Congresswoman Maxine Waters said Bill O’Reilly “needs to go to jail” in an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday.
Waters, who represents 43rd congressional district, slammed O’Reilly for settling with multiple women who have accused him of sexual harassment. During the appearance on “All In With Chris Hayes,” she also referred to O’Reilly’s employer, Fox News, as a “sexual harassment enterprise” multiple times.
“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. You know, the president’s over there talking today about Susan Rice going to jail. They need to go to jail. Bill O’Reilly needs to go to jail.”
She also criticized President Donald Trump for standing up for O’Reilly earlier in the day, saying the comments “didn’t do himself any good.”
“It comes out of the mouth of someone who has said some terrible things about women,” Waters told Hayes. “I’m not surprised that he stood up and tried to defend Bill O’Reilly.”
On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O’Reilly have ponied up a whopping $13 million to settle five sexual harassment claims against the TV host. Two of the cases were previously known, including a high-profile 2004 settlement with former producer Andrea Mackris and a settlement in January with former on-air host Juliet Huddy. O’Reilly has denied all allegations.
So far, O’Reilly has mostly stayed mum on the scandal, only releasing a statement on his site Saturday denying the accusations. He similarly did not address the issue on his show on Wednesday night, which airs on Fox News in a time slot competing with “All In.”
But O’Reilly’s silence seems to have done little to quell advertiser’s jitters. Several dozen of his corporate sponsors announced they were dropping “The O’Reilly Factor” since the New York Times report was published on Saturday.
This is not the first time Waters has taken O’Reilly to task. During an appearance on Hayes’ show last week, the congresswoman said the Fox News host has “no credibility” after he joked that he “didn’t hear a word” of her speech because of her “James Brown wig.” O’Reilly apologized on his show the same day, calling the joke “dumb.”
Maxine Waters: 'O'Reilly needs to go to jail' https://t.co/Cwdcq1EHmK via @msnbc
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) April 6, 2017