Fox's Megyn Kelly Defends Marco Rubio's Debunked “Opinion” That Clinton “Lied” In Benghazi Testimony

Kelly: “Is He Not Entitled To His Opinion That She Lied?”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

On the October 30 edition of Fox News' The Kelly File, host Megyn Kelly promoted Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio's debunked claim from the October 28 presidential debate on CNBC that Hillary Clinton “got exposed as a liar” during her recent day-long testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Rubio's remark was given "Two Pinnochios" by The Washington Post's FactChecker, and the senator was unable to defend his claim when pressed during interviews with CBS and CNN. That has not stopped Fox News from repeatedly championing Rubio's false claim. Kelly furthered her network's defense, wondering why Rubio is not “entitled to his opinion that she lied,” despite the fact that it is not true. From The Kelly File:

MEGYN KELLY (HOST): So, it's interesting that [Glenn] Kessler comes out and decides -- of The Washington Post -- decides to fact check this because it wasn't long ago that The Washington Post, and the same person, gave Susan Rice the “Two Pinocchios” for her claims about whether the Benghazi attack was pre-planned or not.

[...]

KELLY: That's the thing, is that there's been such a huge debate about whether, you know, what they knew and when they knew it. And why, Alan, is he not entitled to his opinion that she lied, which millions of Americans happen to believe as well? 

ALAN COLMES: That's a cheap applause line. 

KELLY: It's his opinion. 

COLMES: Well, it's an opinion, but it's not true. A lie has to be a willful distortion--

KELLY: That says you-- even Glenn Kessler couldn't prove that it wasn't true. That was-- no, his issue was the intelligence, in his view, was confusing. That you couldn't prove, prove, that it was a lie. 

COLMES: What he did was, he quoted a number of sources that show there was a lot of changes. The-- when Marco Rubio said that the CIA did not change it's story, it did change it's story over a few days. He was not telling the truth about that. Can I call him a liar? Because he didn't say what he knew to be true about what the CIA knew and when they knew it.