“The best thing about Alex Jones is that 8 million people watched that video on YouTube,” Morgan told POLITICO in an extensive interview at his CNN office in New York. “I would suggest it’s the smartest booking we’ve ever made. The attention that interview got exploded this issue back onto the agenda for the entire week leading up to what Obama did today.” …

“The president of the United States espoused exactly what I’ve been saying for the last five weeks,” Morgan continued, referring to the President Barack Obama’s proposed ban on assault weapons. “No one can tell me we haven’t had an influence.”

Morgan’s show has been on air for two years, but it’s only in the past five weeks, since the shooting in Newtown, Conn., that the CNN host is getting any real attention. In a departure from the down-the-middle ethos that has governed CNN since its inception, the highly opinionated Brit has been an outspoken advocate of gun control, inviting his opponents on air night after night — alongside mayors, scholars, law enforcement officials and pundits — to entertain their argument against tighter gun laws while publicly admonishing them for it, even referring to some of them as “idiots.” …

“Andrew Sullivan is a dick,” Morgan told POLITICO. “He’s an extremely bitchy, deeply unpleasant, rather confused individual who for whatever reason despises the very spittle I put on the floor. Well, good luck to you, mate. But I couldn’t give a toss.”