Of those people vying for the dubious honor of “worst year ever,” Bill O’Reilly is right up there with former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Uber’s Travis Kalanick.
Amid multiple sexual harassment allegations, O’Reilly’s cash-cow of a show, The O’Reilly Factor, began bleeding advertisers; and then his Fox bosses had enough, showing him the door.
Throughout it all, O’Reilly stayed defiant, claiming his innocence, saying in a recorded podcast after his axing that “I can tell you that I’m very confident the truth will come out. And when it does—I don’t know if you’re going to be surprised, but I think you’re going to be shaken, as I am.”
That was five months ago.
Now, O’Reilly, having been removed from the media crush for a decent amount of time, has, oddly enough, granted his first major interview to The Hollywood Reporter. Below, RealClearLife has teased out all the biggest takeaways.
-O’Reilly said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll return to TV or not, but that he’d likely have a better idea in October. (He confirmed that he would not be going to One America News.) He also said he doesn’t miss being on TV at all.
-O’Reilly gave a rather interesting regarding President Trump’s widely criticized “both sides” comments following the deadly Charlottesville protests. While O’Reilly calls it a “mistake,” he quasi-defended the president by saying “He acts and he speaks emotionally, OK?” But then again, he says Trump doesn’t understand historical context as well as maybe he should. “When you understand the evil that happened in the ’30s and ’40s in Germany, in Europe and even in Japan, really, truly understand it, you can’t make comments about it in any other context other than, this is pure evil.”
-O’Reilly lauds the president for supporting him during his last weeks at Fox News. Echoing his earlier defiant comments via his podcast, O’Reilly says, “I think [Trump] understands that no one was mistreated on my watch, because that’s the truth. He knows the politics of it because he has been in the same circumstance—accused—and the press will take any allegation and make it a conviction.”
-O’Reilly says that it was “sad” how Fox News let him go while he was on vacation in Rome.
-Speaking of former fellow Fox Newser Megyn Kelly, O’Reilly has nothing but nice things to say about her and her new NBC show. But regarding her interview with Vladimir Putin, O’Reilly says he would’ve been tougher on the Russian president than Kelly was. “With me, that’s not going to work because I’d get right in his face. But again, it’s not Megyn’s fault. Megyn asked the right questions.”
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