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This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," March 30, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS HOST: Breaking tonight. Two big stories in the 2016 GOP race, as Donald Trump takes fire from virtually all sides for controversial remarks on abortion, while a new poll delivers a dramatic shakeup to the coming critical primary fight in Wisconsin.
Good evening and welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. For hours now, the top political story in this country has involved Donald Trump and what may have been a bad misstep on the issue of abortion. Earlier when Mr. Trump was pressed on abortion, he said he would support some sort of, quote, "Punishment for women who have the procedure if it is made illegal." After virtually everyone on earth reacted to that, he put out a statement doing a 180. That came just hours after we got a dramatic new poll on the coming Wisconsin primary that shows Senator Ted Cruz taking a double digit lead over Donald Trump in a state where Cruz has been trailing up until now.
Here tonight on all of that, the pollster who just released a stunning new survey. Plus, former Mitt Romney campaign strategist Stuart Stevens and former presidential candidate and Donald Trump supporter Herman Cain.
But we begin tonight with our chief political correspondent Carl Cameron, who just filed this report from Appleton, Wisconsin.
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Megyn. New polls out in Wisconsin and it shows that Ted Cruz is the front-runner in the badger state with a significant lead, 40 percent to Donald Trump's 30 percent, with John Kasich in third at 21 percent. This could be a moment six days before the primary and with Cruz in the lead, an opportunity to win here. It could be a real opportunity for the Stop Trump movement to put some of the skids on, his attempt to get to 1237 delegates before the convention.
With that said, on a day when Donald Trump got tripped up on abortion, Ted Cruz held a celebration of women, and with his wife and his mother and former rival Carly Fiorina unveiled his Women for Cruz initiative, saying that every issue should be a woman's issue. National polls suggest Trump has a problem with women, so this was, for all intents and purposes, a direct shot as what Cruz sees as a Trump vulnerability. Trump today was continuing his defense of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski against the charges of misdemeanor battery on a female reporter in Florida, arguing that the videos won't prove anything.
While Trump was also questioning the reporters integrity and her motives. While all this was playing out, John Kasich was in New York today which votes next after Wisconsin. Kasich knows he's out of contention in Wisconsin and is already sort of positioning for a bunch of those eastern states that come at the end of this month. There was one piece of video that it's going to probably cause him some headaches in New York, however, Megyn. He was at Howard Beach, and there's tape of this, eating pizza with a fork -- Megyn.
KELLY: Oh, man. That's not allowed. What's up with that?
Carl, thank you.
Joining us now, Charles Franklin, he is director of the Marquette University's polling team. Great to see you sir. Thank you very much for being here with us. So what to you is the headline? Obviously Ted Cruz has shot way up in just a couple of weeks.
CHARLES FRANKLIN, MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY: Cruz got us from 19 percent to 40 percent in about a month in our polling. But I think the other part is Donald Trump stalled in the water. He was at 30 percent in February. He's at 30 percent now. Not much movement there. A lot of movement for Cruz.
KELLY: What does that tell you?
FRANKLIN: It says that Trump, who has polled behind his national average here in Wisconsin, may really have finally found a state where he does have a bit of a ceiling. It also shows that political leaders in the state have come to coalesce behind Cruz after taking a while to do it. But in the last ten days they've pretty overwhelmingly embraced Cruz as the choice in opposition to Trump.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
FRANKLIN: Most of that happened after our poll or as the poll was going on. But I think it's clearly helping Cruz.
KELLY: Right. Governor Walker's endorsement came after your poll took place. But talk radio has been coalescing behind Ted Cruz in Wisconsin. That's been clear. Question for you on the gender gap showing that support here, Cruz has almost equal support between men and women. Trump has an 11-point, percentage point gender gap. Your thoughts on it?
Yes. Yes. That's the kind of gender gap that is not as large as some people might expect it to be. But the good news for Ted Cruz is, he's performing equally well across genders, picking up pretty solid support with both men and women.
KELLY: What about, you know, Trump has said look, I'm going to get -- these polls you can't rely on these, because I'm going to get crossover voters, I'm going to get Democrats and others who will come over and vote for me, so don't believe the hype that Ted Cruz is ten points ahead of me.
FRANKLIN: Yes. We do have an open primary. Anybody can pick any part to vote in. But in our data, no more than 10 percent of the Republican voters are going to be Democrats or people who are Independents that lean Democratic. It looks like Independents will come to the Republican Party
about 60 percent --
KELLY: Did you account for any of that in your polling? Are these numbers taken any of that --
FRANKLIN: Oh, yes. It's absolutely included in it. It's part of the data. So, no, there's no mystery. In fact, that's the point of the poll. It reveals how much crossover there is rather than just guess at it.
