According to Megyn Kelly’s new memoir, Settle for More, Donald Trump was mad at her long before she asked those pointed questions at the first Republican presidential debate.
In the book, Kelly said Donald Trump tried offering her various “gifts” to influence her coverage of him. These gifts, Kelly said, came months before Donald announced his plan to run for president. She refused them all, setting up herself up for the wrath of the now president-elect Trump.
“Months before announcing his candidacy, [Trump] had tried hard to curry Ms. Kelly’s favor. He sent her notes, including a laudatory comment scrawled across her picture in The New York Times Magazine. (When Vanity Fair reported this, Mr. Trump denied it; Ms. Kelly includes proof, a picture.) Ms. Kelly and her husband declined an invitation to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s fabled estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Then Mr. Trump tried, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to persuade her to let him pick up the tab for the weekend she spent with two girlfriends at the Trump SoHo hotel.
“This is actually one of the untold stories of the 2016 campaign,” Ms. Kelly writes. “I was not the only journalist to whom Trump offered gifts clearly meant to shape coverage. Many reporters have told me that Trump worked hard to offer them something fabulous — from hotel rooms to rides on his 757.”
