Rachel Maddow the New Bill O’Reilly? Matt Taibbi Thinks So

Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi has a theory about which network anchor assumed Bill O’Reilly’s mantle in prime-time television.

“O’Reilly, during the Bush years, was the #1-ranked cable personality,” Taibbi said in an interview with The Hill’s Rising. “And he got there in a very specific way. He played the role as this kind of jingoistic front-man who was constantly accusing people of being insufficiently patriotic, insufficiently pro-war. And he would have a parade of guests on, and question them about how devoted they were to the cause, or whether they were too affiliated or too supportive of terrorism or Islam or whatever it was, and that catapulted him to the top of the ratings. And he significantly relied on a story that turned out to be false, the [Iraq] WMD story, to kind of launch him into the stratosphere.

“MSNBC has kind of stepped into that role as the network that is hyper-patriotic, that is constantly talking about a foreign dictator, and has been elevated by a story that has … lots and lots of holes in it, and they haven’t acknowledged that,” Taibbi said, referencing MSNBC’s focus on Russia and numerous theories surrounding former President Donald Trump’s relationship with the country, including those propagated by the 2016 Steele Dossier.

He also said MSNBC host Rachel Maddow served as a chief example of the network’s direction, and suggested it was analogous to the Fox News of O’Reilly’s era.

“I knew Rachel once upon a time, and she’s had kind of a dazzling career, I think, by any measure. This turn has been really strange. It represents … a strategic move by the networks. They thought, I think, they were going to ride this forever. But the problem is, what’s actually happened is the ratings have actually see-sawed as the story has gone up and down. So they were doing great in 2017 and 2018, then they lost a significant amount of market share again. I think what’s going on now is, rather than having a reckoning, they’re still hoping the story is going to bounce back, and they’ll be able to throw all their weight behind it.

The 71-year-old O’Reilly, who spent a little more than 40 years in television news, hosted Fox News’ top-rated O’Reilly Factor from 1996-2017. He left the network after facing allegations of sexual harassment from multiple women, though he still hosts a podcast.

Maddow, 48, has anchored an opinion program on her network since 2008, and does have one one thing in common with O’Reilly, despite being his ideological opposite. She drew a little more than 3.6 million average nightly viewers in the first quarter of 2021, making her the top-rated cable news host.

Nonetheless, Taibbi argued the network should conduct more due diligence with respect to facts. “The reality is, they ought to be going back and saying, ‘Yeah, we screwed up on things like the Steele Dossier,'” Taibbi said.

Correction: This story initially attributed a slogan to Bill O’Reilly that actually belonged to Tucker Carslon. This story has been updated to correct that.