KELLY: Mr. Franklin, thank you for being here.
FRANKLIN: Thank you.
KELLY: Well, as Carl Cameron mentioned in the lead, one of the key challenges for Donald Trump has been his approval rating with women. And there was a moment today that may not have helped. The candidate was being interviewed by Chris Matthews of MSNBC when he was pressed on abortion and this happened. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST, "HARDBALL": How do you ban abortion? How do you actually do it?
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, you go back to a position like they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
TRUMP: But you have to ban it.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe in punishment for abortion yes or no, as a principle?
TRUMP: The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.
MATTHEWS: For the woman?
TRUMP: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: That moment quickly became a huge headline. And within a couple of hours the campaign was clarifying with a statement that read in part, if Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.
Stuart Stevens is a former Mitt Romney campaign strategist, founding partner at Strategic Partners and Media. And author of the soon to be released books, "The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear." And in a moment we'll be joined by Herman Cain, a Trump supporter.
Stuart, good to see you.
STUART STEVENS, FORMER MITT ROMNEY CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: Good to see you.
KELLY: Well, the reversal on this abortion position was swift, I mean, it was a complete 180. And this is the reaction that we've seen in some conservative corners tonight, including on national review suggesting that Donald Trump just hasn't seriously thought these issues through. That's actually Ted Cruz came out and said this man will say anything. Your thoughts?
STEVENS: You know what I thought was most interesting is the part of that that really hasn't gotten much attention, when he was saying that he wanted to go back to where there were illegal abortion clinics. Nobody wants that. I mean, the pro-life factions of America don't want to go back to that, nor do the pro-choice factions of America. The pro-life will go back to a culture that supports adoption where people are encouraged to have children and welcome them into families. That is just a really disturbing part of that, that he felt that sort of culture was something you would want to go back to.
KELLY: What we've seen Stuart in the past day -- what we've seen in the past days is a few reversals by Donald Trump. So, he did a 180 on this abortion, women need to be punished if they have an abortion, if it's made illegal, which is not the pro-life position. Some of the people in line were saying only somebody who is trying to sound like they're pro-life would say that, because the pro-lifers don't believe that. But he also reversed himself within moments on a CNN town hall when asked about the top three functions of government and he included education and health care.
And Anderson Cooper said to him, aren't you against the federal government getting involved in education? And he said oh, yes, I'm for the states doing that. And he said, "aren't you against, you know, the Feds running health care?" And he said, "Oh, yes, I'm against that too." But he had told Scott Pelley on CBS News a couple of months ago that he -- the federal government was going to pay for health care for those that didn't have it. And the question is, whether Donald Trump, you know, has a set of principles that he would bring with him to the presidency.
STEVENS: You know, I think there was also a terrible answer about nuclear proliferation where he said he was against nuclear proliferation but then he wanted Japan and South Korea to have nuclear weapons which is something the United States government has been opposed to. It was a really bad interview. I mean, you know, it sounded like a guy who was coming out on anesthesia. I just don't think he's taking running for president with the seriousness of intent that it demands.
You know, there is a difference between this and sort of calling up Imus and spouting off what you think. People actually listen and pay attention and care what you think when you're running for president. You know, there has been this tendency among some who are critics of Donald Trump to say, well, you know, he's a fascist tendency of this. I have never bought into that. Because I just don't think he really has an organized political mindset. When I think of Donald Trump's political mind, I think of sort of like a dresser in a college dorm where you sort of open up one drawer and you have a jumble this and another drawer with a jumble of that. He just hasn't spent a lot of time trying to organize this into a coherent
political philosophy or organizing principle --
KELLY: Well, and people just say he's a populist. I mean, today he came out and said, what kind of Supreme Court justice would you appoint? He said, I would look people who would look very seriously at Hillary Clinton's e-mail disaster. Which of course, you know, the Supreme Court -- they don't get to do that kind of investigation. But the question is, Stuart, whether any of this will hurt him, because we are seeing now some erosion in Wisconsin, that's one state.
STEVENS: It's a very good question. I think that the fact that he was at 30 and is still at 30 and that there's a coalescing of support behind Senator Cruz means something. I think to people in past races have stopped at a point and looked at a candidate and you see this a lot in runoffs that you have. Where a candidate doesn't get to 50 percent and you have a runoff between two candidates. Usually it's the candidate who is in second place going into the runoff who ends up winning the runoff. That could be happening here. You also have the fact that if you look at these polls, Donald Trump is losing to Bernie Sanders in a Real Clear politics average by 17-and-a-half points.
