New York Governor Kathy Hochul put on a hijab to address a room full of Muslim men.
Megyn Kelly watched the video and did not hold back on her show Monday.
What Megyn said about hijabs, feminism, and this photo op is already going viral.
Megyn Says She Would Be Caught Dead Doing What Hochul Did
Hochul showed up at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York last Friday in a dark suit, topped off with a black headscarf.
The X account End Wokeness posted the video over the weekend with a pointed caption.
"'Feminist icon' NY Governor Hochul just put on a hijab for Muslim men," it read.
The clip landed twelve days before the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, and it spread fast.
On Monday's show, Megyn sat down with Jesse Kelly, host of I'm Right, to pick the whole thing apart.
"I'd be caught dead before I'd put a hijab on inside an Islamic center or anywhere else for that matter," Megyn said.
Megyn zeroed in on the double standard nobody on the left wants to talk about.
"Are they respectful of our customs?" she asked.
"Do they come into our communities and take off their hijab because they're in America now, and we show our hair, and we don't believe that women have to hide anything whatsoever to go anywhere or be anywhere?"
"No, they don't. They do their own thing."
"So, why does Kathy Hochul or AOC?" Megyn asked.
Fox host Riley Gaines made the same point in fewer words.
"A self-described feminist voluntarily wearing a hijab to not offend or arouse Muslim men," Gaines wrote.
"Oh, the irony."
Texas Congressman Brandon Gill posted a meme highlighting the contradiction between Hochul's feminist branding and the hijab photo, and the New York Young Republican Club accused her of "bowing to the third world."
Hochul's office responded by pointing to Muslim New Yorkers who served as first responders on 9/11.
Megyn was not buying that answer, and neither was her audience.
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2094092454559400362“>https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2094092454559400362
Hochul Has Done This Before, and Megyn Is Not Letting It Slide
This is not Hochul's first headscarf moment.
She wore one to the funeral of a Muslim police officer last year.
Senator Ted Cruz called her out for it at the time.
She responded that she was honoring a "grieving family's faith" the way "leaders and anyone with basic decency would do."
Back in February 2024, she posted a photo of herself in a patterned head covering to mark World Hijab Day.
"New York's diversity has always been its strength," she wrote.
Hochul is not even the only New York Democrat doing this.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a headscarf to a Bronx Eid al-Adha celebration alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani earlier this year.
Video from that event showed a crowd of men largely talking over her while she spoke.
Critics online said the image undercut her years of rhetoric about patriarchy and women's oppression.
Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has been tracking this exact pattern since 1981.
His research catalogs hijab moments running from Margaret Thatcher to Hillary Clinton to Nancy Pelosi to multiple European foreign ministers visiting Iran.
Pipes draws a sharp line between a polite nod to local custom and what he calls taking on "an important aspect of the ritual of a religion not one's own."
Megyn's guest, Jesse Kelly, took that argument somewhere she did not.
Jesse Kelly Tells Megyn What the Costume Change Really Means
"This is what it looks like to be conquered," he told her.
"It's not more complicated than that."
"If you import enough Islam into your country, the women will wear hijabs," Kelly said.
"You will have halal food everywhere."
"You will hear the Muslim call to prayer in the parking lot several times a day."
"Every time you import more Islam into your country, you guarantee these things," he said.
He pointed to the United Kingdom as a preview of where this road ends if nobody pushes back.
If the price of avoiding a bigotry label is silence, he said, get used to paying it forever.
"It'll be every woman who resides inside the borders of the United States of America," Kelly said.
Hochul is up for reelection in November, and this is the last image her campaign wanted circulating before it.
A governor who built a national profile as a defender of women now has two separate headscarf controversies on video within twelve months.
Megyn's verdict was already in before Jesse Kelly said a word.
Sources:
- Meg Storm, "Megyn Reacts to Top New York Democrat Under Fire for Wearing Hijab to Event at Islamic Center," MegynKelly.com, August 31, 2026.
- Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_), post on X, August 30, 2026.
- Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill), post on X, August 30, 2026.
- New York Young Republican Club (@NYYoungRepClub), post on X, August 30, 2026.
- Daniel Pipes, "Hijabs on Western Political Women," DanielPipes.org, updated 2026.
- "Hijab Row Hits NYC Politics as AOC, Mamdani Draw Fire," BizPacReview, May 28, 2026.
