Karl Rove came to Megyn Kelly’s defense tonight in her first The Kelly File broadcast since Newt Gingrich accused her of being so “fascinated with sex” she had no interest in public policy. 
 
 Before Rove’s appearance on Kelly’s Fox News Channelshow, she’d also had under fire from GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump, who this morning applauded Gingrich for attacking Kelly, calling it an “amazing interview.” 
 
 “We don’t play games, Newt, right?” Trump crowed during the ribbon-cutting ceremony on his new Washington D.C. hotel, as camera rolled. 
 
 Rove, who was Kelly’s first guest tonight, blasted Trump for squandering precious time “to spend today dedicating his hotel in Washington D.C., and complimenting Newt Gingrich on having a food fight with you last night. That was not a good use of today,” with just 13 days left to campaign, he sniffed. 
 
 Kelly diplomatically called the previous day’s Karlpocalypse a “debate about polls, and whether people should believe them.” Gingrich, she said, “did not believe them and said there were two alternate universes: one in which the pollsters live, and then the real one, in which Trump is winning.” 
 
 Kelly’s second segment, not coincidentally, focused on Wikileaked DNC emails to and from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, aka “public policy” material Gingrich had accused Kelly of not being interested in owing to her sex obsession. 
 
 Others had attacked Kelly after Gingrich’s appearance on her show. Dan Scavino, Trumps social media director, for instance, tweeted this: 
 
 .@NewtGingrich just destroyed @MegynKelly. Shows she is totally biased against Mr. Trump & not very smart. Mr. Trump has long known!! — Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) October 26, 2016 
 
 … adding, ominously: ||||| 'You are fascinated with sex,' Newt Gingrich tells Megyn Kelly in heated exchange 
 
 CLOSE Newt Gingrich got into it with Megyn Kelly on her show 'The Kelly File' on Fox News over Donald Trump's accusers. USA TODAY 
 
 Former speaker of the House and top Donald Trump surrogate Newt Gingrich got into a heated exchange with Fox News host Megyn Kelly over the women who have accused Trump of groping them. 
 
 Gingrich felt the media has given an inordinate amount of coverage to the accusers while ignoring the information that has been revealed in the leaked Clinton campaign emails. 
 
 "If Trump is a sexual predator ... " Kelly began. 
 
 "He's not a sexual predator!" Gingrich exclaimed. "You can't say that. You could not defend that statement. Now, I'm sick and tired of people like you using language that's inflammatory that's not true!" 
 
 "Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. You have no idea if it's true or not," Kelly replied cooly. Kelly said she had not taken a position one way or the other. 
 
 Gingrich said that Kelly took a position as soon as she used the words, "sexual predator." 
 
 "I think that your defensiveness on this may speak volumes," Kelly said. She explained that given the context of the allegations, the media had no choice but to cover them in detail. 
 
 Gingrich then said Kelly chose to cover the allegations rather than the Clinton emails because she is "fascinated by sex." 
 
 "You want to go back through the tapes of your show recently?" Gingrich asked. "You are fascinated with sex and you don't care about public policy." 
 
 "Me? Really?" Kelly asks. 
 
 "That's what I get out of watching you tonight," he said. 
 
 "You know what, Mr. Speaker? I am not fascinated by sex," Kelly said, "but I am fascinated by the protection of women and understanding what we're getting in the Oval Office, and I think the American voters would like to know ... " 
 
 "And therefore we're going to send Bill Clinton back to the East Wing because you are worried about sexual predators," Gingrich interrupted. 
 
 "Listen, it's not about me," Kelly said. "It's about the women and men of America, and the polls show us that the women of America in particular, are very concerned about these allegations." 
 
 "The American public is less interested in the deeds of Hillary Clinton's husband than they are in the deeds of the man who asks us to make him president, Donald Trump," she continued. "We're going to have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them Mr. Speaker. Thanks for being here." 
 
