During her appearance on “The Tonight Show” Thursday night, Megyn Kelly dished to host Jimmy Fallon about her ongoing feud with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Fallon praised her performance as a moderator for the first Fox News GOP debate in August as “phenomenal” and asked if her life changed at all after that.
“Donald Trump did not feel the same,” she said. “So it changed a little. I can no longer go on Twitter.”
During the debate, Kelly grilled Trump with questions about derogatory comments he had made toward women in the past. Trump criticized her on Twitter following the debate, which started six months of animosity between the billionaire mogul and “The Kelly File” host, mostly on Trump’s end.
“It’s been sort of a surreal six months, because we never anticipated that anybody would react to the questions in that particular way,” Kelly told Fallon. “But, you know, sort of keep your head down and shoulders back and try to forge forward.”
Fallon said he was surprised that Trump responded as viciously as he did because he didn’t consider the questions to be tougher for Trump than any other candidate on the stage. Kelly agreed.
“He got a tough question, but they all got tough questions,” she said. “That opening round of the first debate in particular was all about electability. We were trying to get to, what’s your weak spot? What’s going to prevent you from getting the nomination? What’s going to prevent you from winning against Hillary [Clinton], who’s going to be the likely Democratic nominee? And that’s where I was going with him. All of those guys kind of got it right in the kisser.”
She defended her right to ask those kind of questions as a media figure whose job during the debates is to let the public know who is fit to be president and who is not.
“That’s what you have to do!” she said. “They want George Washington’s job. I’m a member of the press, and we’re supposed to press, and see if they’re worthy.” The “press, press” line received applause from Fallon’s studio audience.
Fallon then asked Kelly about why she thought Trump skipped out on the latest Fox News-hosted debate in Iowa.
“He said it was about me. Then he said it was about a statement my boss put out,” she said. “And then he said it was about a gum wrapper on the floor. There were a lot of reasons that he gave. I don’t know exactly why he didn’t show up.”
Trump opted instead to host a charity event in Iowa for veterans which directly competed with the GOP debate that late January night. Kelly figured that Trump’s late exit was probably due to her participation in the debate, which probably didn’t occur to the Donald until it was almost too late.
“It wasn’t until the actual week of the debate that it really dawned on him that we were going to go again,” she said. “And once again, all those guys had tough questions. You got to wind up and do it. That’s what they pay me to do.”
