Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly’s memoir Settle for More isn’t out until November 15. Perhaps due to extenuating circumstances, the New York Times published its review of the book Thursday, revealing a few extra-special and frankly disturbing details about Kelly’s contentious relationship with Donald Trump, the soon-to-be president of the United States.




Last week, leaked passages of the book allegedly revealed the astonishing breadth of Roger Ailes’s disgusting sexism—shocking, but not surprising. The details revealed in this review, however, are just as bad. According to the Times, Kelly’s troubles with Trump began in August, before the first Republican presidential primary debate. Trump’s dissatisfaction with something Kelly had said on her show, The Kelly File caused the president-elect to make this vague yet menacing threat: “‘I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account against you,’ she says he told her, “and I still may.’”

If weaponizing his legion of slathering followers against her wasn’t enough, Trump found other ways to make her life miserable, all of which are prime examples of a level-headed, competent human being who should definitely be in charge of this country. Prior to the first presidential debate, Kelly reveals that someone leaked the questions to Trump. Naturally, he wasn’t pleased.

He called Fox executives, saying he’d heard that her first question “was a very pointed question directed at him.” This disconcerted her, because it was true: It was about his history of using disparaging language about women. She doesn’t speculate where the leak came from. (She reports. You decide.) But that’s another unambiguous takeaway from this book: Parts of Fox — or at the very least, Roger Ailes, the network’s chairman until July, when he was given the boot after several allegations of sexual harassment were made against him — seemed to be nakedly colluding with the Republican presidential nominee.


None of that information is particularly surprising, given what we know about Trump and what we’ve seen of his behavior. This bit, on the other hand, is bizarre. It seems that on the day of the debate, an “overzealous, suspiciously enthusiastic driver” picked her up and gave her coffee. She drank it and found herself literally sick to her stomach.

Once it was in her hand, she drank it. And within 15 minutes, she was violently ill, vomiting so uncontrollably that it was unclear if she’d be able to go on and help moderate that evening. It was so bad that she kept a trash pail beneath her desk throughout the debate, just in case. Ms. Kelly never says outright that someone tried to poison her. (A stomach bug was going around, she notes.) But the episode spooked her enough that she shared it later with Roger Ailes and a lawyer friend of his. Foul play? Again: She reports. You decide.

Is Megyn Kelly suggesting that she was poisoned, even though she won’t say that out loud? Is she suggesting that Donald Trump, the president-elect poisoned her? What on earth are we supposed to make of this story?

Early copies of the book were not supposed to be released until its publication, but given the recent turn of events in this country, someone must have felt it prudent to do so.