 Gingrich seemed anxious to promote the exchange, posting a link to the interview on his Twitter account shortly after it aired. 
 
 And at an event for Trump's Washington D.C. hotel Wednesday Gingrich was asked if the interview got "a little rough" last night. 
 
 “That’s just the business," Gingrich responded, according to the pool 
 
 And later Trump gave a shoutout to Gingrich, who was sitting in the audience. 
 
 "By the way – congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing interview. We don't play games, Newt. We don't play games," Trump said. 
 
 Kelly has been in conflict with the Trump campaign before. Trump repeatedly attacked her for her questions in an early primary debate and what he felt was her "unfair" coverage. 
 
 She also got into a brief feud with fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity after she implied Hannity only gave Trump softball questions. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2fdXztZ ||||| There are times when words do not do complete justice to a moment. Tuesday night’s Newt Gingrich-Megyn Kelly showdown is one of those times, which is why we’ve included the clip above of its final moments. (Here’s the full interview, from the top.) 
 
 Gingrich, on Fox in his role as a Donald Trump surrogate, had questioned the stories of women who’ve come forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault — and the relative importance of the controversy itself, relative to Hillary Clinton’s alleged misdeeds. 
 
 Kelly pushed back. “As a media story, we don’t get to say that 10 women are lying. We have to cover that story, sir,” said the Fox anchor. 
 
 “Sure. Okay,” Gingrich said. “So, so it’s worth 23 minutes of the three networks to cover that story, and Hillary Clinton had a secret speech in Brazil to a bank that pays her 225,000 [dollars], saying her dream is an open border where 600 million people could come to America — that’s not worth covering …” 
 
 “That is worth covering,” interjected Kelly. “And we did.” 
 
 Gingrich was still speaking: “ … I mean, you want to go back through the tapes of your show recently, you are fascinated with sex, and you don’t care about public policy.” 
 
 Newt Gingrich engaged in a vicious show-down with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on Oct. 24 over the sexual assault allegations against Trump. "You are fascinated with sex, and you don't care about public policy," Gingrich said on-air after weeks of lukewarm defenses of Trump. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) 
 
 At that point, Kelly glanced up and past the camera, with the look of someone who wasn’t quite sure she’d heard what she thought she’d heard, and needed an instant replay on reality. (We know this look well.) 
 
 “Me? Really?” she said, laughing. 
 
 “Well, that’s what I get out of watching you tonight,” Gingrich said. 
 
 Cue crosstalk. 
 
 KELLY: “You know what, Mr. Speaker, I’m not fascinated by sex. But I am fascinated by the protection of women …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “Okay.” 
 
 KELLY: “ … and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “Okay.” 
 
 KELLY: “ … and I think the American voters would like to know …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “And, therefore, we’re going to send Bill Clinton back to the East Wing, because after all, you are worried about sexual predators.” 
 
 “Yeah, listen, it’s not about me,” Kelly said. “It’s about the women and men of America. And the poll numbers show us that the women of America, in particular, are very concerned about these allegations and, in large part, believe that they are a real issue. And don’t dismiss the women …” 
 
 And: resume crosstalk. 
 
 GINGRICH: “You want to comment, you want to comment …” 
 
 KELLY: “ … don’t dismiss the women summarily.” 
 
 GINGRICH: “ … on whether the Clinton — do you want to comment on whether the Clinton ticket has a relationship to a sexual predator.” 
 
 KELLY: “We on “The Kelly File’ have covered that story as well, sir. I will tell you, the polls …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “No, I just want to hear you use the words. I want to hear you use the words ‘Bill Clinton, sexual predator.’ I dare you. [At that point, Gingrich was smiling slightly. Kelly was not.] “Say ‘Bill Clinton, sexual predator.’” 
 
 KELLY: “Mr. Speaker, we’ve covered — excuse me, sir …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “Disbarred by the Iowa, by the Arkansas bar.” 
 
 KELLY: “Excuse me. excuse me.” 
 
