Bill O’Reilly has advised President Donald Trump to do something out of character.
O’Reilly, the former Fox News host who settled several multimillion-dollar sexual harassment lawsuits from Fox employees, said he discussed Epstein with the president during a phone call on Friday morning before Trump’s departure to Scotland.
“I gave the president my view of how to handle it. Pretty much what I told you guys: Don’t talk about it,” O’Reilly revealed on No Spin News.
“I don’t think that President Trump should answer any questions about Epstein,” he added Friday on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.
“He should defer to the Justice Department, 100 percent. I would not, as president, allow myself to be besieged by this story.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast on whether the president would adhere to that advice.
After stoking the Epstein conspiracy while running for office, the president has been lashing out at political opponents for the Epstein “hoax,” which he has claimed is “pretty boring,” all the while deploying distraction tactics like rehashing culture war issues for his base.
O’Reilly made the same argument the day prior to WABC radio host Sid Rosenberg, adding that Attorney General Pam Bondi should be the “one voice” to address the issue.
O’Reilly agreed with Rosenberg that the Epstein controversy is a “distraction.”
“He’s very angry that the things he’s going for the country that are working are ignored,” he said, adding that “the press’ view is that we have to destroy this man.”
O’Reilly then compared Trump’s troubles to his own experience with what he dubbed “journalistic assassination” at Fox News.
“I went though this when this when I was at Fox. Every day, somebody would come up and accuse me of something that wasn’t true, and then I have to deal with it, and it just drains your energy right out,” he recalled.
O’Reilly was forced out of Fox in April 2017 shortly after it was reported that he or the network settled at least six sexual harassment claims from women at Fox. The total amount of publicly known settlements at the time was about $45 million, including $32 million for longtime network analyst Lis Wiehl. O’Reilly denied any wrongdoing.
O’Reilly added that while he believes the controversy over Trump’s relationship with Epstein has been tiring, Trump told him otherwise.
“He assured me he’s got no deficit there,” he said.
O’Reilly on Friday also said the “usually pretty accurate” Wall Street Journal, which reported on an alleged birthday letter Trump wrote to Epstein for his 50th birthday, was part of “the dishonest, corrupt corporate media” trying to “convince Americans that Donald Trump had access to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and may have participated.”
The Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch through News Corp. The billionaire media mogul is also chairman emeritus of Fox Corporation, which owns Fox News.
O’Reilly then raised the possibility of the end of Fox News, pending Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit.
“If the Wall Street Journal published a story using a bogus birthday card that’s not real, that was a fraud, the whole thing collapses,“ he said. ”Not only the Wall Street Journal. Fox News, everything else. Done.”
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