Piers Morgan is no stranger to running his mouth on social media and spouting nonsense just to rile everyone up but he may have bitten off more than he could chew on Monday after getting into a row with the creator of The Wire.

This all started when Morgan began promoting his interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, where he explained why he decided to quit Good Morning Britain following criticism of his comments about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

Now, by this point, Morgan’s public showboating over his disapproval of Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey has been going on for about a month and some people are starting to get a little tired of it.

One of those people is David Simon, former journalist and creator of The Wire, widely regarded as one of the greatest television shows of all time.

Lashing out at Morgan, Simon criticised both the ex-GMB host and Carlson calling them the “two most pouty and puckered assholes in broadcast television.” Morgan obviously didn’t take kindly to this and decided to bring up some history between the pair adding that his insults were probably done to “appease your vile woke base” but he did add that he “loved The Wire.”

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Simon responded by claiming that he had only met Morgan once, alongside Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter behind The West Wing and The Social Network to name but a few, and didn’t know him from a “fart in a high wind.” Morgan clapped back by praising Sorkin as a “class act” something which he couldn’t say about Simon. He also claimed that “The West Wing is so much better than The Wire” a bold statement that he would come to regret.

The two continued to trade bars with Simon saying something about a “Tijuana cathouse” and Morgan resorting to teasing Simon over how many more followers he had from him, which isn’t exactly a scathing comeback from the former newspaper editor.

The insults seem to come to an end when Simon mentioned the phone-hacking scandal that Morgan was embroiled in during the 2000s, also accusing Morgan of “moral midgetry” and being an “empty parasite.”

While that was certainly a storm in a teacup that got personal very quickly, Morgan was torn apart on Twitter for claiming that The West Wing was better than The Wire. While The West Wing certainly has its fans and has been lauded by critics, The Wire is almost untouchable in the pantheon of television.

The crime series, which explores life in inner-city Baltimore takes a forensic look at every aspect of how the city functions, from street-level drug deals to high ranking politicians and from journalism to the school system. The show has even been used to teach law in universities and Barack Obama also believed it could help solve America’s criminal justice problem.

Needless to say, Morgan might have underestimated how much people admire and cherish The Wire – and if he didn’t he, by gosh, knows now.

Possibly the most brutal comeback came from historian Kevin M. Kruse, who asked Morgan if the phone-hacking in The Wire, a central premise of the show and the inspiration behind its name, was “too close to home for you?” This appears to have resulted in Morgan blocking Kruse.

Needless to say, this might be the last time that Morgan dares criticise The Wire on Twitter.

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