 GINGRICH: “Disbarred by the Arkansas bar. Eight hundred fifty thousand dollar penalty.” 
 
 KELLY: “ … excuse me, sir. We on ‘The Kelly File’ have covered the Clinton matter as well. We’ve hosted Kathleen Willey …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “Well, try saying it.” 
 
 KELLY: “ … we’ve covered the examples of him being accused as well, but he’s not on the ticket. And the polls also show that the American public is less interested …” 
 
 GINGRICH: “He’ll be in the, he’ll be in the East Wing.” 
 
 KELLY: “ … in the deeds of Hillary Clinton’s husband than they are in the deeds of the man who asks us to make him president, Donald Trump. We’re going to have to leave it at that, and you can take your anger issues and spend some time working on them, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for being here.” 
 
 GINGRICH: “And you, too.” 
 
 It wasn’t clear whether he was responding to the first half of Kelly’s farewell, or the second. 
 
 The Trump campaign’s social-media director had some early thoughts. 
 
 .@MegynKelly made a total fool out of herself tonight- attacking @realDonaldTrump. Watch what happens to her after this election is over. — Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) October 26, 2016 
 
 Gingrich himself wanted to make sure people had seen the faceoff. 
 
 Trump himself — whose relationship with Kelly this year has ranged all the way from ice cold to lukewarm, and back again — responded at a midday event at his Washington, D.C. hotel. "Congratulations, Newt, on last night," he said. "That was an amazing interview...We don't play games, Newt, right? We don't play games." 
 
 Donald Trump: "Congratulations, Newt on last night. That was an amazing interview." pic.twitter.com/9WriTNG3is — CSPAN (@cspan) October 26, 2016 
 
 1 of 23 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Who is NBC News host Megyn Kelly? View Photos A look at the successful NBC News host. Caption A look at the successful NBC News host. June 5, 2017 Megyn Kelly interviews Russian President Vladimir Putin on her show, “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly.” Alexei Druzhinin/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 More from The Fix: 
 
 Sean Hannity gives Megyn Kelly another reason to leave Fox News 
 
 Let’s join Megyn Kelly and Kellyanne Conway in talking about the gender dynamics of 2016! 
 
 Donald Trump’s woman problem just got much, much, much worse ||||| Trump tries to salvage the brand The Republican nominee ditches the campaign trail to hawk his new hotel and to talk up his executive credentials. 
 
 With 13 days until Election Day, Donald Trump tried Wednesday morning to simultaneously burnish his business and political brands, both of which are badly tarnished. 
 
 Drawing more than 200 members of the media to his opulent new Washington, D.C., hotel for an “official opening” that comes more than a month after the property opened to the public, Trump framed the renovated downtown post office as a testament to his abilities as an executive. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 “My theme today is five words: under budget and ahead of schedule,” Trump said (using six words). 
 
 Trump, who political forecasters now give just a 10 percent chance of winning the presidential election, is in a last-ditch fight to resuscitate his campaign and a business brand that has suffered from his presidential run. As Trump and his offspring lavished praise on themselves for completing the project, rooms at the hotel were being offered at $404 a night online, a discount of roughly 50 percent. 
 
 “Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country, the same kind of thing,” Trump said Wednesday morning. “I’m tired of the excuses from our politicians. I’m tired of being told what cannot be done. I’m tired of people asking Americans to defer their dreams to another day but really what they mean is another decade. We can achieve our dreams for this country and we can do so more quickly than anyone ever thought possible. There is nothing we cannot accomplish." 
 
 Eschewing the angry bombast and vitriolic attacks that define his rally speeches, Trump stood on a dais inside a packed ballroom agleam in gilded mirrors and crystal chandeliers and sought to strike a tone so uplifting and aspirational that it seemed a betrayal of his own campaign’s motto to make the country “great again.” 
 
