O'Reily was lost in the weeds over this.
It started years ago. There was some real issue about the government (I forget what) and he played the media game of spending his whole show on a sensationized murder. When his callers objected, OReilly said that he covered what the people wanted.
Conclusion....he's always been a shill, and his playbook is to be just fake-conservative enough to reel in the audience, and then distract them from real issues with his garbage.
Now, he doesn't even pretend to "get it" that this is too much for conservatives, and we're ready to vocally defend our and everyone else's freedom of speech.