Friendly rivals Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart sat down for a chat on Wednesday’s broadcast of “The Daily Show,” discussing the controversies that have surrounded President Barack Obama as of late.
Stewart wondered if, after five years of sounding false alarms on Obama, Fox News is experiencing a feeling of “sexual arousal” now that there are seemingly legitimate scandals associated with the administration.
“I’ve been too easy on him. I have been too easy on the man,” O’Reilly replied, adding that it doesn’t look good when Obama “doesn’t know what’s going on within his administration.”
O’Reilly then floated his own theory on the origins of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.
“Tea party does very well in the midterms, right? Do the math. Tea party is getting momentum, they do very well, the President loses the House. Boom, boom, boom,” O’Reilly said. “So all of a sudden his guys start to say, ‘We gotta take care of the tea party, alright? What’s the best way to take care of them? Let’s scare them a little bit.’ And then it just takes on a life of its own. Now this is speculation but it’s educated speculation because I think that’s what happened. Alright?”
“As most speculation is,” Stewart fired back.
“No! Have you ever listened to your program? It’s not educated speculation, you’re just pullin’ it out of your butt,” O’Reilly joked, drawing groans from the audience.
