Megyn Kelly knows what she is doing in that dress “just because I am a blonde and I wear a sexy dress that doesn’t make me a binocular.”
When you first feel the power of life, can you recall?
I always feel that I have a strong voice, I can let myself hear it. As a broadcaster, in this industry, I want to say that until I can realize what I can say during the prime time of Fox News, it may make headlines or make people feel uneasy. If I choose to comment on a particular issue, I might actually have an impact on it.
I want to ask you about your interaction with Trump. During the presidential debate, when you ask him about the treatment of women and how she talks about them, do you realize how it affects people?
My job is to go out and challenge powerful people. On the night of the debate in 2016, I realized that Trump didn’t like my problem and he might get angry. But what can you do? I have a job to do, I did. How can I accurately predict what he will do and what kind of story will it be?
After the debate, Trump tried to bully me for nine months. I have never changed my report. I worked hard on him as before, but he won’t knock it down. Until today, I don’t know what’s in his mind, but I do think he was really angry at first. Then I believe he likes this story. He likes to create media stories and I became one of his favorites. Once I went to the Trump Tower and told him I didn’t like it. He agreed to let go, but he regretted seeing it because I thought he liked the subject.
Sometimes it seems that he thinks he is almost helping others, or he performs well in some way when he attacks them because he assumes –
He is improving you. Trump is a natural boxer. He doesn’t care. Shortly after the Trump Building agreement, I sat down with him for an interview. In that interview I had only one goal: to see if Donald Trump had any empathy. If you go back and see that it is my goal, then these questions will make a lot of sense.
I don’t think he will consider it based on his feelings. He won’t see the world like that. He really only sees the world through how it affects his prism. He likes to pick this woman, the anchor of Fox News, doing a lot of things that are considered to be disgusting to women or gender discrimination, and still the leader of Republicans and nominees. For him, victory is more sweet, ignoring these possibilities.
Do you consciously want to be a powerful person?
Never, forever. I became a lawyer who was taken seriously. I didn’t come from a power circle at all. I have not even established contact with anyone in a favorable position. This is what I paid most attention to in the early days of the law: take it seriously. Be a thinker. Become a person who can be respected in the circle of brain scholars. That luster soon disappeared. I did learn from my first job because you are good at something, just because you are respected doesn’t mean it makes you happy. I am going to be a partner at Jones Day. I just don’t care.
You are a lawyer and then you become a news anchor. What makes you have enough confidence to make such a leap?
My career changes from law to television are all unhappy. I was burned. I left everyone in my 20s in the office. Every vacation we spent, I found FedExes on the beach. I have no memories, sitting in a lounge chair without a pile of documents. No Thanksgiving, no Christmas, I have no material to review. I won’t be defeated by my opponent. I never thought I was the smartest person in the court, but I will never be defeated. I remember one day I drove in Kennedy [Highway] one night and went home in Chicago at two or three in the morning, hoping for a car accident, where I would break an important body part, like the femur, which made me feel I am happy that there are no commissions for a few weeks. It needs to be an important thing so that I have a reasonable excuse not to go to work.
I am practicing in Chicago on 9/11. I went home like the rest of the country and looked at the tower. Ashleigh Banfield is on the streets of New York: she is calm, cool, and collects. I think how much service she has done for the country. She did not try to make me too emotional, she did not leave her own humanity, she is advancing this story every time she goes to find her. At that time, I knew that I would leave the law and walk to the lowest level of the news totem pole. I was very excited.
