Megyn Kelly is no stranger to Twitter hate — she’s been targeted by the president-elect himself, who called her a “bimbo” and repeatedly trashed her show, The Kelly File, online. And, speaking at an event hosted by Politics and Prose bookshop in Washington, D.C., Monday night, she accused Trump’s team of deliberately stirring up hatred in certain corners of the internet.
“The vast majority of Donald Trump supporters are not at all this way,” Kelly said, according to The Guardian. “It’s that far corner of the internet that really enjoys nastiness and threats and unfortunately there is a man who works for Donald Trump whose job it is to stir these people up and that man needs to stop doing that. His name is Dan Scavino.”
Scavino, who served as social-media director for Trump’s presidential campaign, was first spotted by Trump when he was 16 and eventually became the manager of one of Trump’s golf courses. He’s lashed out at Kelly on Twitter before, tweeting after a particularly heated interview with Newt Gingrich, “Megyn Kelly made a total fool out of herself tonight - attacking Donald Trump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over.”
Kelly told the audience that she and her children have been under armed guard for more than a year thanks to the threats she’s received. “The worst part is the security threats that I’ve had to face and, as much as I try to avoid some of that online vitriol, I get lots of it and I really hate it,” she said. “I find that stuff just soul-killing.” She added, “It’s not an appropriate price to pay for hard-hitting journalism.”
In her recently released memoir, Kelly detailed threats Trump made to her over the phone after she reported a story about his divorce from his first wife, Ivana. According to Kelly, Trump refused to make a scheduled appearance on her show unless she called him, and when she did, she got an earful. “I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account against you,” he reportedly said, “and I still may.”
