Megyn Kelly and Soledad O’Brien started off the week with some Twitter beef.
On Monday morning, the two journalists got in a social media spat after Kelly took issue with how O’Brien retweeted Fox News meteorologist, Janice Dean.
It all began when Dean tweeted a clip of Dr. Anthony Fauci praising New York’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the weekend. In the interview, the immunologist told PBS: “When you do it properly, you bring down those cases… We have done it in New York. New York got hit worse than any place in the world. And they did it correctly…”
“This is garbage,” Dean, 50, wrote alongside the video, adding, “Sorry Dr. Fauci. 32,000 deaths. 6,000 seniors? Nope.”
Late Sunday night, O’Brien, a former CNN reporter, retweeted Dean’s post and wrote, “Meteorologist weighs in.” The retweet ignited a Twitter war with Kelly.
“That ‘meteorologist’s’ name is @JaniceDean. She’s a working mom w/MS who is married to a hero 9/11 fireman,” Kelly hit back Monday morning. “She lost both in-laws in NY nursing homes thx to Cuomo’s disastrous orders & so yeah, she gets an opinion. She also epitomizes class & kindness. Remember those?”
In response, O’Brien, 53, called out Kelly, 49, and defended New York’s COVID-19 response, while also bringing up the former “TODAY” host’s blackface scandal from 2018.
“(Expert in Blackface weighs in),” O’Brien tweeted. “Dr. Fauci said ‘you can bring down those cases.’ Which NY’ers did. What he said was not ‘garbage.’ but factually and scientifically correct. [Dean is] welcome to weigh in on anything she wants to. As are you. As am I.”
“What did I do to deserve the Blackface lady tweeting at me while I’m still in bed?” she continued in another tweet. “This doesn’t bode well for my day, tbh.”
Kelly, who became a trending topic on Monday, wrote back to O’Brien, “Oh let me help you! You attacked a woman grieving her dead relatives for challenging the narrative that NY handled corona just great, dismissing her as too small to have an opinion bc she’s just a meteorologist.”
Since Kelly responded to her message, O’Brien joked that Kelly admitted to being the “Blackface lady” and continued to defend Fauci’s quote.
“1. Megyn admits she’s the Blackface Lady,” she wrote. “2. I literally pointed out she’s a meteorologist — ‘small’ is your word. Hmmmm. You’re welcome to accept her pov over an infectious disease expert. 3. Fauci’s quote is accurate. He said ‘bring down those cases.”
“Just fyi — attacking Fauci is intentional,” O’Brien added in another tweet.
While Kelly has yet to respond to O’Brien’s last post, Meghan McCain, a fellow conservative commentator, shared her support for Kelly and Dean.
“Love you Janice,” wrote “The View” host, also retweeting Kelly’s post about what she called the “disastrous orders” from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
See how Kelly and O’Brien’s Twitter beef went down in the tweets, below.
