CBS
The "CBS This Morning" anchor admits she's surprised that Megyn Kelly would make such a "terrible mistake."
Gayle King does her best to be impartial at all times as a broadcast journalist, but that didn't stop her from telling Stephen Colbert that she thinks Megyn Kelly "stepped in it," or praising Taylor Swift for encouraging her fans to vote.
On Thursday, Megyn Kelly was officially done as an employee of NBC, as reported by TMZ, after two days of backlash following her tone-deaf discussion in support of blackface during Tuesday's "Today" broadcast. Kelly apologized Wednesday, but King was surprised she made the mistake in the first place.
Megyn Kelly Done at NBC After Endorsing Blackface and Hollywood Stars Wonder Why She Was Ever Hired
View Story"I know Megyn Kelly. I happen to like Megyn Kelly," King admitted. "I think she's a very smart cookie, very smart at what she did-- what she does. But I think she clearly stepped in it, made a terrible mistake and I was surprised that she would make a mistake of that kind."
But, of course, this isn't the first time Kelly has made a "mistake" of this kind. "I didn't like it when she said Santa Claus was white," King said, with Colbert adding that she had also made the comment that Jesus was white, too.
"It seems like an odd cultural cul-de-sac to have grown up on that the conversation that blackface is bad never drove by your house," Colbert noted, to which King could only agree.
She was far more positive when the subject shifted to Taylor Swift's shocking public endorsement of a political candidate. King confessed to being a huge Taylor Swift fan, dating back to her country music roots, and had always respected her desire to remain non-political.
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Taylor Swift Already Under Fire From Fox News and Piers Morgan for Breaking Political Silence to Endorse Democrats
View Story"I think what she was seeing was becoming very troubling to her that she decided to encourage people to get out and vote, and it made a difference," King said. Vote.org told Buzzfeed that in the 24 hours after Swift published that Instagram post, they saw 65,000 new registrations. That compares to 190,178 in all of September and 56,669 in August.
Of course, the next step is to actually get them to vote. "When you look at the Millennial population ... they are the biggest voting bloc but only one out of five are voting, so Taylor is the one who can reach them," King said.
It remains to be seen if she will. Both Gayle King and Stephen Colbert will be broadcasting live on election day, Nov. 6, where they can see first-hand if the Taylor Swift influence encourages higher voter turnout.
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