Settle for More

by Megyn Kelly

  I returned to New York to more vitriol—messages calling me misogynistic names or people returning their signed head shots of me, writing the word traitor across the picture. I wondered what kind of person spends the Christmas holiday sending hate mail.

  I received a nice message from—of all people—Dr. Phil, and it lifted my spirits. He reminded me that bullies who poke you with a stick want to see you jump. Not long after that, he came to Fox for a promotional appearance on The Kelly File, and an incredible thing happened—we became friends. It won’t surprise you to learn how much that meant to me. He told me about an interview he had given shortly after one of Trump’s tirades against me. He told the reporter, “Successful lawyer, top journalist, wife, mother of three children—if that’s a bimbo, I hope all of my granddaughters grow up to be bimbos.” I loved that, and I am still floored by the fact that the man who changed my life from the Oprah set is now someone I can call for advice.

  We spent most of January preparing for the next Fox News debate in Iowa. Trump was firing off nasty tweets about me here and there, but nothing too incendiary, until the Saturday before the debate, when out of the blue, he threatened not to come.

  He went on Twitter and asked his followers if he should go to the debate at all. He accused me of being unfair. For the first time I thought, Is this real? Or is this for attention? With Trump, you just never know.

  Sunday, he kept at it. Tweet, tweet, tweet.

  At the same time, Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, made a phone call to Bill Sammon and tried to get me booted off the debate team. When Sammon told him that was out of the question, Lewandowski threatened me, saying I’d had a “rough couple of days after that last debate,” and he “would hate to have [me] go through that again.”3 The tone was unmistakable. Sammon warned Lewandowski that he was out of line. I was far from the only woman or reporter Lewandowski had threatened during Trump’s campaign. Trump fired him many months later. Then CNN hired him for a reported $500,000 a year.

  That Monday, January 25, Trump went on CNN to say he might not show because of me: “I don’t like her. She doesn’t treat me fairly. I’m not a big fan of hers at all.” I was at a loss—why would he allow me to have so much of a role in his campaign? He told CNN he might be the best thing that had ever happened to me, saying no one had ever heard of me before my dust-up with him. Obviously not true, but typical Trump.

  There were some editorials about the sexism of this claim,4 but that wasn’t my reaction. My main thought was how ironic it was for him to suggest he had made my career while he was in fact trying to destroy it. And how ironic of him to suggest that I was the one who needed a man’s help to succeed, given our relative backgrounds and fathers.

  On Tuesday, Trump kept at it—he put up an Instagram poll asking his followers if he should participate in the debate, given my involvement. He was upping the ante.

  Later Trump posted a video of himself with the caption, “Should I do the #GOPdebate?” In the video, he says into the camera, “Megyn Kelly is really biased against me. She knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?”

  I was in disbelief. Doug joked, “Should we vote?”

  Trump’s taking to Instagram was the last straw for Roger. He fired off a statement dripping with sarcasm. It read in part, “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president.”

  Within a few hours, Trump bailed from the debate, citing Roger’s statement as his sole reason. It was, once again, the lead on every national news network, and once again many in the media seemed to be taking at face value Trump’s explanation—too lazy to look back at the preceding days and Trump’s crescendo of complaints about me.

  Roger canceled a couple of interviews Trump had scheduled on Fox, including—I was told—one set for twenty-four hours prior to the debate on The O’Reilly Factor. But O’Reilly refused to cancel Trump. Sure enough, Trump appeared and went on the attack, over and over again. There was no context offered for how we had gotten here: that Trump had spent the previous six months attacking Fox and me, including another “bimbo” tweet just that morning. Instead, O’Reilly apologized to Trump, extolled the virtues of “forgiveness,” and asked Trump to consider turning the other cheek. From what? I wondered. O’Reilly ended the interview by joking about all the milkshakes he and Trump had shared together.

  I was sitting in my makeup chair in Iowa, getting ready for my show, when I saw it. To me, it was the culmination of so much that had taken place since Trump began his tirade six months earlier—the unchallenged attacks, the misinformation, the tension in my own work environment. For the first time since August, I felt a surge of anger, and then—finally—a surge of tears. I put my hand over my eyes.

  “It’s too much,” Vincenza said softly. And that was how it felt to me: like too much.

  While I wasn’t happy with that interview, the truth is, Bill has done far more good than bad for me over the course of my career. And he, too, was in an awkward spot that night. I believe he was genuinely trying to get Trump to reconsider his decision to skip the Fox News debate, and did not want to antagonize him. In time, I let go of it and moved on.

  Debate day arrived, and I awoke to see that Trump had retweeted a fake picture of me with two Saudis, wearing full Muslim garb. Abby tried to keep it from me, concerned it was some sort of dog whistle to those who might be anti-Muslim, and that it might lead to even more aggressive post-Trump threats than usual. I had security with me, and tried to put it out of my mind.

  The Trump-less debate went great. Many commentators remarked afterward on how refreshing it was to watch the candidates define themselves on their own terms, rather than in relation to Trump.5 Some also noted my new, much shorter haircut.6 I loved cutting my hair off. It felt empowering—like saying, “Here I am. Have at it.”

