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Piers, we have a problem.

I was standing inside the gilded confines of President Donald Trumps exclusive Mar-a-Lago private members resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and one of my production team was brandishing a document with a concerned look on his face.

Whats that? I asked, bemused.

This is a collection of quotes youve apparently said about President Trump in the past two years. Someone sent it to him in the last hour, and the quotes are not good. In fact, theyre really bad.

I was due to start an interview with Trump in precisely eight minutes, and it was intended to be a blockbuster exclusive to rocket-launch my new global TV show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, on Monday, April 25.

My four-camera crew were all set up in a palatial bar, I was suited, booted, made up and had been exchanging cordial small talk with Secret Service agents designated to ensure we behaved ourselves.

But as I hurriedly scanned the three-page white paper document, my heart sank.

There were several dozen comments from me, taken from columns Id written and interviews Id given, in which I was savagely critical of Trumps conduct in the last year of his presidency, from his woeful handling of the coronavirus pandemic to his refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 election, and the appalling January 6 riot at the Capitol that followed.

Whoever sent it knew exactly what they were doing.

These were by far the worst things Id ever said about a man with whom Id been friends for 15 years, but I felt they were justified when I said them, and I still do now.

In the suddenly very chilly light of a sun-kissed Florida afternoon, however, they made distinctly unhelpful reading.

Is he going to cancel the interview? I asked, trying not to panic.

I dont know, came the reply. But he is VERY upset.

See if I can go and talk to him about it, I suggested.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in Trumps office.

Normally, hed greet me with a cheery smile and the words, Hows my champ?, because I was his first Celebrity Apprentice on the series that made him a TV superstar.

But this time, there were no such welcoming niceties.

He was staring at me across his desk with undisguised fury, clutching the document titled Piers Morgan Comments About President Trump.

What the fk IS this? he snarled.

Then he began slowly reading out some of the quotes.

Trumps a supreme narcissist

Pause.

His pathetic antics in the past few weeks since losing the election in November have been utterly contemptible.

Pause.

Trumps now too dangerous, hes morphed into a monster that I no longer recognize as someone I considered to be a friend and thought I knew.

Pause.

Hes now acting like a Mafia mob boss.

Pause.

And all because Donalds stupendous ego couldnt accept losing and sent him nuts.

Each time he paused, he peered over the document at me, with mounting rage in his eyes.

When I won Trumps Celebrity Apprentice show in 2008, his final words to me as he announced the result were: Piers, youre a vicious guy. Ive seen it. Youre tough. Youre smart. Youre probably brilliant. Im not sure. Youre certainly not diplomatic. But you did an amazing job. And you beat the hell out of everybody youre the Celebrity Apprentice.

When he won the 2016 election, I returned the favor by sending him a card saying: Well, Donald, youre a vicious guy. Ive seen it. Youre tough. Youre smart. Youre probably brilliant. Im not sure. Youre certainly not diplomatic. But you did an amazing job. And you beat the hell out of everybody youre the President of the United States.

So we had a reasonable understanding of each others personalities, good and bad.

And it wasnt like wed never had a spat.

He unfollowed me on Twitter (he only followed around 50 accounts at the time, so this didnt go unnoticed!) in April 2020 after hed proposed using household disinfectant to fight COVID, and Id hammered him in a column for spreading batst crazy coronavirus cure theories.

But a few months later, he called me for a lengthy chat before the election and chuckled about how mean and nasty Id been about him, so I mistakenly assumed he didnt really mind me verbally whacking him from time to time.

Wrong!

Id never seen him so livid or felt so uncomfortable in his presence as I did right now in his office.

He was almost foaming at the mouth and kept shaking his head slowly and menacingly at me, like Don Corleone when he felt hed been disrespected.

There was no point in trying to deny the quotes.

Id said them, and Id meant them.

Ive always been critical of you when Ive felt you deserved it, I eventually said, but as you know, Ive also written and said many supportive things about you too. This is a one-sided hatchet job designed to stop you doing our interview.

Its definitely a hatchet job, he retorted, ON ME!

Then he read another line: January 7, 2021 President Trump needs to be removed from office. As soon as possible through new emergency articles of impeachment, which would have the additional benefit of barring him from ever running for the presidency again.

REMOVED FROM OFFICE?! he spat. BARRED FROM EVER RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN?!

Then he threw down the document and threw me a look of withering contempt.

I thought we were friends? he shouted. This is so disloyal! After all Ive done for you? Why would you say all this about me?

I thought what you did was wrong, I replied, feeling myself beginning to sweat.

This wasnt going well.

It looked for sure like Trump was about to can the interview, which would have been a massive waste of time and money for me and our team and leave me an even more massive hole for the first show.

I was desperately thinking of some way to salvage things.

I dont intend our interview to be confrontational, I said. A lot of time has passed since I said those things, and a lot has happened in the meantime.

Why should I do it at all? he scoffed. Youre not real. Youre a fake.

No, Im just brutally honest.

DIS-honest!

