Megyn Kelly hosted Daily Beast reporter Tim Mak, one of the reporters of the big story about Donald Trump’s sexual assault on his then-wife Ivana Trump. Kelly hostilely confronted Mak about the substance of his story but, to her credit, she acknowledged just how wrong the threats from Trump’s lawyer were.

As I posted previously, The Daily Beast article tied Trump’s behavior to his recent comments about Mexican immigrants being rapists and other kinds of criminals.

Kelly, questioning the integrity of the article, declared, “It is a statement of fact that some of the people who cross the southern border are rapists and murderers.” She demanded to know whether Mak had checked to see if Trump had ever murdered anyone.

Mak stuck to his guns. He said that because Trump is the Republican frontrunner, “He deserves to be looked at, his history should be looked at.” He also noted that, despite the fact that Ivana Trump now denies the events she described in a deposition many years ago – i.e. under oath –  the story is legitimately newsworthy.

MAK: I think what’s important here is that Ivana Trump did make these statements about an incident in 1989 and she acknowledged them again in a book that was published in 1993. We’re simply looking at those facts and I think with his presidential campaign, there’s new relevance to them.

Of course, Fox is still trotting out Clinton accuser Kathleen Willey. And who can forget Hannity's big 2012 "exclusive" that exposed a guy hugged by Obama in 1990? If an accusation about sexual assault were uncovered now about Bill Clinton, the “fair and balanced” network would be obsessing about it 24/7.

Kelly acknowledged that the Daily Beast article originated in sworn testimony but, instead of acknowledging that Ivana was now suggesting she had committed perjury, Kelly gave it a softer description. “It appears she may have softened on this issue over the years,” Kelly said.

Then, more harshly, she continued, “But that doesn’t answer the question about whether your reporting is fair or relevant because, as I pointed out here on the air last night, having practiced law for 10 years, divorce proceedings are notoriously ugly and spouses often – often! – say things that aren’t true and that they later live to regret and how did you account for that reality in your reporting?

Kelly wasn’t asking so much as she was lecturing Mak and treating him like a wayward schoolboy.

Mak said the reporting was relevant for the reasons he already stated and called it fair and factual.

But to her credit, after flashing her Trump-friendly bona fides, Kelly moved on to discuss the thuggish threats from Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen. 

I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.

Kelly asked Mak for his reaction “to that kind of language and threat from a man directly representing a presidential contender.”

“I think it raises questions about the sorts of people that Donald Trump has surrounded himself with,” Mak replied. Kelly did not challenge the contention.

Kelly also noted that Cohen was “wrong on the facts” and “wrong on the law” when he said, “You cannot rape your spouse.” She read what she described as “a sort of apology” and asked Mak “whether you feel apologized to because he took another shot at you today.”

Here’s how Cohen kinda sorta apologized:

As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core. Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment - which I do not believe—and which I apologize for entirely.

Mak said, “You’ll notice he doesn’t actually identify which comment he is actually apologizing for, so I’m not sure what he’s apologizing about. Is he apologizing about the threats? Is he apologizing about his false interpretation of law and spousal rape or is he apologizing for the abuse that he heaped upon The Daily Beast reporters, including myself?”

What I noticed is that he said no injustice offends him more than charges of rape or racism. Not the acts themselves but the charges.

Like Mak said, this speaks volumes about the kind of person Trump surrounds himself with. And while we're on that topic? Trump has said he'd “love” to have Sarah Palin in his administration.

Watch the discussion below, from the July 28 The Kelly File.