Excusing Abuse as Political Strategy

Megyn Kelly and the rot within the GOP

I was doomscrolling on Instagram when I saw a video posted by Shannon Watts, the Founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I stopped on the video because it was a still picture of Megyn Kelly…not someone I am accustomed to seeing Shannon Watts post about.

Shannon posted a word over the video: Vile.

That was my warning. I watched Shannon’s video and then I went to YouTube to watch the Megyn Kelly podcast in its entirety. It was about the recently released Epstein emails.

Lord have mercy…the video is bad. No, Shannon is right. It’s vile.

Before I offer commentary on the video, I want to remind you of why the Epstein emails are important: not because it will change Trump’s base, it won’t, but because it is moral and just to pull back the curtain on the abuse of girls at the hands of the wealthy and well-connected who have not paid consequences for rape.

So many Democrats want to believe that if Trump is on a list somewhere, if we could just publish that list, it will bring him down. They want the emails to change the tide.

It won’t. At least not with his base.

Trump would never have been elected if so many Americans cared about sexual assault. His voters knew his history and elected him anyway. They listened to him say he grabbed women by the p*ssy. They knew he walked in on young girls in pageants. They knew he said he’d date his daughter.

They knew all of it and they cast a vote for him anyway. Without hesitation.

Gladly. Gleefully.

He had already been convicted of assaulting E. Jean Carroll when he was elected. His voters don’t believe women, and any list floating around out there (I am not convinced there is a list per se, but we have the emails) will not change the voting habits of his voters. They assume he has hurt women, and they overlook it or think his accusers are liars. Or they just plain don’t care.

If Republican morality could have stopped him, he wouldn’t be President.

Even though I am confident the MAGA base will not be persuaded, I know that the base is small. The way the Right decides to spin the Epstein emails could cost them the confidence and votes of Independents and apathetic Republicans.

I am now bracing myself for the spin, but Megyn Kelly’s disgusting take on the rape of children may be the worst sort of journalistic rot: Excusing rape.

A screengrab of Megyn Kelly. 11/13/25.

On 11/12/25, Megyn Kelly and her guest, Batya Ungar-Sargon, host of “Batya” on NewsNation, recorded a podcast discussing the Epstein emails released that same day. The title of the podcast broadcast on SiriusXM channel is, “Dems Try to Smear Trump with Epstein Emails…”

Here is a partial transcript of the podcast. Megyn Kelly stated:

As for Epstein, I do know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything, and this person has told me from the start, years and years ago, that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile…but he was into the barely legal type. He liked 15-year-old girls.

Oh, god. As soon as I heard those words, I knew what I was in for. But, I didn’t stop the video — I needed to hear all of it and watch her body language. I needed to see if she was really about to excuse pedophilia by bringing up the ages of the children.

As a reminder, Republicans think 15-year-olds are too young to check out their own library books in school…

I pushed play.

Kelly went on:

Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile. This person’s view…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 (Epstein) wasn’t into like eight-year-olds but he liked the very young teen types. I’m just giving you facts that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds.

There we go. There it is. She actually is offering up an excuse.

How can we call the victims children when they are shaped like women?

I wanted to pull my hair out, but it got worse. Kelly went on to state:

…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." Look, you can say that’s a distinction without a difference. No, it’s not. I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?

I can’t help Megyn Kelly with her morality, but I can help her with the law on such things. The age of consent is 17-years-old in New York. No state in the country has an age of consent younger than 16.

Not one.

I know several folks have weighed in on social media about the video pointing out that Megyn Kelly has children this age, but I really don’t think we need that information. I need to know that there will be no excuses for the rape and mistreatment of children.

I need to know that people really care about children when they claim to be the party of “family values,” but you and I know it’s all gas.

They never cared. They won’t start now, and we have a preview of what the spin will look like on the Right as they attempt to get around the Epstein emails.

I don’t expect anyone in the MAGA base to change their minds, and I have sent the Megyn Kelly interview, along with a breakdown of the Epstein emails, to a few of the MAGA folks I still know.

They weren’t swayed by the emails, and they thought Kelly made some good points.

But we proceed anyway.

I am not about to spend my time trying to rehabilitate three-time Trump voters, but I also want justice for the victims.

Megyn Kelly is not just problematic in her defense of Trump and Epstein…she is emblematic of the decline in humanity infesting the Republican Party. The double standard for the definition of a child. The excuses for the people who abused children.

The immorality.

The rot at the center of the GOP and the current occupant of the White House.

~Jess