Um, no. Bill O’Reilly is doing his best to try to change the subject from his sexual harassment allegations — which have even drawn the attention of the president of the United States — by tweeting about other things.
It’s a brassy strategy of neither keeping his head down nor directly commenting on a crisis that has cost him 20 advertisers so far. But it has a flaw:
Everyone else is talking about it.
Case in point: On Tuesday, O’Reilly slammed CNN anchor Don Lemon on Twitter for refusing to cover the Susan Rice story.
Lemon quickly shot back: “False. I did not refuse to cover the story. But I did cover your sexual harassment allegations. Did you?”
Soon after President Trump told the New York Times Wednesday that O’Reilly “shouldn’t have settled” because he did “nothing wrong,” the Fox anchor tweeted out a story about California’s sanctuary state status.
But somehow that story just hasn’t caught fire like the Times report that O’Reilly and Fox News ponied up about $13 million in settlement payments to five women who’ve accused the host of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior.
O’Reilly has spoken out publicly on the matter before: When the story about the payouts broke over the weekend, he released a statement saying that “like other prominent and controversial people, I’m vulnerable to lawsuits from individuals who want me to pay them to avoid negative publicity.” He also said that in his more than 20 years at Fox News, “no one has ever filed a complaint about me with the Human Resources Department, even on the anonymous hotline.”
We get it, he wants to move on. It’s just that not everybody is.
Sanctuary State Status for California? https://t.co/i6p2gWpKKe
— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) April 5, 2017
CNN's Don Lemon refuses to cover Susan Rice story https://t.co/DATs2WMIX2
— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) April 4, 2017
False. I did not refuse to cover the story. But I did cover your sexual harassment allegations. Did you? https://t.co/sJ5mQQgx2E
— Don Lemon (@donlemon) April 4, 2017