KELLY: Yes. But Bernie Sanders --
(CROSSTALK)
-- To get the nomination. And obviously he is losing to Hillary Clinton most of the polls as well. But he said yes, it started on her. Yes. I had to go. Stuart, it's great to see you.
STEVENS: OK. Good to see you.
KELLY: Our next guest knows how quickly a candidate can get hit on a misstep like this abortion desktop.
Herman Cain is a former presidential candidate and author of the book, "The Right Problems: What the President, Congress, and Every Candidate Should Be Working On." Great to see you again, sir. So, I mean, we just sort of ticked through sort of the positions, the reversals on the positions that we've seen from Trump in just, you know, just in the past 24 hours. What do you make of it?
HERMAN CAIN, R-FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first of all, we know that Donald Trump is not a polished political politician. He's not. Yes, did he make some statements that would be considered missteps or misstatements? Absolutely, yes. Here's what Stuart and many of the establishment people don't understand about Donald Trump. They don't understand the difference between a strategic statement and a tactical statement. You are very easily going to get tripped up over tactical statements. It happened to me. But what people are attracted to Donald Trump about is the strategic implications that he makes with some of the things that he says.
Yes, he has made some missteps. Yes, he's turned off certain groups. But if you go back and look at the enthusiasm polls that just came out from Gallup, his supporters are more enthusiastic than the supporters of some of the other candidates. I'm not going to defend that he may have made a misstatement. I am not going to try to defend that. But what I am going to support is the fact that many of the things that he talks about are strategic and not down in the weeds with some of these tactical statements that people take and they run with it in order to be able to attack him.
KELLY: When you refer to, yes, he may be alienating some groups, I mean, obviously we're going to talk about this in a bit but his numbers with women in particular have been very concerning to a lot of Republicans who if they, you know, whoever they choose they want them to beat Hillary Clinton. And right now he has got I think, 73 percent of the American women, this is all woman that have an unfavorable opinion of him. How is he going to turn that around?
CAIN: Well, the way he's going to turn around Megyn is the same way he's going to turn around the perception of black people and other minorities, because keep in mind, many people in the media have spoon fed the perception of Donald Trump relative to women, relative to blacks, relative to minorities that some people in the media want them to have of Donald Trump. So, once it gets down to the point --
KELLY: You think the media has been against Donald Trump on all those issues? Or I mean, has it been Donald Trump himself? I mean, what favors did he do himself by tweeting out something suggesting Heidi Cruz is unattractive?
CAIN: No, no, Megyn, no, no, many of the people that are supporting Donald Trump, they don't go to social media and worry about all of that. Okay? Let's go back to the fact --
KELLY: Yes. But the media has an obligation to report things like that when it comes from a presidential candidate.
CAIN: Megyn, Megyn, yes, they do. I have watched this as closely as you have watched it. What I'm saying is, many of the sound bites that the mainstream media, not all of them but many of them have put out about Donald Trump have been anti-women messages, anti-Black messages, anti- minority message. Now, when Donald Trump gets to the point where he's able to get his message out, directed at those groups when it's a one-on-one kind of a situation, I think he'll be able to turn that around. Remember, polls represent trends. I don't discount the fact that maybe in the poll that was reported earlier that Trump has basically held steady. That means his supporters did not lose enthusiasm.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
CAIN: But for the fact that Cruz has gone from 19 percent to 40, that's suspect. My position is simply this on the polls, whether you talk about Wisconsin or anybody else, let the voters do the talking. And they're going to do the talking next Tuesday in Wisconsin.
KELLY: Amen to that. Great to see you, Herman Cain.
CAIN: Yes, thank you, Megyn.
KELLY: Also tonight, with Trump's campaign manager now facing criminal charges for grabbing a reporter, a group of female journalists are demanding that he the campaign manager be fired. Well, Trump defenders are saying, it's time to, quote, "move on." We've got both sides fair and balance in a fierce debate, next.
And for the first time, one of the women at the heart of the sex scandal involving General David Petraeus is ready to break her silence, she is with us live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I regret and apologize for the circumstances that led to my resignation from the CIA and caused such pain for my family, friends, and supporters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK LEVIN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: All that Michelle Fields asked for was an apology. And instead they start trashing her. And their mouthpieces on radio and TV. They start trashing her. Oh, look at her background. Oh, yes, look at her. Smear her. Is this what the hell you want in the White House?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: That was conservative radio host Mark Levin sounding off about the unfolding case surrounding Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who is now charged with simple battery and misdemeanor after he allegedly grabbed former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields causing bruising. Today, a group of female journalists put out a letter demanding that the Republican frontrunner remove Lewandowski from the campaign saying that actions from this campaign manager are, quote, "inexcusable."
