Transcripts For CSPAN2 Settle For More 20161211 : vimarsana.

His book is in defense of a liberal education and National Book award winner gives his thoughts on the current state of black america in between the world and me, more staff picks from portland, oregon powell bookstore, sam quinones exploration of opioid crisis. Solitary lives of prominent artists in the lonely city. Historian timothy how the First Amendment affects the 21st century in free speech. Many of these authors have appeared or will be appearing on book tv, you can watch them on our website, booktv. Org. [cheers and applause] good evening, everybody. Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. What a great crowd, my name is lisa, im one of the coowners of politics and prose. On behalf of our great staff we welcome you all and we want to thank our friends and partners, we love doing events here. How many of you have been to an event here before . All right. I can see why youre coming back. Its one of our favorite venues and specially excited for tonights event. So i think youve been given introductions on how this is going to proceed. We are really honored and pleasure to host a woman recognized by millions of people across the country and around the world, most of us and most of you know her as one of the most influential and toughest journalists in television. Shes also a former highpowered lawyer. Shes a mother of three and perhaps most important shes also an author. Megyn kelly is here to talk about her book. Isnt that fantastic . Settle more more is a memoir and the one thing i can say with assurance being on the Book Business is that theres an art to writing a memoir. Theres even more of an art to writing a good memoir and more of an art writing a great memoir. It has to tell the truth. Settle for more is a great memoir. Through her career as a successful lawyer. Evolution in her role as professional woman. And one other very important point about this book, it is really, really funny. She survived some of the most challenging environments. She said to work in some of the very contentious people she has covered, im not mentioning any names. [laughter] theres much more of megyns story, megyn, if theres any consultation, i dont know if any have followed the story of pizzagate. We know a little thing or two about the real consequences of fake news stories and we are with you. We are with you and we havent experienced half of what she has. But anyway, to help us get to the heart of her book and story, we are lucky to have with us another superb broadcast journalist, katty kay. Shes a bbc anchor on world news america. We are delighted that katty will be in conversation with megyn, welcome in inviting the two exceptional women. [applause] lets rerun it. Lets rerack that. Thats how we are opening the kelly file tonight. Yeah, theres so much criticism and negative walking in a room where everyone loves you, thats so great. The book tour has been the opposite of the internet. [laughter] thank you all for coming on winters monday night. We are specially appreciative that youve joined megyn and i here. I know megyn and its a real treat to have me sit here and talk with her for an hour. I have your questions to and i will throw them randomly during the course of the evening. I read settle for more over the course of the weekend. Its funny, honest. I have to admit, megyn, when i was first asked to do this how does somebody of your age write a memoir, youre just starting in life. Theres a stier to that because originally i was going to write about a segment and we see millennials who cant function if they suffered any sort of offense and it was irritating me. It really gets under my skin and i call them cupcake nation. The more i start today write about that, theres a reason why im like this and theres a reason i feel this way and i actual thought i can explain it to people if i walk them through how i got to this place and why i find the cupcake nation thing objectionable and deeply problematic for society and for those 240 20yearolds. Adversity is an opportunity to grow and become stronger and, you know, just take where lisa had left off. If i had had no adversity and had parents that kept me in protective bubble, how do you think i would have handled the last year, i would have been crying under my desk. The reason why i was able to handle that is because i had been through iterations of that before. Lets go back and start at the beginning in albany, new york. Almost british. [laughter] i say that as a complement. My mom is one of the stars in the book. What i love about your parents is the idea that inculcated in you, the idea that you werent particularly special. I like that. Not everybody is a winner. I hate that. Right. And i think that youre the the values that you have compared to the value we both have kids. The world that our kids live in where you get a trophy for showing up for the game. Right. It drives me kind of crazy. Ive had enough of that. I certainly didnt grow up with that. My parents, youre not so special, it was like you dont seem that special so far and thats just fine by us. We are openminded