NBC’s Megyn Kelly will sit down for a one-on-one interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin and will air the exchange during this weekend’s premiere of her newsmagazine show Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly.
The former Fox News star anchor, who moved to NBC in January, announced the exclusive interview during her first live on-air report for her new network Thursday morning.
“This will be the first time he’ll be taking questions from an American journalist since the special council was appointed in the United States to look into allegations of Russian interference in our election,” Kelly said in a brief guest appearance on NBC’s Today.
Putin has flatly denied that the Russian government was behind hacks meant to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. At an international economics forum in St. Petersburg Thursday, Putin said it was possible that individual “patriotically-minded” Russians had staged cyber attacks on their own to combat enemies of the country.
“On a state level we haven’t been involved in this (hacking), we aren’t planning to be involved in it,” Putin said, according to Reuters. “Quite the opposite, we are trying to combat it inside our country.”
Kelly is set to moderate a panel at the economics forum in St. Petersburg Friday, in which Putin will also participate.
In April, the New York Post‘s Page Six reported that NBC News chairman Andy Lack had traveled to Russia in an attempt to score the high-profile interview with Putin, though early reports suggested the interview could go to another NBC personality like Lester Holt or Matt Lauer.
Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly premieres June 4 at 7 p.m. ET.
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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