Yahoo Finance Piers Morgan defends Naga Munchetty after BBC claims her Donald Trump criticism broke guidelines
Piers Morgan has defended fellow journalist Naga Munchetty after the BBC confirmed that her on-air criticism of Donald Trump back in July broke impartiality rules.
The BBC Breakfast host called out the US president after he posted a series of tweets in response to four Democratic congresswomen who publicly condemned his immigration policies.
Reacting to the verdict of the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU), Morgan tweeted: ‘Since the BBC will gag my breakfast show rival @BBCNaga from saying anything about this, allow me: it’s bloody ridiculous.
Read more: Naga Munchetty broke BBC guidelines over Trump 'go back to where you came from' tweets
The Good Morning Britain presenter continued: “Her words were powerful & necessary. Shameful censorship.”
In the aforementioned Twitter thread, Trump urged his political opponents Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley - all of whom are US citizens - to “go back to the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Since the BBC will gag my breakfast show rival @BBCNaga from saying anything about this, allow me: it’s bloody ridiculous.
Her words were powerful & necessary. Shameful censorship.
BBC News - Naga Munchetty 'breached BBC rules' with Trump comments https://t.co/BAmf8b4HbK— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) September 25, 2019
After detailing his comments and interviewing one of his supporters, Munchetty went off-script to say: “Every time I have been told, as a woman of colour, to go back to where I came from, that was embedded in racism.
“Now I’m not accusing anyone of anything here, but you know what certain phrases mean.”
When her co-host Dan Walker her how she personally felt reading the tweets, the 44-year-old replied: “Furious. Absolutely furious.
Read more: Piers Morgan brands Greta Thunberg 'melodramatic' over climate crisis speech
“I can imagine lots of people in this country will be feeling absolutely furious that a man in that position feels it’s okay to skirt the lines with using language like that.”
Over the last few months, Munchetty has received praise for opening up about her own experiences with racism so openly. Nevertheless, the channel ultimately determined that her comments “went beyond what the guidelines allow for.”
