Megyn Kelly: Jon Stewart Told Me I’m ‘One Of The Three Journalists He Respects’

Jon Stewart can be unmerciful with his Fox News takedowns, but Megyn Kelly and company have feelings too.

So, after Kelly called out Stewart for one of his patented zingers, she said the “The Daily Show” host called her up to smooth things over. What’s more, Stewart is apparently a big Kelly fan.

“Stewart doesn’t bother me as much as he used to. He used to do these segments on me all the time, and then one day on the air I said he was mean and then he called me up, and we had an hour-long talk,” she told Reuters in an interview published Wednesday. “He explained that he didn’t mean to be mean and that he does satire and that he claimed I was ‘one of the three journalists he respects.'”

“I said, ‘Well, it sounds like you’re looking for absolution, and I’m not giving it.’ We had a good laugh. He was very good-natured. But I understand what he does.”

It’s unclear what bit Kelly was referring to, but Stewart offered a faux apology to the Fox News anchor during an episode of “The Daily Show” in December.

After she took flak for asserting that Santa is white, Kelly insisted that she was simply joking — a claim that Stewart easily swatted down by replaying the original footage.

“I guess we all owe you an apology,” Stewart deadpanned. “What appeared to me to be another example of a Fox News segment expressing anger and victimization over the loss of absolute power and reframing that as persecution of ‘real America’ by minorities, freeloaders, and socialists — that’s trademarked, by the way. What I thought was that was a jest, a jape, a bit of wise-crackery.”