Bill O’Reilly did not like being asked about the abuse settlements from his time at Fox News.

Bill O’Reilly has a new book out and either he was somehow contractually obligated to go on PBS’ Firing Line show to promote it or he thought host Margaret Hoover, a former regular on his The O’Reilly Factor show, would go easy on him. Or maybe he thought all publicity is good publicity, as I speculated yesterday on Crooks and Liars.

O’Reilly, as most of you know, was forced out of Fox News in April, 2017 after a slew of sexual harassment claims, settled for many millions, came to light.

From my C&L post:

Hoover didn’t ask about the cases directly. She asked about the culture in which O’Reilly still flourishes but his accusers “will never [again] be employed in television news?”

Hoover had to know she would trigger the very thin-skinned O’Reilly rather than start any kind of thoughtful dialogue. Sure enough, that’s what she got.

O’Reilly, of course, didn’t want to discuss any part of the subject. And, frankly, even if he were the kind of guy to care about his victims, the current culture of TV news, from which he has been absent for more than seven years, doesn’t seem like a topic he’d really know much about.

Hoover will probably get lots of props for this interview but none will come from me. She has publicly talked about how O’Reilly had made her uncomfortable when she appeared on his show. “I had to navigate a minefield... is what it felt like, to make sure that I never was in an experience or situation where I felt vulnerable," she said on CNN not long after he was forced out of Fox News. So, she could have confronted O’Reilly with her own feelings about working with him and asked if he regrets that, e.g. That would have been far more revealing, even if it made O’Reilly just as angry.

In any event, Hoover kept pressing a point she had to know O'Reilly would never discuss, insisting she was asking tough but honest questions. I’m sorry, but if you ask me, she was really looking to create nothing more than a viral moment that would make her look good. And, yes, I know I’m helping that effort. But despite my criticisms, I really do think this was a newsworthy moment. For one thing, O’Reilly deserves to be confronted about his abuse claims, even though I wish a more expert interviewer had done the asking. For another, the interview pretty much shows that O’Reilly has not changed much, other than the fact that he didn’t start yelling at Hoover to “shut up,” as he would have on his own show.

Instead, O'Reilly ended the interview early and threatened to sue.

From my post on Crooks and Liars:

The PBS video shows O'Reilly removing his microphone ... presumably ending the interview early. But according to Mediaite, this also happened:

O’Reilly repeatedly told Hoover that she did not know the facts of the allegations against him, and claimed he had made no settlements himself and that he was unaware of any actions taken by Fox News. Hoover countered that this claim could not possibly be true.

Eventually, an agitated O’Reilly warned Hoover against airing their exchange: “If you’re going to use that stuff, you’re in for a problem. So I’m telling you right now because that’s just bull.”

“I’m not going to record any phony crap like that. You’re going to edit this thing and, you know, my attorney is going to be watching,” he added, ending the interview early.

PBS seems to have edited out that part of the interview.

You can read my full post and watch what appears to be the PBS-edited clip of most of the contentious back and forth at Crooks and Liars.

(O’Reilly image via screen grab)