Sixteen women signed that letter to Mr. Trump, including two of the women you see right here. Katie Pavlich and Dana Loesch. Katie is a FOX News contributor and editor of Townhall.com. Dana is the host of "Dana" on TheBlaze TV.
We are also join tonight by Susie Wiles, she is the co-chair for the Trump campaign in Florida. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is a senior adviser to the Trump campaign. Thank you all for being here tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: Katie, let me start with you on why you thought this was necessary.
KATIE PAVLICH, NEWS EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: Well, Megyn, I think that we need to emphasize exactly what Mark Levin just said, that this is about how the Trump campaign responded to a reporter after the fact. We saw libel, defamation, slander, smearing of her reputation simply for trying to do her job. We saw Corey Lewandowski call her delusional. We had Donald Trump, the candidate himself go into the spin room. I was there. I asked him a question about this after the Miami debate, to say that she made it up. This isn't just about simply one reporter, it's a bigger issue of the role of the press in America.
Let's not forget that the White House Correspondents Association, released a statement after this incident occurred saying there should be no violence or intimidation of any reporter covering a 2016 campaign. The National Press Club president said essentially the same thing. And yet here we are today with Corey Lewandowski and Donald Trump himself continuing to smear the character of a reporter for simply exercising her first Amendment Rights and doing her job.
KELLY: Sarah, let me get your response to that, in particular that the White House Press Association suggesting no reporter should be intimidated from doing her job in 2016, including Michelle Fields.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: And I don't think anybody on the Trump campaign disagrees with that statement. I think the real disagreement comes from the fact that I've watched the video many times. I encourage everybody else to watch the video. And if you do, I think you'll see that by doing that, nothing took place here that is out of the ordinary in any day on a presidential campaign.
KELLY: All right. Let me just stop you there. Let me just stop you there. Let me just stop you there because it is unusual to have the campaign manager for a presidential front-runner cause bruises to her, which is what she said happen. And the thing is -- the thing is Sarah, so even if you say okay, he didn't grab her that hard or I don't believe that he caused the bruises, what happened in this case is that the Trump campaign and they campaign manager denied it and said she was delusional, that she was a liar, that she was attention seeking, that she made the whole thing up, pointed to prior reporting of hers and called it into question. Now we see the video that shows he did grab her. Indeed his lawyer just admitted on camera, he grabbed her. He touched her. So that's where the intimidation comes in. First they tried to say she was liar.
Then when it was on camera, now they tried to say it wasn't that bad.
SANDERS: I don't think it's an intimidation factor. I think again, if you watch that video, you'll see there's no malice, there's no direct intent here. Yes, I think he touched her, but I don't think it was in a way of intimidating her.
KELLY: But what happened after the fact, Sarah? What happened after the fact that I just outlined for you?
SANDERS: Now, Megyn, I've been in the spin room many times, hundreds of times in press scrums, and there's always back and forth. I've been hit in the face with --
KELLY: Yes. But you're not getting to my point, you're not getting to my point which is that the intimidation comes after the fact, you see, when they try to gaslight her and makes her think she's crazy and make us thinks she's crazy.
SANDERS: Well, I think that goes both ways. I think she came out and alleged that something took place that never have took place and made it sound like she was brutally attacked. And that was something that is just simply not true.
KELLY: Okay.
SANDERS: And I think you have to look at both sides of the story on that, that she was trying to pressure and intimidate not just Corey but Donald Trump and his campaign --
KELLY: Dana Loesch, your thoughts on that.
SANDERS: and I think it's very unfair to him.
KELLY: Your thoughts on that and the fact that the Trump campaign is now saying, really, she overstated what happened by saying that they tried to pull her down. Now, she did state that she remained, you know, balanced and that she did not fall down.
DANA LOESCH, HOST, "DANA" ON THEBLAZE TV: Right.
KELLY: But they're suggesting she overstated what happened.
SANDERS: Yes, I think the whole things has been --
LOESCH: Well, I mean, to answer your question, Megyn --
KELLY: That's for Dana Loesch. Go ahead.
LOESCH: To answer your question, Megyn, I think the only person whoever said that she was brutally attacked in any sort of way or used that phrase have been people trying to excuse Lewandowski's actions. She did say her arm was yanked but she regained her balance. And you can see what happened on the video. First off Megyn, there are two things that people are forgetting here. The first off as reported earlier by The Daily Beast, Corey Lewandowski admitted this. First, it was I never saw her --
KELLY: There's no question about that. You should hang your head ahead on that. There's a real question about whether he admitted it to the Breitbart editor or not. It's really more about what we saw on the video.
