Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told Jon Stewart that the only reason Donald Trump isn’t beating President Biden in the polls is because of the former president’s role in the January 6 riots.
O’Reilly, who now hosts a show on his own platform, returned to The Daily Show for the first time since Stewart left in 2015 and since Fox fired O’Reilly in 2017 amid mounting sexual harassment allegations.
In addition to causing outrage among his liberal audience, Stewart himself had once criticized the show’s use of O’Reilly as the Comedy Central show’s “worst legacy” because it meant that audiences expected the comedian to “destroy” it.
That legacy clearly weighed on Stewart during the interview, as she tried to reframe her conversations with O’Reilly as people who simply wanted to reasonably disagree.
However, O’Reilly did reveal his thoughts on the upcoming election, with the self-described “independent” saying there’s only one thing stopping Donald Trump from defeating Joe Biden by 25 points.
Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News star who now hosts a show on his own platform, returned to The Daily Show for the first time since Stewart left in 2015 and since Fox fired O’Reilly in 2017 amid mounting sexual harassment allegations.
The commentator, who has been friends with Trump for years, says Trump’s reaction to January 6 “has haunted him every day since.”
Stewart disagreed and pressed his question further, wondering whether opposing political factions could really tone down extreme beliefs like those that led to Jan. 6.
O’Reilly replied: “If Trump hadn’t done that on January 6th, he would be 25 points ahead in the poll. That’s what Biden has been for the country.”
Stewart and O’Reilly then discussed Biden’s record, with O’Reilly citing inflation as a key negative aspect of Biden’s tenure.
Early in the conversation, O’Reilly attempted to draw a distinction between his battles with Stewart over the years and the modern extremes of both parties today.
“We have made a living by confronting people. We don’t want to see them destroyed, that’s the difference,” he said.
“Fanatics on the left and the right want to see their opposition destroyed, they want to hurt them.”
When the New York Times asked Stewart about O’Reilly in 2020, he seemed to regret the pressure put on him to cause so much destruction.
In addition to causing outrage among his liberal audience, Stewart himself had once criticized the show’s use of O’Reilly as the Comedy Central show’s “worst legacy” because it meant that audiences expected the comedian to “destroy” him.
O’Reilly revealed his thoughts on the upcoming election, with the self-described “independent” saying there’s only one thing stopping Donald Trump from defeating Joe Biden by 25 points.
“The question was always: Why talk to him? Why have him on the show if you can’t destroy him? If you want to talk about the worst legacy of ‘The Daily Show,’ that was probably it.”
O’Reilly appeared on Stewart’s show 15 times during its original era, and the show’s spin-off, “The Colbert Report,” featured a direct parody of the commentator.
The duo even reunited for a pay-per-view match in 2012, called The Rumble at the Air-Conditioned Auditorium, with proceeds going to charity.
Stewart launched several attacks on Republicans early in the show, which was originally scheduled to take place in Milwaukee near the convention before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
He mocked Republicans for going against his calls for unity following the shooting.
On Marjorie Taylor Greene’s speech: ‘Her body rejected the theme of unity, as if it were transplanted like a monkey’s heart.’
He then mocked model Amber Rose, who said Republicans didn’t care if “you’re straight or gay, it’s all love.”
Stewart scoffed: “It’s love! It’s all love! I just hope that love doesn’t lead to an ectopic pregnancy!”
The duo reunited for a pay-per-view match in 2012 called The Rumble at the Air Conditioned Auditorium, with proceeds going to charity.
O’Reilly appeared on Stewart’s show 15 times during its original era, and the show’s spin-off, “The Colbert Report,” featured a direct parody of the commentator.
The comedian then took aim at the vice presidential candidate, saying he looked eerily like Trump’s eldest son.
“It’s like for VP, Donald chose the actor who would be hired to play Don Jr. in the Lifetime movie. Not right! It’s like Don Jr. is the Beta version that needs to be worked out,” he joked.
Regarding the shooting, Stewart lamented the misinformation and speed of social media that led everyone to follow him “making sure the psychopathic shooter is not on (our) teams.”
He finally described Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as “someone we can’t even figure out in the first place,” while praising hero firefighter Corey Comperatore.
“I don’t know what’s happening to this guy,” he said. “It’s an unexpected situation, we don’t know yet. None of us know what’s going to happen next… unless another tragedy happens to us, because of us.”