One day before Election Day, Megyn Kelly helped Donald Trump deliver his “closing message” to voters, capping off her endorsement of the former president.
A Donald Trump endorsement from a former Fox News host shouldn’t be surprising, until you remember Trump and Kelly’s relationship the first time he ran for president. In 2016, Kelly was one of the few Republicans willing to call out Trump for his misogynistic remarks. In return, Trump described her as a “nasty” woman, just like his opponent Hillary Clinton.
While moderating the GOP primary debate in 2015, Kelly asked Trump outright to address his history of using derogatory terms to describe women. “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals,’” she said. Afterwards, Trump told Don Lemon on CNN, “You could see there was blood coming out of [Kelly’s] eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
“Nasty” is still Trump’s epithet of choice for women he disagrees with. He’s used it to describe everyone from Meghan Markle to Michelle Obama to Nancy Pelosi to Kamala Harris. In 2016, women opposed to Trump reclaimed the insult “nasty woman” as their own in an act of defiance. And at first, Kelly continued to push Trump on issues of sexism and the accusations against him of sexual harassment. But by 2024, she was campaigning for Trump.
In her rally speech on November 4, Kelly defended Trump’s claims that he would be a “protector of women,” whether they like it or not. “He got mocked by the left by saying he would be a protector of women,” she said on stage, per the Associated Press. “He will be a protector of women, and it’s why I’m voting for him. He will close the border, and he will keep the boys out of women’s sports where they don’t belong.”
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