A major row has exploded as Donald Trump has accused Piers Morgan of editing their sit-down interview to make it look like Trump walked out in anger.
Brexit politician Nigel Farage revealed today that he had warned Trump about Piers’ bad intentions prior to the interview.
The 30-second trailer issued by Murdoch Media was released yesterday to advertise the launch of Piers’ new show, Uncensored next week.
It features a fiery exchange between former president Trump and Morgan and ends with Trump apparently saying “turn the cameras off” and “very dishonest” before storming out – an exchange Trump insists was edited completely out of context.
“Piers Morgan, like the rest of the fake news media, attempted to unlawfully and deceptively edit his long and tedious interview,” said Trump.
Trump’s communications director Taylor Budowich told NBC News the trailer was spliced with audio taken from different times during the interview and that Trump and Morgan had actually parted ways very cordially, with both men laughing and thanking each other.
“That was a great interview.,” says Morgan in the audio provided by Trump’s team.
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“Yeah,” replies Trump, apparently unimpressed.
“Thank you very much, I really appreciate it,” continues Morgan.
After the exchange, Trump can be heard saying “turn the cameras off”.
Team Trump’s account of the events is in direct contrast with Morgan’s description of the ending of the video which he provided to the New York Post.
“[It ended with Trump] 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 …”
Trump claims that the “so dishonest” remark was in fact taken from an earlier interview with Morgan and had also been spliced into the video to produce a trailer which Trump has condemned as being “deceptively edited”.
Morgan also seemed to contradict himself in a column he wrote about the interview in which he says the filming had been scheduled for a 20 minute time slot, but had taken over an hour – in direct contrast with his claims that Trump had cut the interview short.
In a further turn of events this afternoon, Trump’s British confident Brexiteer Nigel Farage produced a video in which he says Piers accused him of poisoning Trump against him beforehand.
In a clip posted to his Twitter page, Farage confirmed he had met with Trump for dinner “a few days before the interview”.
“I said to him ‘Morgan has gone around in UK media telling everybody that he’s your friend, that he’s got special privilege access, when in fact, behind your back he’s been stitching you up for a long time”.
Farage goes on to say that he then provided Trump with a “document” to show him the “truth” before he went ahead with the interview.
“Trump was clearly very displeased. The interview because of that wasn’t perhaps the friendliest.”
While Morgan has said that he and the Donald have enjoyed a 15-year friendship since Morgan won Celebrity Apprentice in 2008, it appears, perhaps partly thanks to Nigel Farage, Trump is now beginning to see Morgan’s true colors.