Somebody might want to check on Bill O’Reilly. The former Fox News host—who always promised “no spin,” but didn’t seem to feel as strongly “anti-” about sexual harassment—had a lot to say about the seemingly pro-Putin stance his old workplace seems to be encouraging. As Mediaite reports, O’Reilly tore into his former colleagues and claimed that Fox News is “a totally different operation now.”
O’Reilly’s words came via his own online show (yep, he’s got one of those—just like Mike Lindell), but only after some braggadocious history:
“Fox remains the number one rated cable news network, by far. And I believe it’s—part of it, most of it—is because we set the template for 20 years when we were there. Totally different operation now. Totally different. So one thing that hasn’t changed over there is Jennifer Griffin, who is a spectacular Pentagon reporter. And Jennifer got a little upset over the weekend.”
The incident O’Reilly was referring to happened on Sunday night when Griffin appeared on Sunday Night In America With Trey Gowdy. Griffin’s segment just happened to occur right after retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served as Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, told Gowdy and his bird-like pompadour that we should stop demonizing Putin and just let him do what he wants to Ukraine and its people.
Former Trump Advisor Douglas MacGregor says we need to stop demonizing Putin, lift all sanctions, stop providing weapons and aid, that it’s “hopeless,” and just let Putin take whatever part of Ukraine that he wants. pic.twitter.com/HBnLWVdVgD
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 28, 2022
Griffin wasn’t having any of that. Before she offered up any of her own talking points, she first made it clear that Macgregor was totally wrong, and that she might need her own show to correct what he had said because “there were so many distortions.”
wow — Jennifer Griffin continues her live fact-check of Fox colleagues and guests:
“I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Col. Douglas MacGregor said, and I’m not sure that 10 minutes is enough time to do so, because there were so many distortions.” pic.twitter.com/nsdvoGwwXi
— j.d. durkin
(@jd_durkin) February 28, 2022
In what feels like a shocking turn of events, O’Reilly didn’t just go to bat for Griffin and praise “how gutsy she is,” but he basically told his viewers that Fox News is crap and they should all stop watching it.
“It used to be that propagandists would be slapped down hard and now they’re not. Not just on Fox, but on every television news program… I’ve told you this time and time and time again, I turn on the TV set, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the network morning shows, the late-night comedians, the cable news across the board—two left, one right—propaganda is just spat out there and the people running the shows are just sitting there [nodding their heads in agreement].
“You can’t do that! That’s a disservice to the American people. You’ve got to know enough about the subject that you are involved with as an anchor or a host, that if somebody says something that’s propagandistic, you challenge. And that is what Jennifer Griffin was doing.”
O’Reilly—who has dished out almost as many bad takes as he has dollars to settle sexual harassment suits—then told his viewers that he would never have allowed for that kind of bulls**t to fly on The O’Reilly Factor. Ultimately, he resorted to rhetoric when he asked “Why are you guys wasting your time watching this stuff?,” then clarified that he’s just “looking out for” them.
You can watch O’Reilly’s segment over at Mediaite here.
(Via Mediaite)