‘She’s Speaking Up for Pretty Much Every Female Athlete in the World’: Piers Morgan Catches Katie Porter Flat-Footed Over Transgender Sports Participation

Piers Morgan caught Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) off-guard on Friday’s edition of Real Time when he asked her why she disagreed with former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, an advocate for the exclusion of transgender women from female athletics.

Porter defended Gaines’ right to speak in the wake of the activist’s being ambushed at San Francisco State University, but made a special point of stating that she dissents from Gaines “strongly,” prompting Morgan to ask why that was.

“I think that it should be up to sporting bodies to make the decisions about who and how-” began Porter before Morgan interjected to ask what Gaines had said that was “actually wrong.”

“I think that what she has done is try to turn this- we talked about people you know, becoming, using things to kind of get likes and get clicks,” before holding up her hand and looking to host Bill Maher for approval.

“That’s not what she’s done,” asserted Morgan before going on to defend Gaines in more detail:

I’ve got no truck for Riley Gaines personally, but all I’ve seen her do is stand up for women’s rights to fairness and equality. She actually competed against Lia Thomas and it was obviously unfair. Lia Thomas won one of the races in the NCAA championships by 50 seconds against a bunch of biological females who simply couldn’t keep up. That cannot be right. It cannot be fair.

“That is something that I trust, I think our sporting bodies should be dealing with. And by the way, Riley is speaking up for herself, and that is her prerogative and I respect her free speech,” replied Porter, despite the fact that Gaines is no longer competing.

“I think she’s speaking up for pretty much every female athlete in the world,” shot back Morgan.

Watch above via HBO.

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]