Trump Clashes with Megyn Kelly at First GOP Debate

The Question

The first Republican presidential primary debate, held in Cleveland on August 6, 2015, drew a record-setting 24 million viewers. Early in the evening, Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly posed a pointed question to Trump about his history of making derogatory comments about women.

“You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals,’” Kelly said. “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” Trump initially tried to deflect with a joke about Rosie O’Donnell before growing visibly agitated, warning Kelly that she had better “be careful” with him.

”Blood Coming Out of Her Wherever”

The next day, Trump escalated the conflict dramatically. In a CNN interview with Don Lemon, Trump said of Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” The comment was widely interpreted as a crude reference to menstruation, though Trump and his allies insisted he was referring to her nose.

The remark led Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative commentator, to disinvite Trump from his RedState Gathering. Several Republican rivals condemned the comment. Yet Trump refused to apologize, dismissing the controversy as political correctness run amok.

Lasting Consequences

The feud between Trump and Kelly continued for months. Trump boycotted a subsequent Fox News debate in January 2016 rather than face Kelly as moderator, holding a competing fundraiser for veterans instead. The episode marked one of the first major confrontations between Trump and the conservative media establishment that had long served as a kingmaker in Republican primary politics.

The incident also established a pattern that would recur throughout Trump’s political career: when challenged by women in prominent positions, Trump frequently responded with personal attacks that critics characterized as sexist. Despite — or perhaps because of — these confrontations, Trump’s support among Republican primary voters remained durable, confounding political analysts who predicted each controversy would be his undoing.