During an appearance on Fox News Monday night, former CNN host Piers Morgan offered a stunning rebuke to the media, calling out them out for being “in the tank of Hillary Clinton” during the 2016 campaign and openly hostile to President Trump after “their candidate didn’t win.” He then demanded that press show the commander-in-chief “more respect.”
Morgan, a self-avowed liberal, declared: “...Donald Trump's main beef with the media, which is that it’s a two-way street, this question of respect and honesty. And he has felt for quite some time, I think, that a lot of people in the mainstream media, for want of a better phrase, are absolutely determined to bring him down. And I think he’s got a point, I think some of them absolutely are.”
The DailyMail.com editor-at-large added: “And they were in the tank for Hillary Clinton, their candidate didn't win, and now they are utterly determined to bring the Trump presidency crashing down.”
After host Tucker Carlson pointed to evidence of collusion between CNN and the Democratic Party throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Morgan conceded: “I think the vast majority of people that work at CNN, particularly the anchors, do have great integrity....But I definitely think there were people lower down the food chain perhaps who didn't have such scruples and who were absolutely, I think, determined that Trump wouldn’t win.”
He reminded viewers that early on “CNN and all the other networks were racing to give him [Trump] as much air time as they could possibly give him. This, of course, fueled the monster.” “And then when the moment came when they thought, ‘Oh, God, hang on, he might actually win,’ then rather like Dr. Frankenstein, they thought, ‘We’ve got to kill him off,’” Morgan added.
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Singling out the New York Times for its particularly slanted coverage of the race, Morgan scolded the “supposed paper of record”: “And I noticed in the last few months of that campaign it got more and more virulent. You know, papers like The New York Times, frankly, I thought were a complete disgrace. They weren't even pretending to be anything but in the tank for Hillary Clinton. And I found that, as a journalist, pretty obscene to watch actually.”
He pointed out the publication’s blatant hypocrisy in complaining about the President criticizing their reporting: “So for The New York Times and others now to be saying, ‘Oh, poor us,’ you know, ‘We’re the innocent parties here, Donald Trump is annihilating the media and breaking down the First Amendment and so on.’ It's pretty rich, I think, given the way that they themselves conducted themselves as the supposed paper of record.”
Morgan concluded: “So I think that there is fault on both sides here. I think that it is dangerous and toxic, and I think that the media have got to start showing President Trump a bit more respect. And he, in turn, and his White House operation, have got to show the media a bit more respect. And they’ve all got to move on.”
Here is a transcript of the February 6 exchange:
9:00 PM ET
TUCKER CARLSON: With each passing day, the war between the press and the President grows more intense. Today, the president tweeted this, “The failing NEW YORK TIMES writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!” Then this morning he tweeted this, “Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.”
Well, one media outlet with a particularly antagonistic relationship toward the President is CNN, the Cable News Network, which labeled Trump – which Trump, rather – labeled fake news more than once. Piers Morgan is editor-at-large with DailyMail.com. He is the former face of CNN. And by the way, he won Celebrity Apprentice back when a certain future president was its host. He joins us now from L.A. Piers Morgan, thanks for joining us.
PIERS MORGAN: Pleasure. That just shows what good judgment he has, right?
CARLSON: Yes. And I always forget that, but what a cool thing to have on your CV. So I remember well when you were the face of CNN. I watched your show a lot. I didn’t always agree with you but I always thought you were straightforward. If you thought something, you just kind of put it out there and said it. So you left three years ago, since then, thanks to WikiLeaks, we’ve learned a lot of detail about CNN colluding with the Democratic Party during this election. Were you shocked by it?
MORGAN: I was a bit, yeah. I mean, I don't know how directly involved CNN were, but I do know that when you look at what happened with Donna Brazile and some of the other characters involved, it stank, frankly. And you know, it brought to light, I think, Donald Trump's main beef with the media, which is that it’s a two-way street, this question of respect and honesty. And he has felt for quite some time, I think, that a lot of people in the mainstream media, for want of a better phrase, are absolutely determined to bring him down. And I think he’s got a point, I think some of them absolutely are. And they were in the tank for Hillary Clinton, their candidate didn't win, and now they are utterly determined to bring the Trump presidency crashing down. So you have a war between the media and the White House, the like of which I’ve certainly never seen before. And it's pretty dangerous all around.
CARLSON: So I think there’s a difference, though, between having a perspective and stating it clearly – as you do, as I try to – and in a subterranean way that’s cloaked from public view coordinating with a political party. So we learn on WikiLeaks the Donna Brazile story, as you know, where she got the debate questions ahead of time. We also found out that the DNC research director was consulted by CNN for questions to ask Ted Cruz. A Clinton staffer implied that the politics producer at CNN was, quote, “a friend and an ally.” And then you have the chief political analyst at CNN emailing John Podesta and saying, quote, “You are a TV star, I've been in GOP hell.” I mean, it really seems like there is a special connection between CNN – not just all media, but CNN – and that party. Did you notice that when you worked there?
MORGAN: Well, to be honest and to be fair to CNN, I spent four years there, I think the vast majority of people that work at CNN, particularly the anchors, do have great integrity and I don't think they want to be party to any of this kind of stuff. But I definitely think there were people lower down the food chain perhaps who didn't have such scruples and who were absolutely, I think, determined that Trump wouldn’t win.
And bear in mind the history of this. From the moment that Donald Trump decided to run, you know, he was, for about four or five months, the only gig in town. CNN and all the other networks were racing to give him as much air time as they could possibly give him. This, of course, fueled the monster. And then when the moment came when they thought, “Oh, God, hang on, he might actually win,” then rather like Dr. Frankenstein, they thought, “We’ve got to kill him off.” But by then, Trump, the nominee, was gone. He was off and racing around America and he became unstoppable.
And I noticed in the last few months of that campaign it got more and more virulent. You know, papers like The New York Times, frankly, I thought were a complete disgrace. They weren't even pretending to be anything but in the tank for Hillary Clinton. And I found that, as a journalist, pretty obscene to watch actually. So for The New York Times and others now to be saying, “Oh, poor us,” you know, “We’re the innocent parties here, Donald Trump is annihilating the media and breaking down the First Amendment and so on.” It's pretty rich, I think, given the way that they themselves conducted themselves as the supposed paper of record.
So I think that there is fault on both sides here. I think that it is dangerous and toxic, and I think that the media have got to start showing President Trump a bit more respect. And he, in turn, and his White House operation, have got to show the media a bit more respect. And they’ve all got to move on.
CARLSON: Well, it’s certainly within bounds, I think, for news organizations to call out politicians on statements that are false. And I think Trump has made a few and I don't have any problem with reporters saying, “Whoa, wait a second, prove what you say.” But it’s the orientation that shocks me. It does seem like a lot of journalists see their role not as to report the news, but as to affect the outcome of an election. Has that changed in the decades you’ve been in the business?MORGAN: Yeah, look, I mean, in Britain for example, we have a very free press and you have papers which are very obviously partisan to political parties, be on the left and the right. And it's pretty balanced down the middle, there are as many left-wing papers in Britain as there are right-wing. In America, what I don't like, is this pretense from papers like The New York Times that somehow that they are completely beyond any reproach when it comes to their coverage. That they are completely neutral. They’re not neutral.
I remember in the middle of the campaign, picking up a New York Times and reading it from cover to cover. There were 11 different stories and letters and comment op-ed pieces about Donald Trump in that one edition of The New York Times. Every single one of them was hostile to Trump, including four out of four letters. Now, come on! That is not a coincidence.
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