(So let me state the inevitable here: Megyn Kelly is drop dead gorgeous. No doubt about it. As a TV personality, Kelly is probably better than average but is she a more “professional” journalist than, lets say, Greta Van Susteren at FOX News? I don’t believe so, but for whatever reason, Ms. Kelly bumped Van Susteren out of her former weekday primetime slot. And oh yeah, Megyn Kelly allegedly has the #2 rated show on all of cable TV.
Personally, I think Ms. Kelly’s success has a lot to do with the way she posed here for GQ magazine, which, oh by the way, isn’t too much different than the way she usually dresses for her own show. In contrast, the TV camera would NEVER show Greta Van Susteren below the table she’s sitting at, mainly because she most always wears a pants suit. And I think Greta is a wee bit older than Megyn.
Bottom Line: Sex obviously sells at FOX News. And sexy-looking ladies usually translate into high ratings for a cable TV network.
Besides Megyn Kelly’s show, FOX News has a show with four young sexy ladies – all wearing short skirts and Stiletto high heels on a show called, ‘Outnumbered’. The guy who gets to be the guest on, ‘Outnumbered’ is given the hash tag, #OneLuckyGuy.
One of the regulars on ‘Outnumbered’ is a gorgeous lady named Andrea Tantaros and her former FOX News weekday show was ‘The Five’ – Tantaros was replaced on, ‘The Five’ by an equally sexy-looking young lady named Kimberly Guilfoyle, who sits at the end of the table where the camera focuses in on her gorgeous legs under the table before and after each commercial break.
Then Gretchen Carlson is a former Miss America contestant who has her own weekday afternoon show on FOX News, and former Miss New York USA, Joanne Nosuchinsky is a regular guest on FOX shows, ‘Red Eye’ and ‘The Greg Gutfeld Show’.
As a point of public disclosure here, I am DEFINITELY NOT a Donald Trump supporter, I DID NOT vote for him in the New Hampshire Primary, but it is really hard to view Megyn Kelly a serious, consummate professional journalist after seeing the way she was willing to pose in GQ magazine. It was sort of like how women pose in those “soft porn” magazines like: Maxim or Stuff.
Did Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein ever publicly pose wearing Spandex Speedos so they could prove to the world what great journalists they were? I don’t think so. Nor did you ever see the late great Walter Cronkite walking around his then-vacation home in Cape Cod wearing one of those Muscle Tee Shirts.
So how far are we away from seeing one – or maybe several – FOX News female personalities posing nude for either Playboy or Penthouse magazine? The old, “consummate professional journalist” line just doesn’t hold any water anymore – at least not from FOX News. Also, are there any questions on why FOX News doesn’t employ any overweight or handicap females as on-air personalities?)
Fox News has accused Donald Trump of making “sexist verbal assaults” against Megyn Kelly, issuing its most aggressive response yet to the Republican frontrunner’s repeated attacks on its star anchor.
The sharply worded response came Friday evening after Trump took his attacks against Kelly to a new level, referring to her as “sick” and “overrated.” Trump also called for his supporters to boycott her Fox News show.
“Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land,” the network said in its statement.
“Megyn is an exemplary journalist and one of the leading anchors in America — we’re extremely proud of her phenomenal work and continue to fully support her throughout every day of Trump’s endless barrage of crude and sexist verbal assaults,” the statement continued. “As the mother of three young children, with a successful law career and the second highest rated show in cable news, it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.”
Trump, who for seven months has tried to impugn the credibility of the Fox News host, had raised the stakes in a tweet on Friday.
“Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump!” the GOP frontrunner tweeted. “She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.”
Trump’s campaign kept up the barrage Friday night, putting out a statement that said in part, “Fox News has begged Mr. Trump to do a prime time special to be broadcast on the Fox Network, not cable, with Megyn Kelly. He has turned them down.”
Fox recently announced plans for Kelly to do a special on the broadcast network in May, but a Fox News spokesperson said Friday night, “No one associated with Megyn Kelly’s upcoming Fox Broadcasting special reached out to Donald Trump for an interview.”
A Fox representative made clear that neither Kelly nor Bill Geddie, the executive producer of the Fox program airing in May, ever reached out to Trump for an interview.
Kelly has kept quiet throughout the many attacks by Trump, a fact the Trump campaign noted in its Friday night statement.
“Unlike Megyn Kelly, who resorts to putting out statements via Fox News, Mr. Trump will continue to defend himself against the inordinate amount of unfair and inaccurate coverage he receives on her second-rate show each night,” the campaign said.
This was the most intense attack in a campaign against Kelly that Trump began last August, when he complained that she had treated him unfairly during the first Republican presidential debate.
Since then, Trump has frequently accused Kelly of bias and unfair coverage, often with little to no evidence of any specific offense.
