I Love You Ellen DeGeneres, But You’re a Hypocrite

Ellen DeGeneres is a national treasure. Her career has spanned decades from comedian, to actress, to talk show host and she was a trailblazer for the LGBTQ community. She’s warm, funny, charitable, and overall seems like a decent human being.

But even the greatest of human beings can be hypocrites.

Earlier this week, she sat down with Megyn Kelly, whose daytime talk show airs next week on NBC. And there was a portion of the interview when DeGeneres asked Kelly whether she’d have President Trump on her show.

“Definitely,” Kelly answered. “I mean, I would not say no to the sitting president of the United States.”

Let’s just say DeGeneres felt differently.

“I would not have him on [my] show,” she declared. “He is who he is and he has enough attention, he has his Twitter account, and he has ways to get his message across. There’s nothing that I’m going to say to him that’s gonna change him and I don’t want to give him a platform because it validates him. And for me to have someone on the show, I have to at least admire them in some way.”

DeGeneres went on to call Trump “dangerous” not just for the country and for her as a gay woman but to the world as well.

“I just don’t want him on the show,” she said as her audience cheered in support.

This isn’t the first time DeGeneres has expressed that Trump wouldn’t be welcomed to her show. Back in May, she was asked by Matt Lauer if she’d invite the president onto her show. She’s said “no.” When Lauer pressed why, she said this:

“Because I’m not gonna change his mind. He’s against everything that I stand for. We need to look at someone else who looks different than us, and believes in something that we don’t believe in and still accept them and still let them have their rights.”

There’s so much to analyze in this response.

First, as a host of a talk show, is it really your duty to “change his mind”? The entire premise of an interview is to invite a person to sit down and to simply ask questions, not debate or persuade them.

Second, her “he’s against everything that I stand for” is such an overdramatic cliché. I get it, liberals think Trump is a bigoted Antichrist, but what he really stood for during the election was economic prosperity and national security. That’s what he ran on. Are those two things that Ms. DeGeneres stands against? I’d assume not. And in regards to LGBT issues, President Trump went on record saying he has no intention of reversing same-sex marriage and he personally believes transgender people should use the bathroom they want (although it’s worth noting that he rescinded the Obama administration policy that punishes schools for not allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice, which liberals see is an attack on the transgender community and not limiting the powers of the executive branch and allowing states to decide for themselves). However, he tweeted his support of a transgender ban from the military, which seems like it won’t even be implemented as Sec. of Defense James Mattis essentially disregarded the memo.

But here’s what makes her a hypocrite.

She says we need to look at people who “look different than us” and “believe in something that we don’t” and “still accept them.” She’s literally banning President Trump from her show because he believes something that she doesn’t.

Even if Ellen DeGeneres finds President Trump appalling, which frankly is understandable, she clearly has used such logic on all active Republican politicians.

Not once during the election did she invite GOP candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, or even John Kasich, whose only memorable moment during the entire 2016 election was when he expressed his support for gay marriage at the first Republican debate. Meanwhile, she had Hillary Clinton on her show three separate times and Bernie Sanders once during the election.

She’s willing to accept people on her show who don’t have her skin color or gender identity, but isn’t willing to accept people who don’t align with her politics. In other words, diversity to her is literally only skin deep when in reality, diversity in thoughts and opinions are what really makes us unique.

I can see DeGeneres having personal issues with Trump on the LGBT issues. That being said, Megyn Kelly is willing to sit down with Trump again, even after all the personal attacks he made against her during the election. Over the summer, she sat down with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a dictator thug, and radio talk show host Alex Jones, a shameful conspiracy theorist. Does Kelly have to see eye-to-eye with all of her guests? Of course not, but apparently DeGeneres does.

There isn’t an official ban of Republicans from coming on DeGeneres’s show. Earlier this year, she had Former President George W. Bush on her show for an apolitical interview about his book and his passion for painting. And in 2015, she sat down with Caitlyn Jenner, who identifies as a Republican and they spoke about Jenner’s transition as well as her views on things like same-sex marriage. But then DeGeneres appeared on The Howard Stern Show where she expressed her confusion about how a transgender woman like Caitlyn Jenner wasn’t “completely onboard” with same-sex marriage. She added with snark, “I think a lot of Republicans are wishing she wasn’t Republican.” Jenner alleged in her book that Ellen DeGeneres tried to “alienate her from members the LGBTQ community” because of her views.

Let me be clear, Ellen DeGeneres can have anyone she wants on her show. I’m not dictating that she should have President Trump on but her reasoning as to why she won’t is flawed at best and is completely hypocritical at worst. Her double standard only does a disservice to herself and to her nationwide audience, which no doubt has a substantial number of self-identified Republicans and conservatives. It’s a shame that someone as beloved as DeGeneres is only feeding into the political divide instead of uniting the country by embracing our differences through an honest discussion. And honestly, she’d had more integrity if she was upfront about her “no active GOP politician” policy instead of pretending that she’s the open-minded one.

Ellen DeGeneres is one of the greatest entertainers of our generation. Her bravery of coming out so publicly 20 years ago will forever be remembered and her remarkable work since then has made a major impact in American culture. Hollywood thinks it takes bravery to stand up against the president but in reality, especially in this political climate, it takes bravery to rise above petty politics. Sadly, she has fallen short of such bravery and in Hollywood, she’s in good company.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.