well i'm joined now by megan kelly who's
the former fox news anchor
and nbc news anchor who now hosts a new
podcast the megan kelly show hello there
to you thanks so much for joining us on
bbc news
so you have publicly expressed support
for piers morgan tell us why
because i think he should be allowed to
express his opinion and i think we need
more people who are willing to push
boundaries not less
on the air and we're just cracking down
on free speech in a way that i find
really alarming
and it doesn't i don't have to agree
with everything pierce says
i just have to support his right to say
how he actually
feels and if people get offended that's
okay sometimes
when you're in the business of talking
about difficult issues and stories for a
living
some people will take offense although
the online campaign against peers
seemed very organized yesterday by his
you know pre-existing detractors
um so i just i'm in favor of his right
to have his own opinion
and i get alarmed when we see that
getting shut down left right and center
when i i don't know how controversial it
is to say that he just doesn't believe
meghan markle he
like he doesn't why doesn't he get to
believe her
it's so interesting what you say because
no one would question his right to have
an opinion
they would question his right to express
it as a journalist
on television isn't there a
responsibility on journalists
to maintain a degree of impartiality
when they're reporting on a new story
well i don't
think that's been piers's brand right
like i don't get to watch him on good
morning britain a lot because i'm here
in the states but
i read his column at the daily mail all
the time and i would put him more in the
field of
i don't know like a glenn greenwald here
in the states while he's in brazil
but somebody who is both opinion and
journalism
and piers has never been shy about
expressing his opinion and he
often takes controversial positions and
he's been beaten up on meghan markle and
prince harry
for a long time so i i i think his brand
is what they hired and he didn't really
deviate from it this week
so but maybe he went too far because
the media regulator ofcom got over
000 complaints from the public they
clearly thought he went too far
you can't go by that though i mean they
broke records for their viewership
yesterday they had millions of people
tuning in right so it's like
40 000 okay think of all the people who
had absolutely no problem with peers or
if you went out and said to them
they're thinking about cracking down on
peers of speech people need to write in
to save him
how many would you have gotten you can't
give a heckler's veto
and even if piers was in trouble okay so
you slap his hand and he went out there
yesterday morning and he said
look if somebody is struggling with
mental health if somebody is suicidal i
100
support their right to seek help and if
she did in fact complain
something should have been done and
there should be an investigation into
why it wasn't if it wasn't but he's
basically saying i don't buy it
i i having listened to the whole
interview and knowing this person
do not believe what she said he's
entitled to that belief i don't think
it's irresponsible for him to say
having covered her now for years day in
day out much more than the average
person
i have good reason to believe she's not
a credible person in this or many other
things she says
but perhaps he has offended too many
people by saying that he doesn't believe
her
particularly on the issue of mental
health which is a very sensitive subject
it is i'm not going to dispute that i've
covered
you know i've covered that a fair amount
in my career and i understand it's
difficult for people to talk about
mental health
ps which is why i'm always outing myself
as being in therapy
it's it's working so far um but i i
think
she took a risk right in in disclosing
that but i don't think
her doing that requires everyone to
believe it and i don't think
it's unsound for a commentator to say
i'm not buying it i think she's going
for sympathy it's not how i feel
but i i don't think people being
offended
you know some faction of a huge audience
being offended
should cancel somebody's right to speak
out
right yes generally we need to be a
little ginger around difficult issues
but if that's what you want you know you
don't put pierce morgan in the seat they
put piers morgan into the seat to get
eyeballs
and he brought that show to where
yesterday was number one
and their viewers skyrocketed he and
susannah have this great dynamic
the the public enjoys it they clearly
enjoy it
they may not always like it they may
hate him on monday and like on my
tuesday
he's been great in great britain on the
covet stuff but you can't
just keep yanking people's microphones
off because they happen to have an
opinion
that some people may find offensive i i
wonder if uh
part of your difficulty with the megan
interview and piers morgan's difficulty
was the nature of the questioning i mean
the duchess of sussex is only going to
put her point of view
and what else would she do but i wonder
if you would have been less frustrated
and he might have been less frustrated
if you'd felt that the interview was
more combative
not combative no i didn't want to see
that and oprah's
you know she started her career as a
journalist but she's been a talk show
host for the past 30 years so
she's sort of in a different lane when
it comes to how she approaches these
interviews and i'm sure that's why she
was selected
but i as a journalist i have really
wanted to see
oprah in general she's done a couple of
interviews on big cases
here in the states recently one was the
michael jackson documentary
and now this where it's not believing
it's not that i'm on the side of
the michael jackson estate um but i
i wanted to see more probative
questioning and when she talked to megan
i think she does the audience oprah did
overall did a great job but i think it
in not pressing for more specifics oprah
did the audience and megan
a disservice because if somebody
practiced law for 10 years i can tell
you it's the facts
it's the details it's the specifics that
convince people
and she would have done everyone a
better favor and a better a better
service
if she had said who at the palace told
you that they weren't going to help you
when you reported that you were feeling
suicidal who specifically
and then when you say you went to hr who
specifically name names
okay you don't want to name who is the
alleged racist within the royal family
can you tell me whether it's one of
these four can you rule out like
on the spot she should have said can you
rule out the queen and prince philip
because she had to go do clean up on
that the next day
like press people were jealous of megan
when she went on the australia tour
and that's one of the things that led to
the deterioration who what's your
evidence of that how did you know that
you have to as you you know as a
presenter showing
instead of telling is much more
compelling and i think
that didn't happen um
just again on the question of piers
morgan i wonder if there is a cultural
difference as well
that in britain broadcasters are by and
large expected to stay
impartial and objective piers morgan was
always given
more more leeway if you like but i mean
he was on a fairly extreme end
not so much the case in the united
states you're probably right i
i will tell you just as an american
journalist i don't understand this ofcom
and i can't imagine working in a world
where i had to answer to somebody
other than my boss my audience and
myself my own conscience
i like you know we we're pretty big on
free speech over here
uh so i don't like the idea of
government tapping me on the shoulder to
say like i don't like the way you said
that
but i don't know i love great britain
and i think your press is really fun so
it must be working to some extent yeah
and can i just ask you separately i mean
you yourself have been
the uh object of uh personal criticism
by the former president trump
uh over your handling of uh one of the
presidential debates so you know what
it's like
to come under personal fire how did you
deal with that
well i've been thinking about that a bit
in the in recent days because when i
listened to meghan markle
i understood her talking about how awful
it is to be the scourge of the press
i got it i mean trust me i've been there
many times
um but i you know my thought was you
know why didn't the palace protect me
why did they pa
so the palace can't protect you from the
press the press as you know rita is
going to do what it's going to do
and there's only so much anybody can
reel them in and i've experienced
that too and when you put yourself in
the public eye as i have as you have and
certainly if she has on a much larger
level
at some level you got to say it's time
to put your big girl pants on
and understand this comes with a job
it's unpleasant you have to find ways of
tuning it out
and go on living your beautiful life
and i think megan trying to say the
palace didn't protect me and
people said negative like that's part of
the job i know it's unpleasant i know it
involved race
i've been on the receiving end of tons
of sexism so i get how painful that kind
of thing can be
but it's baked into the cake that we've
all chosen to eat when we become
public figures okay very good to talk to
you thank you so much that's megan kelly
american broadcaster thank you so much