On her 9:00 a.m. ET hour show on Monday, NBC anchor Megyn Kelly blasted liberal actor Seth Rogen for refusing to take a picture with House Speaker Paul Ryan and even shaming the Wisconsin Congressman in front of his kids. None of the other network morning shows mentioned Rogen’s incivility toward the Republican leader.
“You know the actor, Seth Rogen? Well, Paul Ryan’s kids wanted a picture with him and as soon as he saw that they were Paul Ryan's kids, he said, ‘No, I won’t do it.’ And then he lectured the kids on how bad their dad was in front of their dad,” Kelly explained to her audience after Rogen revealed the incident during an appearance on Friday’s Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The in-studio audience booed Rogen as Kelly added that the celebrity “went on to say, ‘These kids should learn if they like a movie or a song, the person who made that probably doesn’t like their father.’” The host concluded: “That, to me, is so wrong.”
One of Kelly’s panelists, Karamo Brown from the Netflix show Queer Eye, noted: “Seth Rogen did say that where he was very conflicted about it...” Kelly interrupted: “He should be. He should be.” Brown continued: “..because this was his opportunity to talk to someone that he disagreed with, but also there’s children there.” Kelly declared: “He shamed them. He shamed them because of who their dad is.”
At first, Brown admitted how nasty it was: “As a father, I would have been – yeah, I would have been upset as well. If I was a father and someone talked to me in a way that my children were there.” However, the reality show personality then ran to Rogen’s defense and similarly denounced Ryan: “But I think it can also open a conversation for those kids to understand that your father is doing some really terrible and horrible things in our country right now.”
That prompted more boos from the audience and Kelly scolded him: “Oh, please. Paul Ryan? Oh, come on.” Brown argued: “Yeah, it’s just the truth. This is not a good time.” Kelly pressed him: “What specifically did Paul Ryan do?...Paul Ryan hasn’t done anything. I mean, honestly.”
The exchange came in the wake of Kelly’s panel of guests – which included Brown, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman and NBC News Correspondent Stephanie Gosk – all making excuses for a Virginia restaurant owner kicking out White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters calling for the public “harassment” of Trump administration officials at restaurants, stores, and gas stations.
Wrapping up the lengthy segment, Kelly warned her guests that such behavior from the left would only help Trump get reelected:
And I would say this, you can loathe President Trump, you can loathe his policies. You can completely have zero respect for those who support him and put his agenda into work, into operation. But, but, you have to be respectful of the people who put him in office or you’re gonna get four more years just like these....This is going to galvanize every Republican because they’re going to feel like they were kicked out of that restaurant, like they were embarrassed in front of their kids, like they are so deplorable, they can’t even eat in a public place anymore.
Goldman whined: “That may be right, but you cannot normalize his behavior and let him off the hook. And he started this.” Kelly pushed back: “Right, so what’s the best way of doing that? What’s the best way of not normalizing President Trump and his incendiary rhetoric and comments?” Goldman replied: “Other people are allowed to fight back and to push back and to protest back. And if he’s gonna go down this road of daily personal attacks against everything and politicize everything....it’s certainly not okay that he does it and everybody else can’t.”
Kelly asked: “Why isn’t it? Why? Why can’t you choose enlightenment and love and light and go towards that instead of going towards the hate?”
The anchor advised liberals:
Fight smart, right?...Fight in a way that doesn’t lose the very people you want to bring back over. Like what the Democrats want to do is bring back over those blue dog Democrats, right?...And there’s a real question, I have to tell you, about whether this is the way to do it. Just as a political matter, I don’t think this is a smart strategy. And I hate to see the incivility.
Gosk downplayed the concern: “But you don’t think that that moment – you don’t think that that moment in the restaurant galvanized both sides? You don’t think that there weren’t people that were cheering in the streets that she did that? I don’t know.”
Kelly predicted: “No, I think the Democrats are galvanized....but the National Review Republicans have not been, those are never Trumpers. I’m telling you, this is the kind of thing that will make them go to the polls and vote Trump next time around.”
Earlier in the discussion, Gosk argued that Sanders was thrown out of the restaurant in a “very civil” manner:
And I don’t think it was – it would have been uncivil if they had pushed at her. It would have been uncivil if they shouted at her. This was a very civil, “Please leave my restaurant.” It was a protest. It was, “Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you are the spokesperson for an administration that we feel very strongly has wronged us and has, at times, lied to us, and our way to demonstrate how upset we are is to protest that. And that is, I’m not going to serve you dinner.”
This kind of justification clearly demonstrates the double standard in the liberal media when it comes to the issue of civility in politics.