  I had actually cut my hair a couple of months earlier, just before Halloween, but this was a big night, so more people noticed. It took some of the wind out of our Halloween costumes—Doug and I, happy to make fun of a ridiculous situation, went as Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly. (When Doug went into the costume store to buy a “Make America Great Again” hat and a wig, the checkout girl actually asked him, “Does your wife need a Megyn Kelly outfit?”) We headed out on Halloween, and a stranger—seeing the new hair—dropped a line on Doug straight out of the movie Dave, in which a presidential look-alike tries to pass himself off as the president, going out in public with the actual first lady: “You’re good; she needs some work.”

  So that was that. The second Fox News debate was over. I was relieved. We stayed to cover the Iowa caucuses, which Trump lost. He later blamed his loss in part on his decision to skip the debate—his final job interview. We covered the results, and then went home.

  Even though Trump lost Iowa, his poll numbers continued to rise. I couldn’t say whether the attacks on me (or others, for that matter) were directly helping him, but they definitely generated media coverage and kept Trump in the news, which is just where he loved to be.

  I marveled at how women were flocking to Trump notwithstanding the nature of his attacks, which by this point had expanded to Carly Fiorina (over time, his numbers with women would crater). But I also understood their anger at the politicians in Washington that had so let them down. In Trump, they had found someone they believed was a fighter, someone who would go to bat for them whether others liked it or not. He said our elected leaders were losers; that we never win anymore; that with him, we would win so much we’d get tired of winning. He sold his candidacy as something bigger than regime change—he pitched it as the chance to feel good about ourselves again, to feel strong.

  After Trump lost Iowa, he went on to win New Hampshire and South Carolina. This is happening, pundits started to realize. My mom called me up and said, “He’s right about one thing—I’m getting tired of the winning.”


  No sooner did I arrive back in New York than we had to start preparing for our next debate, which was just thirty days away, on March 3, in Detroit. Again? Debate prep is the most intense work we do. The researching, fact-checking, and question-writing process is meticulous and thorough. That alone requires dozens of hours—but the added layer of “What’s Trump going to do next?” was an extra stressor, and an unwelcome distraction.

  Through all of this I was doing my nightly show, which was full of Trump news. I was determined to live up to the promise I had made months earlier, on my first day back from vacation, to cover Trump fairly and without fear. I asked my team to help: if they saw the show tilting too far in any direction—too hard on Trump, out of a desire to punish him, or too soft, out of a desire to appease him—they had an invitation and an obligation to speak up. Night after night, we did our best. These are seasoned professionals—they care deeply about the viewers, and the product we put on air each night. Trump and some of his supporters felt we were too hard on him. I would argue we merely stood out by comparison.

  Doug and I were raising our children. I was writing this book. I was starting to work on a special for Fox Broadcasting, a Barbara Walters–type in-depth interview show. There was a lot going on. I wasn’t seeing enough of my family. When I go too long without spending ample time with my children, my heart aches. I am not happy. Abby usually guards my schedule to protect my family time, but Abby suddenly had a family issue of her own—her first baby arrived, two months early. She and little Aubrey were fine, thank God, but just like that, Abby was gone, much earlier than expected. My friend, my confidante. I missed her terribly. Her fill-in, Emily Jeffers, fresh out of college, got a jaw-dropping introduction to life in cable news.

  It started to feel like my law days again. Acrimony. Long hours. Too little fun. That’s okay for a while. Work doesn’t need to be fun at all times. Work pays the bills, and in the case of TV news, it’s also a public service. But if something that was good morphs into something that’s not good—and is not changing back—one has to stay conscious of that too. Settling for more is not an endgame—it’s an active process. It means staying aware of one’s surroundings, because “more” is a fluid concept. Life changes, and requires that we change too.

  Before I knew it, it was time for the third Fox debate in Detroit. Trump would be at this one.

  I spent debate day in a makeshift office at the fabulous Fox Theatre, reading up on Trump University, which I knew would come up that night. Just before I headed down to the stage, Yates and Yardley, fresh off a plane, burst into my office with Doug. What a perspective setter. Just in case you were thinking this debate mattered to your life at all, Mom, we’re here to remind you that it doesn’t. Being in their presence is grounding. They’re like an elixir in times of stress.

  Yardley said she was a little nervous.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “I’m afraid of Donald Trump,” she said softly. “He wants to hurt me.”

  “No, he does not!” I emphatically corrected. Doug and I exchanged a shocked look.

  “Well, he wants to hurt you, so he wants to hurt me too,” she countered.

  “No, honey. Never.”

  Doug and I had never discussed—and never would discuss—threats in front of our children.

  “Donald Trump does not want to hurt Mommy. We just had a little disagreement,” I said. “We’re friends now,” I lied. “And he’s a good daddy. He would never, ever hurt you.”

  Doug and I looked at each other again, eyebrows raised. Yards seemed to feel better.

  As surprising as this exchange with my child was, there were plenty of other contenders for most memorable moment of the Trump absurdity, like this one:

  “Mommy, what’s a bimbo?” Yardley asked one day upon returning from school.

  “What?”

  “What’s a bimbo?”

