Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday night desperately tried to convince Donald Trump that he should attend the Thursday Fox News debate, but the Fox host’s effort failed to change the Republican presidential candidate’s mind.
Right off the bat, Trump reminded O’Reilly of his feud with Megyn Kelly, a Fox host and moderator in Thursday’s debate.
“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does, and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
While trying to convince Trump that it would be to his advantage to participate in the debate, O’Reilly said, “Kelly’s question was within journalistic bounds.”
“I disagree,” Trump hit back.
“And that’s good. That’s good! You made your case. You won the debate,” O’Reilly responded. “That’s what America’s about — robust debate. Don’t walk away from it!”
The Fox host then tried to convince Trump by bringing up faith.
“In your Christian faith, there is a very significant tenet, and that’s the tenet of forgiveness. And I think you should forgive not only journalists who come at you in ways you don’t like, but I think you should be the bigger man,” O’Reilly said. “Don’t you think that’s the right thing to do?”
“It probably is,” Trump replied. “But you know it’s called an eye for an eye. I guess also you can look at it that way.”
“No, no, no,” O’Reilly said in response. “If you’re the Christian, the eye-for-the-eye rule goes out. Here’s what it is: Turning the other cheek.”
Later in the interview, O’Reilly tried to get Trump to participate in the debate as a personal favor.
“Would you do me a favor?” O’Reilly asked as Trump tried to talk over him. “You owe me. Because I bought you so many, so many vanilla milkshakes. I bought you so many vanilla milkshakes, you owe me.”
The Fox host then asked Trump to “just consider” attending the debate.
Trump replied, “Well, even though you and I had an agreement that you wouldn’t ask me that, which we did. I will therefore forget that you asked me that, but it’s up to Fox. It’s not up to me.
Watch both parts of the interview via Fox News. Part 1:
Part 2:
I see Trump has his pouting toddler …er …game face on.
What a pathetic display…on both sides.
Fox News has broken with journalistic ethics in the case. Donald Trump is right. Fox News is not an honest broker to host the debate.
I did find that entertaining. Just watching O’Reilly pull out the kitchen sink trying to cajole Frump into attending the debate, probably with a panicked memo from Roger Ailes stressing how the network was counting on him.
lol. He even tried yanking his chain using the bible. Hilarious! Frump was having none of it.
Not really. You can’t break with something you’ve never had.