The Newsmax Host Making a Name Defending Trump’s Fraud Theories

Greg Kelly has undergone a transformation.

Formerly a straight-news anchor on Fox’s flagship local station, WNYW, Kelly has recently gained fame in MAGA circles as one of the leading defenders of President Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

From his nightly show on Newsmax, Kelly has led the charge in airing theories that Trump’s own attorney general has now dismissed. The strategy that has paid off for Newsmax — whose CEO has admitted that his network sees the election-fraud storyline as “great for news” and justified his indulgence of conspiracy theories by appealing to Russiagate whataboutism.

When Kelly began his show in January to little fanfare, he billed it as a foray into why “so much of the media didn’t understand Donald Trump.” But rather than continue his career as a straight-shooting newsman who once challenged Trump over his insulting comments about John McCain, Kelly has transformed into an all-purpose defender of whatever the latest presidential stance happens to be.

Kelly has been rather forthcoming about this transformation.

“Facts matter, but we all have bosses, and we all have ambition — there are book deals to be had, and speaking engagements, and maybe a Netflix series. I know a lot of journalists, reporters, media personalities, everybody, is looking for those opportunities. I mean, let’s face it, that’s a reality,” he remarked to ABC News’s Jonathan Karl in an April interview.

Now, as Trump allies continue to push as-yet-unproven theories about how the election was stolen from the president, Kelly — who said Election Night that “I know [Trump]’s going to win. I just feel it in my bones” — has seized his own opportunity with both hands.

On November 17, Kelly had lawyer Sidney Powell on his show to detail how Dominion Voting Systems “was designed to be hacked” and flipped votes from Trump to Biden, claims that Dominion itself has repeatedly denied and for which there is no evidence.

“Our votes were actually counted in Barcelona, Spain, or Frankfurt, Germany, on foreign servers. It’s absolutely stunning,” Powell claimed.

Rather than ask Powell to provide evidence for what would be the most significant political crime in American history, Kelly offered his wholehearted endorsement of the theory. “It does make a lot of sense now, how Joe Biden campaigned — i.e., not campaigning, their team seemed to know something if this is true about Dominion, and I suspect it is,” he said.

While Powell’s Dominion allegations were apparently so outlandish that even the Trump campaign had to clarify that she was not part of their legal team, Kelly hasn’t stopped.

After Attorney General Bill Barr poured cold water on the Dominion theory Tuesday, saying that the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department have investigated “the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results . . . and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Kelly reacted by attacking Barr.

“Some of us are wondering if he is a warrior with the Constitution or if he’s just a bureaucrat,” he said, adding he “can’t believe” if Barr had “looked for voter fraud he wouldn’t find any.”

As viewers flock to Kelly’s show to keep the conspiracy alive — last month, he hit 1.1 million nightly viewers as Newsmax attempts to position itself as the right-wing alternative to Fox News — his on-air sycophancy for the Trump cause is perhaps best illustrated by his Twitter feed, which day-by-day look more and more like the president’s own.

After leaving WNYW/5 in 2017, Kelly was nowhere to be seen as Trump first battled through the Robert Mueller probe and then impeachment, and kept his personal opinions close to his chest. According to social-media analytics site SocialBlade, he tweeted a mere 34 times from January 2017 to January 2020, and a review of his activity shows only a few comments remotely related to politics.

When Kelly began his nightly talk show on Newsmax, he had tweeted a grand total of 179 times since 2009. In November alone, Kelly sent 536 tweets over 30 days, nearly all of which centered on the stolen election narrative.

His Twitter ramblings also serve as a precursor to his nightly show. “Our GOVERNMENT has ‘blown it’ before in HISTORIC AND EPIC PROPORTIONS. Partial list: 9/11, WMDs/IRAQ, Challenger Explosion, Richard Jewel (wrongly accused Olympic Park Bomber, Dr Steven Hatfill (wrongly accused Anthrax mailer) don’t let STOLEN ELECTION 2020 be next SCREW UP,” he tweeted Tuesday, before expounding on this theme of elite betrayal during his monologue.

On Monday, Kelly tweeted out a picture of Watergate journalists Woodward and Bernstein, as well as a portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, implying that both of their historical examples should serve as inspiration for the current moment as the MAGA Movement searches for evidence of widespread voter fraud.

It remains to be seen what Kelly will do when Trump eventually leaves office — he didn’t return a request for comment on his future plans. But for now, he seems to be enjoying every minute of it.

“Several Hundred Thousand Views and Counting. Click when u can :)” was his first tweet Wednesday.