Bill O’Reilly reluctantly had to admit Monday night that his outlandish claims about the Biden administration and former Attorney General Merrick Garland “convicting” Jeffrey Epstein were false, muttering a truculent “yeah, so” when NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert corrected him.
Amid the ongoing MAGA meltdown over the Justice Department concluding that Epstein died by suicide and didn’t keep a “client list,” which has only escalated after Donald Trump ordered his “boys” and “gals” to drop the matter, O’Reilly has contended that the president had good reasons not to release additional documents in the Epstein case.
“I talked to President Trump, man-to-man, eye-to-eye, on St. Patrick’s Day about this. … And he said — and I agree — ‘There are a lot of names associated with Epstein that had nothing to do with Epstein’s conduct,’” O’Reilly said last week.
The disgraced former Fox News star added at the time that “you can’t destroy a human being by putting out the files, whatever they may be.” He then suggested that Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has been under fire for signing off on the DOJ memo after previously claiming she was in possession of the “client list,” should hold a press conference with Garland and address the Epstein case head-on.
During an appearance on Vittert’s NewsNation program on Monday night, O’Reilly argued that the Epstein saga had become a distraction for the president but that it wasn’t to the point that Trump should be worried that it would fracture his MAGA coalition. He also reiterated his suggestion for a joint Bondi-Garland presser.
“Hold a press conference and invite former General Garland,” O’Reilly stated. “If he doesn’t come there, put an empty chair with his picture on it because Garland had the information that the Trump people had for four years.”
He continued: “This is more of a mystery than it is a crisis. I disagree with the word ‘crisis.’ I don’t think it’s a crisis for the country. It may be a political detriment to the Republican Party and Donald Trump.”
Vittert, meanwhile, brought up House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ recent push to force the administration’s hand on releasing the Epstein files, which is part of Democrats’ attempts to take advantage of the MAGA backlash over the memo. House Republicans, meanwhile, have already blocked a Democratic effort to compel Bondi to compile and release all Epstein-related documents within 30 days.
An irate O’Reilly, meanwhile, raged about “how disingenuous” Jeffries was for saying Trump is “trying to hide something” because the Biden administration was in possession of the same documents and evidence related to Epstein as the current administration.
At the same time, though, O’Reilly confidently asserted that the deceased sex offender had been prosecuted and found guilty by Biden’s DOJ – despite Epstein dying a year-and-a-half before the 46th president took office.
“This is what infuriates me about these people! Jeffries knew the Biden administration had exactly the same thing the Trump administration has on Epstein. Exactly! Because Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration,” O’Reilly exclaimed.
As the one-time O’Reilly Factor host continued to rail against “phony” Jeffries for not demanding the release of additional information related to Epstein during Biden’s term, Vittert eventually stopped the conservative pundit in his tracks over his obviously false assertion.
“Hold on, Bill! You said Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. Epstein committed suicide during the Trump administration,” the NewsNation anchor noted.
“Yeah, so?!” O’Reilly indignantly retorted.
“How do you convict a guy that is dead?” Vittert wondered.
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O’Reilly went on to insist that Epstein was “convicted under Merrick Garland’s Justice Department” and then “incarcerated” before killing himself in jail, prompting Vittert to explain that his guest had his facts completely wrong.
“Bill, I think this is important,” the On Balance host noted. “He was arrested in 2019, and he committed suicide in 2019. He died August 10, 2019. So the Biden administration was not involved in a conviction or a trial of him. They were with his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Acknowledging that Vittert made a “good point of clarification,” O’Reilly proceeded to double down and once again claimed that Garland was responsible for indicting Epstein in 2019, leading Vittert to point out one more time that this was incorrect.
“No! Under Trump! Epstein was arrested, indicted and committed suicide under Trump in 2019. Trump was president. Merrick Garland was not the attorney general,” Vittert said as a visibly confused O’Reilly let the information sink in.
“OO. I stand corrected,” O’Reilly finally relented. After coming to grips that Garland wasn’t involved in the arrest and indictment of Epstein in 2019, he pivoted back to grumbling that Jeffries didn’t call for the public release of Epstein's case files when Biden was president.
