An intra-Fox News feud escalated on Friday night when conservative columnist George Will and Bill O’Reilly faced off over Will’s strong criticisms of O’Reilly’s recent book, Killing Reagan.
Will wrote a column titled, “Bill O’Reilly Slanders Ronald Reagan,” in which he contended that the book was full of “unsubstantiated assertions.” O’Reilly responded directly to the column on his show Thursday night, accusing Will of “regurgitating attacks” from Reagan loyalists who wanted a “deification” of the former president.
O’Reilly invited Will onto his show to further discuss their differences, and the segment ended with O’Reilly calling Will a “hack” who doesn’t want the truth to be told about Reagan.
It turns out that, after the segment was taped, Will, as a panelist on “Special Report,” previewed the “unhinged” O’Reilly interview before it even aired. Host Bret Baier asked the panelists for their winners and losers of the week, and Will named O’Reilly as his loser.
“The loser of the week is Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, whose book called Killing Reagan is being eviscerated by real historians and by almost everyone who worked and knew Ronald Reagan. Viewers might want to see his response to my criticism on a segment we taped for
his show tonight that is so unhinged as to be highly amusing.”
“So that goes to prove how much autonomy is given to panelists on the winners and losers,” Baier joked.
Watch the video above, as well as the original O’Reilly-Will interview, both via Fox News.
[Image via screengrab]
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