Is this Donald Trump-Megyn Kelly truce going to last? Almost certainly not.
Two weeks removed from their civilized (some would say soft) interview on Fox, Kelly on Tuesday criticized the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for injecting ethnicity into his complaints about the federal judge presiding over a Trump University lawsuit.
After the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, ordered the public release of university documents on Friday, Trump bashed Curiel as a “hater” who “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.”
“Wrong. He is American,” Kelly said on her show Tuesday. “He is not Mexican.” Indeed, Curiel was born in Indiana. Kelly went on: “Listen, you can say that there’s no merits to the case, and Trump will get his day in court. But to go after the judge as a, quote, ‘Mexican’ and ‘hater’ takes it to a different level.”
Trump has not responded to Kelly’s criticism. He’s been busy ripping other journalists for checking up on his claims about donations to veterans’ charities.
But this is the sort of commentary from Kelly that has bothered Trump in the past. She is once again questioning his rhetoric and temperament – the same subjects she raised at that memorable debate last August.
Now, as before, the questions are entirely legitimate. And Kelly is showing that her efforts to restore a professional rapport with Trump won’t prevent her from criticizing him.
But Trump seems to have a low tolerance for anything less than praise from Kelly. And, remember, he warned during that interview a couple weeks ago that “this could happen again with us.” By “this,” he meant another bout of open warfare.
For now, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. But the status of his cease-fire with Kelly is, as always, tenuous.
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