Megyn Kelly had been booked on Live With Kelly long before election night, and despite having stayed up into the middle of the night co-anchoring Fox News’ coverage, she showed up, hand in hand with Ripa, on Wednesday morning. Megyn — I’ll call her by her first name to avoid the Kelly/Kelly confusion — was there to plug her new book, Settle for More, but first she had to address the obvious.
“You’ll never have a result this shocking,” Megyn said about the election results, and she proceeded with a string of phrases we’re going to be hearing from many TV news personalities in the coming days. Phrases like, “There really was a ‘hidden Trump vote’… It wasn’t at all what we had been told [by the polls] … It all winds up being OK.”
Megyn’s essential message to her viewers regarding Trump: “Keep an open mind; see what he does.” Ripa added that she hoped “we can get back to treating each other with a little kindness and generosity.” Megyn was silent, looking politely dubious.
Ripa held up the cover of the New York Daily News, which showed the White House beneath the headline “House of Horrors,” with the American flag hung upside down, the signal for distress. The studio audience laughed at the grim image. The only alternative was to cry, I suppose, and studio audiences aren’t encouraged to do that. Pretty soon they were off on typical Live With Kelly banter, chatting about raising kids and makeup they can’t do without (Megyn: “foundation and eyeliner and concealer and bronzer…”).
Flipping channels, I saw an ad for tonight’s Kelly File. It was promoting an interview with “President Donald Trump, breaking down his win and first steps as commander in chief … on The Kelly File!” This is the new normal: We’ll be getting our information from a president-elect who likes to do what they call in the TV-news biz a “quick hit” on one cable news channel he finds most sympathetic to him. And next week, Megyn Kelly hits the promotional trail in earnest — she’ll be appearing with her guru, Dr. Phil.
Live With Kelly airs weekdays at 9 a.m. on ABC.
