In what feels like an instance of the blackened, Satanic pot calling the kettle black (while talking to at least some kind of major demon, to boot), Politico reports that former Breitbart editor and presidential adviser Steve Bannon once told former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes that Megyn Kelly was “the devil.” The infernal comments came after Kelly slammed Trump during the presidential debates, a hard-line stance that caused a breaking of the ties between Bannon’s side of the conservative movement, and the one that was briefly spear-headed by Fox.
That disconnect is the focus of Politico’s article, which tracks the ways true-believer conservative voices have had to bend to champion Trump’s actions over the last few months, lest they lose viewers who care less about fiscal policy, and more about supporting the candidate-turned-president who makes all the funny tweets. Meanwhile, the fates of the three people involved feel like a microcosm of the entire right-wing media machine: Ailes is long gone, brought down by sexual harassment charges that mirror the ones that saw Bill O’Reilly fired earlier this week. Bannon is still in the White House, scrabbling for power and lashing out at anyone who looks like a threat. And Kelly—who pushed Trump repeatedly, especially on his attitudes toward women—is gone from Fox as well, having jumped ship to NBC, where conservative mental gymnastics, Satanically empowered or otherwise, are less in demand.