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The Interview
Megyn Kelly Is Embracing Her Bias and Rejecting the 'Old Rules'
00:43:21
The former Fox News and current YouTube host on her professional evolution, conservative media and why she endorsed Trump.
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- [00:03]
Megyn Kelly
Time is luxury. That's why Polestar 3 is thoughtfully designed.
- [00:09]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
To make every minute you spend driving.
- [00:11]
Megyn Kelly
It the best time of your day.
- [00:12]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
That means noise canceling capabilities and 3D surround sound on Bowers and Wilkins speakers.
- [00:19]
Megyn Kelly
Seamlessly integrated technology to keep you connected.
- [00:22]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
And the horsepower and control to make this electric SUV feel like a sports car. Polestar 3 is a new generation of electric performance. Book a Test drive@pollstar.com from the new York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Last year, on the night before the election, Megyn Kelly did something she'd never done before. She got up on stage at Donald Trump's final campaign rally and she endorsed him.
- [00:56]
Megyn Kelly
And I prefer a president who understands how to be strong and how to fight. I hope all of you do what I did last. Vote Trump and get 10 friends to vote Trump, too.
- [01:13]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Kelly built her career in the mainstream media. She spent nearly 15 years at Fox News, where she earned a reputation as one of the channel's sharpest interviewers before she moved briefly to NBC. But that Trump rally speech was the clearest sign yet that Kelly has moved on to her next chapter. Over the past few years, she's found a new lane for herself in podcasting and on YouTube, where she has a daily talk show that fits squarely into the MAGA loving media universe. It's just one of the reasons why I was so interested to talk to her about her professional evolution, her volatile relationship with President Trump and what she thinks some people, myself included, don't understand about how the media has changed forever. Here's my conversation with Megyn Kelly. Meghan, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because you're really forging this new path. And I think to fully sort of understand your career, I wanted to start early. Before you were a journalist, you were a lawyer at Jones Day, which is one of the toughest, notorious firms out there for being just like a big international law firm that only takes the best of the best. When you walked through that door, were you a tough person?
- [02:31]
Megyn Kelly
Well, the practice of law definitely toughened me up because while I was always comfortable with public speaking, I wasn't necessarily comfortable arguing and standing up for myself and coming under attack and being able to hold my own. And so law school helped with that. And then before I went to Jones Day, I did two years at Bickle and Brewer. Same mentality, which is kill or be killed. And it was known for its, quote, Rambo litigation tactics. So when I was very young, 24, that was very sexy to me, I thought that was extremely cool. And I love the thought of what that could do to me, you know, that I thought that those guys would toughen me up, would take what I had learned in law school and bring it next level. And they did.
- [03:14]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I know there was a time when you were working days as a lawyer and then nights and weekends learning TV journalism. What did you feel that you could do as a journalist that you couldn't do as a litigator?
- [03:28]
Megyn Kelly
I'm have fun. It was one thing.
- [03:31]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
What did you like about it?
- [03:33]
Megyn Kelly
Oh God, everything. Everything. I loved the storytelling, I loved getting a story, I loved having that extra nugget that nobody else had. I loved the excitement and the pressure, the EU stress, which is the more positive stress you can invite into your life of having to be on, you know, of like the fight or flight instinct coming on, you know, behind your neck, like the tiny hairs being up because you've gotta go and there's not a go at it, you're alive, go. So I just felt completely alive. And I also felt that what I was doing mattered. You know, one of the reasons I chose journalism when I was considering a second career was 911 hit and I was 30 and I was watching TV that day, having an unfamiliar emotion, watching some of the reporters in addition to all the other horrible emotions that we were watching in the event. And that was envy. I remember watching Ashley Banfield and she was so cool under enormous pressure and thinking she's doing us such a service right now and you can't see her sweat under the scariest possible circumstances you could put a reporter. And I thought I want to do that.
- [04:45]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
In 2004 you get to Fox. What were your politics then? Did you feel attracted to the news organization cuz it was conservative or were you just thinking this is my way in, it's the big time?
