Megan Kelly has come under fire for an interview she did with InfoWars’ host Alex Jones. Kelly’s interview was intended for her new NBC newsmagazine ‘Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly.’ The controversy came after she released a preview clip on Twitter, questioning Jones on his conspiracy theories about 9/11 and Sandy Hook.
Sparkling controversy with Alex Jones
Alex Jones, the far-right radio show host, filmmaker and writer is one polarizing character. He hosts ‘The Alex Jones Show,’ and is the admin of the website ‘InfoWars.com’ – labeled as a fake news website. But he’s best known as a very controversial conspiracy theorist.
Jones has accused the U.S. government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks and faking the Moon landings. One of his most noisy statements is about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting – which left 20 children and 6 adults dead – being staged, and that the parents of the students killed at the school in 2012 were actors.
Attacks against Kelly come especially after the last statement. On the clip she shared, she’s seen sitting in front of Jones challenging him about his controversial theory. “When you say, parents… faked their children’s death, people get very angry,” Kelly said.
Jones shot back, saying, “But they don’t get angry about half-a-million dead Iraqis killed by sanctions.” Kelly accused him of dodging his question, and he replies: “I looked at all the angles about Newton, I made my statement before the other media picked it up.”
When Kelly said that that didn’t justify what he did, he dodged the topic accusing the media of not covering “real” stories. “Thirty years ago, they began creating animal-human hybrids. Isn’t that the big story Megyn Kelly Should be doing?” he asked.
Kelly was removed as the host of a Sandy Hook event
Pretty much everyone went nuts after the clip was posted. Several people, including parents of the Sandy Hook attack victims, took on Twitter to bash Kelly and NBC, calling it shameful ratings play.
The TV host, who debuted on NBC with her show earlier this month, was the planned host of the annual Promise Champions Gala. An event produced by the Sandy Hook Promise organization, on Wednesday, June 14, in Washington D.C. But after the polemic interview – that hasn’t even aired yet –, the organization decided to dismiss Kelly.
Nicole Hockley, who lost her 6-year-old son, Dylan, in the shooting, co-founded Sandy Hook Promise. “Sandy Hook Promise cannot support the decision by Megyn or NBC to give any form of voice or platform to Alex Jones. We have asked Megyn Kelly to step down as our Promise Champion Gala host,” she said in a statement on Monday. “It is our hope that Megyn and NBC reconsider and not broadcast this interview.”
However, Kelly has defended the interview, insisting that the public needs to know more about the man with such “revolting” theories. And how he has the respect of the president of the United States.
“President Trump, by praising and citing him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many,” Kelly said in a statement, adding that, as a journalist, she has the duty to expose Jones falsehoods.
Despite demands, the interview will still air
Families of victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy say that the interview will give Jones a chance in the national spotlight to justify his theories that are already dangerously followed. They are demanding NBC News to pull the interview, and advertisers to pull off of Kelly’s newsmag. However, the interview will still broadcast next Sunday.
A Wall Street Journal report says that advertiser JPMorgan Chase has already pulled its network ads until after June 18. NBC initially didn’t comment on the controversy. But late Monday, the ‘Sunday Night’ show executive producer Liz Cole, told CNN the interview would air as planned.
“Until you see the full program, in the full context, I wouldn’t judge it too much,” she said. “Judge it when you see it. Megyn does a strong interview. We’re not just giving him a platform … Viewers will see Megyn do a strong interview where she challenges him appropriately… That’s the benefit of putting him out there. When someone actually sits down and asks him questions and he has to come up with answers — there’s value to that,” she added.
Even Jones thinks the interview shouldn’t air – or in a more Jones way, his followers should hate-watch it. “Not feminine. Cold. Robotic. Dead,” he said of Kelly. “I felt zero attraction to Megyn Kelly. That’s not an insult to Megyn Kelly,” he added, also calling her “a sociopath.”
On Monday, he called for the spot to be canceled and issued a 40-minute response on InfoWars, saying that he believes he was misrepresented after watching NBC’s preview.
“It uses me as a sock puppet or a straw man … to hurt people’s feelings or to drive a wedge in this country,” he said, adding that he feels sorry about those affected by the massacre. He also said that he believes the interview was intentionally set to air on Father’s Day to make him look bad.
He also backed out his repeated affirmations of the Sandy Hook being a hoax. As he acknowledged that the shooting did happen and that children were killed, only that the media “exacerbated” it to fit the ends of “globalists,” a group he’s constantly ranting.
However, an article entitled “FBI Says No One Killed at Sandy Hook” published in 2014 still appears on InfoWars.