Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s interview on “CBS Sunday Morning” continued to raise eyebrows on Monday, adding to a growing chorus of critics of GOP front-runner Donald Trump’s controversial relationship with women.
Trump has led a social media campaign against Kelly ever since she asked him a pointed question about his history of making sexist remarks during his first GOP presidential debate last summer. Since then, Trump has called her “overrated” and “crazy” and retweeted messages that said far worse. As recently as this Friday, Trump claimed that she doesn’t cover anyone on her show but him and that she “misrepresents my positions.”
Kelly, who has avoided personally responding to Trump’s attacks, told “CBS Sunday Morning” host Charlie Rose that she would still welcome Trump to appear on her show (as he has on several other Fox News programs) and would not request an apology from him. She would only want to ask him, “Why?”
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In the same interview, Kelly admitted to getting death threats in the aftermath of her feud with the front-runner. “It’s not like I’m worried someone’s actually going to come shoot me down,” she said. “But I do worry someone’s going to try to hurt me in the presence of my children.”
Meanwhile, her husband, author Doug Brunt, called the unwanted attention from Trump “frustrating,” and while he praised his wife’s ability to not respond in kind, he said, “He gets a rise out of me, for sure.”
According to Kelly, she considered Trump’s response during the infamous presidential debate last August to be a “veiled threat, because he said he might not be nice to me after this debate,” she said.
Her tension with Trump has certainly raised her media profile, something Kelly claims was never her intention. Even her Peruvian babysitter has seen headlines about Kelly back in her home country, she said. Meanwhile, her network has largely had her back, recently alleging in a statement last month that Trump has “an extreme, sick obsession with her.”
Still, she hasn’t been pleased with how all of her colleagues have reacted to the business mogul’s insults.
In January, when Trump appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox show and said he had “zero respect” for Kelly, the host said nothing to contradict him. “I wish he had defended me more in that interview,” Kelly said. “I would have defended him more.”
Kelly went on to say, “I think Bill did the best he’s capable of doing in those circumstances,” while adding that the episode was a “dark moment” for her.
Still, Kelly is standing by her network, where she’s been a fixture since 2004. She argued that she believes that Fox News is “fair and balanced” while she thinks “there is a left-leaning bias in news, in most of news.” But when Rose pushed her on whether her network by and large enjoys a cozier relationship with Republicans like Trump, she conceded, “I think that’s obviously true, because you see Trump on our air every day.”
For his part, Trump has never been shy about slamming Kelly. “I might be the best thing that ever happened to her,” he said in January on CNN.
The Trump campaign’s embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski argued that same month during a phone interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that it is actually Kelly who is “obsessed” with Trump.
Adam Howard