Megyn Kelly warned that “the country will burn” if Republican front-runner Donald Trump is jailed ahead of Election Day.
“I don’t think anybody thinks anything really changed as a result of last night so once again, Trump won because if nothing changed, he’s the winner, he’s 50 points ahead,” Kelly said during Thursday’s episode of her SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
The day prior, Kelly moderated the fourth GOP debate and though Trump was yet again a no-show, his poll numbers indicate that the candidates who were in attendance — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie — were merely vying for the second-place spot in the primary race.
“There will be riots, the country will burn if she sends him to jail prior to November 2024, and Andy, he’s the smartest guy we all know, is saying ‘Don’t rule it out.’ So where do we go from this day to that?” Kelly asked National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry and senior political correspondent Jim Geraghty.
Kelly was referencing the election interference case against the former president, which has US District Judge Tanya Chutkan deciding whether Trump can be accused of engaging in a criminal “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the results of the 2020 vote.
The podcast host also pointed to Andy McCarthy’s National Review editorial on Chutkan’s ruling last week that Trump is not immune from criminal prosecution — with a conviction of the former president a “distinct possibility” that McCarthy wrote “could determine the viability of Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.”
“Chutkan might not let Trump go free on bond when he is likely convicted in that federal case in DC,” Kelly added.
The dire prediction comes as Trump faces a swath of charges in at least four separate cases, including one that’s underway in a Manhattan courtroom after New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump of heading up a $250 million fraud scheme.
Special counsel Jack Smith is also prosecuting the former president for improperly retaining national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Other court cases plan on addressing the results of the 2020 election and the 77-year-old’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Should Trump be convicted at all, he will likely appeal the ruling.
His lawyers already said they are planning to appeal Chutkan’s decision last week that Trump cannot enjoy absolute presidential immunity from the election interference case despite being the commander-in-chief at the time.
US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Trump’s words during the rally before the storming of the Capitol were likely “words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment.”
On that day, Trump urged demonstrators “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” his lawyers have often noted.
Meanwhile, Democrats have emphasized the former president’s call to “fight like hell” during his speech at the White House Ellipse, hours before rioters breached the US Capitol.
“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said.
