O’Reilly cancels CNN appearance

Bill O’Reilly canceled his scheduled appearance on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program on Thursday, citing his history with the network as the reason for backing out.  

O’Reilly had agreed to join Smerconish on his weekly Saturday program in August after the CNN host appeared on O’Reilly’s “No Spin News” online program.

“Bill O’Reilly called me yesterday, and although complimentary toward me personally, regarding me as a straight shooter and so on and so forth, said that because of his history with [CNN], he just wasn’t comfortable in coming on, at least not at this time,” Smerconish said on his Sirius XM radio program. 

{mosads}“There’s a lot of ground that I would have liked to have covered with him,” Smerconish added. “But that’s not going to happen. At least, not now.”

O’Reilly helped Sean Hannity deliver one of his highest-rated programs of the year on Tuesday night as nearly 4 million viewers tuned in for the 35-minute interview on “Hannity.” 

The interview was noteworthy in part because Hannity and O’Reilly were rarely seen on camera at the same time during their two decades-plus at Fox.

It also marked O’Reilly’s first appearance on Fox News since being ousted from the network on April 19 following allegations of sexual harassment. He has maintained his innocence, telling NBC’s Matt Lauer last week that the allegations are part of an orchestrated “political and financial hit job.”

O’Reilly and Fox paid about $13 million to settle complaints from five women that were brought against him going back to 2002.

The 68-year-old O’Reilly is on a media tour to promote his latest book, “Killing England.”