Right-wing talk show host Megyn Kelly was criticized after she revealed she not only supports the Department of Defense's attacks on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean but wants anyone aboard these boats to "suffer," even saying that she hopes they "lose a limb and bleed out" slowly.
Kelly spoke after a Washington Post investigation published last week alleging that in September Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a U.S. strike unit to eliminate everyone aboard a single vessel. According to the report, after two people were later spotted alive in the wreckage, commanders authorized a follow-up “double tap” strike to ensure their deaths.
In the aftermath of that initial strike, the Trump administration formally informed Congress that the United States was engaged in what it called a “non-international armed conflict” with unnamed “designated terrorist organizations.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have accused Hegseth of committing war crimes.
Kelly discussed the scandal on the latest episode of The Megyn Kelly Show during an interview with Mark Halperin, saying it was “kind of annoying to even debate" the legality of Hegseth's actions when he had denied that he personally ordered the second strike.
While she said U.S. troops "should not commit war crimes," she alleged the criticism was “only being done to retroactively justify” a video recently released by several Democratic members of Congress who are also former veterans that urged troops not to obey any unlawful orders.
She then got really sadistic:
“That’s how it feels to me, so I’m really not that into it. Nor do I really care that we’re killing the drug boat guys trying to kill my kids and yours right now by bringing their fentanyl to the United States, to try to get our kids when they go to college with, you know, some drug in some moment of weakness where they think they’re taking a Xanax.”
"So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water, but I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little."
"Like I’m really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who ten seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected, you know, a little too soon, had to be taken out in the water. I realize legally it may make a difference, but truly, Mark, this is a tough case to really gin up the sympathies of the American people."
Kelly's remarks were harshly condemned.
Kelly recently generated controversy for attempting to downplay the pedophilia of the late financier, sex trafficker, and proven pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, saying he was merely "into the barely legal type."
Commenting on a release from House Oversight Committee Democrats that includes emails like one Epstein sent his associate Ghislaine Maxwell saying Trump spent time with a trafficking victim and another in which Epstein told a reporter that Trump "knew about the girls," Kelly questioned whether Epstein, whose history of pedophilia goes back decades, was actually a pedophile.
At one point, she said:
"Like, he liked 15-year-old girls. And I realize this is disgusting. I'm definitely not trying to make an excuse for this."
"I'm just giving you facts, that he wasn't into, like, 8-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passerby." ...
"Yeah, so I don't know what's true about him, but we have yet to see anybody come forward and say I was under 10, I was under 14 when I first came within his purview. You can say that's a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference. There's a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?"
Kelly's remarks sparked outrage, particularly from those who pointed out she is defending a known pedophile and sex trafficker despite having a teenage daughter herself.