to specialness, but we dont see it yet. And that was a gift to me because honestly i felt zero pressure to achieve or succeed growing up. I could tell they wanted me to be happy. You did have to be funny. Good sense of humor and engaged and you werent allowed to sit like a plotted plant in the table. Beyond that, it was you seem happy, are you happy, good, good luck. And that worked out very well for me and so, you know, that all started with my mom and dad, and by the way, on the participation trophies, it wasnt if you achieved, they didnt give you praise. There was no pressure to achieve. Your older brother and sister, all your family, this is about megyns family, your book. Tell a story about how your dad he would get you and ask you what had gone on in your day and your older brother and sister would Say Something and it would be megyns turn and you would go on and on and on. Shes talked enough, shut her up. Make her shut up, theyd say. My dad who was an educator. He thought ph. D students in education all five of us had dinner together every night. My dad would say to everybody, whats the report. My brother and sister and myself. Whats the report. Pete and suzanne would give a few answers. Sure enough and i would go on and on, they would say make her shut up and my dad would say, you had your chance and hed say and now you will listen to her. [laughter] and actually my friend proposed naming my book that. [laughter] you paint megyn a picture of a happy family but theres two incidents that really struck me during the course of your childhood and we should talk about those and the first was what happened when you got into seventh grade. Youve been surrounded by friends and go to school and then band. But for you seventh grade was a nightmare. The Second Chapter in the book and its about my seventh grade year. Its called mean girls in the book and honestly its still hard to talk about to this day and so now i just turned 36 on november 17th and that happened when i was 12. Dont make me do the math. I can still get teary about it when i think back on what happened. I had always been somewhat popular. I never really struggled. I was not attractive at all. I had no appearance currency. You know, i was never one of those girls, oh, my gosh, shes so beautiful. My parents was like shes going to be with us for a long time. This is why the book is so great. You talk about putting on weight and having acne. Huge space between my two front teeth. Dont u you want to have that fixed . Im going to go with my mom. I grew up unattractive. I was kind of chunky. My hair was hideous. Thats my friends fault. Anyway, i didnt look good. You have to not picture this version of me where there are two people over there. They pay to make me look good. Everybody here would look glamorous if they had people that they paid. So i did have currency in my personality and my friendships, like that to me was important to my own ego and sense of self and worth and for whatever reason. Everyone here has been to seventh grade. The group turned on me. So many people said why and the Group Requires no reason nor do they really provide an explanation. They just turn and i went from being a popular girl to being an object of disgust for them. I mean, it was it wasnt that they didnt want to hang out with them it was because i repulsed them and you could just feel it as i would walk to the halls and they would throw things at me and constantly make comments about my bod, about my skin and culminated in this horrible episode where i was let me just couch this by saying, i know that people have had it so much worse. Please understand, i know that. But at the time i didnt have that perspective. But i was home with my parents on a saturday night and the leader of the group, she was having a party and she said, megyn, do you know where all the people from my party are and i said, no, and they all yelled into the phone, we are here. Honestly, i can still get upset about it. To this day it was so cruel and i was feeling so vulnerable and my parents were watching me and i hadnt discloses to them even that i was being bullied never mind to this extent and i went out on the backyard and it was a cold snowy night in the winter and i skated on top of the snow which had been iced over just with tears streaming down my face in the darkness and felt so isolated and alone and targeted and i read in the book, it didnt stop in the spring when a beautiful angel named heather shepherd came and sat with me at lunch and befriended me for no particular reason. She did and my mom by that point knew something about the bullying and said, all you need is one, you know, and she befriended me and changed everything for me. She really changed everything for me, and do you know that we remained friends for years. I never really articulated to her how grateful i was for that until really this book and she knows my mom, they both live in albany still and she read it and she called my mom and said, you know, she helped me too which meant so much to me. To this day, i cannot tolerate bullies and i do think one upset what . [laughter] and youve done a little