Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly begged and pleaded with GOP front-runner Donald Trump Wednesday evening to reconsider his decision to skip a primary Jan. 28 debate hosted by the cable news giant.
“I have to tell you something, I don’t think not showing up at the debate tomorrow night is good for America,” the cable news host said, appealing to Trump’s sense of leadership. “You’re running for president. I believe you want to improve the country. I believe that personally.”
“In your Christian faith, there is a very significant tenet. And that’s the tenet of forgiveness,” he added, appealing to GOP candidate’s faith. “And I think you should forgive not only journalists who come at you in ways you don’t like, but I think you should be the bigger man and say, ‘You know what? I didn’t like it. … But I’m not going to take any action against it.’ Don’t you think that’s the right thing to do?”
Trump responded, “It probably is. But it’s called an ‘eye for an eye’ I guess, also. You can look at it that way.”
The cable news host did not like that his religious-based appeal was turned around on him.
“No, no, no, no,” O’Reilly said. “If you’re the Christian, the ‘eye for the eye’ rule goes out. Here’s what it is: Turning the other cheek.”
Trump’s campaign confirmed this week that he’d boycott Fox’s Thursday debate after the network published a sarcastic press release mocking the casino tycoon as thin-skinned. The snarky Fox press release, which was reportedly written by Fox president Roger Ailes himself, came out after Trump asked his followed on social media whether he should even do the debate in the first place.
The billionaire businessman has been grumbling for days about the inclusion of Megyn Kelly as a debate moderator, arguing to anyone who would listen that she was “not nice” and “unfair” to him when she participated the first GOP debate in August.
“I don’t like being used,” Trump told O’Reilly. “I was not treated well by Fox, they came out with this ridiculous PR statement that was like drawn up by a child and it was a taunt.”
“And I said, how much of this do you take? I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly, I don’t think she’s very good at what she does, she’s highly overrated,” he added.
O’Reilly later appealed to Trump’s sense of patriotism, saying, “Come on! It’s about the country!”
“You lose an opportunity to persuade people that you are a strong leader,” he added later.
But none of it worked. Trump stuck to his guns, and said he fully intends to skip the debate on Jan. 28. The Trump campaign will stage a counter-campaign event scheduled for the same time as the Fox debate.
Defeated, O’Reilly sent Trump off with one last compliment.
“I don’t know any politician under these circumstances,” he said, “that would’ve come on and did what you did here tonight.”