- [04:57]
Megyn Kelly
The latter. I really wasn't political. I was raised a Democrat, sort of. We never talked about politics in my household, but I knew my parents were Democrats and you know, my nana, God bless her, she lived to 101. She used to say, Republicans are for rich people, we're not rich. She was from New Jersey, that's her New Jersey accent. So I just always thought of myself as a Democrat. And then when I started practicing law and saw what was happening to my paycheck, I started to get a little bit more fiscally conservative and Jones Day had some more Republicans, more than I'd ever been exposed to anyway. And so I started to be more open minded to the right and then when I was getting into journalism, I met Bill Sammon, who was working in the D.C. office of Fox News. I think at that time he was still a contributor. And he said, you've got to get your tape to Kim Hume. I said, oh, I think I'm. Maybe I'm too green. I don't know, because I knew Fox was like a thing. And he said, you're not too green, and if you are, she'll tell you you are. But I hadn't even given a thought to their politics. And Roger Ailes was the first one to say to me, how did a daughter of two Democrats, a nurse and a college professor wind up a fair and balanced person? And he was not saying, I want a Republican who does news the Republican way. And even when I was starting to anchor on Fox, he loved it. If I had a contentious interview with a Republican, he never said, like, don't do that. And in fact, he told other anchors, you should watch Megan do more of that.
- [06:28]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Why do you think that was? Because it was good TV or because he thought they should be challenged?
- [06:33]
Megyn Kelly
It's probably because it was good tv. Roger loved Republicans and wasn't too keen on the Democrats. But he would say to me, make sure you smile a lot. And he wasn't wrong about that. Because if you're all sharp elbows, it's off putting and someone doesn't see anything in you to connect with. But, you know, when I went out on the air for contentious interviews, I always approached them with somewhat more of a prosecutorial approach, even though I never was a prosecutor. People mistake that about me. It's just more how I am, especially if there's somebody who I think is a villain. And every time I did it, I only got rewarded. I never got my hand slapped by Roger. You know, he did think it made good tv. And that's the nature of broadcast journalism. It's helpful if you're dynamic on the air and if you have a knack for making electric moments, ask Donald Trump. This is something he knows instinctively, but I would just follow my instincts. If somebody was making me irritated and I felt that thing in the back of my throat, like across from an Anthony Weiner, or as the case was, Dick Cheney. I know it's time to double barrel it.
- [07:42]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
So that approach became one of your hallmarks, this thing of being able to call balls and strikes, specifically on a conservative network against conservatives. That was unusual. And in 2015, there was the very famous Republican primary debate, and you had a question for Donald Trump where you asked him to explain why he had called women fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. And then he retaliated against you. His attacks were relentless after that year. You've talked about this a lot. But what I would like to understand, in hindsight now, why do you think he came after you?
- [08:23]
Megyn Kelly
Well, initially, he was annoyed. I think it was sincere anger. That night, he did not appreciate that question. And I think he thought we were friends. So he was even more annoyed by it. He felt betrayed.
- [08:36]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Why did he think you were friends?
- [08:37]
Megyn Kelly
We'd been friendly, you know, just through Fox. He had invited me to a couple of the Apprentice extravaganzas. I'd interviewed him quite a few times on Fox in my younger years. There was a very funny exchange, I think, in 2010, where he let me feel his hair to see whether it was real, you know, so I think he thought I was a fan, and I think he thought I should be a fan, you know, that I was at Fox and I kind of looked like somebody who he would typically do well with. And he kind of put me in this category of she's on my team. And while I had nothing against him, and I wasn't not on his team prior to that moment, as, you know, as soon as they throw their hat in the political ring, when you're a straight news journalist, it becomes somewhat adversarial. You know, it's. You're not on their team, and in fact, you get paid to be somewhat abrasive toward them. And so the relationship does change just given the nature of what news people do. So the week before that debate, I had been discussing, not with him, but with somebody else, the Michael Cohen statement that you can't rape your wife. Michael Cohen had said this in defense of Trump, who had been accused by his first wife, Ivana, of having raped her in the course of their first marriage or divorce or in some explosive argument, an allegation she later recanted. And I was knocking Michael Cohen for the ridiculous assertion that one cannot rape one's wife. Well, he did not like that Trump was watching, and he called me up and he told me something to the effect of he didn't want to see any more segments like that on the Kelly file. And I told him he doesn't control the editorial on the Kelly file. And he screamed at me and hung up on me. This is the week before the debate. And then he kept calling Fox executives and complaining about me. I think his spidey senses were up that, you know, maybe I'm not in the friend camp anymore. And something could happen at this debate that might not be good for him. So here's the second thing. So in the beginning, I think he was genuinely angry, but I think it quickly turned to he liked it as a storyline and he wasn't wrong that it was good for him to show the world, and in particular Republican voters who felt disaffected or abandoned by the party, that there were no sacred cows for Trump, even in the Republican Party, even at Fox News, even in the primetime and Rogers chosen favorite anchors. No one that he would fight anyone.
