A dramatic fracture within the MAGA movement has intensified as Megyn Kelly joined a chorus of once-loyal Trump supporters now openly criticizing the president. During Episode 1301 of The Megyn Kelly Show, which aired on April 22, 2026, Kelly delivered a scathing assessment of Trump’s character in a conversation with guest actor Russell Brand on her SiriusXM show.
The former Fox News anchor called Trump “not a moral man,” “not the greatest husband in the world,” and “extremely petty and thin-skinned.” Her critique adds another prominent voice to what has become an unprecedented rebellion among Trump’s most vocal media allies over his Iran policy and treatment of loyalists.
Trump’s approval numbers have plummeted amid the backlash. Kelly noted on her April 24 episode that the president’s AP approval rating had dropped to just 33 percent, with only 23 percent of independents approving his overall performance and just 21 percent supporting the Iran war. “You’ve got 79 percent of independents against you,” she told listeners. “You’re effed.”
A Coalition in Open Revolt
The revolt extends far beyond Kelly. Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ former primetime star, publicly expressed regret for supporting Trump on April 21, telling his brother Buckley on The Tucker Carlson Show: “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time — I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”
Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist, went even further earlier in the month, writing on X that Trump “literally sounds like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie” and asking on his show, “How do we 25th Amendment his ***?” That call to invoke the constitutional mechanism for removing a sitting president marked a stunning rupture from a broadcaster who spent years portraying Trump as a generational figure.
Candace Owens joined the chorus, posting on X that Trump is “a genocidal lunatic” and that “Congress and military need to intervene,” adding separately: “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”
In a 485-word Truth Social post, Trump fired back at all four by name, calling Kelly, Carlson, Owens, and Jones “losers,” “nut jobs,” and “stupid people” with “low IQs” running “third-rate podcasts.” “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” he wrote.
A Devastating Personal Critique
In her conversation with Brand, the British comedian, actor, and author of the forthcoming book How to Become a Christian in Seven Days, Kelly acknowledged that many in the MAGA world have chosen to ignore Trump’s worst traits.
While praising the president’s “charming” sense of humor and his “unwillingness to stay down,” Kelly noted there is “still, in my view, a lot to like about Trump.” But, she added, “some of those darker demons are much more in the front view right now.” The host, who has shifted her stance on Trump before, stopped short of Carlson’s complete renunciation of support.
Kelly reserved her sharpest criticism for what she described as Trump’s habit of abandoning people who fought hardest for him. She told Brand the president has been turning on his most loyal supporters because they refuse to back the Iran war, while embracing figures who “hated him from the beginning and were the original never Trumpers.”
Kelly noted that she and Carlson have occasionally clashed with Trump over the years despite consistently defending him through criminal indictments and the 2024 campaign. The reward for that loyalty, she argued, is nonexistent: “If you have a principled disagreement with something he does, you’re otherized, you’re the enemy.”
The breaking point for many appears to be Trump’s decision to forge ahead with the Iran war over the loud objections of his core supporters, combined with his very public attacks on Pope Leo XIV. Kelly told Brand that Trump is “alienating so many of his core supporters, biggest believers and boosters and running to people who have not been able to stand him for 10 years.”
Appearing on Piers Morgan’s show, Kelly declared that “the Trump coalition that got him elected is completely fractured and in smithereens. And he doesn’t care, because he doesn’t care about the Republican Party. He cares about himself.”
On the Iran ceasefire brokered by Pakistan in mid-April, Kelly was equally blunt, calling it “very much like surrender on our part — which I’m in favor of. It was folly to begin with. It was folly throughout.”
Kelly continued that message on her May 1 show. On her May 1 show, she tore into Sen. Rick Scott after the Florida Republican appeared on CNN and defended the war’s rising cost at the pump, with gas averaging $4.30 a gallon nationally. Kelly called his justification “****” and “**** propaganda” that “is not going to sell.” She also cited a new poll showing about 67percent of the American public now opposes the Iran war, saying the president’s approval numbers on the conflict “continue to drop into the basement.”
Brand Opens up on Perry, Trudeau, and Faith
While the Trump segment dominated headlines, the wide-ranging interview also saw Brand get unusually candid about his own life. The 50-year-old, who awaits an October trial on rape and sexual assault charges in the U.K., addressed the accusations directly, admitted to sleeping with a 16-year-old when he was 30 — legal in Britain but “exploitative” in hindsight — and reflected on past drug and sex addictions.
Brand also weighed in on his ex-wife Katy Perry’s relationship with former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the recent sexual assault allegations leveled against Perry by actress Ruby Rose. He spoke about finding God and his Christian faith, distinguishing immoral and criminal behavior.
The pair explored heavier political terrain, including the alleged connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center and the 2017 Charlottesville rally referenced in a new Department of Justice indictment, the question of why Trump rose to power, and what Kelly called “the fraud of the two-party system.”
Whether the MAGA civil war ends in reconciliation now seems beside the point. The more pressing question, as Kelly herself put it, is no longer who Trump has lost — but who remains.
