Bill O’Reilly lashed out at Montel Williams Wednesday night for walking out before a scheduled appearance. O’Reilly called Williams a “coward” and vowed never to have him on the show again. So Williams took to Periscope and posted the kind of response nobody has had the courage to say to O’Reilly previously.
O’Reilly said he did not know why Williams walked out “in a huff” but had been told by a producer it was over “some gay thing.” Rather than get more information, O’Reilly went right to attacking Williams: “He will never be never be on this program again. He’s not a man of his word. He’s unprofessional.” O’Reilly also called Williams “not a stand up guy” for “walking out at the last minute.” O'Reilly added, “Very cowardly.”
Williams did not take that lying down. He told CNN he left because the topic he had been booked to discuss on O’Reilly was changed at the last minute.
From CNN:
Williams, who spoke to CNNMoney after the incident, offered a more specific account: He said he’d been told that the segment was going to focus on an LGBT speech that he’d given earlier in the day, as well as a poll suggesting that President Obama is a racist (Williams intended to knock that poll down).
But when he arrived, Williams said, he was told the segment was only going to be about the poll.
OK, whatevs. But Williams also took to Periscope where he really laid into O’Reilly. I'm adding links so you can see what Williams is referring to.
WILLIAMS: So let me talk about this little coward thing for a second. The word "coward" is usually used on people who have done most of the things that you’ve done, like embellish and lie about your credentials as a journalist, like the fact that your own daughter, in a testimony in a court case, according to the Washington Post, said that you dragged your ex-wife down a flight of stairs. You wanna talk about coward, homeboy? […] We know who the coward is.
[…]
Let’s also remember this. I spent 22 years in the military, my friend. You made sure you shirked your responsibility and didn’t serve. You want to talk about coward? That’s what a coward truly is.
Williams concluded by saying he has only been on The O’Reilly Factor three times and that if O’Reilly doesn’t want him on again, “I don’t care.”
He’s got a point, eh?
Watch O’Reilly call Williams a coward below, on the July 20 The O’Reilly Factor. Underneath is a link to Williams’ response.
LIVE on #Periscope: Responding to Bill O'Reilly... #gopconvention https://t.co/yqngNk4xgQ
— Montel Williams (@Montel_Williams) July 21, 2016
O’Reilly is Trump-lite. Before The Donald came upon the scene, O’Reilly was the most thin-skinned egomaniac I’d ever experienced. No surprise he just mouths off like Trump without his brain attached. At #RNCinCLE I imagine Bill is live so he doesn’t have the luxury of skilled “Factor” editors to cut out his many “F—k it! We’ll do it live!” embarrassing moments.
I’ll add this is the sort of trick – altering topics on guests before they can prep – O’Reilly deliberately pulls all the time to put them off balance so he can make fools of them while stealing away the carrot he used to attract them to his propaganda arena.
Montel is basically saying he had a topic he hoped to highlight – LGBT issues in his speech – and was willing to briefly discuss the Obama is a racist thing for the opportunity. Bill apparently could care less about the LGBT thing and only cares about using Obama as a chew toy with Montel as the unwitting sidekick helping him pull it off.