Former top Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, ousted in April amid allegations of sexual harassment, said on Tuesday that he does not “really miss” cable news. He also defended President Donald Trump’s speculation about whether Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War.
“You may have seen a bunch of people on cable news, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t really miss it, saying that President Trump is a moron for saying that Andrew Jackson, all right, might have prevented the Civil War because of Jackson’s skills in running the country,” O’Reilly said in his “No Spin News Podcast.” “They know nothing. Trump was right.”
In an interview Monday on SiriusXM show “Main Street Meets the Beltway,” Trump questioned why the Civil War occurred, saying, “Why could that one not have been worked out?”
Trump suggested that Andrew Jackson, a slaveholder who owned approximately 150 people at the time of his death 16 years before the start of the Civil War, would have prevented the conflict.
“He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War,” Trump said. “People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War?”
He was roundly criticized for those remarks.
UMMM… SLAVERY. The thing southern states were most concerned about in 1861 was the right to perpetuate slavery. https://t.co/Sw3MygpvoX
— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) May 1, 2017
President Trump doesn't understand why there was a Civil War.
It's because my ancestors and millions of others were enslaved. https://t.co/dFjpbp1pUy
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 1, 2017
I'm excited for next year when Trump finds out about the American Revolution.
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) May 1, 2017
TRUMP (yesterday): I would've used my dealmaking skills to prevent the Civil War
TRUMP (today): I can't get anything through a GOP Congress
— Daniel Lin (@DLin71) May 2, 2017
O’Reilly nevertheless came out swinging for Trump on Tuesday.
President Trump is right about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War, the morons on cable news are wrong.
— Bill O'Reilly (@billoreilly) May 2, 2017
In the podcast, O’Reilly called cable news personalities — among whom he was foremost until two weeks ago — “morons.”
“Just turn them off,” he said. “Just turn them off, because you are never going to get an honest story.”