- [11:10]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
You've talked a lot about what a terrible year that was and having to go with armed guards and, you know, having his supporters come after you. Do you have sort of residue from that period?
- [11:23]
Megyn Kelly
No. It was such an annoying nine months. You know, I did not want to take an armed guard to Disney World. You know, I did not want this to go on and on. I knew it wasn't good for me as a journalist, as a Fox News host or as a person, you know, to have this level of acrimony constantly at me. And I desperately wanted him to just lay off. So it was just a stressful time when you're just kind of waiting for somebody who's very angry with you and toying with you to, I don't know, get focused on something else or have those feelings wane enough that they're reachable.
- [12:03]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
In 2016, you and other female Fox employees accused Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. And again, this is a pretty well documented time in your life. There was a movie about it and ultimately you were instrumental in getting him fired. Did you feel at Fox that people were angry at you because of what you'd done?
- [12:21]
Megyn Kelly
Certain people, very much so, yes. They weren't really angry about the Trump stuff. They were angry about me not supporting Roger and they never got past it. And I mean, in a way, I feel like my career there ended when I called Lachlan Murdoch to tell him the truth about how my relationship with Roger was when I was a first year reporter at Fox. They just, you have to understand, it's almost cult like over there. At least it was back then. And he was the cult leader and you don't turn on the cult leader. And so much more so than with the Trump thing, which I think everybody understood Trump, what he was doing, and there were some who took it personally. Hannity and I fought publicly over what he perceived as my non supportive Trump. So that's not a surprise to anybody. But for the most part, no one cared about that. It was the Roger thing that turned my relationships at Fox and just made it an impossible place for me to stay. And so I knew I couldn't stay, and I left.
- [13:27]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
What was that call with Lachlan like, though? When you called him up and told him?
- [13:33]
Megyn Kelly
When you asked me that question, I got a chill through my body. That's how big that moment was for me. It's like one of the hardest, most complicated things I've ever done, because I really cared about Roger, and we had gotten past his harassment of me, which, for the record, never led anywhere. I did not submit to any of his advances, and I had forgiven him, and he had done so much for me, and I did not want to hurt him. And I didn't like Gretchen Carlson, who was kind of looking for help. You know, in a way, the whole question was, could he be this thing that she's alleged he is? And I was really not inclined to help her and stick a knife in him. So I did wrestle. There was a long period where I wasn't saying anything about it, and people were saying, what's she gonna do? And I was under a lot of pressure from Roger's team and Roger and his wife to come out and say, he's not this thing, and he's incapable of being this thing, which is what everyone was saying. And I knew I did not have it in me to lie. The real question was whether I should just stay silent and keep it to myself. And I wrote about this in my book. I was on the porch swing at the place we go to at the Jersey Shore, and I was looking at a picture of my daughter who had fallen off the jungle gym, and she had had something like 11 stitches in her head, but she got back up to the same jungle gym she had fallen off of. And I saw that picture, and I said, I have got to call Lachlan Murdoch. I have to call him. It still makes me emotional because it was something that I think changed lives in a lot of ways. I believe that, but including my own in a way that was not positive. Mostly. In some ways positive, but mostly negative.
- [15:30]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I'm curious to know, in hindsight, what do you think changed?
- [15:36]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I think it blew up almost every friendship I had at fox, which those friendships were important to me. You know, I loved most of those people and didn't quite realize how strong the backlash would be. I mean, virtually everyone, maybe a couple of close friends, stood by me and were 100% with me, but it just was a before and after moment there. Anyway, the whole Thing on the heels of that year of the Trump stuff, it was just a lot. And I'm not generally a stressed out person. I probably couldn't be in news if I were anxiety ridden. But I was stressed out. And I left for NBC as an escape. You know, I just thought it was gonna be a kinder, gentler. My God, I sound like an idiot. It's like I did no homework about anything. Place to be. It wasn't. It ended disastrously. It was an even more stressful year. So, look, all those relationships at Fox have since repaired. And I'm in a good place with my old Fox colleagues. But it took a while.
- [16:45]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I don't wanna spend too much time here. Cause I do wanna get to Today.
