Self-professed conservative martyr Bill O’Reilly attempted to evince his post-Fox News relevance again on Monday by joining the tiff between Fox News host Laura Ingraham and a high school student who survived a mass shooting.
On his “No Spin News” website, O’Reilly asserted that the advertiser fallout that Ingraham’s show has experienced since she mocked David Hogg for not getting into college, was directed by “shadowy radical groups” and professed the “same thing happened to me.”
“That tweet was ill-advised and Laura has apologized,” he wrote Monday evening, before promoting an interview with conservative pundit Bernard Golderberg on his show that night. “But know this: The sponsor boycott is not some spontaneous uprising by companies. It is being directed by powerful, shadowy radical groups who want Laura Ingraham off the air. Same thing happened to me.”
Fox News said Monday that it still supports Ingraham and her show, despite criticism over a tweet she posted last week, in which she mocked Hogg for not getting into four colleges in California. Hogg has gained a sizable Twitter following in the past month, becoming a vocal advocate for gun control legislation after 17 of his peers and teachers were killed by a former student who opened fire at his high school.
Hogg tweeted a list of Ingraham’s advertisers and told his followers to ask the companies to drop their support of “The Ingraham Angle.” At least seven companies pulled their ads, and Ingraham swiftly apologized in a tweet, but Hogg said he didn’t accept the apology.
Hogg responded to the latest ridicule from a full-grown adult on Monday evening, by telling MSNBC that he didn’t “have any shadowy figures” behind him.
“I’m just a kid that uses Twitter,” he said.
"I don't have any shadowy figures behind me… I'm just a kid that uses Twitter if he sees me as powerful that's okay. I don't see myself that way.
– David Hogg says in response to Bill O'Reilly comments that 'powerful, shadowy radical groups' are leading ad boycott. pic.twitter.com/mMM70WQ8JJ
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 3, 2018
O’Reilly’s not the only conservative to suggest Hogg and his peers are disingenuous in their response to the massacre. Far-right groups and some conservatives have criticized Hogg and his classmates in recent weeks, claiming the students are “crisis actors” or being paid by the left to speak out.
O’Reilly himself claims he was ousted from his high-profile gig at Fox News because of the mainstream media and liberal groups who wanted to silence his conservative voice. O’Reilly was pushed out of Fox after advertisers dropped his show amid reports that he had been entangled in multiple lawsuits and paid several multi-million dollar settlements to women who accused him of sexual harassment.
