Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters said Fox News host Bill O’Reilly should be arrested over the continued allegations of sexual harassment and slammed President Donald Trump for defending the embattled Fox host, calling them “two of a kind.”
In an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday night, Rep. Waters criticized the President’s public defense of O’Reilly while tearing into the top-rated TV host. “It shouldn’t be in America that you can sexually harass women and then buy your way out of it because you’re rich,” she said. “If they continue to do this in the way that they have done they need to go to jail.”
Earlier on Wednesday, President Trump told the New York Times that O’Reilly was “a good person” and that he “shouldn’t have settled” with his accusers.
“I don’t think Bill would do anything wrong,” Trump said.
Waters took issue with Trump’s statement, saying, “You know the president is over there talking today about Susan Rice going to jail. They need to go to jail.”
The president’s remarks come days after the Times revealed that O’Reilly, Fox News and parent company 21st Century Fox had paid a total of $13 million in settlements to five women who accused him of sexual harassment or verbal abuse.
In her interview with MSNBC, Rep. Waters called Fox News a “sexual harassment enterprise” because, she said, it had allowed O’Reilly and former Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes to sexually harass female employees. Both Alies and O’Reilly have fought back against the allegations.
“They have treated women very badly,” Waters said, referring to Fox News. 21st Century Fox released a statement Saturday in which it said it “takes matters of workplace behavior very seriously” and stood behind O’Reilly’s denial of the merits of the claims.
This isn’t Waters and O’Reilly’s first public fight. Just last month, O’Reilly issued a public apology for remarks he had made about the congresswoman’s hair during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“I didn’t hear a word she said,” O’Reilly had said of Waters. “I was looking at the James Brown wig.”