- [16:48]
Megyn Kelly
Sure.
- [16:49]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
But you mentioned this. In 2017, you went to NBC to host a daytime show. You know, that time at NBC, which was, as you say, so stressful and ended so disastrously because of your comments about blackface and Halloween. Ostensibly, there was a lot of other things going on at that moment, but ostensibly, that was the reason that you were arrested.
- [17:14]
Megyn Kelly
Correct. Bravo, which is owned by NBC, had a real housewife in blackface Halloween costume. She dressed up like Diana Ross and tinted her skin. And there was a push to not cancel her, but get her in trouble. And so we had a discussion on my show where I asked, when did that become unacceptable? Because when I grew up in the 70s and the 80s, people used to do it and it was considered okay. And at the time, I knew that. I knew that had been my experience. I just didn't know that NBC had been airing shows with people doing it, like Scrubs. Like, there were so many examples. But I didn't have it at the ready. Cause I wasn't expecting, like, a huge controversy over it.
- [17:52]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Really?
- [17:52]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, yeah. At the time, I just thought, you.
- [17:56]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Know, everyone understands that blackface is racist now.
- [17:59]
Megyn Kelly
They do. But when did it go from something that people used to do, you know, with impunity, Hello, Justin Trudeau. To something that will get you canceled? And for me, you know, we talked about the two sort of joint traumas during the Fox years, the late Fox years. Personally, that NBC, it dwarfed those. So by the time that ended, I was like, this industry is a disgusting, toxic stew of hatred and darkness. And why would I wanna go back into it? You know, now I have some money, now I'm with my kids, you know, I can raise my family. Maybe this is the time I ride into the sunset and find a third version of me professionally.
- [18:45]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Did you feel during that period that People were turning their back on you, like, because there had been this big flame out at NBC that just all that world that you had inhabited had sort of rejected you.
- [18:57]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, well, I mean, I had been rendered entirely toxic. So I guess I never really tested it. I wasn't out seeking jobs at that time. Right. It wasn't like, gee, will anyone still have me? But I understood that I had been rendered toxic.
- [19:14]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
This was the moment when you've talked about this on your new show, when you sort of decided, the mainstream media is not for me.
- [19:23]
Megyn Kelly
I can't have. I don't do well with bosses, as it turns out. I'm not that easy to control as an employee. I'm just kind of past the bullshit. And also that the landscape had changed back in 20. You know, I was on my couch figuratively, like all of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 and the country was losing its mind. That was peak Wokeism, you know, where when it came to race, when it came to gender, when it came to any lgbtq, it was like we were going nuts. And I am not a woke person. It's one of my core missions in life to defeat Wokeism. Anyway, there was no way I could go work for another broadcast news outlet that was gonna be like NBC was. I definitely couldn't go back to Fox. That bridge had already been burned on my way out and I wasn't in a great place with the executives or the owners. So it was like, what could I possibly do? Like, what's an avenue available to me? And that's when Ben Shapiro called me, who I think he would tell you, I helped him make his name. I put him on the Kelly file regularly and helped make him a star. And he saw me down and out and he said, mk, this is a real lane for you. And he was just saying it as a friend. And I wasn't quite ready at first, but then he called me again and said, you gotta get back out there. And he said, why don't you come out here to the Daily Wire and just see what we're doing? And I, whatever, kicked the tires on this new lane and thought, this is what I wanna do.
- [20:58]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Why?
- [21:00]
Megyn Kelly
Because I was my own boss. I could be in charge of all my own editorial. No one could tell me what to do, what to say, what not to say. I could have long form conversations about really tough issues that were bubbling up in the country at the time. I didn't have to do it in a seven minute segment or a three minute segment like I used to have to do on linear television. It was just a whole new world to me. It was the Wild west to me, and I loved that feeling.
- [21:28]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Yeah. I mean, you've talked about finding a third version of Megyn Kelly with your new show, which is on YouTube. Looking at the early days of your show, when you first started, it was very much like you were an anchor on television. And now you look a lot looser.
- [21:43]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, and I feel looser in the anchor sense. But if you really want to make it as an individual in this lane without a platform supporting you, where they're tuning in because it's Fox News, you know, and you just follow the person before you who they really liked. There has to be a connection between your audience and you. Otherwise, what's the point? And so I did start to share more of my own opinions, and frankly, I started to form more of my own opinions.
