‘He Shouldn’t Be on the Air’: Bill O’Reilly Demands Jimmy Kimmel’s Show Be Shut Down for ‘Hate’ Speech
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show to be taken off the air on Monday after Kimmel was hit with backlash over a joke about First Lady Melania Trump becoming a “widow.”
Reacting on NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich Tonight to the two statements issued by President Donald Trump and the first lady calling for Kimmel to be taken off the air, O’Reilly said:
Well, he shouldn’t be on the air, of course. I mean, he’s not a comedian, he’s not a satirist, he’s there to hate President Trump. Disney knows that, but Disney runs a couple of operations, like The View, that’s all they do is hate Trump, and you know, the First Amendment protects them. We the people can’t haul them off the air, but there’s no reason for Jimmy Kimmel to be on there. What’s the reason? I don’t understand. It’s not entertainment. All he’s trying to do is damage the president of the United States and the office of the presidency, and goes after Melania Trump saying she’s gonna be a widow. That was before, of course, the shooting at the Washington Hilton, but it doesn’t really matter.
So my question is to Disney, why are you doing this? For what? You’re not making money off Kimmel, very few people watch him. You polarize the whole country. People take it out on you and your revenue goes down. Why are you doing this? Is there a reason? I’d like to know the economic reason. Social reason? Do you think The View is fair?
He continued, “But Disney is defiant. So what has to happen now is that the affiliated stations, and it happened the last time Kimmel pulled this kind of stuff, gotta dump him” – referencing the time last year when Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off the air by affiliated stations, and then temporarily suspended altogether, in response to remarks Kimmel made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“I am about as liberal a man when it comes to freedom of speech, satire, I understand it all, I want it to be there,” O’Reilly concluded. “But this is hate. That’s what this is, and Disney is trafficking in hate, and they’re not alone.”
Last year, after Kimmel’s show was temporarily suspended, O’Reilly told NewsNation he was “sad” to see the late-night host off the air.
“I know Jimmy Kimmel a little bit. When I went on his program when I was at Fox News, I had a good rapport with him. We had a lot of laughs. He was a gentleman,” O’Reilly said at the time. “So when I saw this today, I was sad. I didn’t celebrate it like some people did. I don’t like people losing their jobs. But what Kimmel did is inexplicable to me.”
Watch above via NewsNation.
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