Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Bill O’Reilly vowed he would take on groups like left-wing storefront Media Matters, who he has blamed for his departure at Fox News.
O’Reilly credited host Sean Hannity for fighting back and described groups like Media Matters as “totalitarians” and called them “dangerous to the country.”
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: I want to ask you about the media. I haven’t seen so institution in America that is so corrupt, so bitterly ideological, so one sided that never talk about — you always said the folks — I talk about the forgotten men and women, people that came from our background or worse.
O’REILLY: Yes.
HANNITY: They never talk about them. All they want to do is destroy this president 24/7, 365 conspiracy theories. I’m loving to hear what you think about it.
O’REILLY: Not only do they want to destroy President Trump, but anyone who voted for him.
HANNITY: Anyone who supports him on air.
O’REILLY: Or gives him a fair shot. It just goes across the board.
Look, we’re living in a time where there are no more journalistic rules. And I can back up that 50 different ways, but I’m not going to bore everybody tonight, but I will someday.
There are no rules anymore. So, your major urban newspapers aren’t newspapers. They’re left wing journals and they coordinate. And the people on the cable news shows on the other channels, they’re left wing top to bottom. If you wear a “Make America Great” hat into The New York Times tomorrow and you work there, you’re not going to be working there much longer, all right?
It’s very, very intense. Very intense. But what’s happened now is big money has poured in to organizations like Media Matters. Do you know they threatened you and me if they did this segment tonight? Media Matters threatened us.
HANNITY: They threatened me for just having — allowing you to have a voice.
O’REILLY: Yes, just to have the segment —
HANNITY: Just to have the segment.
O’REILLY: — we were threatened, OK?
HANNITY: Yes, we were.
O’REILLY: Because totalitarians want to wipe out any speech with which they disagree.
HANNITY: See, I call them liberal fascists, because that’s what they are.
O’REILLY: Yes, that’s a good description.
HANNITY: The most tolerant people as it comes to speech, we defend Bill Maher. I hate Bill Maher.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: I never in my life —
O’REILLY: You don’t know the real Bill.
HANNITY: Oh, you do. You’re buddies with him. I can’t stand him.
I’ve never said that Kathy Griffin should be fired or any — I don’t say that — I don’t care what they say.
O’REILLY: And you don’t call for boycotts.
HANNITY: Turn the dial.
O’REILLY: There isn’t a right win cabal that does that.
HANNITY: No.
O’REILLY: I mean, the right can get hateful, everybody knows that. I mean, they can. But there is not an organization that goes out and threatens people and boycotts sponsors.
Now, here’s the insidious part. That’s bad enough, all right? There are millions of dollars behind that. And those people who are doing it are being paid to do it. Big money.
Wait, wait —
HANNITY: No, go ahead. Go ahead.
O’REILLY: Sharyl Attkisson’s book “Smear”, you’ve got to read it. This is a brilliant woman, an honest reporter who used to work at CBS. The book is “Smear”. It will document A to Z this big money and these people will do anything.
HANNITY: Bill, every minute of every day — we have Rush on later this week. Every prominent conservative voice is recorded. They’re paid to record. They’re paid to transcribe. They’re paid to look for the one word, sentence, phrase that they can then use to attack either advertisers or others.
O’REILLY: Advertisers, that’s insidious.
HANNITY: And it works. Let’s be honest. It has worked in the past.
O’REILLY: Well, now, Hannity and I have discussed this off-camera. And we’re going to fight back. And you, I have to give you all the credit in the world. You fought back when they came after you last spring. I didn’t and I should have.
But anyway, this is so dangerous to the country. People don’t know how dangerous this is because most people aren’t engaged. They don’t pay attention. They just hear things.
And these propaganda people throw this stuff out as fact where it lies across the board.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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