A major internal conflict within the MAGA movement escalated dramatically when Megyn Kelly launched a scathing personal assessment of President Trump during her SiriusXM program, declaring him “not a moral man,” “not the greatest husband in the world,” and “extremely petty and thin-skinned” in conversation with guest Russell Brand.
The April 22 broadcast of Episode 1301 of The Megyn Kelly Show featured the former Fox News anchor offering a measured assessment of Trump’s character flaws, coming as other prominent conservative voices like Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have openly broken with the president over his Iran policy and treatment of loyal supporters.
During her appearance on Piers Morgan’s show, Kelly delivered an even more devastating verdict: “the Trump coalition that got him elected is completely fractured and in smithereens. And he doesn’t care, because he doesn’t care about the Republican Party. He cares about himself.”
The collapse of support appears driven by Trump’s willingness to embrace former critics while attacking longtime allies who oppose the Iran conflict. She told Brand the president is “alienating so many of his core supporters, biggest believers and boosters and running to people who have not been able to stand him for 10 years.”
Trump himself fired back with a 485-word Truth Social post targeting Kelly, Carlson, Owens, and Jones by name, branding them “losers,” “nut jobs,” and “stupid people” with “low IQs” running “third-rate podcasts.” “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” he wrote.
Kelly’s critique, while harsh, stopped short of fully renouncing her support the way Carlson did. She acknowledged Trump’s “charming” sense of humor and his “unwillingness to stay down,” saying there is “still, in my view, a lot to like about Trump.” But, she added, “some of those darker demons are much more in the front view right now.”
The host directed her harshest words at what she described as Trump’s pattern of betraying his most devoted defenders. She and Carlson have occasionally clashed with Trump despite consistently defending him through criminal indictments and the 2024 campaign, Kelly noted. The reward for that loyalty, she argued, is nonexistent: “If you have a principled disagreement with something he does, you’re otherized, you’re the enemy.”
Speaking with Brand — the British comedian, actor, and author of the forthcoming book How to Become a Christian in Seven Days — Kelly conceded that many in MAGA world have chosen to ignore Trump’s worst traits.
Other conservative media figures have gone further in their denunciations. On April 21, Carlson — Fox News’ former primetime star — publicly expressed regret for supporting Trump, telling his brother Buckley on The Tucker Carlson Show: “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time — I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”
Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones went even further earlier in the month, writing on X that Trump “literally sounds like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie” and asking on his show, “How do we 25th Amendment his ***?” That call to invoke the constitutional mechanism for removing a sitting president marked a stunning rupture from a broadcaster who spent years portraying Trump as a generational figure.
Candace Owens joined the chorus, posting on X that Trump is “a genocidal lunatic” and that “Congress and military need to intervene,” adding separately: “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”
The breaking point for many appears to be Trump’s decision to forge ahead with the Iran war over the loud objections of his core supporters, combined with his very public attacks on Pope Leo XIV.
Kelly offered a blunt assessment of the Iran ceasefire brokered by Pakistan in mid-April, calling it “very much like surrender on our part — which I’m in favor of. It was folly to begin with. It was folly throughout.”
Polling data reflects the political damage. Kelly highlighted on her April 24 show that Trump’s AP approval rating had fallen to just 33 percent, with only 23 percent of independents approving his overall performance and just 21 percent supporting the Iran war. “You’ve got 79 percent of independents against you,” she told listeners. “You’re effed.”
While the Trump segment dominated headlines, the wide-ranging interview also saw Brand get unusually candid about his own life. The 50-year-old, who awaits an October trial on rape and sexual assault charges in the U.K., addressed the accusations directly, admitted to sleeping with a 16-year-old when he was 30 — legal in Britain but “exploitative” in hindsight — and reflected on past drug and sex addictions.
Brand also weighed in on his ex-wife Katy Perry’s relationship with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the recent sexual assault allegations leveled against Perry by actress Ruby Rose. He spoke about finding God and his Christian faith, distinguishing immoral and criminal behavior.
The pair explored heavier political terrain, including the alleged connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the 2017 Charlottesville rally referenced in a new Department of Justice indictment, the question of why Trump rose to power, and what Kelly called “the fraud of the two-party system.”
Whether the MAGA civil war ends in reconciliation now seems beside the point. The more pressing question, as Kelly herself put it, is no longer who Trump has lost — but who remains.
