President Donald Trump has unfollowed Piers Morgan on Twitter after the TV host criticized his "coronavirus cure theories."
The US president suggested at a press briefing that people suffering from COVID-19 could inject themselves with household disinfectant — a concept that Morgan called "batsh-- crazy."
"I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" Trump said on Thursday.
The president later said his claims that disinfectant could potentially treat COVID-19 were "sarcasm." LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images
"I'm not a doctor," he went on. "But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."
"By far the most reckless and dangerous thing President Trump has done is use the most powerful podium on earth to air his batsh-- crazy theories about how to beat the virus," Morgan wrote for his column in the Daily Mail.
"It's hard to imagine a more stupid thing for a President to say than publicly float a completely unsubstantiated 'idea' like that which will inevitably make some Americans believe having bleach inside them will cure the virus," he added.
The president later said he made the comments "sarcastically," to "see what would happen."
"We all heard exactly what he said," Morgan wrote on Twitter."There was no sarcasm."
On Saturday, the TV host announced that Trump had unfollowed him just hours after the column was published online.
The pair have been friends since Morgan appeared as a contestant on season eight of "Celebrity Apprentice" in 2008. Since then, he has secured several exclusive interviews with the president, and has openly spoken about their friendship in the press.
"I've written about 80 columns on Trump for the DailyMail.com in America. And the majority have just been critical, and the rest have been supportive," he said in an interview back in December.
"You're allowed to be friends with people who's opinions you completely disagree with," Morgan said.
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WeYoung on April 26th, 2020 at 11:30 UTC »
So, I'll respond to some people asking why this is news.
For years, Piers Morgan has tirelessly defended Trump and called for many of his policies to be enacted in the U.K. Piers has a considerable following because of Good Morning Britain (thanks to those who let me know!) and in the British conservative media, primarily the Daily Mail.
For a consistent defender of Trump to eventually turn on Trump enough for Trump to stop following Piers on Twitter, that's a pretty surprising move because it will likely lead to lower approval ratings that the British conservatives have for Trump. In a country where Trump already has awful approval ratings (as seen by their mass protests), he needs every little support he can get, especially if he wants any bargaining power with Boris post-Brexit.
Instead, we're seeing way more negative stories in the Daily Mail, and for the first time that I've seen since reading their site, I'm pleasantly surprised that the majority of comments from the British are extremely negative about Trump.
DragonPup on April 26th, 2020 at 11:24 UTC »
Trump is such a baby
Bbodziak on April 26th, 2020 at 10:12 UTC »
It's absolutely amazing that Trump has all of this spare time* to watch TV and follow Twitter, especially once the virus began spreading. Maybe Congress needs to pass a Bill that prohibits the POtuS from using a personal social media page, especially as an official source of news. Trump has typed out so many falsehoods in the last 8 weeks, and I'm left wondering how his tweets aren't subject to Twitter's new rule of deleting tweets that portray falsehoods as actual facts ??
I suppose that since he can now no longer golf 1 out of every 3 days, he has even more free time to goof off. How come reporters never called him out while he was able to golf by asking him about any of several tweets he posted about Obama golfing?!? I can hardly wait until he is out of office and no one really cares nor pays attention to what he has to say or tweet!