Megyn Kelly morphed into a figure of great controversy at Fox News.
She famously feuded with Donald Trump.
And one top Fox News executive got a warning that Kelly was the devil.
Roger Ailes was the former President of Fox News.
He left the network under a cloud of controversy.
But that would come later.
Ailes was warned about Kelly after the first Republican Primary debate.
Kelly was one of the moderators, and started the debate by asking Trump personal attack questions.
Conservatives thought Kelly was handed marching orders to take down Trump.
And she followed through with gusto.
That kick-started Trump’s feud with Kelly that would culminate with Trump skipping one debate days before the February 1st Iowa caucuses because Kelly was the moderator.
Kelly’s performance was praised by the liberal press, but then Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon saw through Kelly’s act.
He warned Ailes that Kelly was “the devil.”
Politico reports:
“Months before Donald Trump blew up American politics with his surprise win in November, he did the same thing to the conservative media. Through much of the campaign, two very different media moguls with colliding visions for the Republican Party vied for Trump’s soul: Roger Ailes, the longtime president and CEO of Fox News, and Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of the populist online tabloid Breitbart. Both were angling to be the media Svengali whispering in Trump’s ear.
At one point, it seemed they might have been allies: Bannon worked to insinuate himself at Fox, and Ailes’ network aired some of his populist documentaries. Then came the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, when Megyn Kelly, Fox’s feisty prime-time anchor, hammered the candidate from all sides. It was at that moment that Bannon says his relationship with Ailes began to sour. “The big rift between Breitbart and Fox was all over Megyn Kelly. She was all over Trump nonstop,” Bannon said in an interview. He says he warned Ailes that Kelly would betray him. “I told him then, I said, ‘She’s the devil, and she will turn on you.’”
Kelly did turn on Ailes.
In the investigation into Ailes behavior, Kelly was seen as a key witness whose testimony sealed Ailes’ fate.
Kelly published a book that aired her accusations, and this drew the ire of then-Fox host Bill O’Reilly.
O’Reilly criticized Kelly for attacking Fox News.
Breitbart reports:
“I’m not interested in basically litigating something that is finished that makes my network look bad, okay?” O’Reilly told CBS This Morning co-host Norah O’Donnell on Tuesday. “I’m not interested in making my network look bad at all. That doesn’t interest me one bit.”
O’Reilly revisited the subject on his primetime Fox News show Tuesday night.
“If somebody is paying you a wage, you owe that person or company allegiance. You don’t like what’s happening in the workplace, go to human resources or leave,” the anchor said, without mentioning Kelly by name. “I’ve done that. And then take the action you need to take afterward if you feel aggrieved. There are labor laws in this country. But don’t run down the concern that supports you by trying to undermine it.”
Reports surfaced that O’Reilly’s comments were part of the reason Kelly left Fox News for NBC.
But before she left, she did exactly what Bannon warned – she betrayed Roger Ailes and Fox News.