more. I think outside of the bullying, there are a few. I would not recommend this. I do have empathy for people. I have empathy for true victims of, you know, negative events. Thats not to say that i believe in i dont like the word victim. Even if you have been victimized its just a selfdefeating word that can mess with your head but i do have empathy through people that have had hard times. One question that i have read, you are clearly close to your mom, why do you think you didnt . I was ashamed. Amazing. I felt i felt their repulsion. I started to believe that i was repulsive and i was doing it all wrong. It was your fault. It was my fault. I wasnt likable and that was an area in which my parents did value that. They wanted me to have friends like normal parents. While they were saying they would never be attractive. I was about 7 and my mom said, i know a girl that didnt brush her hair today and i was like out i went. She didnt make me brush it. I would make her brush her hair for the record. They didnt put any pressure on me to look good but there was an understanding that i should have friends. I felt embarrassed that i didnt. Your dad died when you were young and you clearly had a very Good Relationship with him. But and i think for those who can read the book, the night he died you had a yeah. You routed your died when he died. Yeah. That actually is a story i never told publicly before, before this memoir and i wrestled with it, you know, i really wasnt sure how much i wanted to discloses of about that night. Not because of people like you sitting here, people who are openminded and i hope kindhearted and hopefully can view me through if not a generous lens but neutral lens. I certainly didnt want them messing with my fathers death. This is what it is like to be a public figure and a private figure if you discloses yourself publicly. But i thought it was integral of what i am. I thought, maybe it makes you feel better when you know that somebody you can relate to has had a similar circumstances. For the record my dad and i have had a beautiful relationship. I was only 15 when he died. He was 45. He was no heart problems. He was fine and ten days before christmas 1985 he dropped dead of a heart attack and it was a stupid fight and it was over a class ring. I was being a stupid 15yearold girl who wanted a nicer class ring than we could afford and he was telling me, we cant afford that nicer wring and ring and i wouldnt let it go and he had had it and he turned and walked out of the kitchen and he never got mad, i mean, he wasnt that kind of parent. My mom, on the other hand, she would get mad, but he turned and walked out and i walked past him in the living room to go upstairs to my room to my bedroom and my last sight of him was he was staring at the Christmas Tree in the living room, a good man alone. And thats just something that i have to live with and in those terms because the next thing that happened my sister came into my office my room and said, wake up, daddy had a heart attack. And he was never revived. You know, i where in the book about going to the hospital and, you know, i dont know if you ever lost anybody but going in there and seeing him having a chance to say goodbye, how strong my mom was, my mom who is 14 years old at the time, she has three kids, theres me, 145yearold me and shes a nurse at the va. She does not have a lot of money and my dad had just canceled the major insurance policy we had because he was like im 45yearolds and he didnt it wasnt a heart parent. Patient. So we had money problems facing us and my mom knew that as well. She was such an example for me in those moments, not by preaching, she was she fever said never said to me, you must be strong. We are having a they therapy session here. You to function in the face of upset. Upset but functioning in the face of it. That is something i can do. You talk about how she doesnt, shes strong and incredibly strong after your father died but you tell a story about how youve been a lawyer and jumping for several years now and you get to new york and youve been in chicago and when you cry youre lonely and your apartment is cold and at the first night shes super sympathetic. She said, the third night she said megyn, stop playing the victim, not attractive. And man, did that jolt me out of this selfpity party. You know, she had been there, empathetic. Now youre being ridiculous. Toughen up butter cup. I think about it till this day. Toughen up butter cup is what i want to say to everybody in the millennial generation. Do you say that too your kids . Theyre 3, 5 and 7. It might be cruel. Youre bringing up your kids with the same values of not everyone is a winner. Ive already thrown away my sons participation trophy. It went right in the garbage. Im sorry, i did. I went to my daughters school, we had parentteacher conference, what is your core message to yarley. You are not special. I mean it in the context that i just deliver today you. I dont jump a joy when they give me a piece of paper that has three lines of it. I try not to tell them that they are not the greatest things, i love them to death, i hug them and kiss them all day long and i dont tell them how much i how extraordinary they are. Should it come along . Right. Should we jump forward to law career. You became a lawyer in chicago and new york and after, what was it ten years or something in law . Nine years. You write the fabulous journal entries which is full of angst that im more exciting than this and i need more exciting. Why was law not enough . You can read them. Its a little Bridget Jones dairy. But like she did, but, you know, i had been practicing law for over nine years and up state we never came from circles of power, it meant a lot to be a lawyer. I have arrived and now people are going to take me seriously and i like this sort of, you know, im fierce and im tough and serious, megyn kelly esquire, yeah. And so i was really reluctant to walk away from it because it meant something to me, to my selfimage, but i really did ran first head first of brick wall of unhappiness and you get to a point where you cant deny it anymore. You cant deny up happiness. Malaise and mediocraty. How did you get into journalist . I had always been interested in journalism. I got rejected which i love to remind them now. They dont care. [laughter] it means something to me. [laughter] yeah. And so i when i decide today leave law, okay, so this is something i always wanted to the but maybe i can do it now but, you know, its not that easy to jump into it career as a broadcast journalist and so i really was determined but without the immediate plan and then like in retrospect i feel like my father may have had a hand in it because my dad and guitar playing is a theme of the book. Absolutely. We use today spend, we never took a fancy family vacation. He played the guitar around the campfire and we would sing and dance, that kind of thing. I tried to learn guitar. I was taking guitar lessons once a week and low and behold and woman was journalist and she made a class because the Space Shuttle had blown up. Meredith, where were you. Well, im in news. Youre in news. Honestly, i believe in stuff like this. I just feel like theres a reason i was in that guitar class and theres a reason why i connected with this woman and this beautiful lovely woman who sometimes competitive and they dont always extend the hand of generosity and friendship to help another woman in Competitive Industry in particular, this can happen to guys too. She was just the opposite of that and had endless generosity for me and helped me make a tape and within six months i had my first tv job part time and within 12 months of that fox news hired me. Whats the rewarding aspect of being the news anchor, most challenging aspect . Rewarding aspect, i would definite i will say the most rewarding aspect is the responsibility that, you know, theyve given me and ive earned. Its not so much speaking truth to power. Its being able to hold people in power accountable. Thats the most rewarding aspect of it, that you can ask the hard questions and they kind of have to deal with you, you know. Certainly in the position im in now. They kind of have to. Take donald trump, he avoided me for most of the year, he wouldnt come on the kelly file that doesnt mean i didnt have a chance to hold him accountable. I did. And hillary clinton, she never came on the kelly file, not once, which i would argue did not serve her well. [laughter] [applause] theres my Makeup Artist clap ig. Shes on my side. Anyway, so thats the best part, the worst part, you know, i would definite i will say the worth part has been security threats that ive had to face. I get lots of it and i hate it. You went from somebody that reports on the news to becoming the focus of the news. Right. It happened after you asked the first question in the Republican Debate when you asked donald trump about how he treated women in the past. Lets back up. What happened before you asked that question because its an extraordinary day that you had leading into that . Thats one of the things i review in the book. Trump and i had always had a Good Relationship prior to that debate. We werent friends but we were friendly and then i did a segment before the debate on the kelly file from the divorce of ivana trump. It wasnt my story, it was a story that the daily beast had broken 30 years ago in which ivana in sworn deposition testimony testified that he raped her. He was brutal according to her testimony, extremely nasty and very detailed. The deadly beast brought the story back up because trump said mexicans are sending rapists, speaking of rape, right, thats why they went there. My point in having on the daily beast report and kelly file is to challenge the reporter a bit and say, look, she recanted that testimony, she does not standby it, it was 30 years ago, it was a contentious divorce proceeding which people notoriously lie, so how did you account for that reality in your reporting which i thought was not quite skeptical enough of those allegations. I thought it was fair to trump because we were not the ones dredging out his divorce. I put the guy on, i challenged him. It was fine. Donald trump was not happy. He was not happy i put the story on. It wasnt happy that we gave it any air time at all and insisted that i call him that monday before the thursday president ial debate that that august 6th fox debate and he wouldnt unless i called him personally. So i called him and it did not go well and he said you never should have put that story on your show. Look, i did you a favor, you should be thanking me. Everybody was talking about the story, you never should have put that. Bill oreilly didnt put that on his show. Bill oreilly is not my editorial gauge. He said, i never want to see that kind of story in your show again. I said, mr. Trump, you dont control the editorial on the kelly file. An that is when he blew and started screaming at me, youre a disgrace, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I almost unleashed my beautiful tweet account against you and i still may. [laughter] that was the first bullying youd had since seventh grade . I dont know if i would classify that as bullying, the threat of the twitter account was clear and at this point i already have that woman question drafted, i mean, i know im asking this, this has been drafted for weeks. The opening round, electric and hard, hard questioning for all of them, that had been in the bag for weeks. So now im in a position where hes angry, he feels antagonized. He feels antagonized and spent the four days sniffing around the fox News Executives to fill me out a bit, what are you going to do with her, whats the story, nobody ever told me but it was clear he was focused on me. Extraordinarily focused on me. And you know, at the time i thought to myself, this would be the biggest news story in the country if people knew he threatened to unleash twitter account and i was not at liberty to reveal that and that was not a conversation that he had given me permission to reveal and nor did i think it was appropriate. It was something that i didnt want to screw up the fox news debate and even then i had a sense he might not show if he got angrier and i did in the not want that and we had the thursday debate and the rest is history. So you asked the question, was there bullying that followed . Was there bullying yes, that question prompted not just from mr. Trump but from mr. Trumps beautiful twitter account . You were really put under a lot of pressure. I would say that there was an attempted bullying because if you look at the definition of bullying in the dictionary, it talks about obtaining a desired effect and he didnt shut you up. But a credit to my team at the kelly file that he didnt because it was hard to hold the line night after night after night and not cover him too harshly because i was being, my life was being threatened and not cover him too gently because i wanted him to stop the nonsense or to please him. You know, i made a promise after the audience after he came after me in august that i would continue to cover him from fear or favor. I had a team of people that helped me do that and it was hard because the pint i tried to make to donald trump in that main interview we had and the point i want others to know right now and one of the reasons why i included in this book is when donald trump comes after you, it isnt just a tweet, its like wow, hes really hes tweeting about her. And i understand hes a fighter and he really is a fighter and a counter puncher. I get all of that, but even then he had such power that a single tweet could unleash hell in somebodys life and im not even a civilian, right. Im a journalist. I would say he put me on the Playing Field but we cant have a President Trump pulling people right out of the fan stands doing this to him because they criticized him because most people dont work for a company that makes a billion dollars a year and can hire round the clock security for somebody like me and really ive been under arms guard for 16 months and my children has been under arms guard and its not an appropriate price to pay for hardhitting journalism. [applause] do you worry, megyn, that in this era in which people are subjected in the most extreme version to what youve been subjected to but pretty much every journalist i know who has covered the Election Campaign has had some form, mild form of what youve been through, we there will be a knock on effect which means the powers are not held to account in the way that they shuild be and i should point out that it doesnt come from the individual politicians. What happens when politicians turn on you for those who havent been on the position that all allegiance followers turn on you too. If youre a woman youre besieged by attacks too. I do worry about younger reporters and reporters who work for a place with very little means, you know. It costs a lot of money to have aroundtheclock security. That cant go on forever. At some point the security has to go away and the company cant keep footing ta bill. We have to accept the reality of that threat. I will say this, too, though, the vast majority of donald Trump Supporters are not at all this way. Yeah. Not at all. In fact, i have millions of them watching the kelly file every night and i know that theres so many people out there that