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NBC host Megyn Kelly attends an event in New York City on Nov. 29. (Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
Megyn Kelly’s hour of NBC’s “Today” show is still struggling but showing slight ratings improvement.
During the first month after the show’s Sept. 25 debut, its ratings dropped severely — and remained low. They began to climb in late October, when Kelly shifted the focus of her show from lighthearted banter to the ongoing discussion about sexual harassment, including interviews with accusers of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as well as media titans Bill O’Reilly and Mark Halperin.
And now she’s taking on President Trump, despite her pledge to avoid politics, by interviewing three women who have publicly accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior — allegations that he denies. On Twitter Sunday night, she announced plans to interview Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey and Rachel Crooks on Monday morning.
After the show, the women will participate in a news conference “calling for an investigation by Congress of sexual misconduct by the president,” according to a news release by Brave New Films, which is hosting the event. The media company released a documentary on Trump’s accusers in November.
At least 13 women have accused Trump of sexual harassment, according to The Washington Post.
Leeds told the New York Times that Trump groped her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt on an airline flight more than 30 years ago, while Crooks told CNN that Trump kissed her against her will in 2005. Holvey, a former Miss USA contestant, told CNN that Trump personally inspected contestants as though they were sexual objects during the 2006 pageant. It was “the dirtiest I felt in my entire life,” she said.
The interviews with Trump’s accusers are emblematic of the shifting identity of Kelly’s morning talk show, which has struggled in the ratings since its debut.
On the show’s premiere, Kelly had promised to avoid politics and invited audience members “to have a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear, and maybe a little hope to start your day. Some fun! That’s what we want to be doing. Some fun.”
She mostly stuck to this format her first four weeks, and the reviews of the show were fiercely negative. And her gaffes made headlines. On one occasion, she asked a “Will Grace” fan whether he was homosexual because of that show. On another, she asked then-79-year-old Jane Fonda about her plastic surgery. Fonda, who had come to talk about her new Netflix movie, was heralded for being dismissive of Kelly’s question.
[Megyn Kelly tries dancing for ratings as her ‘Today’ show continues to falter]
Kelly’s ratings were well below those of her predecessors Tamron Hall and Al Roker. During its first week, Kelly’s show was down 12 percent in total viewership from that time slot last year. The second week brought in 24 percent fewer viewers, and the third week saw a 23 percent smaller audience, according to Nielsen data obtained by Variety.
Things began turning around on Oct. 23 after Kelly delivered a pointed monologue critical of her former employer, Fox News, for its handling of sexual abuse allegations. She targeted former talk show host Bill O’Reilly, who was forced out of the network in April amid sexual harassment allegations, as The Washington Post reported.
She railed against comments he made during a CBS News interview before his ousting. When asked about the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News, O’Reilly said he wasn’t interested in having a conversation “that makes my network look bad.” He also said no one ever complained about his behavior.
“O’Reilly’s suggestion that no one ever complained about his behavior is false,” Kelly said. “I know because I complained.” (Kelly has previously accused the network’s ousted chairman Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. Ailes died in May.)
“Women everywhere are used to being dismissed, ignored or attacked when raising complaints about men in authority positions,” she continued. “They stay silent so often out of fear. Fear of ending their careers. Fear of lawyers, yes. And often fear of public shaming, including through the media.”
The monologue was widely praised. Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox noted that Kelly “brought some of her old cutthroat flair” to the show. During an interview with Kelly on “Late Night,” Seth Meyers thanked her for the speech, which he called both “impassioned” and “wonderful.”
Kelly addressed sexual harassment on the next several installments of her show, discussing various powerful men accused of misconduct, including Trump, former president George H.W. Bush and NBC political analyst Mark Halperin. She also interviewed Halperin accuser Eleanor McManus, and two of the dozens of Weinstein accusers: actress Dominique Huett and former production assistant Mimi Haleyi.
Audiences responded immediately. The show’s ratings jumped by 10 percent, according to Nielsen data obtained by the Wrap. It was Kelly’s best-rated week.
The show has retained this boost, drawing an average of 2.296 million viewers through most of November, the Wrap reported. While this marks an improvement for the show’s ratings, it is still “historically low” for the month, according to the blog.
