Megyn Kelly: Donald Trump Isn’t Responsible For My Success
Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump says, is “hotter now than ever because of me.” Kelly says Trump’s claim is nothing but hot air, according to New York Magazine.
On The Late Show Monday night, Kelly gave Stephen Colbert the real arc of her career.
“I have worked for everything I’ve ever had. I put myself through law school, I clawed my way up, I worked for nine years as a corporate attorney to pay off my debt, I got my own job in journalism paying $17,000 a year, I worked my way up to prime-time Fox news, I had the number-two show in all of cable news, and then I had an August debate with Donald Trump.”
Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump, and Fox come together again tonight on a Megyn Kelly Presents special broadcast. Fox announced the upcoming interview in April and aired some footage on May 5. The Washington Post speculated on what may or may not be covered tonight. The hook is the fight that brewed between the two during the debate August 6, 2015. Kelly, as moderator, asked Trump if he had the temperament to be president.
Trump replied the next day that Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever.” He denied he was talking about her menstrual cycle, though.
Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump’s verbal brawl continued for months. Kelly went on a short vacation after the debate. When she returned, Trump sniped at her on Twitter with multiple posts on August 25 alone.
“I liked ‘The Kelly File’ much better without @megynkelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation!” said one post.
“The bimbo back in town. I hope not for long,” said another.
Roger Ailes, the chief executive of Fox News, eventually jumped into the pit.
He told Adweek, “I did call him after the first go-round, and I said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you? The United States is at war with every g*****n country in the Middle East, and you’re at war with Megyn Kelly and you think that looks good? It doesn’t look good.'”
“We had a normal conversation, like candidate and reporter,” she said. “Then we sat down together for an interview, and in that interview we do talk about what happened.”
In an interview excerpt aired Monday, Donald Trump showed respect for Megyn Kelly for the first time in nearly a year.
“I have great respect for you. That you were able to call me and say, ‘Let’s get together, and let’s talk.’ To me, I would not have done that. I don’t say that as, you know, a positive; I think it’s a negative for me. And you walk into Trump Tower. We didn’t [meet] on a neutral site or over at Fox or something. That would be a whole different thing, and I wouldn’t have done it.”
But the Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump truce may not last. Though Trump voiced his respect, he did not offer an apology. Trump even says in an interview clip that “this could happen again with us.”
But Trump also says his initial debate confrontation with Kelly has been a big help to him.
He made the comment in an interview excerpt, saying, “If I could get through this debate, with those questions, you can get through anything.”
Megyn Kelly’s interview with Donald Trump airs tonight at 8 p.m. on the Fox broadcast network.
[Photo by John Minchillo/AP Images]