say, i love donald trump and i leave you too. I dont like what he said about you and maybe they said i dont really like your first question to him, but they can hold those two ideas in their head. Its like that far corner of the internet that really enjoys nastiness and threats and unfortunately theres 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. [applause] the internet is a nasty place and i think the fact that its anonymous somehow allows people to be that much more vicious. Yeah. I think people have to put if people put names to the things they write, you wouldnt have that kind of stuff. Yeah, theyre paying attention. A question, do you watch your show at home when its broadcasting later . Not usually, no. I dont get home until around 11 30 midnight. If im lucky my husband doug is still awake and we will have a glass of wine and we will talk about our day and kids and we will talk about how the show went. He will watch it but i dont usually watch it unless theres something i thought that was bad on it and then i usually walk it and we screwed that up. [laughter] when have you felt imposter syndrome and how did you overcome . Thats an interesting question. I feel like i havent really had huge selfconfidence problems in hi life, you know, im not somebody is i have no confidence that need to be builtup. Thats a gift of my parents realism the radical honesty and i never had an experience which really i just assumed i was mediocre, i will pursue this. But i would say that when i was a lawyer i was definitely not the smartest lawyer in the ranks. I was up against the Harvard Law School graduates, people who were first in their class, those people have special friends. They just do and so i would just work ten times harder than anybody so that i could hang and i did hang. I was right there with them, but it was exhausting. I would say socially, socially i dont know how i want to put this. I have some insecurities socially. I write in the book how cheryl and i became friends after a segment we did at wasnt time and she wasnt going to be there but she was going to be there the next day but she was going to meet woman who she knew, you should meet the women in the bar the friday night before the saturday conference and these are really powerful women. And so now it comes the time where im supposed to walk in the car and meet up with the women and im walking through the bar and thinking, oh, my god. [laughter] im like thinking to myself no one is going to stop me because they dont really want me. Thats what im thinking to myself. Has this ever happened to you, right . And i think one of the problems is people look at somebody like me now and i think but its never happened to her and say we are all the same on some basic level, social challenges we go through and so i walk in the bar, nobody stops me and then i actually had to work up the courage to walk back to the bar other way and once again nobody stopped me, thats it, i can check the box, i tried and im ordering room service. Im back in my safe space and then, i was disappointed in myself that he didnt bring harder to make a connection and then the next day i sat like this with cheryl at the conference and she interviewed me and i told that story and all the women who i was supposed to meet up with were in the audience and then the most extraordinary thing happened and my email lit up with all those women saying, oh, my god, we didnt see you, we would have loved to have seen you, lets pick another date, i believed it and i thought, shit. [laughter] you know, sometimes you are your own worst enemy and socially i would say, i would play those games on my head than professionally. You talk in the book when you talk about journalism about going to therapy and you wanted to be invulnerable and women dont you realize that women dont surround themselves with other women who project only strength and no humanity and you i think it was roger ailes who said to be to the you that you were trying to be too perfect and i always think that television is an xray and you can tell who somebody is and if youre faking it, somebody is going to know. Yup. This is the aja moment of the book and the beginning of my decision to settle for more in my life and more means more from yourself. It doesnt mean more money or more goods. More from yourself. But i had gotten to fox news, i had meat it into broadcast television as a professional living and the messaging that started to come in to me from all different circles was the same, so first i had a negative experience with somebody in the fox news bureau, a woman, he was always my mentor and kind and he pulled me, do you know what your problem is, youre just as vulnerable as anybody else but you project zero vulnerability so people think that they can hurt you, you know, or they try too and they try to do it with impunity and roger ailes says love the whole package, now who is the real you and i was like, what do you mean, what are you talking about. Its still the post bully in me with protecting shell on me, you cant hurt me, im fine, screw you. I am strong. So this is the first time somebody was asking me