Piers Morgan Defends Trump While Slamming Muhammad Ali — and Twitter Users Are Not Having It

In the days following Muhammad Ali's death, there has been an outpouring of love and remembrance as people all around the world honor the American boxing legend.

But if there's one person everyone can count on for bucking convention, it's British journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan.

After Donald Trump became the target of widespread condemnation on social media over his purported hypocrisy in praising Ali months after denying that America had any noteworthy Muslim sports heroes, Morgan jumped to the Republican presidential candidate's defense.

Here's what Trump tweeted Friday after Ali's death was announced:

And here's what he tweeted back in December, for which he was subsequently slammed by Twitter users:

Ali himself even came out against Trump's December comments, issuing a statement directed at “presidential candidates proposing to ban Muslim immigration to the United States.”

“True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion,” Ali wrote at the time, adding, “I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is.”

It therefore wasn't surprising when Trump was universally berated after Friday's tweet celebrating Ali.

After Morgan defended Trump, Twitter users accused the journalist of being a soulless media monger and hijacking the controversial incident as some sort of PR stunt.

But Morgan stood by his comment, offering evidence to back up his point.