- [22:14]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Tell me about that. Form your own opinions.
- [22:16]
Megyn Kelly
Well, because I was never really that political, As I said growing up, one of the reasons I think I did well at Fox in the news division was I didn't really feel the need to choose a side. I just felt the need to learn everything I could about both of the sides and then mediate a good debate. Then it wasn't until, really I got on this show that it was a different job. It was more like they wanted to know what I thought. That was clear. The audience wanted to know my opinion. And so on a lot of subjects, I had to really start thinking about them. Like, even today, we're having a debate about tariffs. I don't know how I feel about tariffs. I've never really given it a lot of thought, so I'm working on my opinion on tariffs. But there have been a million subjects like that over the past four or five years that I've really just had to question where I stand.
- [23:01]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
One of the things that you just did, which is a red line for most journalists, is that you showed up at one of Donald Trump's rallies right before the election and you formally endorsed him. Once you endorse a politician on stage at a rally, I don't think you can reasonably be called independent anymore. Or do you see it differently?
- [23:24]
Megyn Kelly
I think I can. I don't agree with that because I can still hit Trump. And do you know, there's no question that I owned my bias on Trump and crossed a line that I had never crossed before and never would have crossed when I was still straight news, ever. It's just this weird new hybrid lane I'm in that even made It a possibility in my mind that I even allowed myself to consider saying yes to the invitation. And it was another before and after moment, because, for sure, you're crossing a line, but I had crossed it prior to then. I had crossed it the day Biden handed down his Title IX revisions. And I was so angry about what he did that I went on my show that day and said, I'm voting for Donald Trump. And I had never done that.
- [24:10]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
But then going and actively campaigning, standing on stage and, you know, yes, giving him a hug and a kiss, it is different. And I think a lot of people saw you endorsing Trump as caving, as essentially going to where the power is.
- [24:26]
Megyn Kelly
I don't think it was me caving. It was me rising. It was me answering something I truly felt called to do. I'm thrilled Trump won. I shudder to think of what the country would be right now if Kamala Harris had won. And in the end, I had no qualms about going out there for him whatsoever. And I accept and agree with you that they're different gradations. It is a different level.
- [24:53]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
You know, the symbolism of it, of course, which is someone who so famously had been at odds with him, that he had done so much to. To publicly stand up and embrace him was significant to a lot of people.
- [25:06]
Megyn Kelly
I hope so. I mean, that was my goal in helping him, especially with women. And I wanted to look them in the eyes figuratively and say, trust me, you know, I'm pro woman. And, you know, I've expressed doubts about him in the past about some of the choices he's made when it came to dealing with women. But there is no other choice for women in this election. And I stand by that wholeheartedly for all the reasons I listed that night. Like, I knew that I could be of help to him. I knew, given the relationship with him, that I would be a different kind of endorser that actually might potentially make a difference for him. With a certain set of people who were looking for permission to vote for him because they'd been told universally that he was bad, that he was Hitler, that he was a rapist, that all these things that people have been saying, and I felt the obligation to go tell them how I really feel about him and why I feel that way.
- [26:04]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I understand the fervor within which you embrace some of his policies, but what you were talking about there was the person himself, the things that he has been accused of, credibly accused of, and what you yourself experienced.
- [26:21]
Megyn Kelly
I'll give you the perspective on it.
- [26:23]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Yeah.
- [26:23]
Megyn Kelly
So I don't agree with you on the credibly accused. I actually don't believe that. But with respect to my own situation, you have to zoom out and look what was happening at the time, which was not easy for me when I was going through it. But Trump was trying to win a presidential election, and so, as I pointed out earlier, it was useful to him to have me as a foil. Look, you have to separate when you're in this business, you the person and you the professional. Megyn Kelly the woman and Megyn Kelly the brand, and they were attacking Megyn Kelly the brand, which is fair game. You know, I had thrown a very tough ball right at Trump's face.
- [27:03]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Do you think it's fair game that you, as a journalist, ask a fair question based on things that he'd said and he put you through that for a whole year? You think that's fair?
- [27:13]
Megyn Kelly
Look, I've been very public about thinking he went too far. You know, that's how I felt at the time. And if I could go back and undo it, I would. But I have a better perspective on why it happened now. You know, it was actually an important piece of his rise within the Republican Party in the primary, and it just showed people what a fighter he was. The same guy who got up bloodied in Butler, Pennsylvania, was the guy who was like a dog with a bone with me, who wouldn't let it go. He's got this fighter instinct, and if you cross him or if you do something he finds unjust, he will stay on you until he's satisfied the thing's been resolved to his satisfaction.
