The Daily
'The Interview': Megyn Kelly Is Embracing Her Bias and Rejecting the 'Old Rules'
Sat, 29 Mar 2025
The former Fox News and current YouTube host on her professional evolution, conservative media and why she endorsed Trump.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: Why did Megyn Kelly endorse Donald Trump?
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.
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 week. Vote Trump and get 10 friends to vote Trump too.
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. Thank you.
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Chapter 2: How did Megyn Kelly transition from law to journalism?
Megan, 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?
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 Bickel & 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. 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.
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?
I'm going to have fun. It was one thing. What did you like about it? 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 behind your neck, like the tiny hairs being up because you've got to go, and there's not a second go at it. You're alive. Go. So I just felt completely alive, and I also felt that what I was doing mattered. One of the reasons I chose journalism when I was considering a second career was 9-11 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 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.
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Chapter 3: What was Megyn Kelly's experience at Fox News?
Why do you think that was? Because it was good TV or because he thought they should be challenged?
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'd know it's time to double barrel it.
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?
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. Why did he think you were friends? 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.
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Chapter 4: Why did Megyn Kelly's relationship with Donald Trump become contentious?
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 anymore. 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-support of 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.
What was that call with Lachlan like, though, when you called him up and told him?
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 going to 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. I'm curious to know, in hindsight, what do you think changed? Well, I think it blew up almost every friendship I had at Fox, which those friendships were important to me.
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Chapter 5: What were the consequences of Megyn Kelly's allegations against Roger Ailes?
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.
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. Yes.
And I feel looser, you know, in that. Anchor sense. But if you really want to make it as an individual, like in this lane, without a platform supporting you, you know, 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. Tell me about that. Form your own opinions. 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.
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?
I think I can. I don't agree with that. Yeah. 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, you know, 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.
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Chapter 6: How did Megyn Kelly's time at NBC end, and what did she learn?
Do you see yourself as a journalist still? Or would you not describe yourself like that anymore?
No, I'm still 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 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 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 Lakin 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.
Do you think you could be at Fox now in the way that you were before?
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Chapter 7: Why did Megyn Kelly choose podcasting and YouTube for her new career path?
I'm in favor of it. Yeah. I share his feelings. 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.
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. There are many others. As someone who spent so much time in that world, I'm curious what you make of that. I'm excited about it.
Pete Hegseth 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 the 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.
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 pylon 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.
Yeah.
And so I'm curious what you're doing in that interview, because you're setting up the interview— Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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