Independent journalist and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly said that Fox News “missed an opportunity” by failing to make sure that President Donald Trump is being “represented” on its shows.
Kelly spoke with SeriousXM host Dan Abrams on Thursday about her former network’s post-election coverage. She said that Fox News’ coverage has appeared to be sporadic and inconsistent across shows, leading to confusion for many viewers who previously looked to Fox to give Trump’s side of an issue when other major networks will not.
The former Fox News host also said that the insurgent outlets Newsmax and One America News Network (OANN) have benefited by filling the “lane” of a pro-Trump news outlet. Kelly told Abrams:
Well, it’s definitely strategic by Newsmax and OANN, you know, to sort of go into this lane that is uncovered right now for the diehard Trump fans who just won’t believe, or who are following everything he says as gospel. They got nobody to represent them right now, so it’s smart as a business decision. You know, I’ve long since abandoned the notion that the press is a public service. It’s a business, and as a business decision you can’t really argue with it because Newsmax is suddenly getting a million viewers a show and it was getting, like, 100,000. So it’s been smart from that standpoint.
As I watch the Fox News coverage, I can’t help but think about how Roger Ailes would have handled it because he was always trying to keep the flanks of the party together at Fox. You know, he understood that he had the National Review Republicans – you know, sort of the high-brow – and then he also knew he had the Breitbart crowd, which is more street-fighter, working class, like, bring it – the Trump fans. The first ones, they voted Trump but they kind of held their noses. The second ones, they voted Trump and they’ll die for Trump. And I think Roger Ailes would have been saying, make sure they’re represented. Make sure we’re not so, like, ‘It’s over,’ that they don’t feel there’s any channel in the United States that’s even giving a nod to Trump’s point-of-view, his arguments, or the way they feel.
And I think Fox is sort of missing that. It’s sort of catch-as-catch-can. Like, Hannity says what he says. Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo are over here, but then you’ve got Bret Baier and Martha. You’re getting different messaging hour-to-hour, and I think people are confused and I think if Roger were there, he’d be saying as least get one pundit on in all of these shows to at least make the president’s case. And I think they missed an opportunity by not doing that.
Abrams then asked Kelly if she thought Fox News would be referring to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as president-elect if Ailes were still in charge.
“I think they wouldn’t because Roger, I mean maybe people do know this, but Roger was much more conspiratorial than people really knew. I mean, if you could have heard what he said behind closed doors about any given conspiracy of the day, like, ‘is Obama a Muslim?’ you would have been pretty surprised,” Kelly said. “So, you know, there are a lot of layers – notwithstanding what people believe – between usually what Roger thought and what got on the air other than on certain shows. And so I do think he would’ve said, ‘don’t say that.’”
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.