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Piers Morgan on Obama: 'Outside of America, people love him'

By April MacIntyre Sep 8, 2010, 22:20 GMT

07/08/2010 - Piers Morgan and Celia Walden - 2010 Serpentine Gallery Summer Party - Arrivals - Kensington Gardens - London, UK © Landmark / PR Photos

British TV personality Piers Morgan will take over Larry King's prime-time hour starting in January, CNN announced Wednesday.

Morgan currently sits with Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandel as a judge on NBC's "America's Got Talent," has most recently hosted "Piers Morgan's Life Stories" on ITV in the United Kingdom.

Airing from New York, Morgan's show will air live on CNN-US at 9 p.m. ET and will air worldwide on CNN-International in more than 200 countries, the network said.

Piers will also do shows from Los Angeles and London, CNN said.

Morgan, 45, became the youngest editor ever at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World at age 28. He moved to the Daily Mirror as editor-in-chief in 1995, leaving in 2004 after he was criticized for running photos of abused Iraqi prisoners that were proven to be falsified.

The Hollywood Reporter asked him who he wanted to interview as his first guest in the new show on CNN:

"Well, I would like to interview the president. I think Obama is someone who is going through a pretty tough time. Outside of America, people love him … I think he's an amazing charismatic figure who's going through a tough time at the moment, and the midterm elections are coming. It’s going to be a tough period for him and I'd love to sit down with him an have a frank interview. Having said that, there's all sorts of people in the world of entertainment. I'd love to be the first to interview Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan or whoever is in the news who is relevant and current. Today CNN had the first interview with [Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the proposed Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero], I would love to do that interview. I have no problem doing him one day, and Mel Gibson the next."