Here is a full transcript of the June 25 panel discussion:
9:00 AM ET
MEGYN KELLY: We begin today with incivility and intolerance in America. It is on the rise, or so it feels. Roseanne Barr, Samantha Bee, and yes, our own president, have shown us the jarring effects of incendiary rhetoric that can do more harm than good. Last week, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia, they did not want her to eat there, by the restaurant’s owner. Both sides took to social media and it seems now the whole world is weighing in on this, including Representative Maxine waters, who had this to say over the weekend at a rally in California.
REP. MAXINE WATERS [D-CA]: And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! And you push back on them! And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!
KELLY: She was asked about – [applause and boos] – and you can feel the difference in our own audience. You can feel the controversy here in our own audience. She was asked about her comments yesterday on MSNBC and she doubled down.
WATERS: These members of his cabinet, who remain and try to defend him, they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant. They’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station. They’re not going to be able to stop at a department store. The people are gonna turn on them. They’re gonna protest. They’re gonna absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re gonna tell the president, “No, I can’t hang with you. This is wrong, this unconscionable, we can’t keep doing this to children.”
KELLY: Wow. Joining me now to discuss this and other headlines making the rounds this morning, please welcome NBC News Correspondent Stephanie Gosk, former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Daniel Goldman, and Karamo Brown of Queer Eye on Netflix. Great to have you all here. [Applause]
What a morning. The – sort of the culture wars and the political wars in our country, it’s like drinking from the fire hose right now, right? It’s overwhelming. So can we just pick it up with Maxine Waters openly calling for harassment of the Trump cabinet members because they support him. Thoughts on that.
KARAMO BROWN [QUEER EYE]: Well, I don’t really think that Maxine is really wanting people to attack someone. You know, she’s never been a woman that’s actually went out. But to some degree, I do believe that she wants us to know that these individuals have been telling us that we are wrong long enough and that it’s time to let them know, this is not our America and it’s not okay that you’re trying to divide us that way.
STEPHANIE GOSK: I think that that is true. But we also have to be very careful about the words we choose. She used the phrase “push back,” and she said it very angrily.
KELLY: And she said “surround them.”
GOSK: Now, you can interpret that a couple of different ways. I can push back on you verbally or I can push back on you physically. And I think in this volatile time, we do have to gauge what we’re saying as leaders in the country and consider what effect that might have on people who hear it.
DANIEL GOLDMAN [FORMER ASST. U.S. ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NY]: I think you have to put everything in the context of what we have seen over the last two years. Which is that we have a president who, as a candidate, said that he wanted to lock up his political opponent. Who said that he was going to send some enforcers to a campaign event to boot people out and to get physical. And then every day on Twitter, the vitriol and the personal attacks are ramped up. And it’s creating a climate that – where the political is moving over into the cultural. And everything is now being politicized. And everything is ratcheted up a little bit, with the pressure and the tension. And so, this is an outpouring of it. And it’s – it’s troubling.
KELLY: I feel like – I covered the Trump campaign closely and I remember him distinctly calling for people who protested at his rallies to be punched in the face. Right? That he openly said, “punch them in the face” and talked about taking them out on stretchers. But, having said that, I have an 8-year-old and a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old. And if one hits the other, I don’t teach them to not hit by hitting them. I don’t hit my kids because I don’t think you learn the lesson to not hit by being – by receiving the same behavior. And I think Maxine Waters could use that same lesson.
GOLDMAN: Two wrongs don’t make a right.
KELLY: You don’t call for incivility or arguably violence, because that’s how it sounded to me too, in response to your own anger about what’s happening at the southern border. It’s not the way forward.
GOSK: But I would respectfully push back a little bit on that and say that I think what she’s calling for here is protest. [Applause] I think she’s calling for people to stand up and protest. Now, there are –
KELLY: By kicking people out of restaurants?
GOSK: Yeah. Yeah, actually. I think that that is what that was. And I don’t think it was – it would have been uncivil if they had pushed at her. It would have been uncivil if they shouted at her. This was a very civil, “Please leave my restaurant.” It was a protest. It was, “Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you are the spokesperson for an administration that we feel very strongly has wronged us and has, at times, lied to us, and our way to demonstrate how upset we are is to protest that. And that is, I’m not going to serve you dinner.”
GOLDMAN: I view it differently, between what happened with Sarah Sanders and what happened with Kirstjen Nielsen and Steven Miller, who were yelled at and jeered while they were dining by other patrons.
KELLY: Shouted down.
GOLDMAN: That’s protest. That’s just, you know, everybody exercising their First Amendment right and it’s not the proprietor of the –
KELLY: It’s protest, but it’s uncivil to shout at a woman when she is sitting there.
GOLDMAN: But the argument is, and this is – this has now started really as a result of the family separation policy. That’s when this – and that, everyone, I think agrees, is uncivil, at a minimum.