to take off the shell, which is scary and then i was seeing a therapist because i was considering leaving my first husband who for the record i have a lovely relationship with to this day, we are still friends, he remarried and he has three kids, i remarried and have three kids and i was struggling with that decision. I started to see a therapist who is referred to in the book as my lady amy who saved me and she offered me the same challenge, she was seeing the same thing. She wanted me to go to a womens group so she wanted me to see her one time a week and a womens group and i said, how screwed up am i. Twice a week and i was already on tv. I have to go that megyn kelly from fox news is so screwed up. [laughter] i have to say the womens group is great. It was amazing. They were so brutally honest with me and it was extraordinary and i write about this in more detail but one night i came in, women at fox were going out for a drink and they didnt ask me to go with them. And my feelings were so hurt. This is like the posse. Am i the only one that feels like they dont want me, maybe they dont want me, maybe theres something about me that they dont want. And so i did feel that, again, and i went to the womens group to say, they were right outside of my door and talking about the happy hour and they didnt ask me and i thought i was going to get this soft shoulder to cry on but as i write in settle for more what i got is something even better which is honesty and the one woman in the group said through tears, she said to me, i wouldnt have invited you either. [laughter] i was like why, she barely even knew me. And she told me why. She told me it was like the final exclamation point on what i heard from brit and roger and what i had start today sense in my own life. What you project is off pudding and kind of intimidating and not that likable. She said honestly, if i sat next to you, i feel like i have nothing to relate in you and that you never have a bad hair day, you always have it together, you are little miss perfect which is one of the chapter titles and for so many years i would have heard that, oh, good, its working. [laughter] and that year which is 2005 into 2006 was the beginning of my recognition that that was not working for me and it was very selfdefeating defense mechanism i had been using for years. And i am happy to tell you that through a lot of hard work i did get the shelloff and i believe its the reason that i found doug, my husband, and i have the three kids that i have now. The reason i have true friendships in my life now in the way that i struggled with earlier and i also absolutely believe its the secret to my success as a broadcaster. [applause] which brings us to this question, you always been so poised, how do you maintain composure. Shes really not, shes a mess. I have learned to control my temper. Im Irish Catholic and the other half is italian. Look at it. Again, my Makeup Artist. Shes no shrinking violet. I am able to control my temper and i think thats the key, again, back to its okay to feel emotional or feel tears coming off or you have to play hurt and the same is true when youre angry. I will have moments on the set, im sure you can think of some where i will think, dont get angry, dont get angry. But i am angry. [laughter] and then dont show your anger. I can do that. I dont have to just act on all my instincts. Practice. Yeah. Roger ailes has been hovering around on the conversation, lets bring him in because another revelation that you talk about the first time megyn is your relationship with roger. When you first met roger he was a great mentor to you. Yeah. He really helped you at fox. This is hard to tell somebody youre trying to be too perfect and you have to change in order to really connect but we think youre great. Yeah. So he he was responsible for launching your career but the relationship changed. It did. I felt it was important to leave all the good things about roger in the book even though the chapter 24 has become known in my circles, you know, with my friends and family, the second to last chapter, was because of scandal and i had a decision to make, do i go back and scrub the book of any kind of references to him because i too was learning about him when i was writing chapter 24 and in the end thats dishonest, you know, because roger ailes is not all bad, hes not all good. I think honesty in the way its the chapter of which im almost most proud, its the one i work the hardest on. I wrote that chapter and rewrote the chapter and i reworked the chapter about a thousand times and so every word in that chapter has been poured over by me and my husband doug and by some Close Friends who i dare to show it to. So youll see the complete picture when you read it and i urge you to do that because i made sure to tell the whole story there in context. I have done all the interviews that have been so annoying, not this one, where they want to sort of punch you. Ten minutes so she has to say that. No, its like why didnt you come forward earlier, you know why, can i swear here . Fuck you for saying that. [applause] honestly, you dont get to ask me to come