  I could not believe my ears. We certainly had never told Yardley, nor any of our children, that Trump had used that word about me. But she lives in this world, and sometimes well-meaning people, or kids, can say things, not knowing the effect they will have.

  “It’s a not-nice word for a woman,” I said.

  What a moment. The same girl who the previous summer, surrounded by the most accomplished, powerful women in America, believed she was one of them was now afraid of the man who might be president, and asking me what the word bimbo meant. To this day I think about that juxtaposition, and the loss she suffered, which she doesn’t yet realize.

  Bret, Chris, and I took to the stage. Trump was directly in front of me. I didn’t speak much until about thirty minutes into it. Then it was my turn. We were both polite.

  “You’re looking well,” he said.

  “As are you,” I responded.

  The Q and A went fine. Bret and I shot each other a look that said, That went well. Off we go.

  That debate was raucous. Rubio’s campaign was flailing, and so was he. He tried getting crass with Trump, and it did not go well for anyone. Trump infamously used his time onstage to tout the alleged size of his manhood. Bret, Chris, and I kept our cool. When the cameras weren’t on us, Bret and I again looked at each other: Did he really just say that?

  I hit Trump with a videotape question, getting right to the heart of some of his many position reversals. Wallace pressed Trump on his economic arguments, and hit him with a fact-check that would make big headlines the next day. Still, no signs of anger—so far, so good.

  As predicted, Trump University did come up. This was a school Trump had started for aspiring real estate moguls that resulted in a class action for fraud. A court compared the plaintiffs to the victims of Bernie Madoff. The school was ultimately closed. At the time, it had a D-minus rating from the Better Business Bureau. As he had done before, Trump denied this fact at the debate. I challenged him, which led to a contentious exchange between us. Trump was clearly irritated by it, but after the debate, he seemed just fine—he told reporters that everyone did well, that he believed I had been fair.

  I did my show that night from inside the Fox Theatre. Doug came over moments before and gave me a long hug. It said more than Congratulations. It felt more like You made it.

  It had been a long eight months. Doug and I had been in the bunker together. He had weathered every Trump attack right by my side—in fact, the experience had been harder for Doug in many ways, as sometimes it is more painful for someone to watch a loved one get attacked than to be directly on the receiving end. Many times Doug had wanted to respond to Trump: to call him up, to write an op-ed, to track him down and let him have it. But he knew that wouldn’t help anything. We had to stay quiet and let the storm pass.

  Vincenza captured that hug on camera. When I look at it now, I remember the exact feelings I had in the moment—love for my husband, and such gratitude that I have him.

  I felt like we had finally turned a corner, that this thing with Trump was finally over.

  I should have known that when it came to Trump, it was never over.

  On Tuesday, March 8, Trump won the Michigan primary. The following Sunday, he started in again on me. He let loose on Fox News Sunday, complaining about our Trump University exchange. What happened in that week after the debate? To this day, I do not know.

  A week after Michigan, Trump won Florida, ending Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. In the wake of his victory, he celebrated by ramping up his attacks on me. As the Washington Examiner put it, “GOP front-runner Donald Trump took aim at Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Tuesday evening with a flurry of insults over Twitter, just moments after he was declared the winner in Florida’s Republican primary.”7

  He fired off a slew of tweets: Crazy @megynkelly is unwatchable. Can’t watch Crazy Megyn anymore. Talks about me at 43% but never mentions that there are four people in race. With two people, big & over!

  Many anchors were quoting the same poll numbers, but hearing it from me was always different for Trump. Or maybe I was just part of his game. Here we
go again, I thought.

  Tom Lowell and I worried at times that the calls for a boycott would have an effect. Roger put my mind at ease. “In forty years I’ve never seen a call for a boycott work,” he said. And he was right—my numbers remained very strong throughout the Year of Trump.

  But Trump’s campaign against me did have serious ramifications. Every time Trump acted up, so did his supporters. Every time he tweeted about me, it was like he flipped a switch, instantly causing a flood of intense nastiness. The number of harassing tweets, Facebook messages, online comments, articles, and even negative face-to-face public interactions would increase exponentially. There would be more strategy meetings at work, more stressful calls from my boss at all hours. There would be heightened security issues when I left Fox News at night, and when I arrived home. One night, after a Trump attack, a suspicious man showed up in the lobby of my apartment building close to midnight, demanding to see me. When questioned by the doorman, he turned and ran. How did he know where I live? Where my kids live?

  Paparazzi and other unfamiliar men started showing up—a first for us in New York—on the sidewalk outside of our building, taking pictures of me and Doug and our children. Part of this was laughable. We imagined the photographers watching our every errand with bated breath: There they go! To . . . Petco! Extra, extra! What’s in the bag? . . . Pet fish! Stop the presses!

  Thankfully we managed to keep the pictures of our kids from being published, or at least to have their faces blurred. (We don’t publicize or post online pictures of our kids, due to security concerns, and out of respect for their privacy.)

  The voice messages, hate mail, and online attacks would also spike after each Trump tweet. I had perspective on them—I realized this wasn’t fighting in Syria—but it wasn’t a day at the beach either. A sampling on a typical day:

  You’re a real cunt!