Megyn Kelly is in a tough situation.
The host rose to stardom at Fox News, but bitterly parted ways with the network, alienating a large bloc of her conservative fans.
With her new NBC show off to a rocky start, Kelly tried to create a ratings bonanza by interviewing controversial radio host Alex Jones, but the plan blew up in her face.
Kelly drew massive criticism before the interview even aired, and also lost ad revenue from Chase bank.
From The Daily Wire:
Things are getting weirder and weirder with the Megyn Kelly-Alex Jones story.
Kelly, the former Fox News anchor who jumped to NBC News for a multi-million dollar payday, saw her numbers for her second show plummet by 54% compared to her first. And perhaps in an effort to hype ratings, Kelly flew to Texas to interview Alex Jones, host of a cult radio show and editor of InfoWars.com.
Jones can be wacky: He claims the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 26 dead wasn’t real — the dead were played by actors. The radio host also contends that the September 11 attacks were an inside job. Kelly came under intense fire for giving Jones, who counts among his fans President Trump, a forum.
[…]
NBC News execs were scrambling following the furor over Kelly’s decision to give a platform to the controversial Infowars host, who claimed the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.A contrite Kelly personally called the Sandy Hook families, we’re told, to invite them on the show to counter Jones’ rhetoric.
A source told us, “NBC was scrambling to find a way out of this mess without having to back down and cancel Sunday’s episode of Megyn’s show. Megyn and her producers made numerous calls to the Sandy Hook families this week to ask them to appear on the show. Some refused because they didn’t think appearing on her show would do enough to counter Alex Jones’ venom.”
Things got worse when Jones exposed Kelly’s transparent scheme to lure him into a hit piece.
The article continues:
The Infowars founder on Thursday night hit back at Kelly before the interview even [aired]…
In a video posted to Jones’ Twitter, a recording of a…pre-interview phone call between the two is played, with…Kelly saying: “All I can do is give you my word and tell you if there’s one thing about me, I do what I say I’m gonna do, and I don’t double-cross.”
“You know you just became very fascinating to me. I just always thought you were this maybe, one-dimensional guy, like this is your thing…”
“My goal is for your listeners and the left — you know, who will be watching some on NBC — to say, ‘Wow, that was really interesting.'”
“And then the next time I wanna get somebody, they’re gonna say, ‘Look what you did to Alex Jones!’ It’s not going to be some gotcha hit piece, I promise you that.”
Amid growing anger, Kelly has been fired as the host of a Sandy Hook charity event…
Despite all of the hoopla, the ratings for the interview were abysmal.
Kelly’s first interview with Vladimir Putin did relatively well, partly because of the intrigue factor surrounding the maiden show, and also because some Democrats secretly were hoping Putin would admit to collusion on air.
Kelly still has time to find her sea legs at NBC, but she needs to develop a strategy quickly.
Kelly is currently like an expat with no country. She left behind followers at Fox and will have to decide how much to pander to new ones at NBC.