DONALD TRUMP AND Megyn Kelly met at Trump Tower in New York yesterday to clear the air after a very public falling out.
The Republican party’s presidential frontrunner has made no secret of his dislike of Kelly in recent months, initially claiming the Fox News host treated him unfairly in a television debate last August.
At the time Trump said Kelly had “blood coming out her eyes” and “blood coming out of her … wherever.” He later denied this was a reference to her being on her period.
Things further soured when he skipped another debate moderated by Kelly in January. Just last month Trump launched a Twitter attack on Kelly, calling her “highly overrated” and “crazy” (more than once).
At this point Fox News had enough and blasted Trump’s “extreme, sick obsession” with the presenter.
However, relations appear to have thawed following yesterday’s meeting – which Kelly requested. On her show last night she said the pair met for about an hour and “had a chance to clear the air”. She said they also discussed the possibility of doing an interview.
Later Trump told Fox’s Sean Hannity, Kelly was “very, very nice” and he gave her “a lot of credit” for requesting the meeting.
Battery charge dropped
Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that Trump’s campaign manager will not be prosecuted on a misdemeanour battery charge after prosecutors determined there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him of forcibly grabbing a female reporter.
Police charged Corey Lewandowski last month after determining a video recording showed him grabbing reporter Michelle Fields by the arm as she tried to ask Trump a question while he was leaving a campaign event on 8 March.
State attorney Dave Aronberg said during a news conference today that police were right to charge Lewandowski, but the burden on prosecutors to prove the case was higher.
Although there was probable cause to make an arrest, the evidence cannot prove all legally required elements of the crime alleged and is insufficient to support a criminal prosecution.
Fields, who worked for the conservative Breitbart News website at the time, tweeted a photograph of her bruised forearm and said she had been yanked backward.
Lewandowski had denied grabbing Fields and Trump stood by him, rejecting calls by his opponents to fire him. Instead he went after Fields, accusing her of exaggerating and changing her story.
The investigation proved, however, that Lewandowski “pulled Ms Fields back” as she attempted to interview Trump, according to a memo by another prosecutor, Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis. The memo says that Lewandowski could have believed Fields was “making unwanted physical contact with Mr Trump” that led him to pull her away.
On the Democrat side of things, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will face off in a CNN presidential debate in New York tonight.
- contains reporting from AP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say