Fox News host Megyn Kelly responded Sunday to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's statements about her. Kelly, who has received both criticism and praise for her role as moderator during the first televised presidential primary debate, explained that she is the least of Trump's concerns.

"If you can't get past me, how [are] you going to handle Vladimir Putin?" Kelly asked on the Fox show "Media Buzz" with Howard Kurtz.

Kelly, who moderated the Republican debate on July 30, questioned Trump about the way he has talked about women in the past. She pointed out that Trump has called women names such as "fat pigs," "disgusting animals," "slobs," and "dogs," among other things. Trump responded that he has only ever said harsh words about comedian Rosie O'Donnell, whom he called a "disgusting" and "bad person" during an interview many years ago.

When asked by Fox's "Media Buzz" host Kurtz if she anticipated blow back, she said that she expected to hear reactions, booing (even on Twitter). The reactions are very real and intense, she added.

"People feel very passionately about their candidates and I completely understand that," Kelly said. "My job is not to feel passionately about these candidates. My job is to go out there and ask probing questions that are hopefully smart and help the people learn something about this person, and in this context, his weaknesses. I think I did that and I think for the most part the guys did very well in returning the volley."

She explained that as a journalist, it is her goal to be tough on presidential candidates so voters can make more informed decisions.

"The Republicans are trying to figure out who's our guy or gal, in the case of Carly Fiorina if she gets it," she said. "When it comes to somebody like Donald Trump, who complained, that's fine. You know, this is a big night for him and it was the first time he ever participated in a presidential debate so I'm sure the nerves were high, as they were for all the candidates, and he felt attacked. It wasn't an attack. It was a fair question, but I get it. He's in the arena, but so am I."

She expects they will both move on, as will America.

"I think the reason it's good to have a panel that is somewhat diverse... you just bring a different set of experiences with you. So maybe the questions I came up with were interesting to me because I'm a woman. I don't know," Kelly said. "I asked about the things I thought were interesting and would advance the debate. Whether gender factored into that or not i can't tell you that. You could have asked that same question that I asked on gender even if you were a man. I think it's a fair question no matter who asks it, but I think it's important to have somewhat of a diverse panel because we all came with diverse life experiences."

In the days following the debate, Trump has publicly spoken out against Kelly, and in an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, made scathing comments about the Fox show host:

"She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions," Trump told Lemon. "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever."

Trump believes she was "off-base" and said that it was a "brutal day" for Kelly on Twitter following the debate. He denied that he was talking about Kelly menstruating.

Because Kurtz' show is taped on Friday afternoon, Kelly's response to Trump came before the infamous "blood" statements.

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