Megyn Kelly Shreds Former Fox Colleague Sean Hannity For Giving ‘Zero Pushback’ to ‘Homicidal Maniac’ Lindsey Graham
Megyn Kelly shredded her former Fox News colleague Sean Hannity for giving “zero pushback” to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whom she called a “homicidal maniac” for his “bloodthirsty” comments about the war in Iran.
Graham has loudly pushed for the U.S. to take a more aggressive approach to Iran for years and has been a cheerleader for President Donald Trump’s recent military strikes there, jointly conducted with Israel. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in one of the strikes, and another hit an elementary school, killing at least 175 people, mostly young girls who were students there. Trump has denied the U.S. was responsible, but media reports have shown it was a Tomahawk missile that hit the school — a weapon that only the U.S. has, not Iran or Israel.
The South Carolina senator was on Hannity Monday night to discuss the latest developments in Iran, vociferously expressing his support for Israel, saying he wanted to enter into a “mutual defense agreement” with Saudi Arabia, urging Trump to “move all our bases out of Spain,” and declaring that it would be a “mistake” if the U.S. ended the military operations in Iran without toppling the regime. Graham also drew bipartisan criticism for his comments about asking Americans to “send their sons and daughters over to the Mideast” to fight in the war.
On Tuesday’s episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, Kelly excoriated Graham as a “homicidal maniac” for his views on Iran and the Middle East.
“The United States has a growing internal threat that must be dealt with, and his name is Senator Lindsey Graham,” said Kelly, lamenting how Trump “apparently loves and listens” to the senator, calling that “a grave threat to us all.”
She then turned her firepower towards Hannity, saying he “is Lindsey Graham by a different name,” and deriding her former colleagues as Graham’s “cohort at Fox News.”
“It’s amazing to me to watch them cheerlead this,” she continued, mentioning the seven U.S. service members and 175 schoolgirls who were dead and noting that while Trump was disputing that the school was struck by an American missile, The Wall Street Journal reported that it was, and several Republican senators said it looked like we were responsible as well. She also touched on issues related to volatility in oil prices and the potential effect on the midterm elections.
“None of this is good, okay, and you would think, at a minimum, somebody like Senator Graham would pause and not look so bloodthirsty,” said Kelly.
“How does that make the Trump administration look good?” she asked, when Graham was acting as one of the president’s chief advisers and was looking “so cavalier about the death unfolding in the Middle East right now and the likelihood of more to come.”
Kelly then cued up several clips of Graham’s appearance on Hannity, saying it was “obscene” how the senator sounded “like he was our Secretary of State or even our president.”
“Who does he think he is? No one elected him as president. No one ever would!” she declared, saying Graham “thinks he’s the commander-in-chief” and is “starting to sound truly deluded, like someone needs a psychiatric intervention.”
Graham was “not even representing the interest of South Carolina,” she said, pointing to his comments about supporting Israel.
“You are an American senator representing the interests of South Carolinians who put you in office, sir,” she scolded. “Not Israel! You don’t work for them, Lindsay! This is getting insane, you guys. Someone needs to reel him in, and he needs to be absolutely nowhere near the president’s orbit, as I said yesterday.”
Fox News drew Kelly’s ire for “parading [Graham] around on all of its shows like he’s a Hefner bunny in stockings and a bushy tail. They know exactly what President Trump wants to see and the messaging he wants to hear.”
Graham’s messaging was “as bellicose and war-hungry as you could possibly imagine,” “an isolationist or non-interventionalist’s worst nightmare,” and “exactly the opposite of what President Trump ran on,” she said, “and yet, Fox News is salivating over the prospect of more war, an extended conflict, and Lindsey Graham is its spokesperson.”
Introducing another clip of Graham on Hannity, Kelly lambasted the host.
“I just have to say upfront, Hannity offered zero pushback to any of this,” she said, questioning why Hannity couldn’t “do your viewers the service of just saying at least…here’s what your critics are saying, here’s what the president’s critics are saying.”
She continued:
Fox prizes itself on having, allegedly, more independents watching its programming than any other cable news channel. Well, that’s not saying much, but why not service them and offer both sides? Like, at least you’re not going to have somebody who actually disagrees with Lindsey Graham, but you as the anchor — I used to do this, I know a thing or two about how to anchor a show that would wind up becoming the number one show in cable — for a Fox News audience in a way that’s meaningful, offer push back if you don’t have the other side. You, Sean, have to be the other side!
I mean, that’s what Roger Ailes praised all the time, when I was at Fox. He loved it when you did that because he thought it was a service to the audience.
Those days are gone. Now it’s you cheerlead the war, support the military-industrial complex, or it’s — you’re a loser. It’s just it’s infuriating because we’re talking about life and death. We’re talking about American life or death.
It was “a dereliction of duty,” said Kelly, how “at one point [Hannity] let Senator Lindsey Graham speak uninterrupted for six minutes. Six minutes!”
Watching Fox “appears to be the president’s main way of achieving an information briefing,” said Kelly, and Trump had “been praising Lindsey Graham’s appearances, which is why Fox News puts him on more and why Lindsey Graham feels totally at ease sounding like he’s got the president’s job.”
“We elected President Trump,” she said. “That’s who we want in that office. We do not want some crazed, childless maniac from South Carolina calling the shots in the Middle East.”
Kelly blasted Graham for several more minutes, calling it “outrageous” and “crazy” how he was pushing for war when that was not what Trump’s voters wanted.
“Someone has to step in, someone who loves the president,” said Kelly, naming Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump as examples, “someone who he respects.”
Kelly acknowledged that she “used to be very ‘neoconnie’ while on Fox,” explaining that was “one of the reasons I’m so anti-war right now”:
I participated in this. I helped cheerlead it. I blindly supported the administration and its lies about the war when George W. Bush was president.
And I didn’t know they were lies at the time. I just unquestionably — unquestioningly followed them, swallowed them, and then delivered them to an audience, which kept approval numbers at a decent rate, at least within the Republican party.
So, I know how the game works and the game is dishonest and I refuse — refuse — to be a part of that again.
Watch above via The Megyn Kelly Show on YouTube.
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