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Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin confessed to Piers Morgan this week that he can’t call out his paper’s owner in the same manner he recently did to Bill Maher for “falling into the trap” of being used by Donald Trump, noting that Jeff Bezos could potentially fire him for his criticism.
The admission by Rogin comes days after a fiery exchange on Maher’s HBO show Real Time, which also incidentally featured Morgan. During a panel discussion, Rogin challenged Maher for breaking bread with Trump after being an outspoken critic of the president for years, suggesting the comic had become a pawn in the president’s latest “PR stunt.”
Rogin’s remarks, which did not sit well with Maher, came after the late-night host agreed to meet with Trump for a private dinner that was arranged by MAGA country rocker Kid Rock. Speaking about the meeting for the first time on his Friday broadcast, Maher praised a “gracious” Trump for making him “feel comfortable” and insisted that he never felt he “had to walk on eggshells around” the president.
“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f***ed up. It’s just not as f***ed up as I thought it was,” he told viewers, adding: “I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking it as a positive that this person exists. Because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was — I swear to God — absent.”
Trying his best not to offend Maher and give him the benefit of the doubt that his dinner with Trump was in “good faith,” Rogin nevertheless said that he felt the president took advantage of the opportunity.
“I think you’ve fallen into the trap, and I think I represent 99 percent of the internet when I say this: you’ve played the game of proximity is principle. I’m not questioning your motivation; I’m questioning Trump’s, OK?” Rogin told Maher.
“You don’t have to patronize me, dude. I don’t know you. I’ve never met you,” a perturbed Maher snapped back. He would fume about the exchange the rest of the show, coming back to Rogin’s “little rant” later in the discussion.
Morgan, who sided with Maher on Friday night, invited Rogin onto Monday night’s broadcast of his own show Uncensored and put the Washington Post writer on the spot when it comes to his own boss.
Bezos, of course, notoriously blocked the Post’s endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris just days before the 2024 election and announced a new mandate for the paper’s opinion section, which has sparked concerns that he’s currying favor with Trump by softening the publication’s coverage of the president. The Amazon founder also donated money to Trump’s inauguration fund, gave Trump’s wife $40 million to stream her documentary, and dined with Trump following his dramatic change to the Post’s opinion page.
“You work for the Washington Post. Your owner, Jeff Bezos, has done a lot more than Bill Maher in crossing the divide with Trump,” Morgan addressed Rogin. “He used to be very critical of Trump. But in the last year and a half or so, or since his shooting actually, he seems to have performed a massive U-turn on Trump.”
After listing all of the ways that Bezos has cozied up to Trump in the past year, Morgan then asked: “I mean, as a Washington Post senior journalist, how do you feel about all that?”
Claiming he “wasn’t trying to criticize” Maher on Friday, Rogin insisted that he was trying to push back on the notion that “engagement with Trump” can actually create a “bridge towards healing the cultural divide.” At the same time, he said that when “business leaders go to meet with Trump, that’s a different set of calculations.”
Regarding Bezos, who is currently the second wealthiest man in the world, Rogin said that he’s “not privy to what goes on at the ownership level” at the Post and that he merely works there. “I’m not part of the management. I’m not part of ownership. I’ve never met Jeff Bezos. I don’t know what his calculations are. And I know that’s above my pay grade,” he continued, insisting that he wasn’t trying to “duck” Morgan’s question.
“Look, if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” Morgan shot back. “I mean, you can appreciate that if you’re Bill Maher watching you refusing to be remotely critical of what your own owner has done with Trump in terms of kissing the ring, you could potentially see that he might think there’s a double standard there.”
Morgan’s needling of Rogin forced the columnist to confess why he wasn’t able to point that same critical lens at the Blue Origin owner.
“You know, I see what you’re trying to do, Piers, but I’m not in a position to comment on Jeff Bezos, because if I comment on Jeff Bezos then I could be fired from my job and you know that, so I’m not going to do that,” Rogin flatly stated.
“But at the same time, I want to be honest with you so I don’t seem to be dodging your question,” he continued. “And my honest answer from my heart is, every person that engages with this administration, including all the people on this panel – including you, including me – has to make that judgment based on their own calculations of their own values and their own interests, and we have to be careful not to judge each other for where we all come down on that.”
In the end, Rogin acknowledged that Morgan’s viewers would likely not be pleased with his response but that this was as good as it was going to get lest he jeopardize his own employment.
“That is my effort to answer you honestly, Piers, without getting fired from my job but to try to prove to you that I do have a very consistent philosophy on this,” he concluded. “Which is not going to please the Trumpsters and is not gonna please the liberals, because I’m neither a Trumpster nor a liberal.”
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