Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens had a fiery exchange on whether potential employers should blacklist college students participating in protests against Israel.
The dispute ignited when Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM, criticised US Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy for opposing efforts to withhold job opportunities from Harvard students whose organisations co-signed a letter blaming Israel for the actions of the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas last week.
Ramaswamy, a biotech mogul, maintained that while the students’ endorsement was misguided, actively seeking to blacklist individual members of college student groups was “not productive.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me… They sided with terrorists who murdered children and old women,” Kelly wrote, referring to the Harvard groups that signed a letter saying Israel was “entirely responsible” for the Hamas attacks that led to more than 1,400 Israelis being killed.
“You’re not clear on this as someone who wants to be president?… We don’t hire those who do the killing and we don’t hire those who applaud the killers while the savagery is underway,” she wrote adding that if that if Ramaswamy was “open to hiring one of the lunatics, though, good to know!”
Owens, a commentator for The Daily Wire and an advertiser on Kelly’s show, then chimed in to support Ramaswamy and called Kelly’s assertion “incredibly disingenuous.”
“You know that many of those students are not out there because they want babies to be murdered,” Owens wrote.
Owens argued that while college students are “stupid,” they were “young” and “experimenting” with ideas as she had done when she was “radically pro-choice.”
“You are an adult woman who is advocating for their lives to be permanently pigeonholed because they have the wrong ideas which are likely being spoon fed to them in their classrooms,” Owens wrote to Kelly.
The former Fox News primetime host fired back writing, “Being liberal is not the same as taking to the streets to cheer murdered babies and blame said murders on the victims.”
“But you go ahead and hire as many of them as you want Candace.”
Owens responded, writing that the students were simply “misguided” and “in need of education, not blacklists.”
She also criticised Kelly for tagging her employer the Daily Wire in her tweets, explaining that it reeked of “inherent pettiness” and “immaturity.”
“Would you like a direct contact to management? Help me help you,” Owens wrote.
Kelly replied writing, “I talked to them just two weeks ago when they asked me to put you on my show to promote your crime series and I said sure I will do you and Candace that favor.”
Owens said she was “sorry” that she “couldn’t actually make your show in the end” and added, “Megyn, you seem to be taking this personally.”
“I am not attacking you, I am attacking your position that students should be put on blacklists or that the majority of them are genuinely marching to celebrate the death of grandmas overseas,” she wrote.
Kelly claimed Owens was going against “someone who has been nothing but nice to and supportive of you.”
“Then when that person call[s] you out, you just keep saying ‘I am the mature one!’” Kelly wrote. “Take care Candace. I wish you well.”
It comes amid growing concerns over a war in the Middle East stemming from the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Israel’s military issued a directive on Friday, ordering the evacuation of northern Gaza, a region home to 1.1 million people within 24 hours.
Iran’s foreign minister has issued a warning, indicating that an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza could compel Iran to intervene, potentially expanding the conflict to other areas in the Middle East.
Hossein Amirabdollahian made the statement during a meeting with United Nations envoy to the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, on Saturday in Beirut, Axios reported citing two diplomatic sources with knowledge of the situation.
According to these sources, Abdollahian emphasized that while Iran does not desire the conflict to spread to other parts of the region, it would have no choice but to respond if Israel continues its operations in Gaza.
