Megyn Kelly blasts Savannah Guthrie's sit-down with NBC host, calls it a 'promotional vehicle'

TUCSON, ARIZONA: Megyn Kelly took aim at a recent sit-down between Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, calling it a “promotional vehicle” and accusing Kotb of fumbling the basics while letting emotions take center stage.

Savannah’s 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, vanished from her home in Tucson, Arizona, overnight on January 31. Nearly two months later, there have been no arrests and no sign of the missing grandmother.

For the first time since her mother's disappearance, Savannah sat down with Kotb for an interview, part of which aired on Thursday, March 26. Kotb repeatedly broke down in tears on camera, and that didn’t sit well with Kelly.

“This interview was not about Hoda, it was about Savannah,” the former Fox News anchor said on her podcast on Thursday. “And I'm sorry, but Hoda kept wiping away tears that weren't there either. This was acting on Hoda Kotb’s part, and it was a distraction and an unnecessary one.”

Megyn Kelly thinks Hoda Kotb 'fell down on the job'

Kelly called out Kotb for failing to follow up on key details Savannah revealed about her mother’s disappearance.

During the interview, Savannah shared that she and her siblings, Camron Guthrie and Annie Guthrie, arrived at their mother’s $1.4 million home after she vanished. She also noted Nancy suffered from severe back pain and could not walk far, and that “the doors were propped open.”

That detail, Kelly argued, should have set off alarms. “Why would the door be 'propped open?'... I don't understand,” Kelly said after playing the clip for listeners.

Speaking to security experts James Hamilton, Eric O’Neill, and Randy Sutton, Kelly said she was offering her own “editorial... from a journalistic perspective.”

“With respect, I have to say I think Hoda Kotb fell down on the job, and I don't think she was the woman for the interview,” Kelly continued. “They put her out there because they use this as a promotional vehicle. The two are friends, look, 'We're a big family, look at them relating,'” she then claimed of NBC's decision to have Kotb handle the interview.

Kelly also took issue with production choices, saying Kotb’s microphone remained on throughout for “her empathetic sounds and her active listening,” which she called “a major distraction” and a “very odd” move.

“Because normally the network would turn down, hold Hoda’s mic during Savannah’s very compelling answers, especially in an interview this big,” she insisted.

“The reason they left Hoda's mic open is because I'm telling you, NBC had an agenda here, which was to show you one big, happy family. Look how empathetic she is,” Kelly argued, reiterating that the mic was an “inappropriate choice, journalistically, because it served only as a distraction.”

Megyn Kelly says she's 'just being honest'

But Kelly was mostly unhappy with Kotb's failure to ask follow-up questions.

“She did not ask very basic questions, like, 'What do you mean ‘propped open?’” Kelly noted. “That’s it. I'm not talking about you go for the jugular… I mean very basic reportorial ABCs - What does propped open mean?” 

For Kelly, that omission undercut the entire interview.

“And the sins got worse as the interview went along,” she said. “I objected to how it was handled.”

She closed with a reminder that her critique wasn’t personal in any way.

“I'm just being honest. I'm not trying to be petty. I'm trying to be honest about what I saw there and what should have happened in an interview this big,” she concluded.