‘What in the Hell?’ CNN Stars Stunned by Megyn Kelly’s Jeffrey Epstein ‘Not a Pedophile’ Rant

Tommy ChristopherNov 14th, 2025, 8:21 am
 

CNN host Laura Coates and Democratic analyst Karen Finney were stunned and revolted by podcaster Megyn Kelly’s rant parsing deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilia, or lack thereof.

Kelly has gone viral over a two-minute segment during which she argued that Epstein was “not a pedophile,” expanding on what an unnamed confidant told her.

While describing Epstein as “sick and disgusting,” she still explored the “difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old” — claiming Epstein was “into the barely-legal type.”

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Laura Coates Live, Coates and Finney blasted Kelly over her comments, with Finney accusing Kelly of trying to create a “permission structure”:

LAURA COATES: Let’s just jump right in because we’ve heard Trump supporters grappling with the Epstein emails in a variety of different ways. You have the podcast host, Megyn Kelly, who says that she’s not excusing Epstein’s behavior, but explained why she thought he wasn’t a pedophile. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, PODCAST HOST: This is this person’s view, who was there for a lot of this. But that he was into the barely legal type —

BATYA UNGAR-SARGON:  Uh-hmm.

KELLY: — like he liked 15-year-old girls.

UNGAR-SARGON: Uh-hmm.

KELLY: I don’t know what’s true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say, I was a — like a —

UNGAR-SARGON: Uh-hmm.

KELLY: — I was under 10, I was under 14 —

UNGAR-SARGON: Uh-hmm.

KELLY: — when I first came within his purview. I — look, it’s — you can say that’s a distinction without a difference.

UNGAR-SARGON: No, it’s not.

KELLY: I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 15- year-old and a five-year-old.

UNGAR-SARGON: Yeah.

KELLY: You know, it’s just — whatever. It’s sick. Every time we start talking about Epstein, it makes your skin crawl, right? The whole thing is just disgusting.

UNGAR-SARGON: Totally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COATES: What in the hell? You had to be under 10 to be preyed upon by a grown man? No, that’s not the definition at all!

KAREN FINNEY: You know, at best, it was just a completely stupid, ignorant thing to say from somebody who knows nothing about any of it, like doesn’t understand having worked with survivors, how they — you know, how they groom people, how they go after people.

But it also, at worst, sounded like despite the protestation, like creating some kind of permission structure. Oh, it’s okay, because they weren’t under 10. I mean, I — if you’ve seen some of the — I think when we look at these young women now, they’re women, but they were girls when this happened. One of them had braces, for God’s sakes, when she was first being courted by Ghislaine Maxwell.

And I think the real problem with this story, it’s not going away. These women, God bless them, are not going away. And now that they’ve even said, now that they are aware of each other and have created this kind of sisterhood, they realized they’re not alone.

COATES: Yeah.

FINNEY: But I think for the Republican Party, part of the problem is the question is going to become very quickly, when this discharge petition comes for a vote on the floor, House floor, and then to the Senate, whether it passes there, and potentially to the president’s desk, are you on the side of protecting pedophiles or are you on the side — like, are you going to protect pedophiles or are you going to do the right thing?

Watch above via CNN’s Laura Coates Live.

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