and the Dinesh D’Souza documentary, which will all be coming out soon).”
[We assume Trump meant “True the Vote,” the conservative-leaning organization based in Houston, Texas, that monitors voting for potential fraud. — Ed. note]
[firefly_poll]
Trump wrote that anyone who wanted the truth should compare what Morgan released with what Trump’s team recorded and judge for themselves.
“For those who want to make Piers look bad, compare his video promo and how it was doctored to the real thing. 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. That is a big story, isn’t it?” Trump said.
This is the video Morgan’s show released:
****BREAKING NEWS****
??? pic.twitter.com/WdJnPJyMwG— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 20, 2022
By contrast, the audio file — which is about seven-and-a-half minutes long — opened with a Trump aide, identified by Breitbart as Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, asking Morgan to bring the interview to a close because it has already lasted for more than an hour. Morgan made agreeable noises and continued to ask questions.
Just over two minutes into the audio clip, Morgan said he was asking his final question.
“Final question, Mr. President … it’s been a tumultuous time for the world and the country. There is a chance you’re going to be running. Quite clearly, you’ve made that clear in this interview.”
“I don’t think I’ve made it clear,” Trump said.
“You have said they’ll be happy?” Morgan said.
“I said I think people are going to be very happy,” Trump said.
“For those who don’t like you — there are people out there who don’t like you, I know you’ve said recently you were very popular and the most honest man in the world,” Morgan said.
“I’m a very honest man,” Trump said.
“Is that true?” Morgan said.
“Yeah, I think I’m a very honest man,” Trump said. “Much more honest than you actually.”
“Really?” Morgan replied.
“Yeah, because I don’t think you’re real. Yeah, I think I’m a much more honest person in most ways than …,” Trump said.
“Why am I not real?” Morgan asked.
“We’re not going to get into that,” Trump said. “Let’s finish up the interview. Go ahead.”
“My question was this,” Morgan said. “What message do you have for people who can’t think of anything worse than you running again and would be distressed again? Would you come back with all the experience you had of being president, would you come back a different person? Would you do things a bit differently?”
Trump gave a lengthy response.
“So, I like this question in a certain way. I came in and I was attacked from day one, unfairly. Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all a hoax. The impeachment hoax, number one, number two. It was all a big hoax. The Mueller report? I had to fight back, and I had to fight back strongly. If I didn’t fight back strongly, I wouldn’t have survived. I say it, and I say it louder. I had two jobs to do: Run the country really well, and the second was to survive.
“No other president went through this fake stuff, where things were made up like Russia, Russia. I’m the one that ended the pipeline. I’m the one that put all those sanctions on there. I’m the one that saved NATO. NATO was dead. They had no money, they were broke — and I got the money to pour in from countries that would have never given it. If I wasn’t the way I am, you know what would have happened? I wouldn’t be there for two weeks. Two weeks.
“Now, would I like to be a little bit different? Yes. But if I didn’t act the way I acted, it would not have been the great success it was.”
Trump then said the world lacks smart leadership and that without it “the world is going to be blown to pieces.”
After Morgan promised another “last question,” Budowich interjected, “You’ve done ‘last question’ four times now. I feel like you’re lying at this point.”
Morgan then asked what actually was his final question — about the story of Trump’s March 26 hole-in-one at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida — and the interview ended, apparently amicably, at about the seven-minute mark.
After it was over, Trump said, “turn the camera off,” a phrase used in the promo as a staffer wanted the mics turned off as well.
Trump appears to saying “very dishonest” as the file ends, but it was not clear what prompted the remark or to whom it was addressed.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
CORRECTION, Apr. 21, 2022: As originally published, this article stated that Trump had released a “full tape,” which may have led some readers to believe that he released an audio version of the interview with Morgan, which reportedly lasted well over an hour. In reality, the audio recording was less than eight minutes in length, and did not include the “full” interview. In addition, The Western Journal has not had access to the original recording and has no way to verify that it, itself, has not been edited in some way. Therefore, we have removed “Full” from the headline of this article and altered other wording slightly for clarity. We have also added a statement indicating that we cannot independently verify the authenticity of the recording released by Trump.
