Megyn Kelly has been in the news for her decision to interview radio host and conspiracy-monger Alex Jones. That decision led to at least one advertiser, JP Morgan, pulling all ads from NBC to avoid being associated with the promotion of the interview. Kelly was dropped as the hostess for the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation because of Jones’ bizarre theory that no one was actually killed at Sandy Hook. As the pressure built, there were hints that the interview was being altered to make Jones (stay with me here) seem like a nutter.

Jones retaliated early Friday morning by releasing audio of the phone calls he had with Kelly as she was trying to convince him to do the interview. The audio basically confirms any bad stereotypes you might have about network news and the people who are involved in it.

Here is the audio:

Some snippets:

In the tape, Kelly repeatedly reassures Jones she intends to be fair. “You’ll be fine with it,” she can be heard saying. “I’m not looking to portray you as a bogeyman… The craziest thing of all would be if some of the people who have this insane version of you in your heads walk away saying, ‘You know, I see the dad in him. I see the guy who loves those kids and is more complex than I’ve been led to believe.”

When Jones asks if Kelly will push him on Sandy Hook, Kelly appears to downplay her desire to ask hardball questions of Jones, suggesting instead that the interview will be his chance to air his views.

“I can ask you about that,” Kelly said of Sandy Hook. “This is not going to be a contentious gotcha exchange. I want to do in-depth profiles on people. I could ask you [about Sandy Hook] and say, ‘This is what the critics say’ — but this isn’t gonna be an ‘a-ha! Let’s play a clip.’” Kelly goes on to reassure Jones “It doesn’t do me any good if I do that to you and you go out there and say, ‘She did a hit piece on me’…and next time I try to get somebody they’ll say, ‘Look what you did to Alex Jones, screw you.’”

And there is this:

At one stage she says: “The reason you are interesting to me is because I followed your custody case and I think you had a very good point about the way the media was covering it. And for some reason they treated you and your family as fair game, and they never would have done that [to a] mainstream-media figure.

“I saw a different side of you and you became very fascinating to me. Your comments during the trial just reminded me you are just like anybody and I thought that would be an interesting story to tell.”

This first part is simply groveling and who among us hasn’t had to grovel at some point to get something we want. But this raises groveling to an art form, perhaps it qualifies as an Olympic sport. The real kicker is this:

Probably the most awkward clip for Kelly will be when she tells Jones: “I will personally promise to look at any clips we want to use of you, and have a producer run by you, whether we are taking it in context, what you are saying.”

I am not a journalist and have never in my life desired to be one but this promise to run part of the report past Jones for his comment strikes me as questionable.

Lest you take umbrage at the source, her longtime mentor, Brit Hume tweeted this

Oh dear. https://t.co/dTBTpVaags

— Brit Hume (@brithume) June 17, 2017

Jones alleges he has eight more hours of tape taken while Kelly was interviewing him. He intends to release it. It promises to be a helluva lot more entertaining than anything NBC was going to do.