LOESCH: To clarify but even then and that brings me to my other point, Megyn. The police found probable cause to arrest him. Now, I trust the police and not just on matters when it's convenience.
KELLY: But Dana, what about the fact that he hasn't been tried? Right? He deserves a day in court. He has the presumption of innocence.
LOESCH: He absolutely does on that stand-up. But Megyn, I don't need a judge to tell me that what I saw on that video was a load of b.s. I'll be frank with you. And if somebody had put their hands on me that way, it would have been a very different outcome. Because they're asking a question. I saw that whole exchange. They were surrounded by Secret Service. Secret Service is there to protect the candidate, in this case Donald Trump. You can't tell me that they did not already assess the people in the room and asses her as not being a threat. In fact, Lewandowski had --
KELLY: Lewandowski never said I did it in defense of Donald Trump because she posed a threat. He said it never happened.
Susie, the campaign said it never happened.
SUSIE WILES, CO-CHAIRMAN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN IN FLORIDA: Right.
KELLY: Donald Trump said she made it up. And what we -- now we see the tape and no one comes out and says, you know what? This was a misunderstanding. He didn't realize that this was a reporter, he saw somebody reaching for the presidential candidate. He tried to stop it. He is sorry that she got hurt. Why did it have to get to this point, Susie?
WILES: Well, I wasn't there, I didn't see it. But I'll tell you this, I've been involved in this business a very long time. And this is actually fairly common, which doesn't mean it's okay. And it doesn't mean the press shouldn't be allowed to their jobs, they should. But unfortunately now it's been dumped in a court of law and I think we have to let that process, judicial process is the envy of the world, work and sort of see where we get.
KELLY: Uh-hm. What about --
LOESCH: Megyn --
KELLY: Yes, go ahead.
LOESCH: May I jump in for a minute? Because yes, I've been in a press scrum too and I've been elbowed and I've even told another reporters, watch your elbow or you're going to get one back. I mean, we all know --
KELLY: You don't have a press scrum with Dana.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is right.
LOESCH: Megyn, this is what is different. This is what is different. I have never seen an instance where a campaign manager then goes on a two-day rant about the reporter and is --
KELLY: Which is intimidating. Let's be honest, Sarah, that is meant to send a message to her --
SANDERS: Yes, that's not ordinary.
KELLY: That they're going to come after her and to other reporters and let it be stated for the record that this man Corey Lewandowski is the very same man who called up the Fox News D.C. Bureau chief and threatened yours truly prior to a presidential debate about what would happen if yours truly showed up and asked tough questions of Donald Trump. And FOX News has gone on the record about that, Sarah. So, I ask you whether it is time for Mr. Trump to do something about Mr. Lewandowski.
SANDERS: Look, again, I go back to this individual situation. I don't know if it was Dana or Katie who made the point that they've been in this situation many times, and I think that we're putting a really -- we're going down a really bad road here and we're setting a terrible precedent that moving forward, anybody that gets elbowed in the midst or touched in the midst of a press scrum can now file battery charges.
PAVLICH: Sarah, you know?
SANDERS: This is a terrible standard to set. It's a bad precedent and I think it's a bad road to go down.
KELLY: Go ahead, Katie.
(TALKING OVER EACH OTHER)
KELLY: Okay. Go ahead, Katie.
PAVLICH: The bad precedent to set is that the person who wants to be the president of the United States and his campaign manager are gaslighting, intimidating, smearing, slandering and libeling reporters because they didn't like a question or because they were caught on video doing something that they said they never did. That is the wrong precedent to set in the United States of America.
KELLY: Last question before I let you go. This was for you, Katie. Earlier tonight, Greta Van Susteren suggested that you are all going to have a tough time, you shot yourself in the foot. How can you continue to cover the presidential race now before without waiting for the jury verdict? She says, it may be a hard sell for you to say you're fair. Your thoughts on that.
PAVLICH: Well, with all due respect to Greta who was a reporter and a journalist and has been for a long time, this is about the principle of journalism and making sure that reporters again can do their job without intimidation that they can cover the presidential election without fear of being intimidated or harassed by Donald Trump, his supporters and his campaign manager on Twitter and being called a liar and delusional as a result of reporting something they felt was a violation of their space and privacy.
KELLY: Uh-hm. Ladies, thank you all.
LOESCH: Thank you, Megyn.
PAVLICH: Thank you, Megyn.
KELLY: Thank you.
Also tonight, the woman at the heart of the sex scandal involving General David Petraeus will join us live.
