British journalist and one-time Donald Trump fan Piers Morgan revisited his recent tense interview with the former president, calling him “pathological.”
Morgan had claimed — and stood by that claim Sunday — that Trump walked off the set after Morgan confronted him over his lies that the presidential election was rigged against him. The full “Piers Morgan Uncensored” interview is set to air Monday in the U.S. on the Fox Nation streaming service.
Trump last week released partial audio of the interview that appeared to indicate the interaction ended on a friendly note. Trump claimed that a 30-second teaser released for the interview had been “unlawfully and deceptively” edited to make him look like he had stormed off in a huff.
But Morgan insisted in an interview on Fox News’ “MediaBuzz” Sunday that Trump did walk off angry and “fired up.”
Morgan called the former president “pathological” about his insistence during the interview that he wasn’t a loser in 2020.
“It was uncomfortable,” Morgan told Howard Kurtz. “I’ve never seen him like that. He was very angry. Quite profane, in fact.”
Morgan said Trump blew up when confronted about his election lies.
“At that point, the fuse kind of went with him,” Morgan recalled. “He started insulting me, called me a fool seven times. I was very respectful back. I accepted if he wanted to call me that, that’s fine. But he wasn’t going to change my mind … He couldn’t accept that. He has a kind of blind, pathological belief that it [the election] was taken from him.”
Morgan conceded that he thanked Trump at the end of the interview, and the men shook hands.
“But then he just got up, barked at our cameras: ‘Turn the camera off!’ And then he walked off,” said Morgan. “As he walks off, he muttered loudly — we have all this on film — ‘So dishonest! So dishonest!’ about me. I just thought that was rude and churlish, and I felt that constituted a walkout, actually.”
Morgan added: “I was shocked by the way that ended.”
He emphasized: “I didn’t claim it was some ferocious, screaming, storming off.” But “I’ve never experienced that with him before,” he added.
Morgan knows abrupt exits. He quit as host of “Good Morning Britain” last year after walking off the set of the program when confronted on air about his ugly comments regarding Meghan Markle. He has recently said he was forced off the program.
The confrontation between the men is a strange rift involving Fox Nation, controlled by Trump-supporting media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Some speculated that the blow up is a message that Murdoch is finally turning his back on Trump, perhaps for some other far-right politician like Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said last week that even if the interview faceoff didn’t occur exactly as touted, “it reveals a much bigger tale— that the Murdochs are blindsiding Donald Trump. The parade is moving on,” he added.
Scarborough’s guest, lawyer George Conway, husband of Trump’s former aide Kellyanne Conway, noted that the “Murdochs played a big role in creating this monster,” referring to Trump. “We can only hope that they’ll try to destroy the monster now,” he added.
Check out Morgan’s “MediaBuzz” interview in the clip up top. Here’s the teaser for the Trump interview that the former president lashed as deceptive: