In the year since Donald Trump told a crowd at a campaign stop that Megyn Kelly’s apparent motivations are “sort of making a career by pretending she likes me,” the popular podcaster now finds herself at the center of a bitter right-wing feud that threatens to derail the president’s entire political project. The American right has attempted to maintain the fiction of a big tent unified by a shared loathing of the left. But the killing of Charlie Kirk quickly revealed the fractures in the foundation, and at Turning Point USA’s first AmericaFest since his death, that tent was set ablaze on a stage surrounded by over-the-top pyrotechnics at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Trying to analyze the current civil war on the right solely through the lens of ideology misses the point. Right-wing pundits like Kelly, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon see dollar signs in blood-and-soil populism. But the MAGA movement, for all of its denunciations of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), has successfully diversified with more Jewish, Latino and Black voters. That’s why what was meant to be a somber gathering three months after the September assassination of TPUSA’s founder devolved into carnage, with MAGA’s leading figures tearing into each other over antisemitism, conspiracy theories and the fundamental question of what, if anything, the conservative coalition actually stands for beyond rage and resentment. It’s the inevitable endgame of a movement built on grievance rather than governance beyond corporate tax cuts.
Owens, a former TPUSA staffer, has recently pushed a conspiracy theory that Erika Kirk, TPUSA security chief Brian Harpole and Nevada GOP Rep. Mark Amodei met at a military intelligence base the day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated, implying his slaying was an inside job. At AmericaFest, Kelly defended Owens from the stage, saying she welcomed questions about whether Israel was involved in Kirk’s murder and declaring she had no obligation to stop Owens from asking them. For that, Kelly was skewered on stage by Ben Shapiro, who incidentally was responsible for giving Owens her first podcast at the Daily Wire.
Since the onstage slugfest, Kelly has continued to lash out in a follow-up interview with Vanity Fair and a series of increasingly frantic posts on X. She attacked Shapiro and Bari Weiss — the newly installed editor-in-chief of CBS News who called Shapiro’s speech a “barnburner” and published it on her Free Press website — cowards. Kelly went on to accuse the two most prominent Jewish voices in conservative media of inspiring antisemitism through their support for Israel.
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“They are making antisemites,” she said. “Tucker is not making antisemites. They are.” Kelly wondered why anyone would “divide the American conservative movement — which was gelling, which was becoming much more cohesive for a moment after Charlie died — over Israel!” Eventually the Anti-Defamation League felt compelled to weigh in, saying Kelly’s “recent comments cross a dangerous line.”
When conservative pollster Frank Luntz pointed out that Kelly had praised Weiss just months earlier when Paramount Skydance paid Weiss millions to take over CBS News, Kelly responded by suggesting the right-wing wars will rage on into the new year: “I was reliably informed this week that it is cowardly not to call out your friends with the unvarnished truth about their defects. So my days of being a polite friend (to her) are over. And there’s more truth coming.”
A performer always looking for an audience, Kelly has found one among people who believe that every tragedy is a “false flag.”
Kelly has insisted she does not believe Israel had anything to do with Kirk’s murder. She wants to be seen as principled and reasonable without ever taking a stand that would alienate a lucrative audience segment. A performer always looking for an audience, Kelly has found one among people who believe that every tragedy is a “false flag.”
She is now where Tucker Carlson was years ago, who is now where Candace Owens was. Kelly likely is refraining from criticizing them because she knows she is just a few months away from occupying their same radicalized space. The grift requires constant movement further right to maintain relevance, always finding new enemies to attack, always positioning yourself as the victim of some imaginary cancellation.
The reality is that this isn’t just a petty media feud; it’s a proxy fight for the soul of the Republican Party, specifically the JD Vance-led wing that views traditional alliances — particularly with Israel — as a burden. Kelly has calculated that the “young Republicans” are turning, and she is desperate to lead the charge in the broader realignment of American conservatism away from Reaganite internationalism toward a paranoid nationalism. In that context, antisemitism is not a bug — it is a feature for those who see “globalism” as a convenient enemy.
All the while, as Kelly herself has repeatedly pointed out, her podcast downloads are on the rise. She’s found her audience, and now she is feeding them what they want to hear, consequences be damned. That’s why Trump’s assessment was so cutting and accurate. Kelly is making a career by pretending. The only question left is how long she can keep up the masquerade before even her audience sees through it.
Based on last weekend in Phoenix, where she attacked former allies and defended antisemitic conspiracy theorists while claiming to occupy the moral high ground, that moment may have already arrived.
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