forward and only if the answer to that is yes may you ask me that next question. [applause] so thats the headline right there but the story is that i joined fox news, it was my dream job. I had only been working part time in television. He hired me, he gave me a great opportunity and then 12 months into my tenure he called me up to new york, sat me down, gave me a bunch of great advice including now who is the real you and the untold part of that meeting and others like it was it would be coupled with highly inappropriate sexual references and in the beginning, listen, i i dont speak the queens english as you come to see, get that, that was for you. [laughter] im glad that you felt you had to make sure ive got it. [laughter] and i also have a body sense of humor, i dont offend that easily, you know. My mom, my nana, they loved dirty jokes. I dont offend easily so in parts of im like, okay, dont be too uptight and then he would cross the lines and he was like, thats inappropriate by any measure. Youd know when that happens and in the book was i have to fill four pages with the comments he made. I didnt wanting to there. I included enough so that you can decide for yourself whether it was Sexual Harassment. I submit to you its unambiguous because people like they dont want to be told. They want to see the evidence and judge for themselves. It was a terrifying six months because i understood that my career was on the line. I knew two things, i knew there was no way i was going to do anything with him and i knew well, its not because of appearance. [laughter] its because of integrity. And i knew that it was very likely this is going to end dye as disastrously and i would have to reject him outright which was the thing i didnt have to do. I was sort of dancing the dance. Ha, ha, back to work. And that worked okay for me and i could get out of there with all women shaking their heads. Guys are having such a different reaction than women in my life because, i think, at least 90 , maybe thats too high but women have experienced it in one way shape or form. Guys are like, really. It did culminate in an attempt to be with me in his office. Ive been with the company for 18 months by that point. Im not the megyn kelly of today. I have no power. I mean, zero. And he was on the cover of industry magazine as the most powerful man in news and i didnt want to blow up my relationship with him. I wanted to have a Good Relationship, i was doing well at fox news and i was performing well. I was earning my stripes. I wanted that to be the standard for which i was judged and as soon as we had the physical confrontation in his office and i did not do anything, i ran out of his office, i hired a lawyer and for the record, i did tell a supervisor which is what youre supposed to do. And the long story made short is, years went by and i would look for other women, ultimately years later i found one but hers happened right around the time mine had happened and i had convinced myself that hes not a bad man, he might be having marital difficulty. When gretchens lawsuit hit, i wasnt sure about that one for reasons that we dont need to get to and three women came forward, former fox news employees and i knew since i saw that, i knew. I had a decision to make because ultimately the company had said they were going to conduct an internal review and then somebody told me that roger was working to limit that review to only a small circle of people who had worked directly with gretchen and i knew what that would mean, no on air talent, not me, not my friend, not any of the other women who were probably speaking to the daily beast. And you know, i write in the book about how i looked at this picture of yardley, my 5yearold, shes on the jungle gym and she has blond hair dune and she had fallen off the monkey bars earlier and cracked her head open and she had gotten stitches but she was back up on top of that monkey bars and im flipping through my photos at the jersey shore and honestly i just said, this will not happen to one more woman at fox news ever. [cheers and applause] thats when i pucked up the phone and i told him to get general counsel on the phone and i told them about what had happened to me ten years earlier. And i told them the good and the bad about my relationship with him. I didnt want them to think he was some monster, i just wanted them to know this is real and you need to take an hoons look into his behavior. Thats all i wanted. Just an honest review. I figured if there was nothing there they would company rate him and if he went down he would have only himself to blame and i believe thats where things wound up. One of the all the awful stuff about harassment during the course of the campaign, the conversation that, i think, has been long overdue, like you 90 of the women have gone through in their lives. Right. Blaming the victim has to stop. It was just a whim. She said please write and if you have had instances of Sexual Harassment in the course of your life. Tens of thousands of women vote into her. That was the conversation that needed to be had. So my story had a lot of attention to just read a book