Former president Donald Trump hit out at English broadcaster Piers Morgan during a “Save America” rally in Nebraska.
Mocking Morgan, who has joined the Rupert Murdoch-owned TalkTV to host his own programme Piers Morgan Uncensored, the 45th US president alleged that he did the presenter a favour by agreeing to sit down with him for an interview, which was aired last week.
The interview, albeit bizarre, revealed Mr Trump’s strong dislike for Meghan Markle, his views on trans rights and the 2020 US election, which he baselessly maintains was rigged in Joe Biden’s favour.
In a one-star review of the first episode of Uncensored, The Independent’s Nick Hilton described it as “a truly tortured piece of broadcasting”.
On Sunday, at a rally to support the candidate he has endorsed ahead of the Nebraska primary elections later this month, Mr Trump spoke about the interview.
“This crazy Piers Morgan did you see that show? Piers Morgan thank you, sir. Did you see Piers Morgan? I think he sorta had it. I think Piers is over the hill,” Mr Trump said.
“He opened the show with an interview of me, I did him a favour. I didn’t want to do his stupid show. It’s on Fox Nation. What is Fox Nation?”
Pointing at the sharp fall in ratings of the new show, Mr Trump said: “He opened with great ratings when he did me and after my interview is finished he bombed and he is now down over 70 per cent and maybe they’ll someday learn that, maybe they should hire me as an anchor.”
The second episode of Piers Morgan’s Uncensored TV series was viewed by around 100,000 fewer people than the debut, representing a decline of roughly a third.
The recent feud between the two began after Mr Trump accused the former CNN presenter of doctoring the promo of his interview to suggest that the Republican leader stormed out of the room.
In a series of chaotic shots stitched together, an irate Mr Trump is shown grimacing as Morgan calls the 2020 election “free and fair” and says the ex-president “never produced the hard evidence” to prove otherwise.
“Piers Morgan, like the rest of the fake news media, attempted to unlawfully and deceptively edit his long and tedious interview," Mr Trump had said in a statement.
The second episode of the interview disclosed that Morgan spent several minutes blaming Mr Trump’s communications director, Taylor Budowic, for the bad-tempered ending and called the staffer “incompetent”.
When the tape rolled, Morgan was seen congratulating Mr Trump on his hole-in-one and telling him: “That was a great interview”.
The former president replied: “Yeah, that’s fine” before asking Morgan’s crew to turn off the camera.
