In an interview with PBS radio host Tavis Smiley on Thursday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly left his guest baffled with his opinion on the GOP’s rocky relationship with African Americans.
“I think they’re more intimidated than uncaring. I think they’re afraid,” the host of “The O’Reilly Factor” said. “I think they’re afraid of, uh, black people, yeah.”
Smiley struggled to respond. “Why? Are black folks scary?”
“No, no, the white Republican power structure is afraid of black Americans. They don’t know how to treat them, they don’t know how to speak to them,” he said.
“They don’t know anything about the culture, and they don’t wanna be called a racist bigot, so they stay away,” O’Reilly continued. “That’s just my opinion.”
“But why does that make you scared, as opposed to being interested in understanding, embracing –“
“Because they feel it’s not worth the trouble, the few votes they might siphon off, to get involved with it,” O’Reilly said. “That’s how they feel. I know that for a fact.”
O’Reilly and Smiley went on to spar over the root cause of racial inequality, which the Fox host unequivocally blamed on “the collapse of the black family.”
Watch the moment below, courtesy of Mediaite:
