Bill O’Reilly lost it on 60 Minutes and Scott Pelley, accusing them of “practicing deceit” with a Sunday segment painting President Donald Trump as a threat to the country’s legal system.
The 60 Minutes segment scrutinized Trump’s attacks on a number of law firms as the network’s parent company faces a $20 billion lawsuit from the president. Trump sued Paramount, which owns CBS, last year over an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that he argues was edited to portray her as more favorable ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The network has denied any wrongdoing and released the full transcript of the interview.
O’Reilly joined NewsNation’s On Balance and blasted 60 Minutes and Pelley over the Sunday segment on Trump, arguing the entire thing was deceitful, right down to the involvement of lawyer Marc Elias.
In Sunday’s segment, Elias was described as “long time opponent of Trump who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear.” The lawyer argued Trump hates him because he fights “hard.”
Elias is the former general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He also oversaw the country-wide responses to lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign contesting the 2020 presidential election, an election the president still considers fraudulent. Elias’s former law firm, Perkins Coie, was also behind hiring the company behind the infamous Steele Dossier, which has been oft-referenced by Trump critics who argued there is a corrupt relationship between Trump and Russia.
“They have a perfect right to do a story that says that President Trump is taking revenge on law firms that did things that Trump didn’t like. That is a legitimate story all day long,” O’Reilly said on Monday, mocking Pelley as a self-appointed “dragon slayer” in the vein of Edward Murrow going after Joseph McCarthy.
O’Reilly blasted Pelley for allowing Elias to “spin” an “outrageously dishonest tale” about being targeted by the president without providing needed context for viewers.
The former Fox News host argued:
They put a guy up named Marc Elias, who goes on 60 Minutes and spins this outrageously dishonest tale that he’s being persecuted because he didn’t buy the election fraud allegations. That’s just a lie. Pelley’s got to know it. Marc Elias ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign in ’16. He hired Fusion GPS, the ones that got the phony Russian dossier that was discredited by the Mueller investigation. Pelley didn’t mention it. Didn’t mention that. Threw up this sleazy guy to say all of this outrageous stuff without even telling the audience who he was.
He continued by knocking Pelley for not including any pro-Trump attorneys to balance the arguments about Trump posing a threat.
“Pelley uses three attorneys, all of whom slay Trump. Not one pro-Trump attorney. Fine. You tell me, is that good journalism, Leland? No, it’s not!” O’Reilly told Leland Vittert.
Vittert was less shocked by the segment, arguing CBS “hates” Trump and has no interest in showing him in a favorable light.
“Why does it upset you? It’s obvious. It’s been going on for 20 years,” Vittert said.
“Why would it upset me? This is the premier news program in the country… practicing deceit!” O’Reilly said. “That makes me angry! I’ve been in this business 50 years, this is wrong!”
Watch above via NewsNation.
