Emily Smith

Emily Smith

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Megyn Kelly’s first NBC interview could be with Putin

Will Megyn Kelly kick off her NBC career with a news-breaking interview with Vladimir Putin?

NBC News chairman Andy Lack has been in Russia this week, trying to land an interview with the Russian president for the network.

The big question is, if Lack succeeds, will the “biggest get on the planet” go to Kelly to debut her Sunday night news magazine show? Or would “Today’s” Matt Lauer or “Nightly News’ ” Lester Holt pull rank and steal the scoop?

NBC insiders say it is not yet clear.

One told Page Six, “Andy Lack has been in Russia having meetings to land an interview with Putin,” adding that Lack was hoping to meet with the Russian strongman’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The source continued that Lack’s Russia trip was on the back of a tour of NBC’s European bureaus and meetings in Lyon, France, with Euronews — a television network that NBC announced it had acquired a 25 percent stake of in February — amid hopes it will compete with CNN. Euronews reaches 277 million households across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Given the FBI investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, plus the crisis in Syria, a hard-hitting news interview with Putin could run across all NBC and Euronews platforms, exposing Kelly to an international audience.

The source added, “It is not clear who would do the Putin interview. News chiefs decide based on who would be best for the job. This isn’t Megyn’s interview — yet.”

Kelly was finally released from her Fox News contract last week, and she is expected to launch her daytime NBC show — at either 9 or 10 a.m. — in the fall. But her Sunday night show is likely to start as soon as this summer, and is already staffing up. An NBC News rep declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Lack will have to eat some humble pie with the Russians. In a 2015 interview, Lack claimed RT, the Russian government-sponsored news channel, was pushing the Islamic State’s point of view.

RT responded that it was “outraged,” and, “We see this as an international scandal and demand an explanation.”