Conservative Christian satire website The Babylon Bee pulled a story and deleted an X post after political commentator Megyn Kelly expressed outrage Thursday over a headline that joked about her being assassinated by the Mossad for “platforming antisemites.”
Tagging Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, Kelly tweeted “WTF” in response to the since-deleted X post linking to the pulled story that was headlined: “Megyn Kelly Gets Rid Of Old Pager Just To Be Safe.”
The story, which now links to an error page but remains archived online, satirically reported that Kelly had “quietly tossed her pager in the trash this week in what her team described as ‘an abundance of caution'” after “platforming antisemites.”
“Ms. Kelly has no known associations with members of Hamas, but just in case, we told her to throw it away, preferably in a trash receptacle far, far away,” read a fictitious quote from Kelly’s spokesperson.
The story concluded by joking that the trash can where Kelly disposed of her pager “had been destroyed in a mysterious explosion,” a reference to the Mossad detonating thousands of Hezbollah pagers in Lebanon and Syria last year in an attack dubbed “Operation Grim Beeper.”
The attack, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged approving despite opposition from senior Israeli officials, killed nearly 40 people, including two children, and injured more than 3,000 others, according to The Independent.
The story’s mention of Kelly “platforming antisemites” was an apparent reference to her recent interview with political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has faced accusations of antisemitism that he has denied after recently interviewing Nick Fuentes, a far-right podcaster who has expressed admiration for Hitler and Stalin.
During an appearance last week in White Plains, New York, on her Megyn Kelly Live tour, Kelly separately interviewed both Carlson and Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro, both of whom have increasingly criticized each other in recent weeks.
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, a Christian who is ethnically Jewish, has also been increasingly critical of Carlson. During an interview with Israeli reporter Ariel Whitman earlier this month, he suggested Carlson is turning a blind eye to simmering antisemitism on the political right.
The Babylon Bee, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post, was met with backlash from others who saw the story as a veiled threat against Kelly.
“Last night [The Babylon Bee] — which should just re-name itself The Tel Aviv Bee — threatened Megyn Kelly that she’d be murdered by Israel for refusing to de-platform all Israel critics,” said journalist Glenn Greenwald, who is Jewish by descent but has been critical of the Israeli government. “As Israel loyalists often do, they used the pager image to pretend it was all just a joke.”
Podcaster Tim Pool speculated that The Babylon Bee deleted the story because it was unflattering to Israel.
“I assume they deleted it because it’s more offensive to Israel than to [Kelly],” Pool said. “The Joke implies Israel assassinates Americans for criticizing them.”
“Yeah. It was a situation where someone wanted to threaten Megyn Kelly, but then realized, ‘Oh wait, we are implying that she would be murdered for having a podcast critical of Netanyahu,'” wrote conservative political commentator Mike Cernovich in response to Pool.
Others on social media suggested the story was just a joke, and recalled that Kelly was dismissive of journalist Mehdi Hasan after he expressed outrage when political consultant Ryan Girdusky made a pager joke about him on CNN last year.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
