Lawrence O’Donnell: Bill O’Reilly’s Threat To Leave The Factor Over Taxes Is A Lie

Lawrence O’Donnell may be the one person who has most to benefit from Bill O’Reilly executing his threat to leave the O’Reilly Factor if taxes get too high, but O’Donnell isn’t buying the idea that the host is going Galt anytime soon. In his “Rewrite” segment tonight, O’Donnell repeatedly called O’Reilly a “liar” for claiming the President has the power to raise taxes, and analyzing the worst case scenario for O’Reilly’s pay deductions.

“Bill O’Reilly may have found a way to get rid of Bill O’Reilly,” O’Donnell opened his segment, with some glee. He did not allow himself to believe that O’Reilly was going anywhere anytime soon, however, arguing that O’Reilly’s threat– “If Barack Obama begins taxing me more than 50%, which is very possible, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to do this”– was a lie in and of itself. “O’Reilly has to lie about everything in that statement to make it credible to his audience,” O’Donnell argued, suggesting that O’Reilly “knows his audience doesn’t know tax rates aren’t up to the President,” or that “no one is proposing a tax rate of 50%.”

What is even more indicated to O’Donnell that the threat is a ruse is the fact that O’Reilly has been doing the show for so long. The O’Reilly Factor, it turns out, is a cash cow (at least in the absolute– O’Donnell didn’t exactly go into how much he makes doing the exact same thing on a rival channel). Estimating his salary at Fox News to be around $10 million, O’Donnell argued that “O’Reilly’s accountants are probably trying to keep track of much more than $10 million a year” in speaking fees and book sales. To that end, he predicted that O’Reilly’s Fox salary could, in the worst case, be reduced to $6 million a year as “the highest paid player in cable news– hardly a pauper’s purse– at least not one that would drive anyone to walk out, O’Donnell claims.

The segment via MSNBC below: