Culture

Donald Trump Defends Vladimir Putin After Bill O’Reilly Calls The Russian President ‘A Killer’

Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump are reunited, and it feels …. sorta good. O’Reilly — who frequently grilled his pal before victory — drew the longest straw at Fox for the pre-Super Bowl interview, which will air at 4:00pm EST for any hot-blooded Americans who want to watch political fireworks before the big game. The above preview clip may reveal some pent-up frustration from the Fox News host, who hasn’t yet been able go face-to-face with Trump on one of his biggest controversies. That would be Trump’s deep and abiding (mutual) respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

O’Reilly broaches the subject, and Trump replies, “I do respect him, but I respect a lot of people.” He then adds his usual addendum, which is that he may not get along with Putin, but perhaps the U.S. and Russia might defeat ISIS together. To which O’Reilly counters (while referring to the Russian president’s habit of doing away with critical journalists), “Putin’s a killer.” And Trump casually responds, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”

Lots of killers out there, folks. Putin may only be one of ’em.

The clip cuts off, but O’Reilly confronts Trump on other subjects to make up for lost time, which feels like coming home. The blindly loyal Sean Hannity scored the first cable news network interview with the prez, and it was a fawning endeavor. Whereas O’Reilly isn’t afraid to bat Trump around, so it’s fun to have the two back for a low-key slugfest. Here, O’Reilly asks Trump whether it’s “irresponsible” to keep falsely claiming voter fraud cost him the popular vote when “you don’t have the data to back it up.” Trump then raves about the “many people” who support him and keeps ranting from there.