Jackie Levin, the show’s executive producer, said the shift was in keeping with the show’s goals.
“Our goal from the beginning was to present a smart, informative program that would uplift, inspire and empower,” Levin told Variety in a statement. “Sexual harassment is not only dominating headlines, but is pervasive, affecting nearly half of women in the workplace, according to recent polls. Given it’s a topic that Megyn also feels very strongly about, it’s been a natural fit for her to cover in a way that has hopefully helped empower viewers.”
When her “Today” colleague Matt Lauer was fired last month after an employee complained about “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” Kelly noted “this one does hit close to home.” Then she opined about the plight of sexual harassment victims.
“When this happens, what we don’t see is the pain on the faces of those who found the courage to come forward. And it is a terrifying thing to do,” she said. “We don’t see the career opportunities women lose because of sexual harassment or the intense stress it causes a woman dealing with it when she comes to work each day. I am thinking of those women this morning and hoping they are okay. The days to come will not be easy.”
Last week, her interviews also included actress Alyssa Milano, who encouraged women to share their personal stories of sexual harassment with the hashtag #MeToo.
Kelly hasn’t eliminated the lighter sequences — she recently cooked a holiday ham with Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport. But she weaves those kind of stories in among critiques and commentary about sexual assault.
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Republican lawmakers are concerned about how their tax bill is being viewed by the public and say they need to do a better job of selling it to middle-class and low-income voters.
A CBS News poll conducted last week found that 53 percent of people nationwide disapprove of the GOP tax bill and only 35 percent approve.
While support for the bill was strong among self-identified Republicans, according to the poll, 52 percent of independents and a whopping 84 percent of Democrats disapprove of the legislation.
Sen. Marco RubioMarco Antonio RubioRyan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ in 2018 Richard Gere welcomes lawmakers’ words of support for Tibet Dem lawmaker gives McConnell’s tax reform op-ed a failing grade MORE (R-Fla.) on Friday warned that the Republican Party cannot become identified with the “country club-big business image,” citing a famous speech President Reagan gave in 1977 using those same words.
While Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanMcConnell names Senate GOP tax conferees House Republican: ‘I worry about both sides’ of the aisle on DACA Overnight Health Care: 3.6M signed up for ObamaCare in first month | Ryan pledges ‘entitlement reform’ next year | Dems push for more money to fight opioids MORE (R-Wis.) is touting the projection that a median family of four in his home state would receive an average tax cut of $2,000 from the bill, some lawmakers worry about people who won’t see any relief or even end up paying more.
Rubio and Sen. Mike LeeMichael (Mike) Shumway LeeSupreme Court takes on same-sex wedding cake case House approves motion to go to tax conference — with drama Trump really will shrink government, starting with national monuments MORE (R-Utah) tried to amend the Senate tax bill on the floor to provide more help to people on lower income rungs. Their proposal would have made the child tax credit refundable against payroll taxes
Twenty Republicans voted for the change, but it failed.
Rubio on Friday warned there are “going to be problems” if Senate and House negotiators working on the final legislation reduce the bill’s child tax credit or increase the corporate rate without making the child tax credit refundable to help lower-income families.
“It makes a lot of sense in a tax reform bill to provide some relief to those on the lower end of the income scale as well as the upper end,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who does work for Rubio.
Ayres said Rubio is right that “it will help the overall perception of this bill if it’s perceived of helping everyone who’s working, not just those at the upper end of the income scale.”
Another Republican senator who commented on the condition of anonymity said that “lowering the corporate rate is never popular.”
“Forty-four percent of the country won’t see anything and then they see headlines about a big corporate rate cut,” said the lawmaker, explaining the weak public support for the bill.
Sen. Bob CorkerRobert (Bob) Phillips CorkerFormer Dem Tenn. gov to launch Senate bid: report McConnell ‘almost certain’ GOP will pass tax reform Former New Mexico gov: Trump’s foreign policy is getting ‘criticized by everybody’ MORE (R-Tenn.), who was the only Republican to vote against the Senate tax bill, says he’s concerned for different reasons.
He’s worried the legislation will erode the GOP’s credibility on fiscal responsibility — something that cost them dearly in the 2006 midterm election, when Democrats captured control of the Senate and House.