Plus, as Hillary Clinton turns her sights on Donald Trump with a new ad, we'll ask Kevin Jackson and Lisa Durden about her line of attack and whether it will work, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, the Clinton campaign is now turning its sights on Donald Trump, with a new ad that targets the republican front-runner directly for the first time. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: New York, 20 million people strong. No, we don't all look the same. We don't all sound the same either. But when we pull together, we do the biggest things in the world. So when some say we can solve America's problems by building walls, banning people based on their religion, and turning against each other, well, this is New York. And we know better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Joining me now, Kevin Jackson, Fox News contributor and executive director of The Black Sphere.net and Lisa Durnan who's a political commentator. Great to see you both.
LISA DURDEN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.
KELLY: So, first of all, Lisa, let me start with you. Why do you think that Hillary Clinton is going after trump now in New York State?
DURDEN: Well, Megyn, I'm glad we're talking about your favorite person, Donald Trump.
KELLY: I thought you meant you.
DURDEN: It's about time that Hillary Clinton came out swinging, to expose Donald Trump for the violent, sexist, racist that this man is. He's very angry, he's very hateful, he's very resentful, and I'm going to be honest with you, trigger happy candidates like Donald Trump don't belong in the White House and should never be anywhere near the White House. Ain't nobody got time for that. We really don't.
KELLY: I don't know about trigger happy as Donald Trump (inaudible) he says I'm the one who wants to get us out of these wars at. I'm not -- he says I'm not trigger happy.
KEVIN JACKSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I find ir interesting. I would ask Lisa when did Trump become a racist because when he was just on the Celebrity Apprentice, I wasn't hearing anything from her or anybody else talking about his racism. But the real irony here, Megyn, is very simple, Hillary Clinton has actually said of Robert Byrd, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, that he was her friend and mentor. Hillary Clinton has received an award ...
KELLY: Now wait, let's just clear up the record on Robert Byrd. That was when he was like a child and he went on to renounce his time in the KKK, which was about 18 months long.
JACKSON: That's absolutely ridiculous.
KELLY: It's been a lifetime saying ...
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: Hang on a second -- hang on a second -- that's absolutely false.
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: Look, I'm not going to shout over you -- I'm not going to shout over you. Here's what I would tell you. Robert Byrd was in the Klan in the mid-40s and he renounced the Klan in the 1980s. Now, if you think that's(inaudible) or anecdotal, I disagree. The people that he hurt in his career, the black folks, and who knows how many there were. The Democrat -- it's really funny to me that the Democrats are so quick to just pass over the past of a guy like Robert Byrd.
And my second point is this, Hillary Clinton received the Margaret Sanger award, this is a woman who started an organization called Planned Parenthood and that woman called black people human weeds and Hillary Clinton says she was her idol. Now, look, if Donald Trump had openly endorsed a member of the Klan and was part of an organization that said that about that he accepted an award from, what would we be talking about now?
KELLY: Go ahead Lisa.
DURDEN: First of all, it's interesting that you said when the Klu Klux Klan and the denouncement, okay. So, would you say that when a person has been arrested when they were ...
JACKSON: Forty years in the Klan, Lisa.
DURDEN: ... twenty-five for being a child molester, should you say, well, they were once a child molester they should register as a sex offender...
JACKSON: Forty years in the Klan, Lisa.
DURDEN: ... so you want to still be aligned with a once child molester? That's the same difference. So, you cannot hold ...
JACKSON: So now, we migrated from racism to child molester. Can you say ...
DURDEN: That actually is worst.
JACKSON: I'm asking you a very simple question.
KELLY: Hold up, let me just ask you to read (ph) something.
(CROSSTALK)
DURDEN: Let Kelly ask me -- let Megyn Kelly ask me the questions, not you. She's the host.
KELLY: Oh, I like that. Thank you. Okay, good. So, here's what I want to ask you because Trump is obviously taking a lot of incoming on his treatment of minorities -- his statements about minorities -- his statements about women. He had a lovely moment on the campaign trail, I think it was yesterday, and it showed a softer side of Donald Trump and we don't often get to see that.
He's always the tough, brash guy. I want to show it to you and ask you whether you think this changes the dynamic in this race at all. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to say thank you. You saved me in so many ways. In recent years, I've been struggling with an incurable illness and I'm on home care now. In those days in the hospital, I received from you a hand written letter that said, "to the bravest woman I know." I'm here right now to thank you in person and that was my biggest dream.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Kevin, I mean it was a lovely moment with the woman who was Ms. Wisconsin and you could hear her choked up about how Trump had helped her in her life.
JACKSON: Look, at the end of the day, Megyn, Trump -- the only thing Trump did to become a racist for the democrats was to strap an "R" behind his name and say Republican.
KELLY: Well, this isn't so much about racism. It's about -- it's about, you know his humanity which gets called into question.
(CROSSTALK)
DURDEN: It's really about Donald Trump's bullying. Donald Trump is bully --
KELLY: Lisa, I'll give you the floor but I want to get Kevin's thought.
JACKSON: I've also heard Trump was the guy that sent Tahmooressi money when he got him out -- when he got out of jail from the Mexican prison. Look, there are many things Trump has probably done very well and we can talk about this and debate it. Trump did not become a racist suddenly until he became a Republican. But Hillary Clinton could be in a Confederate flag pantsuit with a Nazi button and Lisa would still support her.
DURDEN: Absolutely not true.
KELLY: You got give, that's kind of funny
(CROSSTALK)
DURDEN: You got some real gold nuggets every time we meet each other. Donald trump -- you know, we want to know when he became racist when he was born and what happened is when he ran...
KELLY: Started (ph) in the crib.
DURDEN: When he was born, Donald trump running for the oval office. (Inaudible) as what he always had been. We didn't see it on the Apprentice because that's entertainment. But now we're seeing what has always been there. He wants to put walls up and keep Mexicans out and he wants to racially profile Muslims. Why don't you racially profile Catholic priests and all the Catholic because are making children
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: I'm taking a beating in this segment. I'm going to leave it at that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Kevin, Lisa, to be continued.
Well, to her he was James Bond. To him, she was Sapphira. That is until friendly e-mails ultimately led to General David Petraeus' downfall. Up next, Jill Kelley is here to address the scandal that rocked her world and cost one of the most respected men in America almost everything. Don't miss this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Now to a Kelly File Exclusive. On the story of a beautiful woman, powerful generals, and it would seem one very jealous mistress. It all started in 2012. The world was stunned to learn that war hero turned CIA director General David Petraeus had an affair outside of his marriage that ultimately cost him his job.
Tonight, the woman who unwittingly exposed that affair is ready to talk. We'll be joined by Jill Kelley in moments. But first, chief Washington correspondent James Rosen takes us back through the scandal.
JAMES ROSEN, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, good evening. She was most often described as a Tampa socialite, but Jill Kelley was and remains a married mother of three whose role as an honorary diplomat for top brass at U.S. Central Command ultimately led to the ruin of two of America's top military officers. It was Kelley who, in 2012, started receiving menacing e-mails from an anonymous woman whom authorities later identified as Paula Broadwell, the authorized biographer and secret mistress of David Petraeus, a married four-star general who would become the director of CIA.
Broadwell's threats later ruled to be emotional outbursts and not crimes also triggered the exposure of a long series of chatty, sometimes flirty e- mails that Kelley had exchanged with General John Allen, the commander of Allied Forces in Afghanistan. The Pentagon's Inspector General later cleared Allen of any wrongdoing, but he retired in 2013 after the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suspended Allen's nomination to lead the European command.
Petraeus resigned from CIA and ultimately pleaded guilty last April to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information that he made available to Broadwell, a crime for which the general received two years' probation and $100,000 fine. Kelley saw herself trashed in tabloid media and online as a status seeking bimbo seducing two of the country's top generals, charges she denies.
With her lawsuits against the FBI and the Defense Department exhausted, Kelley has told her side of the story in a new book in which she reprints some of the e-mails. Her husband, an accomplished surgeon, has stood by her throughout. Megyn?
KELLY: James Rosen, thank you. Joining me now, Jill Kelley, author of the new book "Collateral Damage: Petraeus, Power, Politics, the untold story." Jill, thank you for being here.
JILL KELLEY, SOCIALITE AND FORMER HONORARY DIPLOMAT: Thank you for having me.
KELLY: So, you say you did not have an affair with either of these generals nor at all outside of your marriage?
KELLEY: I have never had an affair in my life.
KELLY: So, you first got your -- you're friends with these guys. You know Petraeus, you know General Allen. And the nest thing that happens to you is you start to get these weird threatening e-mails. This is how the trouble started.
KELLEY: Right, it actually began with General Allen and Patreaus and other top officials were getting the e-mails a month before hand. They finally arrived in my husband's inbox a month later.
KELLY: What did they say? Things like what?
KELLEY: They said, we will shame or as we -- so we thought it was a, obviously a terrorist group or you know, organized crime. We will shame U.S. Generals, top officials and former ambassadors, headliners including their spouses. The person alluded -- they were alluding that I was being followed and photographed.
And my comings and goings were something that was very discrete and it was very important to be that discrete because of the people that I was meeting with. When we finally -- when my husband received that e-mail, he was obviously very frightened. We had three small kids at the time -- a 6 year- old, a 7 year-old, and a 9-year-old, three little girls. We called General Allen and General Allen said, "You must go to the FBI. You have three little kids with you."
