The Watch: Greg Kelly Reports on Newsmax

What does a 2025 program from one of the mainstays in the Newsmax primetime lineup look like? Let’s find out.

What does a 2025 program from one of the mainstays in the Newsmax primetime lineup look like? Let’s find out.

It’s undeniable that Newsmax has seen ratings gains in recent years. And one of the mainstays in the network’s lineup has been Greg Kelly Reports.

The show has been a part of the Newsmax primetime offerings since 2020. The show started off in the 7 PM ET timeslot and now airs at 9 PM ET, up against some of the strongest shows in cable news like Fox News’s Hannity, a current MSNBC show anchored by Rachel Maddow and future timeslot of Jen Psaki, and CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

But what is Greg Kelly Reports doing that separates it from the pack? Especially after now finding a groove in the 9 PM ET window and firm footing in the Newsmax lineup? I watched a recent episode to find out.

Kelly began Monday’s show by talking about tariffs. I think. Because the music underneath him to begin the show was incredibly loud. It eventually evened out after the first 30 seconds or so. That’s nitpicky, but if it happened on any other network, I’d point it out.

The Newsmax host then shared a clip from President Donald Trump on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1988 talking about how he believes the United States should handle trade. When the clip was over, the show returned to a two-box that was accompanied by a graphic that read “Trump Knew What He Was Talking About From The State.”

“Some people don’t like it, but he’s been breaking the rules his entire life,” Kelly said of the President. Since this isn’t a column about whether or not I agree with the content of a show, but rather the presentation, we’ll skip over the statement.

Greg Kelly immediately followed up by making an impersonation of Trump during the Republican primary debates in 2015 and 2016. And it was a genuinely pretty good impersonation! It was the first time I had ever seen Kelly bust this out, and I think he should do it again. Might it be conceived as mocking the President? Perhaps, but — and this is true of all partisan media outlets — you’re supposed to be entertaining! This was an entertaining opportunity and Kelly did a good job in accomplishing that.

Then, for me, things got somewhat off the rails. Kelly’s topic switched to how Trump defeated ISIS during his first term, with a graphic reading “ISIS Is A Detrimental Threat.”

How, in the world, did the show go from tariffs, to a 37-year-old Oprah clip, to Trump in the 2015 primary debates, to ISIS all within two minutes? I’ve increasingly said in this space that we live in a TikTok world and you better be making your point and quickly moving on to something else if you’re trying to capture your audience’s attention. But I think the points should also connect. That feels like an important distinction.

Ah yes. It does come back around. Because Kelly’s larger point was “Trump has always been right about everything” and “Everyone just needs to have faith” that Trump is doing the right thing.

The first part of that point is my biggest issue with cable news. This isn’t an issue specific to Newsmax as much as it is to the industry as a whole: everything, everything, is an absolute. Every. Single. Topic. must be an absolute. And I think that sucks. Not everything in the world is black or white. There is an awful lot of gray.

I get it. The only thing in the middle of the road is dead animals. And if a host at MSNBC or CNN said Presidents Obama and Biden “has always been right about everything” it would be Topic 1A on every conservative news/talk radio show, in addition to Fox News and Newsmax, the following day. And it should be, because its an absurd statement. Nobody is right about everything. Heck, most people are rarely right. And that’s ok.

But we live in a media ecosystem where being the “most” is what matters most. If you can be the “most” ardent supporter of Donald Trump, that will put you in the good graces of millions of viewers, just as being the “most” boisterous anti-Trump voice will find you stardom on the other side of the political aisle.

From what I saw on Greg Kelly Reports, it is what the audience expects. “Donald Trump? Great. Anyone who opposes him? Bad. All of the things that might make you think he has made any mistake ever? Not true. And if it is true, it is not important.”

And there’s certainly a place for that in the cable news space. I don’t necessarily even care that that’s the content of the show, truthfully. Kelly threw in a shot at President Woodrow Wilson, which I’ll always be able to get on board with.

Another small issue I took with the opening segment of the Newsmax show was something I think, again, is an issue with cable news as whole: an overreliance on clips from other cable news shows as a jumping-off point for content. In the first 14 minutes of his show, Greg Kelly used clips from NBC News, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, and The Joe Rogan Experience, in addition to the clips from Oprah, and another from a 1980 interview Trump gave.

That’s a lot of external media to use, when, essentially, the point being made by playing them is “Can you believe these idiots think this way?” Yes. I can believe these idiots think this way. Next point, please. My attention span, however, is significantly shorter than the average cable news viewer, who’s age is considerably older than mine.

But, truthfully, I get it. Filling a show every day is hard. Especially when you’ve been doing it for five years.

Additionally, I’m keenly aware that having to write an opening monologue five times a week that’s interesting, engaging, and thought-provoking is hard as hell. Especially, when you have been doing it for five years.

This monologue, to me, just wasn’t it. There wasn’t a logical, easy-to-follow, point-to-point structure of the statements Greg Kelly was trying to make. And it’s ok if not every monologue works or is the finest thing I saw on TV that day. Again, it’s really hard to do. In the past, I’ve seen Greg Kelly deliver killer opening monologues. This random Monday night in March just didn’t happen to be one of those times.

At the end of the day, Greg Kelly Reports isn’t tailor-made for me to think it’s the finest show on cable news. Maybe my critiques about the show aren’t specific to this show as much as it is toward the cable news genre as a whole. Ultimately, the show from Kelly continues to produce strong ratings for Newsmax. And if the audience enjoys it, that’s what matters most.

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