Chuck Todd Says Fox's Megyn Kelly Part of the 'Conservative Media Complex'
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly has long been presented as the face of the network's "hard news" side that eschews the partisanship of the channel's opinion programming. On Thursday morning's The Daily Rundown, however, host and NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd casually tossed aside that distinction when he included Kelly's interview with 90s Bill Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey in a list of attempts by the "conservative media complex" to toxify the former President.
"It's been back to the '90s in politics these last few weeks," Todd said, joking "Get the old VCR out and watch Singles, right?"
He detailed the current spate of conservative attacks on Hillary Clinton involving former President Bill Clinton, including Sen. Rand Paul's revival of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the publication of papers by confidante Diane Blair, and "on Tuesday, Fox News aired an interview with Kathleen Willey, who, back in 1998, alleged that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted her."
Todd added that "The conservative media complex's intent appears to be to knock Hillary Clinton and feed the 'Clinton fatigue' narrative," but went on to theorize that the shorter-term intent may be to neutralize Bill Clinton as a campaign asset for Democrats in the midterm elections.
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Todd was referring to Kelly's interview of Willey earlier this week, in which Willey renewed a raft of accusations against Hillary Clinton, including the possible abduction and/or killing of Willey's cat. The bulk of the interview consisted of Willey repeating variations on the theme "Hillary is the War on Women," but toward the end of the nine-minute segment, Kelly did challenge Willey's credibility by pointing out significant lies that she had told to the FBI. Willey admitted to the "mistakes," but told Kelly that they paled in comparison to the allegations she expects people to believe about Hillary Clinton.
Kelly's premise for interviewing Kathleen Willey in the first place is that her name has come up recently in the reporting on the Diane Blair papers that Chuck Todd also mentioned. Those papers were made public in 2010, but were thrust into the current news cycle by The Washington Free Beacon's reporting on them.
