Former Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly defended himself Thursday morning after trending overnight for comments he made Wednesday about people who’ve died of coronavirus being “on their last legs.” He later addresses his critics, saying that people providing “perspective” are punished by the “far left.”
During a conversation on one-time colleague Sean Hannity’s radio show, O’Reilly mused on when Americans could expect to get back to their normal lives after this pandemic: “We’re making little steps. Bernie Sanders, you know, he’s gone. That’s really good for everybody. The projections that you just mentioned are down to 60,000. I don’t think it will be that high. 13,000 dead now in the USA. Many people who are dying, both here and around the world, were on their last legs anyway.”
He added he didn’t “want to sound callous about that.”
Hannity warned him then that O’Reilly’s ideas wouldn’t be well-received, saying he would get “hammered” — and he did.
Several people called the 70-year-old former primetime star a “ghoul” over his comments, often including profanity.
“I was going to make a Bill O’Reilly joke but Bill O’Reilly is a joke,” tweeted the account of Bill Palmer’s political blog, Palmer Report.
Bishop Talbert Swan really took aim at O’Reilly, writing that his comments made him “cow manure.”
“In my circle, we’ve lost people to #COVID19 in their 70’s & 80’s, but as low as their 30’s,” he added. “I prayed with a 20 yr old who tested positive.”
Thursday morning, O’Reilly defended himself, writing, “The pandemic is extremely deadly but not the Black Plague. Far-left wants chaos and carnage so President Trump will lose re-election. They are not interested in facts and will try to punish people who provide perspective.”
Check out the segment first flagged by Media Matters.