Megyn Kelly on Trump criticizing Franken: ‘How tone deaf, Mr. President’

Megyn Kelly scolded President Trump for criticizing Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Friday, asking how the president can have “the gall to preach to others about sexual misconduct.” 

“Who that has been accused of sexual assault would have the gall to preach to others about sexual misconduct?” Kelly asked the studio audience on her NBC morning program. “How infuriating that would be. How tone deaf, Mr. President.”

{mosads}

Trump has been accused by at least 11 women of sexual harassment. He also boasted about groping women without permission in a behind-the-scenes leak of entertainment show “Access Hollywood” that The Washington Post obtained in October 2016. He apologized for the video but denies other accusations. 

On Friday, Trump took Franken to task on Twitter for reported allegations of sexual misconduct against the senator. A 2006 photo came to light on Thursday documenting the senator grabbing radio anchor Leeann Tweeden’s breasts while she was sleeping during a USO tour trip to the Middle East. Franken has apologized.

“The Al Frankenstien [sic] picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words,” wrote Trump to his 42.9 million followers. “Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps?”

The Al Frankenstien picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 while she sleeps? …..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2017

Kelly’s fellow former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson also reacted to Trump attacking Franken on Friday, referring to women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.

“What about yours?” she tweeted to Trump.

What about yours? https://t.co/tBNsl1ROqH

— Gretchen Carlson (@GretchenCarlson) November 17, 2017

Kelly also raised the similar topic of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who continues to deny multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including assault, by women who were as young as 14 at the time they interacted with him nearly 40 years ago.

“The allegations against Moore, which go back decades, and which Moore’s campaign insists are politically motivated, range from unwanted pursuit to groping to assault,” said Kelly. “So is this guy going to be our next senator?”

Kelly, who jumped from Fox News to NBC in January, turned her attention back to Franken to slam him for originally calling his groping of Tweeden while asleep “a joke.”

“Senator Franken says he meant the picture as a joke, but now calls it completely inappropriate,” Kelly said. “Ellen DeGeneres says if people offend you and then you say ‘just kidding,’ she says, if that’s the case, you’re doing it wrong because we should both be laughing. You know you failed.”

Kelly has claimed she had her own experience with sexual harassment during her time at Fox News, telling investigators hired by 21st Century Fox in July 2016 that former Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes had previously sexually harassed her.

The alleged misconduct occurred more than a decade ago, while Kelly was serving as a legal correspondent in Fox News’s Washington bureau, which she says included being asked to “twirl” for Ailes in his office.

“I am still humiliated by that, humiliated that I did it and felt degraded in the moment,” she told People magazine this week.

“I know it doesn’t sound like much — like, ‘what do you mean, who cares, it’s a twirl’ — but it is degrading and in the moment you don’t know what to do,” Kelly said in the interview.