CNN has answered former CNN host Piers Morgan’s complaints about his onetime lead-in, Anderson Cooper. Politico reports that the response addresses Morgan’s assertion that following Cooper contributed to ratings problems for Morgan’s show.

As previously reported, Morgan wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that he tried to convince the network to replace “stiff” Anderson Cooper with Megyn Kelly from Fox News. Morgan also had told Politico that he could “have done with a better lead-in.”

A CNN rep described Morgan’s criticism as “sad.”

In an email to Politico, CNN spokeswoman Megan Rivers wrote: “For the two-and-a-half years that ‘AC 360’ served as the lead in to Piers Morgan’s program on CNN, it always delivered a higher rating than Piers’ program. And for the 7 months that Piers Morgan’s program led into ‘AC 360,’ ‘360’ always delivered a higher rating than Piers’ program. It is sad that Piers is trying to find a new job by misrepresenting how he performed in his old one.”

Cooper remains a fixture of CNN’s prime-time schedule, while Morgan is looking for new TV jobs, the piece adds.