Alex Jones’ website Infowars is promoting a video that says he will participate in an interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly this week. Kelly, formerly of Fox News, is now the host of NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly. The show premiered June 4.
Jones, the host of The Alex Jones Show, has been discussing his purported interactions with Kelly and her producers for several weeks on his daily program, often while making lewd comments about Kelly, including saying he should “oil wrestle” with her. Jones has also claimed that Kelly assured him he would “like” the interview and that it wouldn’t be a “hit piece,” but Jones thinks she was misleading him just to secure the on-camera talk.
Politico media reporter Hadas Gold reported that NBC declined to comment on whether the interview will take place. Jones said on the June 5 broadcast of his show that Kelly will interview him Tuesday evening.
Jones’ sexist comments aside, if the interview does happen, it will give Kelly an opportunity to attempt to hold Jones accountable for the many toxic conspiracy theories he has pushed -- and the violent language and anti-LGBT slurs he often uses when attacking his opponents.
Will Kelly hold Jones accountable for his past claims?
In one conversation about the supposed Kelly interview, Jones’ Infowars cohort Roger Stone advised Jones to do the interview because it could afford him an opportunity to “break through to the mainstream.” Given Kelly's prominent new role on NBC News, there are countless issues she can press Jones on to make sure the audience doesn’t come away with the impression he is anything other than a toxic conspiracy theorist.
Jones has claimed that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, CT, was a “giant hoax,” saying that “the whole thing was fake.” He has claimed that that the shooting was “completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured,” adding, “I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors.” He has also mocked the grief of the victims’ families and smeared the parents as actors who “do the hyperventilating to cry to go on TV.”
The families of the Sandy Hook tragedy have criticized Jones for his horrific remarks and spoken about “the hateful fictions that he spews.”
For years, Jones has claimed that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job” by the federal government and that Osama bin Laden was “a CIA asset” and “a CIA hireling doing his job” for the government.
Jones has also pushed conspiracy theories about other tragedies. He alleged the Oklahoma City bombing was a “staged event” by “criminals in Washington” to get sympathy to pass President Clinton’s policy agenda. He claimed mass shootings in Aurora, CO; Columbine, CO; Tucson, AZ; San Bernardino, CA; and Orlando, FL, were “false flag” events. And Jones said the Boston Marathon bombing was “staged” and the bombers were “recruited by globalist intelligence agencies and set up horribly.”
Jones has also repeatedly bragged about his communications with President Donald Trump both before and after his election. And Trump has repeatedly pushed ideas and rhetoric that have been tied back to Jones.
He has also launched sexist and anti-LGBTQ attacks, and used violent rhetoric against his perceived adversaries. Jones said in late March that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) “looks like the archetypal cocksucker” and a “fairy” and then said to him about any claims that Jones is colluding with the Russians: “You get in my face with that I’ll beat your goddamn ass, you son of a bitch. You piece of shit. ... Fill your hand.” He later claimed that his threat was just an “art performance.”
Jones previewed his interview with Kelly by making lewd comments about her
On his show, Jones has repeatedly discussed the possibility of participating in an interview with Kelly.
He first raised the possibility during his May 15 broadcast. Jones said that Kelly called him and promised him he would “like” the outcome of the interview, but he also expressed skepticism that the interview was a setup:
ALEX JONES: She’s a really smart lady, a good-looking lady. And she’s sitting there going, “You’re number one on my list. Alex, I’m kind of obsessed with you.” Oh I’m sorry -- this is off record. “Alex, I’ve got to have this interview, Alex.” And, "We’re going to do this interview, Alex, and it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be good, and you’re going to like it, and I pledge to you it’s going to be real, and I’m going to let you talk and this isn’t a hit piece, Alex.” And I’m going to stop right there because the rest is off record. But I was just like even though I knew I was being sold by the greatest used car salesman on earth, I thought P.T. Barnum had been reincarnated right in front of me. I wanted just the experience of her coming to Austin.
Moments later in the broadcast, Jones made sexual comments about Kelly. He first said, Kelly “thinks I’m a Texas hillbilly and that a hot woman telling me how much she wants to interview me and how she’s obsessed with me will get me to talk to her. And even though I know it was BS, it still worked, so I’m going to be doing the interview.”
He then repeatedly asked Stone whether he should “put her over my knee,” later adding he was talking about “putting her over my knee politically,” and said, “Can we put [the late model] Betty Page on screen please, putting a girl over her knee?” He said that those comments were “trolling” because “I can’t help it. I can say anything I want and it’s all over the news the next day.”
Jones again made lewd comments about Kelly during his May 31 broadcast, saying, “Megyn Kelly’s coming next week. I want Kathy Griffin, me, and Megyn Kelly to oil wrestle next week on air.” Seconds later he said, “I’m just challenging Megyn Kelly and Kathy Griffin to a boxing match -- I’ll take both of them on,” explaining that he was trying to allude to comedian Andy Kaufman, who wrestled women.