In the run-up to what would have been their second meeting, at the Fox News debate on January 28, Trump said that Kelly shouldn’t be allowed to serve as moderator. Fox News shot back a tongue-in-cheek response in which it accused Trump of being afraid of Kelly, and therefore unfit to deal with foreign leaders. Trump decided to skip the debate.
Trump and Kelly were reunited at the third Fox News debate, on March 3, where Trump struck a much more convivial tone. Kelly once again proved to be Trump’s toughest adversary that night, asking tough and well-researched questions that won her the praise of journalists and observers on both sides of the aisle.
It’s not exactly clear what precipitated Trump’s latest round of name-calling, nor his call for a boycott. Throughout the week, Trump has been trying to brand Kelly as “crazy” and obsessed with criticizing him.
In the eyes of many Trump critics, it is he who appears to be obsessed with Kelly. And while it’s hard to see how such attacks could have much success with the American public, it’s also true that a plurality of the country’s Republicans have so far supported the man making them.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.
5:55 PM – 18 Mar 2016
CNNMoney (Los Angeles) First published March 18, 2016: 8:01 PM ET
One Bad Decision Away From Homelessness 
Don’t cry for Fox News: Column
Steven Strauss
3:18 a.m. EDT
March 28, 2016
The network fed on years of ‘sick, extreme’ Trump fixations. Megyn Kelly is just the latest.
“Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.” – Donald Trump
Fox News is shocked, utterly shocked, that its favorite billionaire is fixated on one of its anchors and calling for a boycott of her show.
“Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate,” the network huffed. “As the mother of three young children … it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.”
Someone’s got to say it: Sick right wing obsessions were just fine with Fox until Trump became consumed with his grudge against Kelly and told his nearly 7.3 million Twitter followers to boycott The Kelly File.
For at least the past five years, both Trump and Fox News have had a vitriolic and sick obsession with the idea that President Obama was born in Kenya, and therefore isn’t a natural born U.S. citizen and is ineligible for the presidency (aka the “birther” conspiracy). During the 2012 presidential campaign, Fox went full birther. In just a few weeks in spring 2011, for instance, the network devoted more than 50 segments and more than two hours of air time to the subject. Trump frequently received a free platform to promote himself and his outrageous, unsupported speculations about the location of Obama’s birthplace.
These segments were all over the Fox network, featuring Fox hosts such as Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, Jeanine Pirro, Brian Kilmeade, Greta Van Susteren, and others.
There is as much evidence for Obama being born in Kenya as for Trump being born in Mexico City and smuggled secretly into the United States. That is to say, none. The talk was as worthless as a Trump University diploma. Trump’s obsession with “birtherism” was valuable, however, for Fox’s ratings and profits — and Fox obviously didn’t care that it was bad for the country.
Trump is also obsessed with the delusion that Mexico is sending us its rapists and criminals (spoiler alert: Trump has no evidence this is happening). Fox supported Trump’s fixation on Mexican immigrants, and again gave him a platform. After all, blaming immigrants for crime was good for Fox’s ratings and profits.
Yet another of Trump’s sick fixations is with Muslim-Americans. He claims they cheered for the 9/11 attacks, but they didn’t. Trump further demands that Muslims be banned from entering the United States and that those Muslims already here register with the federal government. Again, Fox gave Trump a platform for his unsupported and inflammatory views. It was good for Fox’s ratings and profits to scapegoat a minority group.
Fox has also been chief enabler for other right-wing obsessions, such as the vitriolic and sick attacks on law student Sandra Fluke, who dared to champion a view on reproductive rights that didn’t fit the right wing political agenda. At various times on Fox, Fluke was called stupid, a slut and worse. Even Kelly joined in the attacks, saying Fluke “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” The public shaming was a warning to others who spoke up instead of bowing down to the Fox political propaganda machine.
POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media
In the face of Trump’s assault on Kelly, Fox’s concern for her children is laudable. But what about Obama’s two children? Did anyone at Fox ask how they must have felt, to continually hear broadcasts hinting that their father wasn’t really an American? And Fox clearly hasn’t been concerned about the children of Mexican-Americans or Muslim-Americans.
Fox was perfectly happy all these years to give Trump and others a platform to rant about their weird and unfounded obsessions, which often involved the trashing of innocent Americans. None of this (according to Fox) was unbecoming for a presidential candidate. Trump’s criticism of Fox, however, is unacceptable. Really, Fox? After all the hateful innuendo you’ve broadcast, including character attacks on all sorts of Americans, can you truly expect us to sympathize because Trump had the audacity to train his fire on you?
I don’t know whether we should laugh at Fox for its sudden self-righteousness, or cry for the state of our republic.
I feel for Megyn Kelly, but Fox News — you are the schoolyard bully of the American media landscape. And like all other puffed-up bullies, you can dish it out, but you just can’t take it.
Steven Strauss is the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Steven_Strauss.
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