United Kingdom

Pierce Morgan showed his class in show business as he faced Donald Trump

Does Talk TV pay Pierce Morgan a word? Yes, he had a worldwide exclusive interview with Donald Trump to show us, but that could wait a good 20 minutes. First, a long monologue in which he explained what his new show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, was about.

Or rather, what he plans to oppose. Wake up snowflakes. Awaken the imbeciles. Awaken madness. Cancel the culture. Vegan virtue signals. Emoji for pregnant men. Mr. Potato Head (I’m afraid he lost me there).

You’ve heard it all before. You’ve definitely heard it in GB News. But Morgan’s talent is to present the agenda in a fun way. He understands show business. “If all goes well with you,” he told the audience, “we’ll have fun.” And I’m not sure there’s another presenter who could say, “As Nelson Mandela may have said, it was a long way to free speech,” without sounding like Alan Partridge.

Talk TV was once touted as Rupert Murdoch’s rival on GB News, but is here to provoke big guns. It looks like a cross between ITV and Fox News. Morgan’s show has a super-American feel, including a moment when the multicolored “world is crazy!” Logo flashed on the screen as Morgan theatrically buried his face in his hands.

His interview with Trump was good, except that every line has been relentlessly followed in recent days, so none of it was new. Trump hinted that he would run for president again, dismissed Harry and Megan, and said he could settle for Putin (his analysis of the Russian leader was rather harsh). According to reports, Trump will explain in the second part of the interview how happy the queen is to meet him.

It was not a soft meeting – Morgan confronted Trump with his allegations of “rigged elections”. It was about the interviewer as well as the interviewee: Morgan kept bringing us back to the studio to analyze their relationship and talk about ourselves. He also revealed amusingly that Trump had been handed a file against Morgan by “an insidious little weasel named Nigel working for a little-watched television network somewhere in the United Kingdom.”

As the night of the release went on, it was a purring Rolls-Royce to the applauding Robin Reliant of GB News. Except for the first minute, ie. Tom Newton-Dunn opened production at 7 p.m. The camera focused on a close-up of his face, as if piloted by a drunken pigeon. Then Newton-Dunn began to speak, and the sound was out of sync with the pictures, like a poorly dubbed kung fu movie.

But the mistake was quickly corrected. It is clear that there are experienced people behind the scenes. And a lot of money. The production values ​​are so smooth that it feels like a channel that has been operating for years. Newton-Dunn’s show, The News Desk, was as competent as anything you could find on a competing TV operator, although it could compete for a rating in this slot. And I’m not sure they’ll invite James Slack, known as Partygate, who bore the expression of someone who was marching to be targeted.

Overall, an impressive start. If Morgan can continue to give great interviews – Will Smith would be great – that should keep people interested. However, I’m not sure the world needs another discussion show; The conversation, led by Sharon Osbourne, felt much more GB News and there was nothing to write. It also featured Jeremy Kyle, whose presence lowered the channel’s quality by several levels.