Bannon to Ailes: Megyn Kelly ‘the devil’ and ‘will turn on you’
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon says he warned former longtime Fox News chief Roger Ailes that one of his star anchors was “the devil.”
Bannon told Politico in an interview that when he was still working with Breitbart News he told Ailes that then-Fox host Megyn Kelly was “the devil” and “will turn on you.”
Bannon’s warning about Kelly reportedly came shortly after the GOP primary debate in August 2015 hosted by Fox, during which Kelly pointedly questioned Trump about his treatment of women and other issues.
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“The big rift between Breitbart and Fox was all over Megyn Kelly,” Bannon told Politico. “She was all over Trump nonstop.”
Bannon went on to describe a “massive falling out” with Ailes over Kelly’s treatment of Trump at the 2015 debate, claiming that Ailes demanded Breitbart cease their negative coverage of Kelly’s debate performance.
Bannon had co-authored an article after the debate called “The Arrogance of Power: Megyn Kelly’s ‘Good Journalism.'”
Ailes “called me up and said, ‘You gotta knock this off,’ and I said ‘No,’” Bannon recalled in the Politico interview.
Kelly has since left Fox for a position at NBC News, while Ailes was ousted from Fox over sexual harassment claims from host Gretchen Carlson.
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