Corker, the only Republican newly elected to the Senate in 2006, said fiscal issues were a top issue for Republican and independent voters that year.
“The Medicare Part D had been passed unpaid for and Republicans were viewed as spendthrifts,” he said, referring to the prescription drug benefit legislation that was the signature domestic accomplishment of President George W. Bush’s first term.
“My concern is that our nation continues to rack up huge debts and this is another step in that direction,” Corker added.
While Republican lawmakers recognize the bill may not be popular, they argue that the corporate tax rate must be lowered to put the U.S. business environment on par with European and Asian competitors.
Some Republicans say the problem is they’re not doing a good enough job explaining to voters how cutting the corporate tax rate can stimulate the entire economy.
“I think we have got to a better job of communicating to America what’s in this. This is hugely stimulative with regard to what’s going to happen to the American worker,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who is staunchly opposed to setting a corporate tax rate higher than 20 percent.
The bleak CBS poll numbers for the tax bill were in line with polls published earlier in the week by Quinnipiac and Gallup that showed 53 percent and 56 percent of the public, respectively, disapprove of the legislation.
The weak polling numbers prompted Republicans to play defense on Friday.
A senior administration official argued in a press call that the Quinnipiac and Gallup polls oversampled Democrats, which skewed the results to appear more unfavorable than actual public sentiment.
Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster, waved off the Quinnipiac poll as overly titled toward Democrats.
“The Quinnipiac survey that came out earlier this week was 21 percent Republican. Are you kidding me? That’s why [the polls] were so off in the election,” he said.
He pointed to a survey of 1,000 likely voters nationwide conducted by his firm last month showing that 50 percent of respondents favored lowering the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, while only 37 percent opposed the move.
McLaughlin noted that there was strong public opposition to former President Reagan’s 1981 tax-cut package and that he went on to win reelection by a landslide in 1984, thanks in large part to a strong U.S. economy.
But he indicated there could be political problems in the near term if the legislation fails to deliver the promised economic results quickly.
“The Republicans got their heads handed to them in the off-year election, in 1982, we lost 26 House seats because they didn’t make the tax cuts retroactive and people didn’t think the economy was getting better quick enough.”
The pending bill would not make tax cuts retroactive, but voters will see more money in their paychecks as soon as January when employers adjust withholding rates for federal taxes.
Faced with the signs that the tax bill could be a political liability for GOP candidates in next year’s midterm elections, Republicans are making some of the same arguments Democrats did in 2009 when they were trying to pass a massive health care reform bill that did not poll well with voters.
Democrats argued at the time that while ObamaCare polled badly, voters supported its reforms when asked about them specifically. They said the legislation would become more popular over time.
Republicans are taking a similar tack now.
A senior administration told reporters Friday that specific elements of the tax bill, such as the doubling of the standard deduction and the increasing of the child credit, have strong support.
Sen. Rob PortmanRobert (Rob) Jones PortmanMcConnell names Senate GOP tax conferees Overnight Finance: House approves motion to go to tax conference — with drama | GOP leaders to consider Dec. 30 spending bill | Justices skeptical of ban on sports betting | Mulvaney won’t fire official who sued him How four GOP senators guided a tax-bill victory behind the scenes MORE (R-Ohio), who is crafting the final changes to the bill in a Senate-House conference committee, said the polling data about the bill can be misleading.
“The component parts are popular,” he said. “It depends how you ask the corporate [rate] question. If you ask, ‘Do you think we should make American companies competitive by getting the rate below the [global] average?’ the answer is ‘yes.’ ”
Portman also disputed colleagues who say the bill doesn’t do anything for people who don’t pay income taxes.
“We’ve made the child tax credit a little more refundable and all the refundability stays in place,” he said.
“Three million people, all told, are going to fall off the tax roles altogether,” he said of people who now have an income tax liability but won’t after the bill is signed into law.
More than 60 percent of households would see a tax cut of at least $100 in 2019 under the Senate GOP tax bill, but that percentage would drop in subsequent years, according to an analysis by the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.
Still, Portman acknowledged the party has failed to clearly explain all the bill’s benefits to the general public.
“We’ve got to figure out how to communicate better,” he said.
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