Megyn Kelly Defends Target Employee Jeanie Harassed for Wearing Charlie Kirk Memorial Shirt
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Megyn Kelly Defends Target Employee Jeanie Harassed for Wearing Charlie Kirk Memorial Shirt
Megyn Kelly addresses a viral incident where Jeanie Beeman, a Target employee in Orland, California, was berated by a customer for wearing a Charlie Kirk memorial shirt at work. The confrontation, filmed and posted to TikTok by the harasser Michaela Ponce, sparked over 6,000 angry calls to Ponce's employer. Kelly praises Jeanie's gracious response and the American people who raised over $200,000 for her, calling it karmic justice. The incident occurred just before Kelly's appearance at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025, where she plans to honor Charlie Kirk's memory.
Standing Up for Jeanie: A Target Employee's Viral Moment
Megyn Kelly shared a story that captured the best and worst of American discourse, involving a Target employee named Jeanie Beeman who was harassed for wearing a memorial shirt honoring Charlie Kirk. The incident occurred in Orland, California, where Jeanie, an older woman working an honest job, was confronted by a younger customer named Michaela Ponce while simply doing her work.
Kelly introduced the story by explaining her personal connection to the situation. She was preparing to attend Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025 in Arizona, the first major event since Charlie Kirk's death. Kelly had previously appeared at a Turning Point event in July where Kirk interviewed her about Epstein, making this upcoming appearance particularly meaningful to her.
The Confrontation Caught on Video
The incident began when Michaela Ponce approached Jeanie and began filming her, questioning why she was wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt at work. In the video, which Ponce herself posted to TikTok, the exchange escalated quickly:
Ponce challenged Jeanie about the shirt not being a plain red Target shirt, then accused Kirk of being a racist. When Jeanie defended Kirk, Ponce called her stupid and declared the situation "unfucking acceptable." Throughout the confrontation, Jeanie remained calm and professional, refusing to argue and maintaining that wearing any red shirt was acceptable according to Target's dress code.
Kelly expressed outrage at the incident, emphasizing that Jeanie is "obviously not a spring chicken" and "obviously not a rich woman," working hard to pay her bills and being harassed by "this absolute prick, Michaela Pon." What made the situation even more egregious was that Ponce posted the video to her own TikTok account, apparently expecting praise from her followers for confronting someone she perceived as supporting a "racist."
The Backlash Against Michaela Ponce
The internet's response was swift and decisive, but not in the way Ponce expected. After being identified as a medical assistant employed by Enloe Health, a nonprofit healthcare system in Chico, Northern California, Ponce's employer received over 6,000 calls from upset Charlie Kirk fans.
Mike Wiltermood, the CEO of Enloe Health, publicly addressed the situation, acknowledging that Ponce's "off hours behavior" was "abhorrent and deeply concerning." He noted that while some people exercised restraint in voicing their views, "many thousands of others have chosen to use profanity laced language to express their disapproval." Wiltermood mentioned receiving over 6,000 calls in just a few hours, though he indicated the volume was beginning to subside.
Kelly admitted she probably would have been one of those leaving profanity-laced messages, saying the outrage was justified given Ponce's "abject harassment of an elderly woman just trying to pay her bills and honor Charlie Kirk while doing it who was assassinated three months ago."
Michaela Ponce's Forced Apology
Facing potential termination and overwhelming public backlash, Ponce issued a statement to Action News Now: "I want to take full responsibility for my actions and say clearly and sincerely that I was wrong. I behave badly and I regret it deeply. I want to directly apologize to Jeanie. I'm truly sorry for approaching you at your workplace and putting you in an uncomfortable and unfair position. You did not deserve that and my behavior was wrong."
Kelly noted that Ponce's apology was somewhat limited in scope, as she only apologized for approaching Jeanie at work and acknowledged that Jeanie didn't deserve that treatment. There was no retraction of her views about Charlie Kirk or apparent acknowledgment that calling Jeanie stupid was wrong. Kelly suspected the apology was motivated primarily by the threat to Ponce's employment due to the thousands of angry calls her employer received.
Jeanie's Gracious Response
When Action News Now interviewed Jeanie, she demonstrated remarkable grace and forgiveness. Asked whether she thought Ponce should be fired, Jeanie responded: "No, I don't think that's right. Like one saying I have is two wrongs don't make a right. You know, she wronged me, but I don't want to wrong her or I don't want her her wrong because it's not going to make it right. I mean, that was her opinion. But she's the one that put it on Facebook or put it on on that. So, you know, but I really wouldn't want to see somebody lose their job over it."
Kelly was deeply moved by Jeanie's response, calling her "so sweet" and contrasting it with how she herself would have reacted: "Had it been me, I would have been like, 'Fire her ass, Mike. She's terrible. Why would you employ this person,' but I am a hothead on these things." Jeanie's Christian charity and refusal to seek revenge stood in stark contrast to the behavior of her harasser.
America Responds with Generosity
The final chapter of the story demonstrated what Kelly called "the power of the American people just one week before Christmas and in the middle of Hanukkah." Multiple fundraising campaigns were established to help Jeanie, with supporters wanting to show their appreciation for her dignity and grace under pressure.
Originally aiming to raise $20,000 to send Jeanie on a nice vacation, a GiveSendGo campaign had already raised over $200,000 at the time Kelly recorded her commentary. Target, to its credit, stood by Jeanie and did not prohibit her from wearing the Charlie Kirk memorial shirt. The outpouring of support was simply to make Jeanie feel loved and appreciated.
Kelly summarized the story's elements: "It's got the outrage factor. It's got the benevolent Jeanie who didn't call for the firing. It's got the beleaguered Mike Wiltermood who would like the profanity laced phone calls to stop. And it's got our villain Michaela, who was very well forced into issuing an apology, which I'll take. It's better than no apology. And the great American people who said, 'We love Jeanie and we're on her side and we want her life to be better.' So, here's 200,000 bucks."
Commentary on American Discourse
Kelly's guest Glenn offered additional perspective on the incident, praising Jeanie's character: "Imagine the generosity of a spirit to have somebody—I mean this is a woman who works at Target. That is a hard job. That is not an easy life. She's making very poor money and you can be filled with resentment. Obviously the woman Michaela wanted her fired. So imagine turning around and saying no I don't want her fired just because she did that to me. That already is such an admirable person."
Glenn acknowledged that disagreeing with political views is acceptable, even expected: "I don't mind that people dislike Charlie Kirk's ideology. He was a very political person. He had very strong political views. People disagreed with it. That's totally fine." However, the manner of Ponce's attack crossed a line: "The idea though that we now attack each other like not politicians, right? Like you can yell at politicians for that. You go into a Target and see some older woman working because she has to at a very difficult job standing on her feet all day and you're going to berate her and attack her and film it and put it on the internet like you've done something noble. That to me signifies this very rotted spirit that has entered our discourse based on the idea that anyone who has different political views than us is an evil person who should suffer in every single way."
The contrast between the two women was striking: "You have this one woman who's supposedly the villain because she's wearing a t-shirt of a racist evil person being so clearly the better person while you have this other woman so self-righteous thinking she's so moral acting in a way that no matter your ideology is so revolting."
Glenn called for a return to basic civility: "Part of what is America like part of what we love about it is that if you're a private citizen you can express whatever views you want and you don't lose your job over it. You don't get publicly attacked for it. That behavior needs to be scorned. And it was scorned in this case."
The ending provided what Glenn called "karmic justice": "The cherry on top is that that woman who displayed so much moral kindness and generosity of spirit got a just reward. Like it's so rare to have karmic justice like that on every aspect of the story. So it is a really enjoyable one."
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