Megyn Reveals What Happened Behind the Scenes at Her Sit Down with ‘The New York Times’ for ‘The Interview’

As you may have seen, I went over to The New York Times – I mean, the actual New York Times building, the belly of the beast – and sat down for two hours for their podcast called The Interview. 

It is part of the biggest podcast in America, The Daily, which The New York Times drops Monday through Friday and then, on Saturday, they release The Interview. I have some thoughts and some behind-the-scenes moments for you on what happened, how it came out, and why I did it, so let’s get into it.

Why I Did It

So, why did I go over to The New York Times? They gave me this invitation, and I talked with my executive producer Steve Krakauer about it quite a bit. My assistant Abby is funny because she always gets the incoming and is like, ‘Don’t do it. They are going to hate you.’ She is very defensive of me. But Steve was more like, ‘We should consider this one.’ 

Obviously, I have a couple of things that we are promoting right now with the AM Update and our expansion into the MK Media podcast network where we are bringing on other voices and trying to promote them. And the truth is, I listen to The Daily most days and talk about The Daily on this show a lot. I am a weird fan of the show. I think it is a useful podcast. Sometimes it is useful just to bash; sometimes it actually does provide useful information.

In any event, I decided to do it. I was asked to sit down with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who is a legit reporter. She has been all over the world covering actual news for The New York Times and other outlets for many, many years. I didn’t know her very well, but I knew she had done the J.D. Vance interview and she seemed fair with him.

Behind the Scenes

The interview involved 90 minutes sitting down together in The New York Times building, and then it was another 30 to 45 minutes the next day after you’ve had time to ‘reflect.’ So, we went to the Times building earlier this month, and it was very fun walking in there. They were very polite. They treated me well. But everybody did a 180 as we walked by. It was very funny. 

The person who was dealing with me before Lulu came in said, ‘You know, Lulu often takes people up into the heart of the newsroom when the interview is over and introduces them to people, so she might do that with you.’ Let’s just say that didn’t happen. There was no tour of The New York Times. And honestly, why would she want to do that? It would give Lulu zero street cred walking through The New York Times newsroom with me. 

I have to say, I liked Lulu. She was very kind to me in terms of our dealings behind the scenes. You can kind of tell when someone hates your guts and they are about to interview you. I didn’t feel that way about her, and the interview itself didn’t reflect some animus or bad faith on her part. I think she is of the left and came at these issues from the left, but I didn’t sit across from her thinking, This is someone who can’t stand me. That would have led to a bad interview had I felt that way. 

That is why I think it all worked. I was more relaxed in giving her answers, and she was a good interview in terms of saying, ‘Tell me about that,’ as opposed to just trying to hammer me on various things.

The Interview

I would say the biggest divide between Lulu and yours truly was she didn’t understand exactly what it is people in ‘new’ media – like me and my guests today, Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson – do.  You can watch a bit of that below:

We do offer political commentary and our own opinions, but we also are journalists. We all exist in this new ecosphere where we have direct relationships with our audiences. And that was where we really kept tripping wires because she didn’t get how I can still call myself a journalist and have endorsed Donald Trump.

It didn’t make the final edit, but I told her it was funny to hear her ask that because I knew my audience would laugh at the question. They are going to say that is rich coming from The New York Times, which did more to run cover for Joe Biden than virtually anyone else in media. I don’t run cover for Donald Trump. I have ripped on Trump endless numbers of times. 

What I was trying to say to her was: You guys at the Times are not fooling anyone. Everyone knows you are leftist, and everyone who listens to this show knows I am on more on the right. Owning it and expressly saying, ‘This is what I’m going to do in the ballot box, and this is what I think you should do’ is really not as big a transgression off of where we used to be as she would have us believe.

To that point, she asked me about the “rules” of this new media world and how the “old values” fit in:

What I told her is that this audience wants my authentic self and no filter, and what they can smell from a mile away is a phony. They have no problem with me endorsing Donald Trump, even if they don’t like Trump. What they would have a problem with is me pretending I don’t have a horse in the race and going out trying to deliver the news as though I am completely objective and just as open minded to Kamala Harris as I am to Donald Trump. 

And the secret addendum to that, which I didn’t say is: That is not only the rule for me in new media; it is actually the rule for The New York Times, too. It is actually the rule for everyone, you just haven’t realized it yet.

You go back 150 years in this country and we used to be very partisan. During the so-called yellow journalism period people used to pick up different rags to read, and they would completely affirm their worldview on the right and the left. That is how life was, and we did just fine. The reality is we are in a country where you are ‘siloed’ that way today, and it’s okay. We are just pretending in the so-called ‘mainstream’ that we are not, that those are still our gatekeepers. 

One of the parts of our interview that made headlines was when we talked about my long history with Trump – me asking him that question at the 2015 primary debate and then him coming after me. She raised a question that a lot of the left, and even some on the right who don’t love Trump, cannot understand: How I or, frankly, anyone who doesn’t totally endorse the way Donald Trump has behaved his entire life can come around supporting him like they they generally. This is a genuine inability to understand. Watch:

We got into E. Jean Carroll, and you heard me saying there that I don’t believe her. I went on to say that it is about so much more than his past behavior when we are talking about how many people are dying at the southern border because of the invasion we suffered under Joe Biden; or when we are talking about keeping boys out of my daughter’s sports, which he has. I want someone who will stand up to the insane DEI policies, so that white kids will stop hearing in school that they are born with some original sin from which they cannot recover, which he has.

That sums up why so many of us happily, gleefully, hopefully, and just optimistically pulled the lever for Donald Trump in November and remain really grateful to him for the agenda he is unleashing. Anybody on the left still obsessing about Trump and E. Jean Carroll or when he was a celebrity when young women are being killed and being hurt on the sports fields, have some perspective.

The Net-Net

Overall, I thank the Times for what I thought was a fair interview. I liked Lulu. I feel like she and I actually plowed new ground to have somebody from the legacy media talking to somebody like me, who was of that world but now is in the new. It was an interesting conversation because she was open minded and honest about where she was not getting it. That allowed us to advance the ball. That is how interviews should be done. 

So, thumbs up. I encourage everybody to listen to it on The Daily podcast feed or you can watch it on YouTube here. 

You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,038 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.