Piers Morgan explains why Donald Trump rings him as he returns to GMB after four years

Piers Morgan has explained how Donald Trump calls him pretty often, despite being the most powerful man on Earth.

Friends for almost a decade before President Trump entered the Oval Office for the first time in 2017, Morgan and the businessman-turned-politician have been pals since the Brit won The Celebrity Apprentice US in 2008, which was hosted by the now-POTUS.

Since then, the two have regularly crossed paths on a different stage, with Morgan a journalist by trade and President Trump entering frontline politics.

And despite the sheer number of people the 45th and 47th POTUS must have in his contacts, he still likes to give Morgan a call or two, as he explained this morning (3 March) on his return to ITV's Good Morning Britain for the first time in almost four years.

Donald Trump and Piers Morgan go way back (Instagram/@piersmorgan)

It was in 2021 that Morgan stormed off GMB after an on-air row with colleague Alex Beresford, which lead to him never returning to the show that he and Susanna Reid had turned in to a behemoth of a programme.

This morning (3 March), Morgan returned to GMB - now hosted by Reid and former Labour heavyweight Ed Balls - to discuss the fallout of President Trump's disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week.

Speaking about his relationship with Trump, Morgan said he had been on the phone to the president on the morning of the meeting with President Zelenskyy just hours before a proposed deal between the USA and Ukraine was called off after a heated exchange in the White House including both presidents and American Vice President, JD Vance.

"I was in a black cab in London and my phone goes, I could see it was him, I have him under 'DJT' in my phone," Morgan said this morning.

"It was flashing and I thought 'should I take it in a cab?' before saying you can't not take a call from the president, so I answered and the cab driver is looking.

"Trump was in a very good, upbeat mood. I had a long chat with him about a number of things. I talked about Ukraine with him a number of times and the one thing that is always important with Donald Trump... I've had screaming matches with him and then an hour later we're laughing and joking doing a fun interview.

"Focus on what he does, not what he says... this is almost uniquely in modern times a Republican president in America who wants peace not war."

He added: "I had a long chat with him just before the inauguration and we talked about Ukraine... the Pentagon had said to him in the previous six weeks, 100,000 people had been killed on the battlefield, Ukraine and Russia. He said 'can you believe the numbers, we have to end this'. I genuinely do think he wants peace."

Piers Morgan returned to GMB this morning to discuss President Donald Trump (ITV)

Reid then quickly asked Morgan why does President Trump call him so often, to which he revealed they had spoken seven times since the failed assassination attempt in September last year.

He said on one occasion he 'rang me to tell me I was looking really good on TV' and asking about his workout routines.

In an Instagram post on Morgan's account from 2024, he recalls Trump saying to him in one conversation that 'not many people know me as well as you do, Piers'.

"And as I said to him, I’m so glad he survived the appalling assassination attempt on his life. I’ll always criticise Trump when I think he’s wrong, and praise him when I think he’s right," Morgan wrote at the time.

Clearly, there's a general friendship and trusting relationship there, whatever you might think of it.