Donald Trump vs. Megyn Kelly: More public reconciliation than prime time smackdown

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly and U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump have had what some might call a rather strained relationship since August, when the first Republican debate of this election cycle took place.

Some might also call it a "feud," of course – or describe Kelly as Trump's "arch-nemesis" in a headline related to the duo's public social media "battles."

From Trump's first tweet panning Kelly as a moderator to "blood coming out of her wherever" to Fox condemning the now Republican front-runner's "sick obsession" with their reporter, America has been fascinated by the developments in this back-and-forth for more than nine months now.

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Sadly for them, it may all be over now that Kelly and Trump have had the chance to chat one-on-one, away from their computers.

The billionaire-businessman turned presidential candidate appeared on the Fox network as scheduled Tuesday evening in a new, one-hour-long primetime special called Megyn Kelly presents.

Hyped heavily by both Fox and Kelly over the past week, the interview itself (taped two weeks ago) lasted only about 16 minutes.

It wasn't so much the length that disappointed critics, however. As Slate's Isaac Chotiner puts it, the interview was simply "fawning, boring, and pointless."

Much of the segment was focused on the candidate's personal life, as Kelly asked about his divorces, his late brother, his experiences with bullying and how he manages his Twitter account.

"I have millions of followers at @RealDonaldTrump," he said at one point. "The thing that gets me in trouble is retweets... the retweet is really more of a killer than the tweets. The tweets I seem to do pretty well with."

Whether part of his strategy to be seen as more "presidential" or a genuine attempt at reconciliation, Trump was decidedly more restrained in his language and behaviour than what we've seen in any of his interactions with Kelly since August.

Calling the interview "convivial" and "easygoing," The New York Times was one of many outlets reporting that a truce had been drawn after Kelly's special aired.

"Donald J. Trump and Megyn Kelly finally talked on Tuesday night about their raucous, contentious history over the last nine months," wrote the newspaper. "And it appears that things are all patched up."

Kelly did ask Trump at one point about their perceived feud and why he lashed out against her after the first Republican debate.

"I tell you what, in a certain way, what you did might have been a favour," Trump said, referring to Kelly's debate question about past insults he'd levelled against women. "I felt so good about having gotten through ... I said 'If I can get through this debate, with those questions, you can get through anything.'"

"You seemed to stay angry for months," Kelly replied. "Was that real or was that strategy?"

"Well I'm a real person — I don't say 'Oh gee I'm angry tonight' but tomorrow you're my best friend," Trump said. "I have great respect for you that you were able to call me and say 'let's get together and let's talk.'"

When asked by Kelly if he regretted how he'd behaved towards her over the past nine months, Trump answered:  "Absolutely. I could have done certain things differently." 

That's not to see he isn't happy with how things turned out, though.

"I think If I didn't conduct myself in the way I've done it," he said, "I don't think I would have been successful."

Heartwarming as all of this may be, Trump did reveal a few things about his run at the presidency and personal life that got the masses talking.

The moment that resonated the most on Twitter, though, (aside from perhaps the moment when Kelly plugged her own book) was when Trump said the following:

"If I don't go all the way and I don't win ... I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money."

Stay tuned to learn how that works out for him in the November election.