Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who is feuding with Donald Trump, wondered in a recent interview if she is the reason that other journalists are supposedly afraid to “press” the Republican front-runner with “tough” questions.
During a Q&A with Katie Couric at Tina Brown’s “Women in the World” forum in New York on Wednesday, Kelly said reporters should have done a better job standing “shoulder to shoulder” against Trump, who is known for his combativeness and his uncanny ability to evade difficult lines of questioning.
“Our job is to just press. We’re supposed to press,” Kelly said. “And I wonder sometimes whether the question I asked him at the [first GOP presidential] debate and the backlash against me has cowed other journalists because they don’t want it to happen to them or maybe they don’t have a boss who they think will stand behind them or maybe they just want access and they want the [ratings].”
Kelly and Trump had a memorable exchange last summer when, during a Fox debate, she asked him about disparaging comments he had made about some women.
The billionaire developer has since called Kelly unfair and said his supporters should boycott her show.
Trump has had similar run-ins with other journalists and media personalities since he launched his campaign in June.
During an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in September, Trump found himself stumped on some granular foreign policy questions. Also in December, Trump was cut off mid-answer to a question on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” because, host Joe Scarborough said, he wasn’t addressing it forthrightly.
