Megyn Kelly Makes A Hostage Video

Megyn Kelly is excited about her and Tucker’s new Muslim audience- “he’s defending Islam!” 🥴 pic.twitter.com/cQM0ZLDCba

— Ally (@AllyJKiss) May 6, 2026

The remarkable thing about the video embedded above is that Megyn Kelly has Mark Halperin on for over a minute, but all he's there for is to interject "Yup" and "Right" a few times into what she's saying -- which is basically that she and Tucker are reaching a wonderful new audience of young Muslims. In other words, this is a hostage video, and when the camera shows his face, he doesn't seem happy at all. This piece on Twitchy notes that she's done a 180 in the course of four months and speculates she must have bills to pay.

But why is she bringing Mark Halperin along with her? Halperin has had some major career struggles. His Wikipedia entry suggests he'd been vulnerable since the Dubya years for leaning a little too Repulican, but once Obama was president, he really began to get into hot water:

On June 30, 2011, Halperin was suspended from his duties at MSNBC for "slurring" President Barack Obama on the program Morning Joe, after he said of Obama "I thought he was kind of a dick" for his performance at the previous day's press conference. His suspension was lifted a month later.

In December 2011, Halperin was listed as number 1 in Salon's 2011 Hack List, his reporting described as "shallow and predictable" as well as "both fixated solely on the horse race and also uniquely bad at analyzing the horse race".

He started living even more dangerously with Donald Trump:

Alex Shephard, writing in The New Republic, criticized his coverage for being "totally fixated" on the horse race and for shallow analysis, and "that he’s wanted to carry Donald Trump's bags for years."

On November 3, 2016, NBC's Brian Williams said Halperin had "gone out of his way" to give Trump favorable coverage. "When Donald Trump complains he is not getting favorable coverage in the MSM"—making reference to the mainstream media—"he has not been listening to you this cycle", Williams said to Halperin on Williams' show. "It's a question of looking at the data," said Halperin. "If there's a bit more of a national surge, and if it turns out that his ceiling is higher than the Clinton folks think...I think it's possible he (Trump) could find his way to 270" electoral votes. Less than a week later Trump surprised many people by winning over 300 electoral votes.

What came next seems hardly a coincidence:

On October 26, 2017, CNN disclosed that five women had, on condition of anonymity, accused Halperin of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

. . . Later that day, NBC News released a statement saying that in light of the allegations, Halperin would not return as a senior political analyst "until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood". HBO announced it would no longer go forward with a planned miniseries about the presidential election that was based in part on Halperin's then-upcoming book on the 2016 election.

. . . A day after their first story, CNN ran a second story revealing that the number of women accusing Halperin of misconduct had grown to "at least a dozen". In a lengthy statement published in response to the CNN report, Halperin denied several of the new allegations. . . . He apologized to the women he "mistreated" while acknowledging that he recognized he had a problem near the end of his tenure at ABC, received weekly counseling sessions, and ended the behavior; however, a later report from The Daily Beast included an allegation of harassment from 2011.

It's hard to come to a conclusion about the allegations. He denies the most scurrilous, and they're all anonymous, but he acknowledges he had a problem and has tried to do something about it. On the other hand, the whole episode appears to have been stage-managed and calculated to banish him from media, so it's hard not to think there was something behind the campaign beyond just exposing bad behavior. In any case, he spent seven years in the wilderness, but by 2024, he'd begun to restart his career:

For several news cycles this campaign season, it’s almost been like old times for Mark Halperin. The veteran political pundit has been hitting the media circuit, slinging opinions about the presidential race on NewsNation, Newsmax, Fox News.com, and Michael Smerconish’s satellite radio program. He’s been on Megyn Kelly’s mega-popular podcast and on Tucker Carlson’s too. When Halperin reported on his video platform in early October that “robust private polling” was showing Kamala Harris’s support fading and Donald Trump’s ascendant, the Trump-friendly mediasphere gobbled it up, treating his comments as if they were delivered from Mt. Olympus.

In 2024, he began a 2WAY channel with his own and guest commentary that's also fesatured on YouTube. In 2025, he began working for Megyn Kelly's MK Media, reporting on the Next Up channel on Sirius XM and YouTube. His reporting is usually insightful and accurate, although it leans in a pro-Trump direction -- but his predictions on electoral outcomes, including Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race and Trump's victories in 2016 and 2024, have been correct.

So how does this fit in with Megyn's move to align with Tucker Carlson, against Trump, and against Israel? Halperin is, of course, from a Jewish family, and his reporting on Israel and the Iran war has been even-handed to favorable:

In this episode of “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” Mark uses his reported monologue to put to rest the debates over the “why?” and “why now?” questions about President Trump’s decision to use military force in Iran. By looking at nearly half a century of statements from Trump himself and from his immediate predecessors, Mark illustrates how clear Trump’s rationale and reasons are for the historic decision, leaving space to ask the other important and germane war-time questions for the United States and the world.

Earlier, commentary on Halperin's rehabilitation attributed it in large measure to Megyn Kelly's and Tucker Carlson's support, but this was during a period when Kelly and Carlson were favorable to Trump. As of this past March 2, Kelly has been anti-Trump due to the Iran war:

On March 2, 2026, Kelly would split with the Trump Administration over the 2026 Iran war, notably questioning why U.S. military members died in a conflict which mainly involved Iran and Israel. In a phone interview with Rachael Blade of The Inner Circle later that day, Trump declared that both Kelly and Tucker Carlson, another right wing commentator who criticized Trump's Iran policy, "aren't MAGA".

But Kelly's political affiliations have been fluid. At the same link, this was her 2025 position:

"When I was at Fox and then for that year at NBC, I was more in the center. I was like definitely center-right. Now I think I'm pretty conservative. I mean, I just am now. I mean, the earth has shifted such that I think I have to say, yes, by today's standards, you'd call me conservative. But that's thanks to them. What they did to me, they were vicious. They're complete a[********]. Their woke ideology completely radicalized me against them. And I love that. It empowered me in a way that allowed me to see the truth about them. That was very helpful to me. I wouldn't undo it if I could because it really helped me understand who I was dealing with over there."

Now, as of this year, with Tucker, she's reaching a wonderful new audience of young Muslims. I've got to hope Mark Halperin has built up enough credibility to continue a career without Megyn Kelly's support, because that hostage video doesn't seem like it augurs well for Halperin's future working for her.