NBC host Megyn Kelly blasted comedian Samantha Bee's vulgar attack on Ivanka Trump on Thursday, calling her language "jarring" and deserving of similar condemnation to Roseanne Barr.
Bee, who hosts the weekly TBS comedy show "Late Night," called Trump a "feckless cunt" on Wednesday in response to the White House's illegal immigration policies. Kelly addressed the controversy with her fellow NBC reporters Craig Melvin and Jacob Soboroff on "Megyn Kelly Today."
"To me, it was so jarring," Kelly said. "It was so jarring. To me, hate is hate, and I think she should be condemned for it, too. It's not to word police. It's just hate is hate is hate."
Kelly asked Soboroff and Melvin whether there would be backlash against Bee similar to that against Barr. ABC cancelled Barr's popular sitcom Tuesday after she leveled a racially offensive tweet against former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Soboroff said Bee's remark was not like Barr's in that it was part of a comedy routine, but Kelly accused him of splitting hairs.
"They're both wrong, period," she said.
Melvin bemoaned a culture of "name-calling" in the country, and Kelly said Bee undermined her own position on the Trump administration's immigration policy because of her language.
"I think that's fair. It was a horrible word, and when you call somebody it, I don't know if you need to face the consequence of getting your show fired, but you should hear the backlash from Megyn Kelly," Soboroff said.
The former Fox News host also tweeted about Bee's remark, calling it "disgusting" and wondering how to take publications seriously that "gleefully repost" it, linking to a recap from the left-wing site Raw Story.
This is disgusting. How is this acceptable? And how are we expected to take any of these publications seriously if they gleefully repost something like this at the same time they (rightfully) condemn @therealroseanne? You know the saying Love is Love? Well Hate is Hate. https://t.co/YTjmZQ4zMV
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) May 31, 2018