Piers Morgan Grills Washington Post Columnist for Calling Out Bill Maher’s Trump Meeting While Sparing Jeff Bezos — and Gets a Blunt Confession

Piers Morgan put Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin on the spot for calling out comedian Bill Maher’s “PR stunt” White House visit with President Donald Trump while sparing his boss Jeff Bezos the same criticism — a grilling that extracted a blunt confession from Rogin.

The clash followed an appearance on Friday’s edition of Real Time where Maher recounted what he said was a “gracious and measured” dinner with Trump, Kid Rock, and UFC President Dana White to his panel, which included both Rogin and Morgan.

Maher described Trump as more “self-aware” in private, not like his public persona, but later in the show was challenged by Rogin, who accused the comedian of playing “the game of proximity is principle” and being used as a prop in a Trump “PR stunt.”

Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday, Morgan followed up on the criticism, cornering Rogin on his critique of Maher while calling out his apparent silence on Bezos’ close proximity to Trump.

“You work for The Washington Post. Your owner, Jeff Bezos, has done a lot more than Bill Maher in crossing the divide with Trump. 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,” Morgan began.

The host continued, listing out moments Bezos expressed approval of the president: “He called him and praised him after he was shot. At a New York Times event in December Bezos said he was optimistic about a second Trump presidency. He had dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024. He pledged a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration fund. He attended the inauguration. Amazon, obviously, one of his, companies [Amazon] streamed Trump’s inauguration on its Prime Video service and is also paying $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary.

Morgan asked: “I mean, as a Washington Post senior journalist, how do you feel about all that?”

Rogin replied: “Yeah, well, again, I don’t think, again I wasn’t trying to criticize Bill, and if it came off that way, then maybe I didn’t craft my critique perfectly. I was trying to criticize the idea that, you know, engagement with Trump is some sort of, you now, bridge towards healing the cultural divide, because I just don’t think that’s going to be the result and I think when business leaders go to meet with Trump, that’s a different set of calculations.”

Pushing back on the idea that being employed by The Post meant access to Bezos, Rogin added: “I work at the Washington Post, I’m not privy to what goes on at the ownership level. You know, I just work there, you know, 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, Piers. It’s not a duck. It’s just I don’t’ have any insight into what goes on above me at the Washington Post. All I can say is that I’m not against engagement and I understand that Trump is the president. Business leaders have to engage with the president and the way that they do it matters, you know, that’s how I feel about it and…”

Morgan, not buying it, cut in to put further pressure on Rogan, with a mocking reply: “All right, but look, Josh, look, if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck. 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.”

The tease drew a blunt admission from Rogin who replied: “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.”

He continued: “But at the same time, I want to be honest with you so I don’t seem to be dodging your question, and my honest answer from my heart is, you know, 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.”

He added: “And that’s the best answer I can give you, being honest without losing my job and also being true to what I think is very consistent, which is the same approach I had to Bill Maher, which is engagement is good and the way that you do it matters, and your expectations of Trump’s response should be very limited.”

Concluding, Rogin admitted that not everyone would be pleased with the answer but repeated that he risked losing his job if he criticized Bezos: “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, 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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