Oh, Megyn Kelly, this is what happens when you stake your mainstream career on a conspiracy theorist who has so gone off the deep end that he believes U.S. moon landings are fake and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings were staged.
No one wanted this megaphone of fake news to have an even bigger platform to spew his nonsensical beliefs, but Kelly, the Fox News transplant who landed at NBC News as a host, wanted Jones on the show.
Welp, I hope she’s happy now, because one thing about conspiracy theorists is that they don’t trust anyone. Turns out, Jones secretly taped his entire encounter with Kelly, and late Thursday night and early Friday morning, he began releasing portions of the interview to prove that he was misled.
“I’ve never done this in 22 years; I’ve never recorded another journalist,” Jones said. “I’ve never done this, but I knew that it was a fraud, that it was a lie.”
Jones claims that he was assured that the interview wasn’t going to be some kind of hit piece, but then he saw promos for NBC’s interview, which is set to run Sunday.
On Jones’ recording, which he shared on social media, a female voice believed to be Kelly’s can be heard telling Jones that the interview won’t be “some kind of gotcha piece.”
“The reason you are interesting to me is because I followed your custody case, and I think you had a very good point about how the media was covering it and for some reason treated you and your family and what was going on as fair game, when they never would have done that if you were a mainstream media figure,” the female voice says to Jones, The Hill reports.
NBC News told The Hill that it is committed to airing the interview.
“Despite Alex Jones’ efforts to distract from and ultimately prevent the airing of our report, we remain committed to giving viewers context and insight into a controversial and polarizing figure, how he relates to the president of the United States and influences others, and to getting this serious story right. Tune in Sunday,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to The Hill.
And all of this mess between a deplorable interviewing a nutjob comes as the Sandy Hook families threatened legal action against NBC News.
“Airing Ms. Kelly’s interview implicitly endorses the notion that Mr. Jones’ lies are actually ‘claims’ that are worthy of serious debate, and in doing so it exponentially enhances the suffering and distress of our clients,” said a letter from Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, The Hill reports.
“NBC is not responsible for the harassment and abuse Alex Jones has cruelly visited on our clients. But, by choosing to air his interview with Ms. Kelly—at all, let alone at prime time on Father’s Day—NBC has tendered its good name and considerable influence to provide Mr. Jones with something he has never enjoyed: legitimacy,” the letter continues. “This decision may be driven by the simple urge to gain an edge in a well-publicized ratings war; but it has devastating human consequences as well.”
Read more at The Hill.