Megyn Kelly says the media is partly to blame for the recent riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol as Congress convened to certify President Joe Biden’s win.
The former Fox News anchor and NBC “Today Show” host told BBC’s Katty Kay on “Newsnight” that news outlets couldn't control their dislike of President Donald Trump.
“They hated him so much, they checked their objectivity,” Kelly told Kay in interview footage that aired Saturday and was shared in part by The U.K.’s Daily Mail. “It wasn’t just CNN, all of them did. They just couldn't check their own personal feelings about him.
“Part of the reason we saw what happened at the Capitol here two weeks ago is because there has been a complete lack of trust, a destruction of trust in the media, and people don’t know where to turn for true information.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Kelly’s and CNN’s representatives for comment.
Kelly noted there was a sentiment that journalists "needed to cover (Trump) differently, that you needed to outwardly call him a racist, a sexist, a misogynist, all of it, and that that was important for history. And I think too many journalists agreed with that at their own peril.”
Initially, Kelly said, she disagreed with Trump when he put CNN on blast for its bias against him when he was a candidate. “CNN may be a little boring but it is fair and it's factual and it's not biased against Trump,” Kelly says she thought at the time. "Then they spent the next four years proving him right, proving me wrong."
Some Twitter users slapped back on her comments.
"Trump led to the storming of the Capitol. Period," @jokelley replied to a BBC tweet. "This is dangerous and false from Kelly, and I can’t believe the BBC is reporting it as if there’s a germ of truth to it."
"I've never heard anything so ridiculous as Megyn Kelly saying on BBC Newsnight that Trump mobs attacked the Capitol because they didn’t trust the media – not Trump lying that the election was stolen," BBC contributor Hugo Lowell tweeted.
Other applauded her for discussing media culpability.
"This from @megynkelly is so spot on. The media poisoned the faith in them to present unvarnished news thanks to their blatantly biased coverage of Trump," conservative commentator Darren Grimes of Reasoned tweeted.
In January 2017, Kelly left Fox News after more than a decade on the air and announced she would join NBC, where she signed a contract estimated to be worth $20 million per year.
She negotiated her exit from NBC less than two years later, in October 2018, after a controversial “Today” segment in which she excused the use of blackface for Halloween costumes.
Contributing: Leora Arnowitz
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