KELLY: So you did?
KELLEY: And we did, and he said you could trust the FBI, which was something I regret. Biggest mistake of my life.
KELLY: Why?
KELLEY: Because when the FBI promised me -- now, here I am as a mother of three kids, not behind guarded gates, no bodyguards, nothing. I trusted them. They said we're going to protect you, we will not allow this to happen. And as you know, everything that happened -- everything that was said happened exactly.
But then after that, instead of telling me who my stalker was, instead of telling the general, the director, Director Petraeus who his stalker was, they allowed us to stay harassed, stalked, intimidated, until after the elections.
KELLY: And you alleged that's because they didn't want the whole General Petraeus affair with this woman to come out until after the elections -- until after the 2012 elections? Let's just take a step back because there did come a time when you found out who this person was behind the e-mails and General Petraeus was the one who told you.
KELLEY: That's correct.
KELLY: And tell us about that moment.
KELLEY He was -- when the FBI -- now the FBI never told me they found out who the person was within two weeks of reporting it. Instead, they kept evading that, oh no, we don't know who it is. And then they decided after knowing who the person was, went and searched my personal e-mails to dig up dirt on my friends -- going into my e mails just to believe that I was having an affair.
KELLY: But it was General David Petraeus who told you...
KELLEY: He told me.
KELLY: ... that it was Paula Broadwell, his former lover.
KELLEY: Right. He said, Jill, its Paula Broadwell. Of course, I don't know who Paula Broadwell. I have never met the lady in my life.
KELLY: She thought that you were fooling around with General Petraeus?
KELLEY: I don't know what she thought, but obviously she was wrong. And what bothers me most is these government officials that we trust, went after the same sexist speculation just to dig up the fact that I could be having an affair instead of protecting me and my family. And when they didn't see it happen they still went ahead and leaked it to the American public. The most sexist ...
KELLY: Do you believe they wanted to get rid of Petraeus but they wanted to wait until Barack Obama had been re-elected?
KELLEY: Right. And that was very -- there's one FBI agent as you see, and it tried to (inaudible) who was also smeared, he tells me -- calls me up and tells me, "Jill, Petraeus and Allen will be coming down after the election." That's six months before the election.
KELLY: Wow. Unbelievable story Jill. I know you've documented it and James Rosen has outlined it as well. Thank you for being here.
KELLEY: Thank you for having me.
KELLY: Well, coming up, my next guest has a message for the little cupcakes. You are the ones, cupcake nation, stop being so sensitive. Toughen up buttercup! That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Cupcake nation alert. Joining me now, Harvard University student Rachel Hubner. Rachel, thank you for being here. This is our little moniker for these stories because they are so vast and all too common. What are you seeing on the campus of Harvard that has brought you here tonight?
RACHEL HUBNER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY STUDENT: What I'm seeing on the college campus right now specifically at Harvard is that many students come to college wanting to be exposed to a diverse group of people, to variety of viewpoints, but the opposite is occurring. Open discourse is stifled.
There's a lack of freedom of expression from students, from administrators and this is occurring at Harvard and at campuses nationwide.
KELLY: What specifically did you see in class with respect to the abortion issue?
HUBNER: Well, we were discussing general guidelines for class and specific things that people might find offensive and this was just one specific instance of a comment that a student contended maybe something that can hurt someone's feelings.
KELLY: So she didn't want to sit across from somebody who wasn't pro-choice because she couldn't handle the class if she just knew in her head this person was not pro-choice?
HUBNER: Correct. It was something that she deemed offensive.
KELLY: And you said that there was an incident where your friend put up an American flag in his dorm room. What did his roommate say?
HUBNER: Yeah. So, my friend who is a freshman on the first day of college took out an American flag from his suitcase and his roommate stopped him, saying that the presence of the flag on a wall was a political statement that he was unwilling to make.
KELLY: Can you -- I mean, can you believe? Can you believe that these professors allow this and that these students think they're going to be able to function in the world with this sort of coddling?
HUBNER: Right. It's amazing. It's also truly amazing because a lot of it is student censoring students. Well there are problems of administrators also silencing voices, a lot of it is internal among students.
KELLY: Good for you for speaking out. We'll be right back.
HUBNER: Thank you.
(COMMECIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Let us know what you think of the show tonight. Go to facebook.com/thekellyfile and follow me on Twitter @megynkelly. Don't forget tomorrow night, we have Charles Krauthammer and Bryan Kilmeade's back. Tell me what you think. I'm Megyn Kelly, this is "The Kelly File."
END
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