Piers Morgan confronts WaPo columnist on why he gained’t name out Jeff Bezos like he did Bill Maher on Trump ‘PR stunt’ | EUROtoday

Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin confessed to Piers Morgan this week that he can’t name out his paper’s proprietor in the identical method he just lately did to Bill Maher for “falling into the trap” of being utilized by Donald Trump, noting that Jeff Bezos might probably hearth him for his criticism.

The admission by Rogin comes days after a fiery trade on Maher’s HBO present Real Timewhich additionally by the way featured Morgan. During a panel dialogue, Rogin challenged Maher for breaking bread with Trump after being an outspoken critic of the president for years, suggesting the comedian had develop into a pawn within the president’s newest “PR stunt.”

Rogin’s remarks, which didn’t sit nicely with Maher, got here after the late-night host agreed to fulfill with Trump for a non-public dinner that was organized by MAGA nation rocker Kid Rock. Speaking in regards to the assembly for the primary time on his Friday broadcast, Maher praised a “gracious” Trump for making him “feel comfortable” and insisted that he by no means felt he “had to walk on eggshells around” the president.

“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f***ed up. It’s just not as f***ed up as I thought it was,” he instructed viewers, including: “I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking it as a positive that this person exists. Because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was — I swear to God — absent.”

Trying his finest to not offend Maher and provides him the advantage of the doubt that his dinner with Trump was in “good faith,” Rogin nonetheless stated that he felt the president took benefit of the chance.

“I think you’ve fallen into the trap, and I think I represent 99 percent of the internet when I say this: you’ve played the game of proximity is principle. I’m not questioning your motivation; I’m questioning Trump’s, OK?” Rogin instructed Maher.

“You don’t have to patronize me, dude. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you,” a perturbed Maher snapped again. He would fume in regards to the trade the remainder of the present, coming again to Rogin’s “little rant” later within the dialogue.

Morgan, who sided with Maher on Friday evening, invited Rogin onto Monday evening’s broadcast of his personal present Uncensored and put the Washington Post author on the spot in relation to his personal boss.

Bezos, after all, notoriously blocked the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris simply days earlier than the 2024 election and introduced a brand new mandate for the paper’s opinion part, which has sparked issues that he’s currying favor with Trump by softening the publication’s protection of the president. The Amazon founder additionally donated cash to Trump’s inauguration fund, gave Trump’s spouse $40 million to stream her documentary, and dined with Trump following his dramatic change to the Post’s opinion web page.

“You work for the Washington Post. Your owner, Jeff Bezos, has done a lot more than Bill Maher in crossing the divide with Trump,” Morgan addressed Rogin. “He used to be very critical of Trump. But in the last year and a half or so, or since his shooting actually, he seems to have performed a massive U-turn on Trump.”

After itemizing all the ways in which Bezos has cozied as much as Trump previously 12 months, Morgan then requested: “I mean, as a Washington Post senior journalist, how do you feel about all that?”

Claiming he “wasn’t trying to criticize” Maher on Friday, Rogin insisted that he was attempting to push again on the notion that “engagement with Trump” can really create a “bridge towards healing the cultural divide.” At the identical time, he stated that when “business leaders go to meet with Trump, that’s a different set of calculations.”

Regarding Bezos, who’s at the moment the second wealthiest man on the planet, Rogin stated that he’s “not privy to what goes on at the ownership level” on the Post and that he merely works there. “I’m not part of the management. I’m not part of ownership. I’ve never met Jeff Bezos. I don’t know what his calculations are. And I know that’s above my pay grade,” he continued, insisting that he wasn’t attempting to “duck” Morgan’s query.

“Look, if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” Morgan shot again. “I mean, you can appreciate that if you’re Bill Maher watching you refusing to be remotely critical of what your own owner has done with Trump in terms of kissing the ring, you could potentially see that he might think there’s a double standard there.”

Morgan’s needling of Rogin pressured the columnist to admit why he wasn’t capable of level that very same essential lens on the Blue Origin proprietor.

“You know, I see what you’re trying to do, Piers, but I’m not in a position to comment on Jeff Bezos, because if I comment on Jeff Bezos then I could be fired from my job and you know that, so I’m not going to do that,” Rogin flatly acknowledged.

“But at the same time, I want to be honest with you so I don’t seem to be dodging your question,” he continued. “And my honest answer from my heart is, every person that engages with this administration, including all the people on this panel – including you, including me – has to make that judgment based on their own calculations of their own values and their own interests, and we have to be careful not to judge each other for where we all come down on that.”

In the top, Rogin acknowledged that Morgan’s viewers would probably not be happy along with his response however that this was pretty much as good because it was going to get lest he jeopardize his personal employment.

“That is my effort to answer you honestly, Piers, without getting fired from my job but to try to prove to you that I do have a very consistent philosophy on this,” he concluded. “Which is not going to please the Trumpsters and is not gonna please the liberals, because I’m neither a Trumpster nor a liberal.”