- [27:57]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I just want to understand something clearly. Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil court. He's been accused by many women. You don't believe any of that?
- [28:08]
Megyn Kelly
I think the most serious thing I've heard about him has been the E. Jean Carroll allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf dressing room. And I don't believe one word of that.
- [28:18]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
There's many. There are other women who have.
- [28:20]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I know I've interviewed some of them. But look, the things I heard were included. Things like he got handsy on an airplane. Now, I don't know whether that happened or it didn't, but do I find that a deal breaker for a possible politician? Not really. At least I reported on their stories and did them the courtesy of bringing them to air in front of millions of people and let the audience make up its mind. My problem is more with these Democrats who will bury these allegations against their candidates or their candidate spouses and then play holier than thou when they're looking at Donald Trump.
- [28:53]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Do you see yourself as a journalist still, or would you not describe yourself.
- [28:57]
Megyn Kelly
Like that at all? No, I'm not a journalist. I mean, I break news all the time. And when I sit with Trump or anybody else in the administration, I ask tough questions. I mean, as recently as September of 23, I interviewed Trump and he got so mad at me, he didn't talk to me for six or seven, seven months. So it's not. Look, it's a tough job to do. You have to be able to hit the people you admire. And I do. You know, I've hit them all right before the election. I ripped on Trump's Madison Square Garden rally as too bro tastic and got specific about why. You have to understand, like, if you haven't sold your soul, you have to be willing to criticize the people, even you, that you admire on your quote side. And my owning my bias by going out there on stage with Donald Trump and saying I'm voting for him and you should, too, is a bonus when it comes to my credibility. Now, everybody has zero doubt about where I stand, and they can filter everything I say through the appropriate lens. What typically happens in journalism is they say they have no bias and then they just work it out in the printed word or on their shows without owning it, but the audience knows it, and it creates a distrust and a divide when it comes to Trump and me. No, my own personal opinion is most of the allegations against him are much more complicated than the mainstream media would have you believe. And I don't think Donald Trump is a rapist or a sexual assaulter. I do think he's taken inappropriate liberties with women and gotten handsy with them in a way he's owned himself, okay, years ago when he was a celebrity. And it is what it is. That's the past. But it's just about so much more than that. We are talking about how many people dying at the southern border because of the invasion that we've suffered under Joe Biden. We're talking about Lincoln Riley, whose killer was let in under Biden. We put him on a taxpayer flight down to Georgia, where he murdered her. I don't give a shit about Trump getting handsy with somebody 20 years ago. I want someone who will close the border, which he has. I want someone who will keep boys out of my daughter's sports, which he has. I want someone who will stand up to the insane DEI policies So that white kids will stop hearing in school that they're born with some original sin from which they cannot recover, which he has.
- [31:18]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Do you think you could be at Fox now in the way that you were before?
- [31:24]
Megyn Kelly
Can I rein back in the opinion me and like do what I used to do without sharing it as much and just sort of be straight down the middle if sometimes opinionated? I could, but I don't have any interest in that. And I actually don't think that's the model for the future either.
- [31:37]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Tell me what you mean by that.
- [31:39]
Megyn Kelly
I just think that mode of journalism is dying, if not dead. I think the future involves direct relationships between individual journalists and their audience or personalities. They don't all have to consider themselves journalists and their audience.
- [31:55]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
What's left if that happens? I mean, the way that the algorithms work now is that I agree with you, they elevate individuals, that you have a personal relationship with them, but you're given more of the same thing that you want. Right? So if I like Megyn Kelly, I might get Megyn Kelly adjacent material. So however great Megyn Kelly may or may not be, that is a very narrow slice of what's out there.