You didnt make me your Celebrity Apprentice because Im a shrinking violet who sits on the fence or doesnt say what he really thinks.

We stared at each other for a few seconds, his eyes boring into mine with all the warmth of an Arctic glacier.

It was time to change the mood music.

Id love to talk about your recent golf hole-in-one, I stammered. Your playing partner Ernie Els was raving about it.

Trump sat bolt upright.

He was? Where?

In a newspaper interview I read. He said it was a brilliant shot and you played really well.

I did, I did.

Was that your first hole-in-one?

No! Ive had seven!

Seven?

This claim seemed highly implausible. (Im a keen golfer and only had one. Most amateurs havent even had that.) But this wasnt a good moment to fact-check him about his sporting prowess.

Amazing, I replied. Congrats!

Suddenly, Trump clapped his hands.

OK, I guess Ill still do the interview. I dont know why, honestly, but Ill see you down there.

My extremely fractious audience was over, and I felt a huge wave of relief as I headed back to my team.

How was he? asked my executive producer, Winnie Dunbar-Nelson, whod flown from London to oversee the interview.

Hes very annoyed, I said, more annoyed than Ive ever seen him. Spitting blood, in fact. But hes going to do it.

Ten minutes later, President Trump arrived in the interview room, and acted like nothing had happened as we posed for smiling photos together. He was even charm personified to Winnie, whom he remembered from three previous presidential interviews wed taped for my old show, Good Morning Britain, in Davos, onboard Air Force One and inside the Churchill War Rooms.

But I could sense he was still very wound up, and there was none of the usual bonhomie between us that I was used to in our many previous encounters.

Id been promised 20 minutes and feared he would cut that down to punish me.

But in the end, I got 75 minutes, by far the longest time Id ever had with him on camera, and it was a fascinating, often riveting, sometimes hilarious series of exchanges with arguably the worlds most famous person as we talked about everything from Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un and nuclear weapons, to the royals, transgender athletes, Twitter and Joe Biden.

For the first hour or so, it was a perfectly normal interview, and we even shared a few laughs.

Trump displayed the extremely forthright style and brash humor that first propelled him into the White House, and certainly showed no sign of losing any of his fabled energy.

I also agreed with him about a number of issues, as I have done in the past.

Ive never been tribal or partisan about Trump of the 100 or so columns I wrote about him during his presidency, around half were positive, half negative.

But things took a dramatic downward turn when I finally brought up his refusal to accept defeat in 2020 and the appalling scenes on January 6.

I told him I believe he lost the supposedly rigged, stolen election, I repeatedly pointed out his failure to produce any evidence of the widespread voter fraud he insists occurred to rob him of his presidency, and I blamed his refusal to admit defeat for the deadly riots at the Capitol.

Then youre a FOOL! he sneered. And you havent studied!

He was back to the furious Trump hed been in his office and branded me a fool six more times, in between calling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stupid, and his former vice president, Mike Pence, foolish and weak.

Our collective crime was that none of us agree he had the election stolen.

Now abandoning any pretense at cordiality, Trump ranted that he was far more honest than I, and again sneered that I wasnt real before haranguing me for exceeding our 20 minutes, which was particularly disingenuous given that during all our previous interviews, hed invariably decided exactly how long he wanted to keep talking.

As he bellowed insults at me for disbelieving his rigged-election bullst, it reminded me of the scene in A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholsons arrogant, deluded Colonel Jessup calls Tom Cruises military lawyer, Lt. Kaffee, a snotty little bastard for grilling him about ordering a deadly Code Red punishment on a Marine.

I want the truth, demands Kaffee.

YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH! roars a contemptuous Jessup, before losing his rag, lecturing Kaffee about loyalty and honor, and then finally admitting his culpability.

I dont expect Trump to ever admit he lost the election fairly or confess to being responsible for the January 6 carnage.

Well never hear him say, Youre goddamn right I did! like Col. Jessup because, ironically, he cant handle the truth.

Incensed Trump tried to end things by declaring, Thats it! before I reminded him that we hadnt discussed his hole-in-one, which he then sat down again and did briefly before abruptly jumping to his feet, looking hateful, and barking at the shocked crew: TURN THE CAMERAS OFF!

Then he turned on his heel, and sloped angrily off through a side door, loudly muttering, SO dishonest

It wasnt a rhetorical observation.

Apparently, he was later heard denouncing me as a scumbag and saying he wished hed never done the interview.

But I thought it was the best one weve ever done together, and all the tension created by the damning document he was given gave it a crackle and energy that makes for compelling television.

As for who sent him the document in the first place, Trump told me it came from London and gave it to me to keep as souvenir of your treachery.

Mysteriously, it contains two random, very positive comparative quotes from British politician Nigel Farage, who now works as a presenter for my rival UK network GB News.

Oh, and by an extraordinary coincidence, Farage happened to have dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on April 8, just three days before I was there.

See more here:
How all hell broke loose after my fiery showdown with Trump over his stolen election claims - New York Post