Audio has emerged of Piers Morgan's interview with Donald Trump that challenges the narrative of the former US President storming off in a huff over being questioned about his false claims about the 2020 election.
Trump has labelled Morgan's widely circulated promotional clip as a "deceptively" edited version of a "tedious interview".
In an opinion piece published in the New York Post to publicise the interview, Morgan admitted that he had agreed to a 20-minute interview but it ended up going for around 75 minutes. This now appears to be the primary source of animosity, rather than any particular line of questioning.
In the seven-and-a-half minute audio clip released by a Trump representative, more context is provided around some of the segments shown in Morgan's promotional clip.
It tells a very different story to Morgan's.
Trump and his aides can be heard becoming frustrated that Morgan won't end the interview and repeating "last question" multiple times, but the interview eventually does appear to end very cordially.
Rather than Trump storming off angrily, the audio suggests the meeting ended with Morgan gushing about the former president's golfing skills and thanking him multiple times for the "great interview".
In the audio clip, Trump calls Morgan "very deceptive" after an aide suggests the broadcaster lied after agreeing to ask a final question multiple times, but then asking more. In Morgan's promotional clip, all of the testiness between the two appeared to be over Trump's 2020 election lies, as opposed to the interview length.
Trump saying "let's finish up the interview" and "turn the camera off" are also presented with more context in the audio, which refutes that either phrase was angrily said in relation to questions about the 2020 election.
Morgan has responded to the audio by denying any wrongdoing, dismissing claims of his clip being "unlawfully and deceptively" edited as "fake news".
Trump's current communications director Taylor Budowich leaked the audio to NBC News. Newshub has included a cut down preview version of the audio at the top this article - the Daily Mail has published the entire clip, which can be heard in the embedded audio below:
Budowich told NBC News Morgan's promotional clip was "a pathetic attempt to use President Trump as a way to revive the career of a failed television host".
Trump himself released a statement about it on his official website.
"Piers Morgan... attempted to unlawfully and deceptively edit his long and tedious interview with me. He wanted to make it look like I walked out on the interview when my time limit of 20 minutes went over by an hour," Trump said.
"For those who want to make Piers look bad, compare his video promo and how it was doctored to the real thing. Hopefully they will now be doing some big changes to their final product.
"[Morgan] went out of his way to deceptively edit an interview and got caught. That is a big story, isn't it?"
Trump's opinion of the interview's quality has clearly changed, too.
"It's been a fantastic interview," Morgan tells Trump in the newly released audio while pleading to ask more questions.
"I think it's fine. It's fine. It's 'fantastic' in your opinion," Trump replies, rather than calling it "tedious" at the time.
More of the interview will be broadcast Morgan's upcoming new TV show.
Trump continues to perpetuate a falsehood that he beat current President Joe Biden in the 2020 election but lost due to widespread voter fraud - a claim rejected by several courts and exhaustive state analyses.
Fired up by the claims, a mob of insurrectionist pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021 to try to stop the count of electoral votes certifying Biden's win.
Trump was later impeached on a charge of inciting an insurrection, but was acquitted by the Senate.
