Megyn Kelly vs. everybody: MAGA media is mad at the podcast queen

Megyn Kelly vs. everybody: MAGA media is mad at the podcast queen
Kelly may be the biggest loser in the Erika Kirk-Candace Owens feud

By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published December 24, 2025 9:15AM (EST)


(Salon) In the year since Donald Trump told a crowd at a campaign stop that Megyn Kelly’s apparent motivations are “sort of making a career by pretending she likes me,” the popular podcaster now finds herself at the center of a bitter right-wing feud that threatens to derail the president’s entire political project. ​​The American right has attempted to maintain the fiction of a big tent unified by a shared loathing of the left. But the killing of Charlie Kirk quickly revealed the fractures in the foundation, and at Turning Point USA’s first AmericaFest since his death, that tent was set ablaze on a stage surrounded by over-the-top pyrotechnics at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Trying to analyze the current civil war on the right solely through the lens of ideology misses the point. Right-wing pundits like Kelly, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon see dollar signs in blood-and-soil populism. But the MAGA movement, for all of its denunciations of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), has successfully diversified with more Jewish, Latino and Black voters. That’s why what was meant to be a somber gathering three months after the September assassination of TPUSA’s founder devolved into carnage, with MAGA’s leading figures tearing into each other over antisemitism, conspiracy theories and the fundamental question of what, if anything, the conservative coalition actually stands for beyond rage and resentment. It’s the inevitable endgame of a movement built on grievance rather than governance beyond corporate tax cuts.

Since the onstage slugfest, Kelly has continued to lash out ​​in a follow-up interview with Vanity Fair and a series of increasingly frantic posts on X. She attacked Shapiro and Bari Weiss — the newly installed editor-in-chief of CBS News who called Shapiro’s speech a “barnburner” and published it on her Free Press website — cowards. Kelly went on to accuse the two most prominent Jewish voices in conservative media of inspiring antisemitism through their support for Israel.

....(snip)....

She is now where Tucker Carlson was years ago, who is now where Candace Owens was. Kelly likely is refraining from criticizing them because she knows she is just a few months away from occupying their same radicalized space. The grift requires constant movement further right to maintain relevance, always finding new enemies to attack, always positioning yourself as the victim of some imaginary cancellation. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/24/megyn-kelly-vs-everybody-maga-media-is-mad-at-the-podcast-queen/