Fox News host Sean Hannity apparently would like former top-rated Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to reclaim his throne more than two years after he was forced to resign in the midst of multiple sexual harassment lawsuits.
When Hannity asked O’Reilly about his interview with President Trump during his Tuesday night show, the two confided with each other about the “attack and vitriol” Trump has been facing.
“The other thing I did in the interview was I made it a little personal,” O’Reilly said. “I said you know, you — you’re taking more attack and vitriol than any other President with the exception of Abraham Lincoln.”
O’Reilly agreed by arguing that he had “never seen a human being able to absorb more punishment than Donald Trump.”
After Hannity responded “so true, it’s unbelievable,” O’Reilly then brought up how both of them “can identify [with the kind of attacks Trump faces] because we’ve been attacked for more than 20 years.”
Hannity then corrected O’Reilly by saying “24 [years] to be exact,” before pivoting to how he supposedly has kept offering O’Reilly to go back on Fox.
“Yeah and why do I want to do that?” O’Reilly said, abruptly cutting off Hannity. “So I can have security guards go with me everywhere, like I used to?”
Hannity told O’Reilly that he should return to Fox to “take the No. 1 slot,” referring to his former 8 p.m. primetime slow that is currently held by Tucker Carlson, and that “it’s easier being number two because we’ll end the — we’ll end the year again number one in all of cable, and with that comes all the crap associated with it.”
O’Reilly responded “you bet” but warned that Hannity’s “listeners should understand there is a price to pay for being a traditional conservative American in this country.”
Listen to the exchange via Media Matters below:
