Bill O’Reilly Says He’s ‘Haunted’ by What He Told Trump Just Before Iran War

Bill O’Reilly revealed that he is tormented by a conversation with President Donald Trump before the Iran War in which he warned the commander in chief that the conflict would be the “biggest gamble” he would ever take.

O’Reilly said on NewsNation on Monday night he is now sad to see his prediction has come true.

“My own words haunt me,” O’Reilly told host Leland Vittert.

He then explained:

In February, I talked to the president, just him and me. I said this is the biggest gamble you have ever taken in your entire life messing around with these people. They’re irrational.

They are like the militants in Japan in World War II, in Germany in World War II, they’re not going to surrender. It’s going to be exceedingly difficult, and you cannot count on the Persians to overthrow them.

So my words haunt me, because it’s exactly how it came down.

The ex-cable news star brought up the pre-war conversation after Vittert asked him if Trump was “intentionally sort of playing along” the war so he could wrap it up closer to the midterm elections and give Republicans a boost. O’Reilly laughed at the idea.

“No, if he could get out of that thing now, tonight, he would,” O’Reilly said.

If O’Reilly’s comments sound familiar, it’s because he said last month he was haunted by his past support for the Iraq War.

“I made a mistake with the Iraq situation, and that haunts me to this day,” O’Reilly said. “And the reason I made that mistake is that I didn’t fully understand the facts of the matter. I was taking reporting from The New York Times and others that said [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein was harboring deadly weapons. OK?”

“Turned out to be wrong,” he continued. “Didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction, and the chaos that ensued brought a lot of pain on America. I was wrong. I was wrong. OK, there’s a reason I was wrong, but that still haunts me.”

O’Reilly added he was skeptical that the memorandum of understanding the USA and Iran agreed to in June would lead to an end to the war; he said the U.S. pummeling Iran with overwhelming military force was likely the only way it would wrap up.

His Monday night appearance on NewsNation came a day after Trump said a new deal to end the war was “imminent.”

Watch above via NewsNation.

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