If you can’t trust a sleazy British tabloid journalist, whom can you trust?

Here again is the promo for Morgan’s new interview with Trump, which I wrote about last night.

Trump walks out on Piers Morgan during contentious interview pic.twitter.com/NKUTBblGDS

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) April 20, 2022

Morgan wrote a long article for the New York Post describing what this allegedly explosive confrontation was like behind the scenes, beginning with Trump lambasting him in his office beforehand for his criticism since January 6. To watch the promo, you would think Trump had wilted under tough questioning about trying to overturn the election and then stormed off in frustration like a toddler who’d just been denied his favorite toy. The way Morgan tells it in his Post piece, he did convince the irate former president to sit back down — but only “briefly,” for a question about golf. Quote:

Incensed Trump tried to end things by declaring, “That’s it!” before I reminded him that we hadn’t discussed his hole-in-one, which he then sat down again and did — briefly — before 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 …”

Is that right? Trump’s team recorded audio of the interview and gave it to Breitbart. The end of the conversation drags on for more than seven minutes and involves Morgan asking Trump about trans swimmer Lia Thomas, vaccines and vaccine mandates, whether he’d take a different tone in his second term (which causes Trump to launch into an answer about NATO), and then ultimately about golf. They seem to part cordially. Read Breitbart’s transcript or listen for yourself:

In his Post story Morgan compared his confrontation with Trump to the famous scene in “A Few Good Men” in which Jack Nicholson melts down under tough questioning on the witness stand and confesses. Does that audio clip sound like “A Few Good Men”? Here’s how the dramatic bit in the promo where Trump says “turn the cameras off” really went down, according to his spokesman:

“That was a great interview,” Morgan says in the audio at the end.

Trump agrees with a “yeah.”

“Thank you very much. I really appreciate it,” Morgan says.

That’s when Trump says, “Turn the camera off.” By then, the former president had already risen from his chair, according to his communications director, Taylor Budowich, who supplied the audio to NBC News.

Budowich alleged that the show’s producers deceptively edited the video by splicing the sound of Trump saying “turn the camera off” to make it falsely appear as if he made the statement while he was rising in anger.

The term “fake news” seems like more than an idle slur in this case:

Congrats to Piers, I guess, on losing a credibility contest to Donald Trump. Unless, of course, Team Trump stealth-edited the audio to make the ending of the interview sound more cordial than it really was. Breitbart notes that at one point “The audio breaks up for a few seconds as whatever recording device that was recording it seems to have been moved, but then it comes back in at about 2:10 into the file.” Morgan is insisting today that those accusing him of fake news are themselves guilty of fake news:

Fake news (ironically!) https://t.co/00ra67RmHN

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 21, 2022

Yes – his claim is fake news. https://t.co/eUUttpQW2l

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 21, 2022

My statement to all news organisations wanting my response to President Trump claiming ‘RIGGED PROMO!!’: it was as rigged as the 2020 Election.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 21, 2022

The problem of deciding whom to believe between two unreliable narrators is a common one in our age, but this one’s a doozy.

We’ll know in a few days when the full interview airs. I’m tempted to say that if Trump’s version of the audio has been deceptively edited then Morgan should blow him up by posting the accurate version. But if he did that now, he’d be scooping himself.

The Occam’s Razor explanation is that Trump’s audio is accurate but Morgan’s team couldn’t resist the temptation to hype the interview as something it’s not, knowing that the buzz about Trump supposedly storming off would help launch his new show to big ratings. It’ll work, no doubt. A proposition both sides here can agree on: Life is so much easier without ethics.

Speaking of which, the Trump/Morgan interview wasn’t the only bit of TV drama involving a MAGA star yesterday. I’ll leave you with this.

Rudy Giuliani sings "Bad to the Bone" on Masked Singer as host @kenjeong leaves saying, "I'm done." pic.twitter.com/nPmcTBye4m

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) April 21, 2022