Posted on 12/15/2021 5:18:51 PM PST by RandFan
Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said downplaying or diminishing the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is something that "could never have happened" during his time at the network.
"Fox News is a different place than it was when I was there," O'Reilly said Tuesday evening while appearing on Dan Abrams' primetime show on NewsNation. “I don’t follow it that that closely anymore, but when I was there, there was a discipline from management that diminishing the Capitol riot could never have happened. And I'll state that firmly on the record.”
O'Reilly had joined Abrams' program to discuss revelations this week that top hosts at Fox, including his former colleagues Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade, had been texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the riot, urging Meadows to convince former President Trump to do something to stop the attack.
“I wouldn’t have done it myself,” O’Reilly said of the text messages the hosts sent Meadows. “I would have asked the question, ‘Say, are you guys going to make a statement? What are you going to do? Looks like things are out of control?’ I don’t think I would have advocated; that’s not what journalists do. But it was in a very intense, quick-breaking situation. So I’m not going to condemn anybody here.”
Hannity and Ingraham both defended their texts to Meadows during their nightly programs on Tuesday and played for their audiences portions of their statements the night of the attack.
"I said to Mark Meadows the exact same thing I was saying live on the radio at that time and on TV that night on Jan. 6 and well beyond Jan. 6," Hannity said Tuesday.
"Both publicly and privately I said what I believe: that the Jan. 6 breach at the Capitol was a terrible thing. Crimes were committed," Ingraham said during the next hour. "Some people were unfairly hounded and persecuted, but it was not an insurrection. To say anything different is beyond dishonest and it ignores the facts of that day."
After O'Reilly defended Hannity's comments on Jan. 6, Abrams asked him about Tucker Carlson, who hosts the top-rated show in the country, and his production of a controversial miniseries for the network's streaming service focusing on the Jan. 6 attack.
Carlson's "Patriot Purge" miniseries purports to tell an alternative view of the Jan. 6 attack and features one subject who suggested the incident could have been a so-called "false flag" operation.
"I'm not going to comment on that," O’Reilly said. "I haven't watched [Patriot Purge.]"
O’Reilly was forced out of his prime time show on Fox News in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment and was eventually replaced in the network's 8 p.m. hour with Carlson.
O’Reilly, a close personal friend of Trump for years, has since launched a speaking tour with the former president but has appeared rarely in interviews with mainstream media outlets since his ouster from Fox.
**Bill O’Reilly: a self-absorbed buffoon. I never could stand him.**
Same here. And my wife said he appeared to think of himself as irresistible to women. Passing on a city sidewalk she wouldn’t even notice a guy like him.
Old Bloviator should just shut up and go away.
He’s just annoying.
Sounds like a woman of high character. . .and you, a lucky man!!
Yes, I’ve been blessed to have an amazing and beautiful wife for over 43 yrs, and met her a year before that. Storybook courtship indeed.
Her dad could have passed for a younger brother to John Wayne. The look, the build, the walk, and even his voice was quite similar. B24 gunner, DFC, Europe winter 43-44.
He was an honest, hard working man. When he told his only daughter that he approved of her choice, I was there, and greatly relieved that I passed his standards.
Does he write his own books? I see a lot of them at Goodwill.
O’Reilly is a pompous buffoon. And always has been.
The leprechaun couldn’t carry Tucker’s jockstrap…
Ditto!
What a turd. I never liked him and I hate that Trump tours with him.
He’s not a conservative - he’s a moderate at best - who only cares about whether the Left will think he’s fair and balanced - he’s an appeaser and that’s exactly what he’s doing here.
When he says he’s “…not going to comment...” on Tucker’s Jan 6 program - that’s classic O’Reilly being a fair and balanced coward.
Plus, he’s as dumb as a rock.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.