 “The United States is great. It’s great. Its people are great. There is no task or project too great. There is no dream outside of our reach. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it cannot be done,” he continued, diverging somewhat from his campaign’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “The future lies with the dreamers, not the cynics and the critics. Everywhere I go in this country, all I see is untapped potential waiting to be set free, and the biggest element of all is our incredible people.” 
 
 Trump’s decision to attend a ribbon-cutting at his D.C. hotel raised eyebrows, with the candidate’s time at a premium in the final stretch of a presidential race that, by his own admission, he is currently losing. He told the crowd he was heading straight to North Carolina following the ceremony in the hotel’s grand lobby, seemingly in recognition of complaints that the morning photo op seemed more about his personal brand than his campaign, which has sunk over the past week beneath the weight of myriad allegations of sexual assault. 
 
 Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash in the lobby, Trump became testy when asked why he’s taking time out of his swing-state tour to hawk his hotel. 
 
 “I did yesterday eight stops and three major speeches, and I've been doing this for weeks straight. I left there for an hour and a half. I'm going to North Carolina right now and then to Florida, then up to New Hampshire,” Trump said flatly. “For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting, because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then goes home and sleeps, yet you'll ask me that question. I think it's a very rude question, to be honest with you.” 
 
 To any observer, the final stretch of Trump’s campaign is taking the form of an infomercial — a nightly Facebook Live “newscast” featuring Trump surrogates and staff launched on Monday — that is selling a product as much as it is a candidate and blurring the lines that delineate official campaign business and activities like never before. The appearance at the downtown Washington hotel, which came a day after a campaign event at his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort in Florida, was the fourth one Trump has made as a presidential candidate. 
 
 Trump's retreat within his newest gilded temple actually began Tuesday evening, shortly after his flight from Tallahassee landed in Washington. As campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was holding court in the hotel lobby, going from table to table speaking with guests, the bells in the post office's old bell tower rang loudly, taking waiters and bartenders by surprise. The unexpected fanfare — the Congress Bells, a Bicentennial gift from England, had not rung since 2006 — soon made sense, as Trump entered the room with his sons, acting out a dramatic tableau seemingly to remind himself of his own success. 
 
 The ribbon-cutting had been billed specifically as a non-campaign event, even though it was listed on Trump’s campaign website. His campaign staff and advisers — including Conway, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and former "Apprentice" contestant Omarosa Manigault — were in attendance at a news conference beforehand in the hotel’s presidential ballroom. The wireless password provided to reporters was “trump2016,” and an eight-page, color-photo pamphlet handed out at the event focused entirely on the hotel and made no mention of its owner’s White House bid. 
 
 While Trump was in Washington, D.C., his running mate, Mike Pence, was campaigning Wednesday in Nevada, a battleground state, and Utah, one of the country’s most reliably red states, where Trump has admitted that he is “having a tremendous problem.” Hillary Clinton, who has begun devoting more and more of her time on the campaign trail to boosting down-ballot Democrats, took the opportunity Wednesday morning to draw a contrast with Trump’s self-promotional show and to emphasize the hypocrisy of his anti-trade, “America first” message. 
 
 As she wound down her speech in Lake Worth, Florida, Clinton noted Trump’s appearance in Washington “to open a new luxury hotel.” Trump, she claimed, “relied on undocumented workers to make his project cheaper.” 
 
 “Most of the products in the rooms were made overseas, and he even sued to get his taxes lowered,” she continued, informing the crowd that at her next rally — in Tampa — she’d be appearing with José Andrés, the chef who pulled his restaurant venture from Trump’s Washington hotel in response to his caustic comments about Mexican immigrants at the start of his campaign last year. 
 
 Trump’s team has billed the project as evidence of Trump’s business acumen, with Conway remarking that “his under-budget, ahead-of-schedule hotel” would show the “the tangible accomplishments of Donald Trump.” Speaking to reporters before the event, Gingrich said anyone concerned that Trump’s visit to his Washington property was a distraction was missing the point. 
 