KELLY: And one of the beauties about America is you can take to the streets and you can protest that and you can get a march just as big as you want. You can get a million-person march to make that point. But to me, when it’s one-on-one, face-to-face. I mean, look at what happened with Paul Ryan and Seth Rogen this weekend, right? You know the actor, Seth Rogen? Well, Paul Ryan’s kids wanted a picture with him and as soon as he saw that they were Paul Ryan's kids, he said, “No, I won’t do it.” And then he lectured the kids on how bad their dad was in front of their dad. [Booing] And went on to say, “These kids should learn if they like a movie or a song, the person who made that probably doesn’t like their father.” That, to me, is so wrong.
BROWN: Seth Rogen did say that where he was very conflicted about it...
KELLY: He should be. He should be.
BROWN: ...because this was his opportunity to talk to someone that he disagreed with, but also there’s children there. And as a father –
KELLY: He shamed them. He shamed them because of who their dad is.
BROWN: As a father, I would have been – yeah, I would have been upset as well. If I was a father and someone talked to me in a way that my children were there. But I think it can also open a conversation for those kids to understand that your father is doing some really terrible and horrible things in our country right now. [Booing]
KELLY: Oh, please. Paul Ryan? Oh, come on.
BROWN: Yeah, it’s just the truth. This is not a good time.
KELLY: What specifically did Paul Ryan do?
GOLDMAN: I think the problem is he’s not doing anything.
BROWN: Yeah.
KELLY: Paul Ryan hasn’t done anything. I mean, honestly.
GOSK: Me personally, I would have served Sarah Huckabee Sanders dinner. The same way, that if I owned a bakery, I’d bake a cake for the guy who came in and didn’t think I should be married to my wife. Because I believe that that is an approach that allows us to talk to each other. But that’s not where we are, where a lot of people’s mindsets are right now in this country. And it is volatile. And what makes me nervous is that it’s a powder keg. And how far away are we from some kind of violence as a result of all of this?
KELLY: Well, look at what happened at that white supremacist rally, right? I mean, we already have seen things come to the worst, the worst they can be. I mean, you’ve got white supremacists marching in the streets, right? And somebody gets run over, the whole – like I feel like it’s a spool and it’s unraveling. And I would say this, you can loathe President Trump, you can loathe his policies. You can completely have zero respect for those who support him and put his agenda into work, into operation. But, but, you have to be respectful of the people who put him in office or you’re gonna get four more years just like these.
GOLDMAN: Maybe, maybe, but –
KELLY: This is not – this is going to galvanize – he’s got 90% support among Republicans. This is going to galvanize every Republican because they’re going to feel like they were kicked out of that restaurant, like they were embarrassed in front of their kids, like they are so deplorable, they can’t even eat in a public place anymore.
GOLDMAN: That may be right, but you cannot normalize his behavior and let him off the hook. [Applause] And he started this.
KELLY: Right, so what’s the best way of doing that? What’s the best way of not normalizing President Trump and his incendiary rhetoric and comments?
GOLDMAN: I think by saying what you’re saying. To say, “Yes, he’s terrible, but everybody else can’t do what he's doing.” Other people are allowed to fight back and to push back and to protest back. And if he’s gonna go down this road of daily personal attacks against everything and politicize everything, the Mueller investigation, children, the immigration, I mean the list goes on and on. If he’s gonna take that tact and he’s the head of this country –
KELLY: You get as low as he gets?
GOLDMAN: Well, I mean, I don’t know if you do, but it’s certainly not okay that he does it and everybody else can’t.
KELLY: Why isn’t it? Why? Why can’t you choose enlightenment and love and light and go towards that instead of going towards the hate? [Applause]
BROWN: I think more people should. I do agree with that, I think more people should. We should be engaging and trying to have the hard conversation with each other. But you have to understand, to some degree, people are frustrated, they’re tired. And when you have been attacked and torn down constantly, this is – it’s either fight or flight. And a lot of people feel this is the time to fight, instead of having a conversation where we can learn more about each other.
KELLY: But fight, fight smart, right?
BROWN: Of course, I agree, yes.
KELLY: Fight in a way that doesn’t lose the very people you want to bring back over. Like what the Democrats want to do is bring back over those blue dog Democrats, right? The ones who – the Reagan Democrats, the ones who vote Republican but typically have been Democrats. And there’s a real question, I have to tell you, about whether this is the way to do it. Just as a political matter, I don’t think this is a smart strategy. And I hate to see the incivility.GOSK: But you don’t think that that moment – you don’t think that that moment in the restaurant galvanized both sides? You don’t think that there weren’t people that were cheering in the streets that she did that? I don’t know.
KELLY: No, I think the Democrats are galvanized. I think they can’t stand Trump and they learned there lesson.
GOSK: I think Trump supporters are already galvanized.
KELLY: They didn’t – but the National Review Republicans have not been, those are never Trumpers. I’m telling you, this is the kind of thing that will make them go to the polls and vote Trump next time around.
BROWN: I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you.
KELLY: Alright, I’ve got to leave it at that. Great to see you all.
