While we may not always agree with former CNN host Piers Morgan, he has proven -- especially of late -- to be refreshingly fair and accurate in his assessments of left-wing hysteria, out of touch celebrities, and the mainstream media's relationship with President Donald Trump.
During an interview Wednesday evening with Fox News' Tucker Carlson, Morgan acknowledged that Trump's "main beef with the media" is understandable, given how poorly they've treated him.
"Donald Trump's main beef with the media, which is that it’s a two-way street, this question of respect and honesty," Morgan began.
"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."
Morgan said media "were in the tank for Hillary Clinton," and now 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," Morgan added.
When asked whether he personally saw the kind of systemic corruption at CNN that Wikileaks laid bare, Morgan said that in the four years he spent at the network, he found the majority of employees, and anchors in particular, to "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."
We think it might be more the other way around: that those higher up on the CNN food chain were the ones lacking scruples, but that's a whole other story. Still, Morgan continued with his frank, straightforward critique thusly (via Newsbusters):
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.
Morgan also singled out our so-called "paper of record," The New York Times, as being particularly egregious because it feigns neutrality.
"They’re not neutral," Morgan said.
"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."
