OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
Megyn Kelly unloaded on left-wing comedian Jon Stewart for being a rating-hungry pundit who is willing to “ambush” people and be “dishonest.”
Just before one of Stewart’s recent episodes of his Apple TV show, he surprised journalist Andrew Sullivan by bringing on two other guests to debate him. Sullivan said he was “ambushed” in the episode because he was told by a booker for Stewart’s show that it would be a “one-on-one with Jon” and “not a debate.”
“Stewart called me a racist and told me I was not ‘living in the same f***ing country as we are,’ and went on to angrily call me a ‘motherf***er,'” Sullivan explained.
Sullivan said Stewart behaved “unprofessionally” and “joined the woke cult.”
“How painfully, cringingly super-woke must a comedian get to stay relevant?” he asked. “As the show started, I also realized for the first time there was a live studio audience and that the episode was called ‘The Problem With White People’ — a title I’d never have been a party to,” he added.
“I protested to the producers that I’d been ambushed,” Sullivan said.
Although Stewart denied the accusations and claimed they were “nonsense,” Megyn Kelly offered her own insight on the issue.
“Jon Stewart’s not an honest broker,” Kelly said. “I know I’ve told this story before…. I said on the air that I didn’t like him, and that he wasn’t an honest broker, and that he hid behind the veil of ‘I’m a comedian’ to offer a lot of bulls**t without any accountability.”
“And he called me at Fox,” she explained. “He called me, and he was upset that I had called him all those things.”
“Of course, I stood by every word,” Kelly said. “I know he’s dishonest because he said things about me that I know are not true. And he had no answer for why he had misrepresented me so badly on so many occasions. No answer at all. He just wanted to get views. That’s it. It’s just about building an audience.”
“And even on the phone call, he tried to hide behind the comedian trope, which I didn’t accept,” Kelly said. “And that’s just who he is.”
“So I think people found something charming about his comedy routine on that show, and that legacy has stayed with him. He’s done some good work for the veterans. No one would take that away from him.
“But he’s a prick,” Kelly said of Stewart. “I’m sorry, but he’s a jerk, and you can see it in full scope with you.” Watch the clip by fast-forwarding to the 57-minute mark:
“You’ve described it as an ambush,” Kelly said. “It had the feel of an ambush where they had him, two super, super far-left, woke people who were, who hate white people and then you. They treated you like David Duke had shown up. It was insane.”
Sullivan said, “To go on a television show and to be attacked because of your race and your sex, a dismissal of the entire group of people based upon their race and their sex. The definition of that is bigotry. And he gave a platform for that kind of bigotry.”
“The show was called – and they kept us from me – ‘The Problem with White People.’ Do you think they do ‘The Trouble with Jews,’ ‘The Trouble with African Americans?’ No, it’s as if they’ve decided this one racial grouping is to be demonized, marginalized, and become a target of hate,” he said.
“They have become everything they opposed. They’re racists, sexists, and they really, really despise this country,” Sullivan added.
Kelly concluded, “I think people tend to be more reasonable and maybe even a little bit more conservative as they get older, not Jon Stewart, man. To say he is on board the woke train is to understate what we saw on that show.”
