Dan Abrams invited Megyn Kelly onto his NewsNation show Thursday to discuss former President Donald Trump’s conviction in a Manhattan court hours earlier in what turned into a heated debate over whether the guilty verdicts were justified.
When Abrams said Trump was guilty of violating campaign finance laws, Kelly hit back, saying: “Wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re wrong!”
Trump on Thursday was convicted by a Manhattan jury of all 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Kelly took aim at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whom she labeled a “partisan hack” who “doesn’t want to prosecute any crime unless it’s by a man named Trump.”
“The number of legal hoops [Bragg] had to jump through in order to bring this case in the first place were too numerous” to list, according to Kelly.
The SiriusXM host also slammed Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who she said was “complicit” in bringing criminal charges against Trump which were “not valid.”
Abrams responded by stating that “there was definitely wrongdoing” by Trump even if some say it did not rise to the level of a criminal offense.
“What was it?” Kelly asked.
Abrams responded: “What was the wrongdoing? All right, number one, it’s $130,000 to a porn star to keep her quiet, to try to protect your campaign. Can we at least agree that’s wrong?”
“How was it wrong?” Kelly replied.
“I don’t know what kind of weird marriage [Donald and Melania Trump] have. Same as I didn’t know what kind of weird marriage Bill and Hillary Clinton had,” Kelly added.
“So I don’t know what their covenant is in terms of what he’s allowed to do on the outside of his marriage.”
Abrams responded: “I’m not talking about the sex. I’m talking about the $130,000 to keep [Stormy Daniels] quiet to protect his campaign.”
Kelly shot back that the payment was “not immoral” and that “there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Nothing.”
Abrams then wondered whether Kelly thought Trump broke the law by falsifying business records.
“I don’t know what he did,” Kelly said, prompting Abrams to reply: “What does that mean?! We just had a whole trial! We heard every detail of this! How can you not know?”
Kelly said the hush money payment “does not amount to a campaign contribution if it is the kind of payment that could ever be made outside of the campaign context.”
