Bill O’Reilly ripped those signing Change.org petitions that call for “The View” co-host Raven-Symone and CNN’s Don Lemon to be fired over their remarks surrounding the recent South Carolina desk-flip incident.
“Freedom of speech in this country is under attack,” O’Reilly said, calling the petitions “the beginning of a totalitarian society.”
Both Raven-Symone and Lemon were fairly measured in their initial comments, which mostly called for a full investigation of the cellphone-camera-recorded fracas. For her part, the former “That’s So Raven” star did push back a bit against students, insisting they put their phones down and follow the rules while in school.
She and Lemon both said the footage looked bad for the police deputy, who was caught on cellphone footage manhandling a high school girl when she would not obey a directive to leave the classroom.
Raven-Symone and Lemon’s comments sparked individual petitions calling for removal from their respective TV shows. At the time of this writing, Raven-Symone‘s had 132,629 digital signatures. Lemon’s had 36,462. This isn’t the first time Lemon’s head has been called for on Change.org.
“The left does not want to hear dissenting opinions, and if you put them out, they will try to destroy you,” O’Reilly said of his takeaway from all of this.
Watch the video above.