O’Reilly defends Trump’s Civil War comments, attacks Dan Rather

Fired Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday defended President Trump’s assertion that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War, attacking former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and other Trump critics as “morons.”

“You may have seen a bunch of people on cable news, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t really miss it, saying that President Trump is a moron for saying that Andrew Jackson might have prevented the Civil War because of Jackson’s skills in running the country,” O’Reilly said on his “No Spin News” nightly podcast. 

“So Dan Rather, who knows very little about history, and others go out and they hammer Trump like he’s a moron.” 

{mosads}Rather, who anchored “CBS Evening News” from 1981 to 2005, on Monday ripped Trump for saying that the United States’ seventh president, who owned slaves, would have been able to stop the Civil War had he been alive at the time, calling Trump’s knowledge of history “below that of most gradeschoolers.”

“The sheer craziness of this obsession by Donald Trump with Andrew Jackson and the Civil War is carnival act unlike anything I have ever seen at the White House,” Rather wrote on Facebook.

“Nevermind that Mr. Trump’s knowledge of American history seems below that of most gradeschoolers. These are the rantings of someone who really should be focused on the job of governing.”

O’Reilly sought to respond by reading a letter written about Jackson and the Civil War by former President Harry Truman. 

“History will tell you however that Old Buck, that’s President James Buchanan who is in office right before Abraham Lincoln, was short on decision and had he acted with the firmness of Andrew Jackson, for instance, in his dealing with the problems of the South the war between the states might well have been averted,” Truman wrote in 1952.    

“Trump was right,” O’Reilly said. “Andrew Jackson would not have tolerated any secession movement at all and would have moved federal troops much faster into the problem situations. James Buchanan, Old Buck, did nothing. He was afraid. And that emboldened the South. End of historical story.” 

Trump asked during a Monday interview why the Civil War, the deadliest conflict in U.S. history, happened.

“People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War?” Trump asked during an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Why could that one not have been worked out?”

“I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War,” Trump added. “He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.”

O’Reilly, who was fired by Fox News last month following a report that five women were paid $13 million to settle sexual harassment allegations, told listeners to ignore what they hear on cable news.

“These morons that you see on cable news, just turn them off. Just turn them off because you are never going to get an honest story,” O’Reilly advised. “They know nothing.”

O’Reilly received $25 million in severance following his exit, according to several reports. The 67-year-old had recently signed a four-year contract worth $100 million.