British journalist Piers Morgan blasted the “double standards” of the legacy media in a podcast on Tuesday, slamming its coverage of the multiple assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump.
Authorities arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, on Sunday in West Palm Beach, Florida, on suspicion of attempting to assassinate the former president. Appearing on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Morgan criticized the media for trying to “downplay” the incident and questioned whether coverage would be the same if it had happened to Vice President Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden.
“Yes, but it's worse than that. They're significantly downplaying what happened to Donald Trump, and they're doing this quite intentionally,” Morgan said. “And I ask you again, if this was Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, they've had two assassination attempts in the space of two months. Do you think anyone in the mainstream American media would be so quick to downplay that and immediately dig up something they said last year to try to justify the fact that they may also be responsible for possibly inciting violence that didn't actually happen?”
“So there's a complete double standard in how this case is being handled. And Donald Trump, no angel, is the Republican nominee for president right now, with 50 days until the election,” Morgan continued. “Right now, he's showing incredible courage. If you were Trump, would you go out to another rally when two people have tried to kill you in the space of two months? And why would they do something like this?”
Morgan went on to draw connections between Routh's “precise talking points” and Harris' rhetoric, calling out names Trump has been labeled with over the years. (Related article: James Carville denies outlandish theory about assassination attempt on President Trump)
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“Of course they're crazy. Anyone who does something like this is crazy, but why would they do something like that? In the second case of the golf course shooter, you see the radicalization process of someone who went from being a Trump supporter to being a rabid Trump hater, repeating exactly what Kamala Harris said about Trump, that he's a threat to democracy, etc,” Morgan said.
“This is a deranged individual who has been directly influenced to believe that Trump is an existential threat to democracy. He may have also heard talk about Trump being the new Hitler because that term has been used repeatedly about Trump. I think it is absolutely outrageous to equate Donald Trump with a Nazi leader who murdered 12 million people,” Morgan continued.
Routh frequently denounced Trump on his social media pages, saying Democrats would “keep America democratic and free” and claiming the former president would “enslave the American people again.” According to In the Washington Examiner.
“There is a shocking double standard and a shocking attempt to downplay and diminish the impact of what happened on Sunday,” the British presenter concluded, also referring to the first assassination attempt.
The attacks on the former president have led outlets like CNN to question Trump's long-standing rhetoric, while others, like CNN's Dana Bash, have sought to distance Routh from Harris and Biden.
While Routh appeared to be a Trump supporter in 2016, the 58-year-old declared his opposition to Trump in June 2020, saying he'd be “happy when he's gone.” Federal campaign finance records show Routh has donated more than $100 to ActBlue, and to the 2020 presidential campaigns of Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard and Beto O'Rourke.
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