In late May 2020, Snopes readers asked whether a “brutal” open letter written by British media personality Piers Morgan to U.S. President Donald Trump, ending their years-long friendship, was authentic. Morgan’s letter is real and was published on April 27, 2020, by the British tabloid Daily Mail. The letter is scathing, however it appears Morgan and Trump’s friendship was already on the outs when Morgan wrote it. Morgan’s letter was largely a critique of Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and read in part: You are the most powerful person in America and your words carry enormous weight and consequence. Within hours of you suggesting it might be a good idea to use bleach, one public health hotline in one state – Maryland – received 100 phone calls asking about whether they should use household detergent to combat the virus, and was forced to issue an alert warning people not to try it. New York City’s Poison Control Center took 30 similar calls from the moment your briefing last Thursday night ended to 3pm the next day – and was also forced to release an alert saying that using bleach ‘can put people at great risk.’ This latest debacle came after you previously and repeatedly hyped up an anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as another ‘cure’ – until it turned out to cause more deaths in COVID patients than those who weren’t treated with it.
British media personality Piers Morgan penned a scathing open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, marking the end of their years-long friendship.