Approvingly referencing the former Fox News chief she helped take down due to his sexual harassment of her, Megyn Kelly defended Donald Trump’s sexist attack on CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, saying Roger Ailes “used to tell” her that “you have to smile.”
Kelly’s remarks came at the top of her extremely chummy interview with JD Vance, which saw the vice president insist that Trump was being “so perceptive” when he berated Collins for not smiling while she questioned him about the survivors of deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.
During an Oval Office event on Tuesday, Collins asked the president about the latest tranche of documents related to the Epstein case that were released by the Justice Department, wondering if Trump had anything to say to the victims who have yet to get justice. The president, who has ramped up his misogynistic attacks on female reporters (including Collins) in recent months, lashed out at the CNN star as she continued to press him for a response.
“You are the worst reporter. You know, she’s a young woman,” he huffed, briefly turning to someone else before turning his attention back to Collins. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.”
While Colins attempted to explain that she was asking about the survivors of Epstein’s sexual assaults and trafficking, only for the president to speak over her and say the reason she doesn’t smile is because “you know you’re not telling the truth.” He then went on to grumble that “CNN has no ratings because of people like” Collins.
With other journalists and publications calling out the president for his “misogynistic language” while noting he’s regularly attacked Collins in the past and recently called another female reporter “piggy,” Vance took the opportunity to chuckle over Trump’s insult while insisting it was just about making journalists enjoy their jobs a little more.
“And I have, like, a decent relationship with Kaitlan Collins, which is unusual given that she’s from CNN. But the president — she’s asking a question — the president says, why don’t you ever smile?” Vance told Kelly.
“And it’s actually, like, so perceptive,” the vice president continued. “Even if you’re asking a tough question, even if you take your job very seriously, like, why does it always have to be so antagonistic?”
Kelly, a former Fox News anchor who was one of nearly two dozen women at the network who accused Ailes of sexual harassment before he was fired in 2016, brought up the late conservative TV executive’s advice to her and others to justify Trump’s attack on Collins. She also criticized other media figures for accusing Trump of sexism over his remarks.
“Well, I laugh because I saw online everybody was calling him sexist for saying that, and I literally said the same thing about Kaitlan Collins a year ago on my show. She never smiles,” Kelly declared, prompting Vance to agree with her.
“Every once in a while, you have to smile. Roger Ailes used to tell us that,” the right-wing podcaster exclaimed. “Every once in a while, you got to remember to smile, show the viewers that you have a heart.”
Vance, meanwhile, asserted that Collins needed to “just have some fun” because “you can’t always take yourself too seriously,” otherwise “you’re going to have a heart attack.”
Before Kelly was praising her late boss for telling his women employees to smile more often, she had been one of the key players in getting Ailes removed from Fox News following complaints that he had engaged in decades of sexual misconduct at the conservative cable giant.
After former Fox & Friends star Gretchen Carlson accused Ailes of “severe and persistent sexual harassment” and attempting to tank her career for refusing his advances, which she said eventually led to her being fired in 2016, Kelly eventually came forward and acknowledged that Ailes had sexually harassed her a decade earlier.
With other women also alleging they were victims of Ailes’ sexual misconduct, pressure mounted on Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch to fire the architect of the right-wing network, eventually resulting in Ailes offering his resignation.
In her 2016 book Settle for More, Kelly wrote that she didn’t come forward sooner with her allegations because it would have been a “suicide mission” for her career and she thought she was the only one harassed by Ailes.
“He tried to kiss me three times, so I rejected that, and when I rejected that, he asked me when my contract was up,” she told ABC News in November 2016. “As soon as I left his office, I called a lawyer, and I did bring the matter to a supervisor at Fox News.”Kelly added that the supervisor “vouched for Roger’s character, assured me that he was a good man, that he was likely just smitten and that I should try to avoid him, which I did.” She also stated that Ailes eventually stopped after she avoided him for a few months.
In a discussion with other accusers of Ailes in 2020, Kelly talked about the movie Bombshell – a dramatization of the Ailes saga – and reacted to a scene in which a fictional character played by Margot Robbie is asked to spin in front of the Fox News chief so he could ogle her body.
“I was asked to do the spin, and God help me, I did it,” she said, adding: “If you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you. I’d give anything if I had said no.”
