William Cummings

USA TODAY

Former speaker of the House and top Donald Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich got into a heated exchange with Fox News host Megyn Kelly over the women who have accused Trump of groping them.

Gingrich felt the media has given an inordinate amount of coverage to the accusers while ignoring the information that has been revealed in the leaked Clinton campaign emails.

"If Trump is a sexual predator ... " Kelly began.

"He's not a sexual predator!" Gingrich exclaimed. "You can't say that. You could not defend that statement. Now, I'm sick and tired of people like you using language that's inflammatory that's not true!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. You have no idea if it's true or not," Kelly replied cooly. Kelly said she had not taken a position one way or the other.

Gingrich said that Kelly took a position as soon as she used the words, "sexual predator."

"I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes," Kelly said. She explained that given the context of the allegations, the media had no choice but to cover them in detail.

Gingrich then said Kelly chose to cover the allegations rather than the Clinton emails because she is "fascinated by sex."

"You want to go back through the tapes of your show recently?" Gingrich asked. "You are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy."

"Me? Really?" Kelly asks.

"That's what I get out of watching you tonight," he said.

"You know what, Mr. Speaker? I am not fascinated by sex," Kelly said, "but I am fascinated by the protection of women and understanding what we're getting in the Oval Office, and I think the American voters would like to know ... "

"And therefore we're going to send Bill Clinton back to the East Wing because you are worried about sexual predators," Gingrich interrupted.

"Listen, it's not about me," Kelly said. "It's about the women and men of America, and the polls show us that the women of America in particular, are very concerned about these allegations."

"The American public is less interested in the deeds of Hillary Clinton's husband than they are in the deeds of the man who asks us to make him president, Donald Trump," she continued. "We're going to have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them Mr. Speaker. Thanks for being here."

Gingrich seemed anxious to promote the exchange, posting a link to the interview on his Twitter account shortly after it aired.

And at an event for Trump's Washington D.C. hotel Wednesday Gingrich was asked if the interview got "a little rough" last night.

“That’s just the business," Gingrich responded, according to the pool

And later Trump gave a shoutout to Gingrich, who was sitting in the audience.

"By the way – congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing interview. We don't play games, Newt. We don't play games," Trump said.

Kelly has been in conflict with the Trump campaign before. Trump repeatedly attacked her for her questions in an early primary debate and what he felt was her "unfair" coverage.

She also got into a brief feud with fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity after she implied Hannity only gave Trump softball questions.

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