Megyn Kelly is using her prime time Fox News show to re-mainstream conservative conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck, despite her previous admission that complaints about the former Fox host's inaccurate theories “may have foundation.”
Since the launch of her show, The Kelly File, in 2013, Kelly has claimed that her show is “a news program, a breaking news program, not an opinion program” that would “present both sides of the view.” As expected, the actual content of Kelly's program has demonstrated that this most decidedly isn't the case, and repeatedly hosting Beck is more evidence against this claim.
Kelly herself is on the record pointing out the problematic nature of Beck's brew of right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theorizing. In a 2010 interview Kelly admitted to GQ that complaints about Beck spreading misinformation “may have foundation.”
That was at a time when Beck was describing President Obama as a “racist” and “Marxist” who was central to numerous byzantine plots designed to hurt the United States and usher in some sort of socialist or communist system. Fox ended Beck's show on the network in 2011 after the network lost sponsors for the program due to controversy over its bizarre and extreme content. Since then he has streamed his show online and over satellite television as part of his website/network “The Blaze.”
Kelly has hosted Beck four times between October 27 and December 16. And in some of those appearances (October 27, November 17) Beck appeared in two separate segments on the program.
In his most recent appearance Beck attacked Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump, telling Kelly that Trump is “a giant progressive” who, if nominated, would make the Republican Party go “the way of the Whigs.” In a previous appearance by Beck on The Kelly File, Beck compared Trump's proposed ban on travel by Muslims to the policies of Adolph Hitler.
Appearing earlier in December with Kelly to discuss the program to aid Syrian war refugees, Beck promoted the theory that “these refugees that are being jammed down everybody's throat in the west” are a “Trojan horse.”
In a November appearance, Beck used his chalkboard -- a staple of his conspiratorial monologues during his time at Fox -- to illustrate his argument that “all of the decisions that the president has championed” led to the terrorist attacks on Paris.
Beck also claimed in November that the Black Lives Matter movement is a “revolution” which is being “seeded” in universities. He told Kelly, “We have got to find our way to each other in universities because I really truly believe, 2016 is going to look an awful lot like 1968.” Kelly responded, “Glenn, thank you.”
Kelly's promotion of Beck isn't a new phenomenon. Last year she credited Beck with accurately predicting the rise of a caliphate in the Middle East, but in reality Beck's prediction was as far off as his previous prognostication that the economy would collapse in a “Weimar moment” or that progressives would be involved in a “summer of rage.”
In November, Kelly File was the second highest rated program on Fox News, and number one in the key 25-54 demographic. In case those viewers missed Glenn Beck's conspiracies the first time they aired on Fox, they're seeing them now thanks to Megyn Kelly.