Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in an interview published Wednesday said President Donald Trump “perhaps” does not know sufficient history to make nuanced comments about Nazis.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, O’Reilly said Trump’s “mistake” in his remarks splitting the blame for violence that erupted at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville “was that you can never under any circumstances equate Nazis with anyone else.”
“If you understand history — and I think Trump does to some extent, but not perhaps to the extent that is needed in this day and age — when you understand the evil that happened in the ’30s and ‘40s in Germany, in Europe and even in Japan, really, truly understand it, you can’t make comments about it in any other context other than, this is pure evil,” he said.
O’Reilly said that if Trump wanted “to make a point the next day that the antifa movement is destructive,” referring to anti-fascists, he should have waited.
“You can do that, but it has to be the next day,” he said. “You see what I mean?”
O’Reilly left Fox News in April amid accusations of sexual harassment which the former host continued to deny.
Congress on Tuesday passed a bipartisan resolution condemning white supremacists and other hate groups, sending it to Trump’s desk and forcing him to take a stance, as he hesitated to do after the Charlottesville rally.
The White House did not take an official stance Tuesday on whether Trump would do so.