 “That's because they don't understand the message: It's under budget and ahead of schedule,” he said, repeating an apparent talking point for Trump surrogates. “That's a very important message because it means nothing in the current bureaucratic government tells you what a Trump administration would be like.” 
 
 But whether or not the hotel did in fact arrive ahead of schedule remains an open question. While signs on scaffolding outside the building billed the hotel as “coming 2016,” a news release from February 2014 for the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago said the Washington hotel was supposed to open in late 2015. 
 
 A modest but persistent protest outside the hotel, illustrative of how the property is seemingly attracting as many gawkers as it has paying customers, grew steadily as the event drew closer, with the crowd numbering roughly 150 by the time the event was set to begin. The protesters marched in a large circle, chanting, "What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now." 
 
 Taking the stage before her father, Ivanka Trump acknowledged the launch of a new brand, Scion, the corporation’s initial attempt to downplay the "Trump" brand that has always been definitional. She lauded her father but also credited others involved in the hotel’s development, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.'s, congressional delegate and a Democrat. Norton supported the launch of the Pennsylvania Avenue project but did not attend Wednesday’s event. 
 
 Ivanka Trump was the only one of Trump's four children present to speak, and her remarks were also an effort in self-preservation and the salvaging of a personal brand as a successful and nonpartisan female entrepreneur after a campaign that she described as “one of the most interesting journeys of my life.” 
 
 In praising her father, she spoke of the countless Trump employees who have remained loyal over the years and support his latest venture. But in describing her father's vision when it comes to restoring old buildings, she also seemed to be imploring a broader electorate that largely views him unfavorably to see him differently. 
 
 “My father trained my siblings and me not to see things for what they are," she said. "But for what they could be.” 
 
 Gabe Debenedetti contributed reporting from Lake Worth, Florida.
– Donald Trump's poll numbers among black Americans are abysmal—he's polling at around half the 6% Mitt Romney received in 2012—but he hasn't given up trying. On Wednesday, he offered a "new deal for black America" in a policy-heavy speech delivered to what the Washington Post reports was a largely white audience in North Carolina. The "deal is grounded in three promises: safe communities, great education, and high-paying jobs," Trump said, per the Hill, blaming Democrats for "total violence" in inner cities. He promised to provide incentives for companies to move to "blighted communities," and to allow cities and states to declare such places disaster areas to receive federal funding. In other election coverage: Earlier Wednesday, Trump took the morning off from campaigning to attend a ribbon-cutting at his new hotel in Washington, DC, reports Politico. "My theme today is five words: under budget and ahead of schedule," he said. He went on to describe America as a great country where there is "no task or project too great" and "no dream outside of our reach." At the DC event, Trump congratulated Newt Gingrich on his "great interview" with Megyn Kelly, in which Gingrich accused Kelly of being "fascinated with sex." Deadline reports that on The Kelly File Wednesday night, Karl Rove told Kelly that Trump had wasted precious time opening the hotel and "complimenting Newt Gingrich on having a food fight with you last night." The Wall Street Journal looks at the latest damaging WikiLeaks release on the Clintons. A 2011 memo from then-Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band outlines how his fundraising work on behalf of the Clinton Foundation also led to paid speaking engagements and other business opportunities for the former president. The New York Times spoke to Trump supporters at rallies in six states and found that many believe there will be violence, or even a "new Revolutionary War," if Hillary Clinton wins the election. But some still expect a landslide Trump win. "You go through any neighborhood and see how many Trump signs there are and how many Hillary signs there are, and I guarantee you it's not even going to be close," a 44-year-old Florida man says. "The only way they've done it is by rigging the election." The AP reports that Clinton, who celebrated her 69th birthday Wednesday, said she was struck that Trump "was paying more attention to his business than to the campaign. That's his choice, but we're going to keep working really hard to reach as many voters as possible." (Wednesday was a very bad day for Trump's Hollywood star.)