Megyn Kelly: "If Trump Lost And His Supporters Would Be Protesting, The Media Would Yell Sexist!"
Days after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times has released a review of Megyn Kelly"s forthcoming memoir, Settle for More. USA TODAY
Megyn Kelly releases a memoir this week.(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)
NEW YORK Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly saidshe thinks Donald Trump was agitated before the first GOP primary debate not because hed learned she was going to confront him about his insulting descriptions of womenbut because he suspected shed ask about his first wifes claim that hed raped her.
In her new memoir, Settle for More, Kelly describes how an unexpectedly anxious Trump complained to Fox News executives last year about what shed do as a moderator of the debate.The questions Kelly and her colleagues planned to ask the candidates were secret. She wrotethat days before the debate, Trump called Fox in an attempt to rein me in. He said he had heard that my first question was a very pointed question directed at him."Kellys first question was in fact for Trumpand about his treatment and descriptions of women. She wondered, she wrote, How could he know that?"
In an exclusive interview Monday with USA TODAY one in which she discussed what she called her "Year of Trump"" and her stand against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes Kelly said she did not believe her question leaked to Trump beforehand.I dont think he had any idea,"she said. What I think he was worried about was his divorce from Ivana Trump. He was afraid I was going to bring that up."
A few weeks before the debate, Kelly devoted a segment of her program, The Kelly File, to an interview with the author of a report on The Daily Beast website. It said Ivana Trump had sworn in divorce papers a quarter-century earlier that Trump had raped her an accusation she later retracted.Kelly saidthat after the segment aired, an angry Trump called and told her that I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account on you, and I still may."
It was a threat on which he soon made good.
The author"s Year of Trumpbegan with her now famous question to Trump about whether his history with women would be fodder for Hillary Clintons claims that he was part of a war on women."
It exploded with Trumps insinuation that Kelly was hostile to him in the debate because she was menstruatingand continued until the following April, when the two met in Trumps office.By that time, Kelly said, she was weary of the abuse prompted by Trumps string of insulting social media posts.In the interview, Kelly declined to comment on what she said or did at her Trump Tower meeting to get him to stop.
Donald Trump speaks to moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace during the first Republican presidential debate Aug. 6, 2015, in Cleveland.(Photo: John Minchillo, AP)
But as a result of the meeting, she said, Trump and I are in a better place now. We left things on a good note. Hes never come after me the way he had. Even though he held onto his anger toward me like a dog with a bone, he does have the ability to let things go. He proved that."
Readers of Settle for More may not harbor such optimism about the president-elect.Thats because Kelly has written a contemporary Perils of Pauline saga in which a sympathetic heroine fends off the advances literal and digital of two villains: Trump and Ailes, who resigned in July under duress.
The latter, an accused serial sexual harasser (who nonetheless furthered our heroines career at every turn) gets his just desserts; the former becomes president.
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Last SlideNext SlideDuring their one-sided feud, Trump called Kelly a bimbo, a lightweight, a liar, crazy and sick; he urged a boycott against her show; his attorney retweeted a call to gut"her. Strange men turned up outside"her door, she wrote. Death threats were common."She, her husband and their three children vacationed at Disney World with an armed bodyguard in tow.
He couldnt let it go for so long,"she said of Trump, and there was a time when I wondered if hed ever let it go."
Many have commented on the sang-froidwith which Kelly seemed to respond to all this. But she saidshe was afraid for her safety and her familysand for her reputation as a journalist trying to cover the story and not be the story.
In seeking a meeting with Trump, Kelly said, she tookher fate into her own hands settling for more."The books description of the encounter goes much further.I felt like a hostage whose hostage taker was seeing her as a human being for the very first time who needed to believe that he would let her go,"Kelly wrote.
Megyn Kelly in New York May 5, 2016. "Settle for More," her new book is scheduled to be released Nov. 15, 2016. (Photo: Victoria Will, AP)
When Trump greetedher by holding out his arms for a hug, Kelly embracedhim. It felt like a kind gesture,"she wrote.
When he askedfor her cellphone number, sheworried in pique, hed made GOP presidential rival Lindsey Grahams number public but gaveit to him.When he suggestedthey have a picture taken together, she agreed. They posed arm in arm.
In retrospect, she wrote, I look rather like a person whos been through some sort of trauma and is waiting for the Coast Guard helicopter."
The reader may understandwhy Kelly felt she needed to go to Trump. Efforts by Ailes, Foxs pro-Trump host Sean Hannity and others had failed. Nothing stopped it,"she said in the interview. I realized no one was coming to save me. If this was going to end, I was the one who was going to have to end it."
The books penultimate chapter deals with Ailes, whoKelly saidharassed her starting in 2005. In a private meeting in his office, he said he wanted to see her in the very sexy bras she must own.The following year, she wrote, Ailes tried to grab her and kiss her on the lips. As she fled out the door, she recalled, he asked, When is your contract up?
When she finally confided to a supervisor, she said, she was told to avoid Ailes. After that, the problem stopped.
Ailes was sued in July for alleged sexual harassment by former Fox morning show host Gretchen Carlson. A week and a half later after spurning requests to vouch for Ailes Kelly called the co-chairman of Foxs parent company, Lachlan Murdoch, and reported her own experience.Ailes has denied all charges against him.
Kelly was asked by USA TODAY if she thought that Ailes, who continually promoted her even while she was on maternity leave deserved a second chance in the news business.
Absolutely not,"she snapped. I have no doubts now about who he is or what he did. I dont think hed have spent a lifetime doing it and suddenly turnover a new leaf."She said she was disturbed hed advisedthe Trump campaign.
Despite Trumps attacks, Kellys ratings are as high as ever second only to those of her Fox evening lineup neighbor, Bill O"Reilly. Her Fox contract is up next year, and shes the subject of intense speculation over with which network shell sign (ABC is among those interested), for how much (Fox supposedly offered $20 million a year)and to do what (shed like to do more in-depth interviews).
She said she was not concerned by a tweet by Trump campaign social media director Dan Scavino after her on-air tussle last month with Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich. ("She is totally biased against Mr. Trump & not very smart. . Watch what happens to her after this election is over.")
That wasnt Trump, that was Dan Scavino, who used to be Trumps golf caddy,"Kelly said. Im not worried about him."
Trump has observed his truce with Kelly since what she calls their "Trump Tower Accords."He has yet to comment on her book, which goes on sale Tuesday. After her flapwith Gingrich, he tweeted,Congratulations, Newt... that was an amazing interview.We dont play games, Newt, right? We dont play games.
Whatever"s next between Kelly and Trump, she said his campaign against her is anominous precedent:
I have a big mic, and I was established. He couldnt really destroy me," she said, "but think about the message that was sent to other journalists thinking about covering him skeptically. Perhaps they just dont want to spend a year being bullied."
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Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/15/megyn-kelly-memoir-donald-trump-roger-ailes-president-fox-news/93813154/
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