Donald Trump: Megyn Kelly Discusses Her Primetime Interview With Presumptive Nominee [Video]
A week after her much-anticipated interview with Donald Trump (as the Inquisitr previously reported), Megyn Kelly showed previously un-aired clips and discussed its contents with four veteran Republican consultants on the May 26 edition of The Kelly File.
After a brief introduction from Kelly, the show switched between her interview clips with Trump, and the discussion of them with the consultants, Ed Rollins, former campaign manager for Ronald Reagan in 1984; Mark McKinnon, chief media strategist for George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns; Stuart Stevens, campaign strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign; and Mo Elleithee, who served as traveling press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.
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Rollins was initially positive about Kelly’s interview with Trump, saying that he came off very well, and “very calm and reassuring. None of the anger or the angst was there.”
McKinnon and Stevens were more skeptical, however.
“I definitely saw some evolution there,” McKinnon said, pointing out that as with any presidential campaign, Trump has advisors debating about whether he should change, or continue “letting Trump be Trump.”
He added, though, “But in order to be president, you’ve got to change a lot… I mean, you can’t just be a counter-puncher all the time in the White House,” as both allies and critics have said of Trump.
“There’s a lot of times where you have to wait — rope-a-dope — and you’ve got to do a lot of other things.”
“Or you can’t punch at all,” Kelly replied.
“That’s right,” McKinnon said, adding that he thought that many people would be reassured as a result of seeing a “less combative” Donald Trump in his interview with Kelly.
But, for Stevens, it was Trump’s lack of humility that was the “highlight” of the interview for him.
“He could have said, ‘You know, I’ve learned from this,’ which is another thing you didn’t hear… and ‘I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.’ And he will never do that.”
.@mmckinnon: “If there was an opening for an outsider businessman [Ross Perot] in 1992, there’s a giant opening for a guy like Trump.”
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 27, 2016
Stevens added that such refusal to apologize “is very problematic as a candidate, and I think it’s even more problematic as a president.
“One thing about presidents is they all make mistakes. And it’s your ability to admit it’s a mistake and learn from it, that often, I think, helps you from making a greater mistake.”
“You’ll never hear a mea culpa from him,” Rollins added, saying that that’s what Trump’s voters like about him.
“But the same concerns that Democrats and left-leaning Independents have had from the very beginning were only amplified, I thought, in this. He doesn’t know how to apologize. He doesn’t know how to be less divisive. He doesn’t know how to unite people and bring people together.”
Elleithee pointed out that every time Kelly gave Trump an opportunity to apologize, “he actually pushed away,” and that his lack of telling the truth will hurt him with voters.
.@MoElleithee: “One of the most disappointing things… was when he said, ‘if I lose I will have considered this a tremendous waste of time.’”
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 27, 2016
Kelly then asked the four veteran politicos if they believed Trump when he said the didn’t realize he had re-tweeted an already controversial Tweet of his wife and Heidi Cruz. They answered “no,” and Rollins said, “I think he has an incredible ability to rationalize. That’s his persona: ‘What I say today doesn’t matter tomorrow.'”
What do you think? Did you watch Megyn Kelly’s interview with Donald Trump? Do you think he can be more presidential?
[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]
