The primetime princess's fall from grace

 ByADAM SCOTT BELLOS

Megyn Kelly once represented something rare in American media. She was the lawyer-turned-anchor who confronted Donald Trump with fierce resolve, exposing hypocrisy when everyone else trembled. She built her brand on saying what others were afraid to say. She presented herself as the last adult in the room – the uncompromising defender of free expression and common sense.

But something has changed. Not in one dramatic collapse, but through a slow, humiliating slide: from calling out lies to protecting the people who spread them, from demanding moral clarity to digging her heels into tribal right-wing loyalty. The Megyn Kelly who once made a living tearing hypocrisy apart has become one of its most effective new shields.

The clearest example is her handling of the Candace Owens–Charlie Kirk scandal. On her own show, Ben Shapiro stated – correctly – that Candace strongly implied Erika Kirk and TPUSA leadership bore responsibility for Charlie’s death. Anyone who watched the clip saw the same thing: Candace wanted the audience to connect Erika to Charlie’s collapse without saying it outright. Candace denied it. Fine – people deny things. But Megyn didn’t do what an honest journalist would do next. She didn’t say, “Whatever Candace meant, implying a widow is responsible for her husband’s death is grotesque.” She rushed instead to defend Candace, insisted she “never implicated Erika,” and portrayed Shapiro as the liar and aggressor. This wasn’t nuance. It wasn’t skepticism. It was Megyn Kelly choosing the far-right-wing tribe over truth.

And that pattern repeats everywhere. Megyn 2.0 loves the aesthetic of rebellion. She loves the f-bombs, the righteous monologues, the performance of being the last truth-teller in America. But she now bows to the forces she once exposed. In recent appearances, she openly admitted she will not condemn antisemitism when it comes from Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens. Why? Tucker is “a friend.” Candace is “a young mom.” Her battle is “with the left.” Not with the people on her own side – even when they traffic in antisemitic rhetoric and outright lies.

This isn’t complexity. It is a confession. Tucker has platformed open antisemites like Nick Fuentes and leaned into classic anti-Jewish tropes about “globalist elites.” And has pushed a new power libel, working to convince the world of Israel’s and Jews’ unchecked global conspiratorial power. Candace has drifted into the Woke Right – a far-right mirror of the woke left: conspiratorial, isolationist, and pathologically obsessed with Israel and Jews. Megyn sees all of this. And her position is simple: if you are in her political circle, she will not challenge you. That isn’t courage. It’s marketing – protecting her audience and her alliances rather than the truth she once claimed to champion and did so well.

The big misunderstanding

Antisemitism is not a Jewish issue – its emergence is the beginning of the final stage of civilizational decay. Every society that turned to it – Rome, Spain, Russia, the Arab dictatorships – was already hollowed out, spiritually bankrupt, and waiting for the collapse it had brought upon itself. Antisemitism is never about Jews. It is about a nation losing its self-respect, its courage, and its will to survive. So when Megyn Kelly shrugs at antisemitism from her friends, she isn’t simply failing Jews – she is helping America flirt with the same death impulse that destroyed every empire before it. And the horror here isn’t that Megyn Kelly hates Jews. Because I don’t think she does. It’s that she is giving moral cover to the people who do – and inviting America to pay the historical price for their sickness.

It all becomes undeniable once the discussion turns to Israel. Criticism is fair; what the Woke Reich does is not criticism. It is a sickness. They crawl toward Israel with the frantic hunger of degenerates, blaming Jews for every war, every failure, every crack in their collapsing worldview.

This isn’t analysis. It’s a grotesque fixation – the kind of diseased, compulsive hatred only the spiritually deformed can sustain. Watching them obsess over Israel is like watching a deviant paw at something they both fear and crave. It is revolting. And it exposes exactly who they are.

Megyn knows this. She understood October 7 with moral clarity. She recognized the barbarism of Hamas and the cruelty of those who denied the atrocities. But as the digital tide turned, she began warning that Israel had “made itself the villain of the world,” that it was “losing global standing,” and that continued US support no longer aligned with “America First.” She still claims she “supports Israel,” but her behavior tells a different story. She now spends more time defending those who undermine that support than those who live with the consequences. That is what a fall from grace looks like: saying comforting lines about Israel while enabling the forces determined to make Israel the villain in every narrative.

And this would be dangerous enough if it ended there – but it doesn’t.

This is where the drift becomes strategic, not just cultural. The people Megyn now protects have redefined “America First” into “America Alone.” This has nothing to do with Trump’s original doctrine, which was about American strength – not retreat. Trump’s America First Policy has always meant America shaping the world to its advantage, projecting strength, building alliances that amplify US power, and ensuring allies contribute more so American taxpayers don’t carry the burden alone.

America First – in the Woke Right’s myopic, isolationist fantasy – is the ideology of weak men pretending to be strong. It’s a tantrum for people too frightened, too uneducated, and too resentful to live in a world where America actually leads. So they reach for the oldest drug in history: antisemitism. They use “the Jews” and Israel as their emotional pacifier.

This scapegoat excuses their longing to shrink America into a frightened, inward little nation that no longer dares to shape the world. Their ignorance isn’t patriotic. It’s treasonous weakness – dressed up as nationalism by people who could never survive in the world America built. In short, isolationism isn’t American patriotism. It is surrender wrapped in a flag.

Because here is the geopolitical truth, stripped of all illusion: Israel is not a charity project; it is the razor-wire barrier standing between America and the predators circling it. Israeli intelligence is the reason Iranian terror networks in Latin America have been exposed, the reason Hezbollah’s cartel alliances are mapped, the reason Venezuelan narco-financing pipelines have been traced, the reason money-laundering routes targeting US institutions have been disrupted, and the reason terror plots have been stopped before Americans ever heard the alarms. To weaken the US–Israel alliance is not protecting America – it is dismantling its last line of defense. And the Woke Right’s isolationist dogma does not uplift this country; it debases it. It reduces the United States to a gullible, spiritually gutted nation offering up its own national body for penetration by the very forces sworn to destroy it, inviting its enemies to crawl through its defenses, corrupt its bloodstream, and devour it from within – all while mistaking surrender for strength.

Megyn Kelly knows this. Yet she now protects the voices working to sever that partnership. Her fall from grace is not about becoming anti-Israel or anti-Jewish. She still says the correct sentences. She still claims she hates antisemitism. The problem is more subtle – and far more dangerous. She refuses to challenge antisemitism when it comes from her own side. She defends voices pathologically obsessed with Israel. She reframes Jewish self-defense as Israel “becoming the villain.” She treats Jewish safety and American security as expendable when they conflict with the emotional demands of her audience. Why did she change? Not because the facts changed. Because ego pays and courage costs. In her media ecosystem, tribal loyalty is rewarded, and moral clarity is punished. She dug her heels into her identity, her brand, her alliances – and now refuses to back down. This isn’t hatred. It’s ego. And ego is just as dangerous, because civilizations rarely collapse from overt bigotry. They collapse when influential people choose pride over truth.

I do not believe Megyn Kelly is an antisemite. This isn’t about hatred – it’s about ego. It’s about a media personality who dug so deeply into her tribe, so invested in never backing down, that she will defend anyone inside her circle, no matter how toxic their rhetoric becomes. And that is how civilizations rot: not through open bigotry, but through influential people choosing pride over truth.

So the real questions now are these: If Megyn Kelly can shout “truth” for a living, why does her voice disappear the moment her own friends push antisemitic lies? How can a self-proclaimed “free speech warrior” lose her spine the moment the threat comes from inside her tribe? If antisemitism has always been the first crack in every collapsing civilization, what does it say that Megyn is smoothing over the fracture instead of sounding the alarm? At what point does defending your allies become enabling their poison? How many times can someone claim to “support Israel” while giving cover to the people obsessed with tearing Israel down? And if Israel’s intelligence helps keep America safe – from Hezbollah in Venezuela to Iranian networks across Latin America – then who is Megyn Kelly really protecting when she pretends none of this matters?

Most importantly: if Megyn Kelly won’t tell the truth when it’s hard, when it’s unpopular, and when it costs her something, why should anyone trust her to tell the truth at all? This is the Princess of Primetime’s fall from grace. And it’s complete.

Adam Scott Bellos is the founder and CEO of The Israel Innovation Fund (TIIF), a nonprofit organization reshaping global Jewish identity through culture, language, self-defense, and innovation. He leads major initiatives, including Wine on the Vine, Herzl AI, and Project Maccabi. Bellos is the author of the forthcoming book Never Again Is Not Enough: Why Hebraization Is the Only Way to Save the Diaspora. His writing explores the intersection of Jewish identity, American politics, antisemitism, foreign policy, and the cultural movements reshaping the West. He appears regularly in American and Israeli media and works to build strategic, cultural, and educational bridges between Israel and the Diaspora.