Promotional footage showing Donald Trump walking out of an interview with Piers Morgan was heavily edited, according to NBC.
The former Good Morning Britain host returns to screens next week on Rupert Murdoch’s new Talk TV channel.
He will kick off proceedings with a discussion billed as the “most explosive interview of the year” by the channel in a video summary that is dramatised with cinematic music.
Audio recording
But an audio recording provided by Trump’s spokesman to NBC News appears to tell a different story.
Instead of storming out, the two men thanked each other and laughed at the conclusion of the interview.
“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.
“Turn the camera off”
That’s when Trump says, “Turn the camera off.” By then, the former president had already risen from his chair.
Taylor Budowich, who supplied the audio, 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.
As for Trump’s saying “very deceptive,” he made the comment after a frustrated Budowich called out Morgan for dragging out the interview and falsely and repeatedly saying he had one last question, only to ask more.
Trump had expected the interview to last 20 minutes, Budowich said, but it stretched on for more than an hour. Toward the end, Budowich called for the last question, but the audio appears to show that Morgan asked several more, including one related to “Celebrity Apprentice.”
“Is that the last question? You’ve said ‘the last question’ four times now,” Budowich told Morgan. “So I feel like you’re lying at this point.”
“I’m not lying,” Morgan said.
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