Bill O’Reilly Praises Jennifer Griffin While Ripping ‘Propagandists’ on Fox News: ‘A Disservice to the American People’
Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said his old network has changed for the worse, stating that it’s “a totally different operation now.”
O’Reilly praised Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin, who has on multiple occasions pushed back on, and even outright corrected various hosts and guests on the network over comments they’ve made about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“One thing that hasn’t changed is Jennifer Griffin, who is a spectacular Pentagon reporter,” O’Reilly said on his online show on Tuesday. “And Jennifer got a little upset over the weekend.”
He played a clip of Griffin reacting to remarks by Fox News guest Douglas Macgregor, who told Fox News host Trey Gowdy that Russia should “absolutely” be allowed to take Ukrainian territory by force. The colonel also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t interested in annexing western Ukraine.
Those comments drew condemnation from Griffin.
“I just heard your last guest, and I feel like I need to correct some of things that Colonel Doug Macgregor just said,” she stated after Macgregor’s appearance. “And I’m not sure 10 minutes is enough time to do so because there were so many distortions in what he just said, and talking about the west and NATO vilifying Putin and sounding like an apologist for Putin, and talking about how he thinks he knows how far Putin wants to go. I don’t think anyone that I’ve spoken to here at the Pentagon or elsewhere [in] Western intelligence believes they know how far Putin wants to go.”
O’Reilly reacted by giving “kudos” to Griffin.
“Now, why I’m running that clip is – not only to show you how gutsy she is – is that it used to be that propagandists would be slapped down hard and now they’re not,” he said.
“Not just on Fox, but on every television news program. I mean, I’ve told you this time and time and time again, I turn on the TV set, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the network morning shows, the late-night comedians, the cable news across the board – two left, one right – propaganda is just spat out there and the people running the shows are just sitting there going like this,” he went on, nodding his head in mock agreement.
“You can’t do that!” O’Reilly exclaimed. “That’s a disservice to the American people. You’ve got to know enough about the subject that you are involved with as an anchor or a host, that if somebody says something that’s propagandistic, you challenge. And that is what Jennifer Griffin was doing.”
He added that he never allowed such “garbage” on his show.
“Why are you guys wasting your time watching this stuff?” he asked the audience. “I’m looking out for you.”
O’Reilly concluded, “It’s everywhere. It’s cheap and easy and it makes money. And that’s the truth. But not Jennifer Griffin. You see her, she will back up what she says with facts.”
Watch above via BillOReilly.com