- [32:19]
Megyn Kelly
The reality right now, or the way it's been for the past three decades prior to the last couple of years, is everyone is siloed and they're all getting only leftist information. There's like the people who watch Fox and then everybody else. There is a monopoly on opinion and political bias, mostly by the left and media. And a couple have popped up that have done all right. Fox, they do very well. The Wall Street Journal's doing okay and that's it. You've had talk radio, which was the only place conservatives could go to hear their ideas debated in a way that wasn't disdainful. And now that lane has been broadened out to more radio and digital, where you have more conservative personalities dominating and so dominating, because necessity is the mother of all invention. Because there are more conservatives in the country now than there are liberals. The country's more right leaning than it is left. Why wouldn't they be the dominant forces in media, in mainstream so called media? Because there's a monopoly. There's. There's control, there's control over sports, there's control over corporate America, there's control over media. And Republicans have had this one strain and Fox News has been very important. But they needed to invent a new area of thought because even Fox wasn't enough and actually wasn't, didn't represent all Republican voices. So I do think now that this other thing has been invented. The old thing is a dinosaur. It's dying a slow and painful death. Part of it is tragic because we do need reporters. We need news gatherers. And I am not somebody who says the Times should go out of business. I still subscribe to the Times. I also subscribe to the Journal and I subscribe to the New York Post. I think it's important to have news gatherers out there getting news. And people like me cannot exist without that. You know, I need content. I need news to talk about and report on. But the model for, you know, how that news is presented is deeply, deeply flawed. And it led to me and it's going to lead to a much different future for those organizations.
- [34:34]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
After the break, I call Megan back and she says what we were both thinking.
- [34:38]
Megyn Kelly
I feel like part of our discussion before and today is getting at something that, like our wires are crossing your your wires and my wires are crossing in a way foreign. This is a message from sponsor Intuit. TurboTax Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a snap. And a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech, which cross checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back, guaranteed. Get an Expert now on TurboTax.com, only available with TurboTax Live full service. See guaranteed details at TurboTax. TurboTax.com guarantees a charmingly decorated dinner party serving delicately plated vegetable paella with chorizo. It looks like it took days, heart and soul poured into the effort. But hey, your besties are worth it. Should you tell them the paella was actually a pretty easy New York Times cooking recipe or that you had all the ingredients delivered via Instacart? You literally didn't even leave the house. Maybe just soak in the compliments. Learn more@nytcooking.com Instacart hi. Hi.
- [36:14]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I was thinking a lot about our conversation, and you were talking about how you still consider yourself a journalist, even though the way you do the work has sort of changed over time. And so I did want to ask you, as someone who supports the president, what you make of the various ways that he attacks the press, from calling reporters the enemy of the people to sort of popularizing the term fake news, sometimes calling out individual reporters. What do you make of that dynamic?
- [36:42]
Megyn Kelly
I'm in favor of it. I share his feelings. I just like most people on the right, I have a healthy amount of loathing for a large portion of the media, and they are fake news. And Trump did a very effective job of pointing that out, and he had to, because they were all against him. So what was his choice other than to try to demonize them as a group? And rather than proving him wrong, they leaned in and tried extra hard to really convince people of what he was saying. That's what happened, especially over Trump 1.0. He played a role, but it was really their decision. But they needed a little bit of help, and he provided it.
- [37:27]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
President Trump has chosen a lot of people who are in the media, especially on Fox, for his administration. The most high profile, of course, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whom you worked with, Deputy Director of the FBI Dan Bongino, but there are many others. As someone who spent so much time in that world, I'm curious what you make of that.
- [37:47]
Megyn Kelly
I'm excited about it. Pete Hexseth is an interesting one, and I would just say, like, he's a good example of what I was saying to you yesterday about how we have an approach that, irrespective of who I voted for, we try to make it relentlessly factual. When the allegations against him that he allegedly raped somebody came out, we sat on this show and went line by line through the police report, and it was brutal. And we did not care that he was a Trump appointee. We did not care that he was a former friend and colleague of mine at fox. We read every single allegation against him and went through it with the audience with an open mind. Good luck finding somebody else who did that. It didn't happen.
- [38:28]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Well, you interviewed him, and it was a fair interview, a tough interview, but you opened it by saying, you know, that he was a friend. You said, I've been really dismayed by the amount of pile on that he's been suffering, and I've been outraged by the unfairness of the media's coverage of the allegations. And that's a direct quote.
- [38:47]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [38:47]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
And so I'm curious what you're doing in that interview, because you're setting up the interview in a particular kind of way that perhaps it wouldn't be set up in the mainstream media.
- [38:58]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, well, I'm glad you asked that, because I feel like part of our discussion before and today is getting at something that, like, our wires are crossing, your wires, and my wires are crossing in a way. Like you're kind of looking at me and saying it's not behaving like a typical Journalist. And it is still calling itself a journalist.
- [39:18]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I'm trying to understand it.
- [39:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, no, I know. I'm not saying you're judging me, but I'm trying to say to you, yes, I'm still a journalist, but I'm in this new ecosystem where the old rules don't apply. You know, I'm in this world with, yes, Charlie Kirk and Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro, but my world is also Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn, and it's a very large world. And how the consumer receives it is by going on YouTube.com on their television screen or going to the vertical integrations on Instagram or TikTok and just taking in content. What's the content that you want to receive? I'm on the list of content creators. And so the fact that I'm also a journalist who breaks news and reports on news is like an extra. But what's most important in my business now is authenticity.
- [40:10]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
What do you make of Governor Gavin Newsom of California starting his podcast? He had Charlie Kirk as his first guest. He's basically saying, like, if you can't beat him, join him. In not too many words, like, we need to figure out a strategy. What do you see about that strategy?
- [40:27]
Megyn Kelly
I think he's very smart to do it. It's the right move, and he'll probably be pretty good at it because he's been a public speaker for a living. And he could really benefit, as I think most people on the left could, from having his ideas tested. The right is very good at having these debates because they have to have them everywhere, and they have for all of their lives. And the left is less good because they've just had their worldview reinforced over and over. And in this arena times 10. Right. Because that's all we do is debate all day, have people on, test our ideas, kick them around, get embarrassed, try to correct it, do better the next time. Learn, grow. Throw out yesterday's wrongness so you can be more right tomorrow. All that. So he's late to the party, but he's right to join it.
- [41:07]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Hmm. I think you're right that there is some way that we are discussing something different. Right?
- [41:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [41:17]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
I guess what I'm trying to understand is what are the rules of this new world that you are inhabiting? Are you sort of making them up as you go along and you're seeing what it is, or do you adhere to some of those old values that you used to embrace?
- [41:29]
Megyn Kelly
The only way one succeeds in this medium is by violating all those rules that we used to have in journalism where you don't really talk about yourself at all. You don't talk about your opinions. You might have a bias. Your only goal is to hide it, not to own it and then get past it with the audience. It's just a whole new world and it's okay. We used to be much more partisan and openly partisan in our journalism and our media, you know, 100 plus years ago. And we survived that just fine. And we will survive this just fine too. What the audience wants from me is my authentic self and no filter. What they can smell from a mile away is a phony. So they have no problem with me endorsing Trump, even if they don't like Trump. What they would have a problem with is me pretending I don't have a horse in the race and going out and trying to deliver the news as though I'm completely objective. And I'm just as open minded to Kamala as I am to Donald Trump.
- [42:30]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
Were you ever approached to get into the Trump administration?
- [42:34]
Megyn Kelly
No comment. Well, let's just say I'm happy doing what I'm doing.
- [42:39]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
What did they approach you for?
- [42:41]
Megyn Kelly
Assumes facts not in evidence. But look, if I thought I could be really helpful to the President, it's not that I would never consider it, But Lulu, I finally have my life exactly as I want it and I have no desire to upend it in any way right now.
- [43:01]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
That's Megyn Kelly. She recently announced that her media operation is expanding. She's launching a podcast network called MK Media. Also, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been in the news this week for sharing military information over signal with a group of White House advisors and inadvertently, a journalist. We recorded this interview before that story broke. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly, no relation. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano, photography by Philip Montgomery. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew and Wyatt Orem is our producer. Our executive producer is Alison Benedikt. Special thanks to Jessica Lustig, Rory Walsh, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Nick Pittman, Matty Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schuman and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to the interview. Wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com theinterview and you can email us anytime@the interviewytimes.com Next week, David talks to Bill Murray.
- [44:15]
Megyn Kelly
You really have to make people uncomfortable. And even though it's only acting and it's even though it's only for a minute, it's real, you really make people feel it. And to do that, you can't cheat. And when you really bear down on someone, if you're doing it well enough, it really, you really hurt someone.
- [44:36]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
And Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is the interview from the New York Times.
- [44:54]
Megyn Kelly
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- [44:56]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
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- [45:01]
Megyn Kelly
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Lulu Garcia Navarro
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Megyn Kelly
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Lulu Garcia Navarro
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- [45:16]
Megyn Kelly
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- [45:21]
Lulu Garcia Navarro
See if you qualify@oracle.com NYT oracle.com NYT.