Megyn Kelly had words for Rachel Maddow on Monday, saying that the MSNBC journalist shares Donald Trump’s “superpower” ability to lie “with impunity.”
In Kelly’s latest installment of her podcast “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the host shared her thoughts on Maddow’s coverage and past interviews with E. Jean Carroll, who was granted $83 million in her defamation case against Trump on Friday.
Critical of the media’s coverage of Carroll’s lawsuits against the former president, Kelly said that Maddow was a particular culprit, in that she appeared “giddy” while interviewing the 80-year-old journalist, which she shared in a series of clips.
“E. Jean Carroll and her lawyer Robbie Kaplan have proven in a court of law that Trump cannot tell lies with impunity,” Maddow said in a May 2023 interview with Carroll on MSNBC. “They have done that for the country.”
She added: “The ability to lie without shame and without any sort of tell, without any sort of remorse about it whatsoever, and about even the most important things, have always seemed like a political superpower to him. You’ve turned it into the opposite.”
“No self-awareness!” Kelly exclaimed after playing the clip. “‘The ability to lie with impunity without any tell is a superpower.’ Yes, and you have it, madam! You exercised it for four years while he was in the White House.”
Sitting with her guest Glenn Greenwald, Kelly then reflected on her year-long stint at NBC, where she hosted “Megyn Kelly Today” as part of the network’s morning programming. Comparing her practice to that of Maddow and other journalists, Kelly said that she would show impartiality when interviewing alleged victims of Trump.
Citing her 2017 interview with Trump accusers Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks on “Today,” Kelly remembered frankly asking Leeds, who accused the former president of groping her on an airplane in the 1970s, how he would have had access to her mid-flight.
“I’m certainly not a ‘believe all women’ person, but I’m not a ‘believe no women’ person either … You don’t have to make it uncomfortable and painful when you’ve got somebody who’s claiming they were sexually assaulted. I get that there needs to be a ginger approach,” Kelly said. “But you don’t have to be completely derelict in your duties as a journalist.
“When I was interviewing those women while I was at NBC, I wasn’t some huge fan of Trump. I was very open-minded to the fact that he might have done it,” Kelly continued. “But I had to ask those tough questions of the women because it’s our job.”
Watch the full “Megyn Kelly Show” segment in the video above.
