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"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32
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Author:  Michael J. Gaynor
Bio: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  May 18, 2016
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Topic category:  Partisan Politics

Megyn Kelly's Transformation from Opportunistic Trump Attacker to Grateful Trump Interviewer

Kelly swallowed her pride and called Trump to sue for peace...and to plead a HUGE interview.

We need a President who makes lemonade out of lemons, and that's what presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump eventually did with the attack on him by Fox News star Megyn Kelly last summer.

After the first Fox News Republican presidential debate, Kelly suddenly attacked Trump as a boorish misogynist unfit to be President of the United States.

Kelly then was a sure better for a glitzy magazine cover, but he odds on Kelly becoming a big help in Trump's election as President were longer than Trump's odds of being President when he became a candidate.

The powers that be at Fox News appreciated that Trump would bring great ratings, but they did not expect or want him to be the Republican nominee, and none of the three Fox News debate moderators--Kelly, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace--were there to promote a possible Trump presidency.

As Trump says, he is a counter puncher. When he felt that Kelly was unfair to him at the first debate, he counter punched. Neither Kelly's gender nor her looks immunized her from a Trump counterattack.

Unsurprisingly, "The Kelly File" became a daily weeknight anti-Trump show and Kelly became a Trump Twitter target.

But Kelly had not killed off the Trump candidacy. Instead of collapsing, the Trump candidacy flourished.

Kelly isn't campaigning to become the next Mrs. Donald J. Trump (she's nearly seven months younger than Melania Trump), but she needed to make peace with him.

Other Fox News stars--Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Greta van Susteren and Jeanine Pirro-- were getting Trump interviews, but not Kelly.

The liberal media establishment reflexively championed Kelly as a Trump victim, but that and regularly having anti-Trump guests on her show to sympathize with her as a victim and rail against Trump really was not good for her career.

Then opportunity knocked: Trump decided not to attend the second Fox News Republican presidential debate.

What would the ambitious Kelly do?

Politico's Michael Grunwald smartly reported what happened at the second Fox News Republican presidential debate in an article titled "Megyn Kelly Just Did Trump’s Dirty Work for Him" and subtitled "Last night, she kneecapped his rivals on immigration. At this rate, he'll get to skip his own inauguration" (www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/gop-debate-trump-megyn-kelly-213576#ixzz490zfhZUn).

Grunwald:

"Donald Trump skipped last night’s Fox News debate in a fit of pique over the 'very biased' Megyn Kelly. But since the shocking things he does and says always seem to work out for him, someone else used his pet issue of immigration to tie his top Republican rivals into knots. And that someone else was Megyn Kelly.

"Kelly flummoxed Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, currently polling second and third in Iowa, with brutal video montages that vividly demonstrated their flip-flops on immigration reform."

Grunwald concluded: "To recap: Megyn Kelly, derided by Trump as a vapid Trump basher, along with Jeb Bush and Rand Paul, derided by Trump as pathetic losers, led the attacks on Trump’s leading competitors. And in the process, they helped remind Republican primary voters worried about immigration that Bush, Paul, Rubio and Cruz all have supported versions of amnesty. Of course, Trump was conveniently absent, so he didn’t have to field any tough questions about his own inconsistencies on immigration or other issues, from Kelly or anyone else."

Trump was smart to skip the debate...and apparently appreciative of what Kelly had done for him.

Trump chose to participate in the third Fox News Republican presidential debate, Kelly was not hostile to him and he and Kelly did not squabble.

Trump continued to march toward the Republican presidential nomination and then Kelly did more.

Kelly swallowed her pride and called Trump to sue for peace...and to plead a HUGE interview.

She got both (and Trump praised her as the bigger person for calling him and coming to Trump Tower).

The liberal media that had championed Kelly for attacking Trump last summer were sorely disappointed with that interview.

See, for example, this excerpt from www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-kelly-223303#ixzz4918SfnLE :

"The format was a departure for Kelly, with softer questions that focused less on policy and more on personality. And some media critics were not pleased, clearly yearning for the Kelly who grilled Trump at the presidential debates.

"'If it had been any softer, it would come on a cone (with) a swirl,' tweeted television critic Bill Carter.

"'So THIS is what Megyn Kelly went to Trump Tower to set up?' tweeted the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple as part of an extended screed about the show. 'Now it appears Megyn Kelly is asking Trump to "have some fun." So appropriate for her misogynist-in-chief.'

"Isaac Chotiner of Slate of was similarly unimpressed. 'This Megyn Kelly interview of Trump is so bad and so soft that if I were Fox News I would worry about CNN trying to poach her,' he tweeted."

Game, set and match to Trump, who proved himself a gracious winner and showed the potential for making great deals for the USA by turning Kelly into a campaign asset.

Michael J. Gaynor

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Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


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