Megyn Kelly Escalates Her War Against “Hanoi Jane” Fonda: “She Has No Business Lecturing Anyone On What Qualifies As Offensive”

Let this be a warning: if you come for Megyn Kelly, she will bring up completely irrelevant things from your past to make a point.

On this morning’s installment of Megyn Kelly Today, the host decided to give us “a word on Jane Fonda,” who Kelly believes is “fixated on an exchange” they shared months ago. If you need a refresher, allow us to fill you in: while Fonda was promoting her film Our Souls at Night, Kelly decided it was a good moment to bring up the fact that Fonda had undergone plastic surgery. Fonda, clearly not thrilled about discussing this when she was on air to promote a film, shot back: “We really wanna talk about that right now?”

Since then, Fonda has discussed why she responded the way that she did (“it was the wrong time and the place to raise that question”) and most recently made a playful jab at Kelly when Lily Tomlin jested about Fonda’s facelift while promoting Grace and Frankie. This, it seemed, was too much for Kelly, and the host decided it was “time to address the ‘poor me’ routine.”

Kelly then went on to try to give context about the fact that Fonda was on the show to promote a film about aging, had openly discussed her plastic surgery plenty of times in plenty of places in the past, and had something of an obligation to be upfront about it if she wanted to be a cultural face to older women as she has claimed. Kelly then ran a reel consisting of clips featuring Fonda discussing her plastic surgery, and that’s when she really decided to go in.

“I gave her the chance to empower other women – young and old – on a subject which she purports to know well. And she rejected it. That’s okay,” said Kelly. “But I have no regrets about that question. Nor am I in the market for a lesson from Jane Fonda on what is and is not appropriate.” In what can only be described as one of the most bonkers, out-of-place pivots on morning television in recent memory, Kelly then decided to bring up Fonda’s controversial political past.

“This is a woman whose name is synonymous with outrage. Look at her treatment of our military during the Vietnam War. Many of our veterans still call her ‘Hanoi Jane’, thanks to her radio broadcast which attempted to shame American troops. She posed on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down our American pilots. She called our POWs hypocrites and liars, and referred to their torture as ‘understandable’. Even she had to apologize years later for that gun picture, but not for the rest of it. By the way, she still says she is not proud of America.”

Somehow, Kelly found a way to loop back around to the original issue at hand, Fonda’s unwillingness to discuss her plastic surgery, which Kelly referred to as her “moral indignation.” This 3-minute, days-late rant is not only baffling, but seems totally disproportionate to Fonda’s jabs and completely out-of-place for a morning show on NBC.

“Honestly, she has no business lecturing anyone on what qualifies as offensive,” concluded Kelly.

Talk about empowering women, amiright?