Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) says Fox News host Bill O’Reilly should face jail time if he sexually harassed women.
“They have treated women very badly,” she told host Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s “All In” late Wednesday while discussing O’Reilly and Fox News. “This really is a sexual harassment enterprise. They need to go to jail. Bill O’Reilly needs to go to jail.
“It shouldn’t be in America that you can sexually harass women and buy your way out of it because you’re rich.”
{mosads}Reports emerged last Saturday that five women accusing O’Reilly of harassment received a total of $13 million for agreeing not to pursue litigation or discuss their accusations.
The women, who were reportedly paid by either Fox News or O’Reilly himself, alleged complaints including verbal abuse, unwanted advances, lewd comments and indecent phone calls.
More than 30 companies have since decided to pull their ads from “The O’Reilly Factor,” O’Reilly’s prime-time cable program.
President Trump in a Wednesday interview defended O’Reilly as a “good person” who should not have settled with his accusers.
Waters said later that day that Trump’s support for O’Reilly is unsurprising, given the president’s past treatment of women.
“Don’t forget [Trump] talked about grabbing women in their private parts, and because he was important he could get away with it. And so they are two of a kind,” she said.
Last month, O’Reilly mocked Waters for wearing “the James Brown wig.”
“I love her,” he said during an interview on “Fox & Friends.” “Maxine Waters should have her own sitcom.”
He later apologized.