Bill O’Reilly railed against Fox News after it unexpectedly settled a lawsuit against it from Dominion Voting Systems for more than $787 million, saying “the nightmare will continue” at the cable company where he used to be a mainstay.
“Big energy in liberal media corridors as Fox News is punished for foolish coverage of the 2020 election,” O’Reilly said in a statement on his website. “This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information. Since I left FNC [Fox News Corp], the template changed from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘tell the audience what it wants to hear.’”
O’Reilly, who was one of the company’s main attractions for more than 20 years with his show “The O’Reilly Factor,” left Fox News in 2017 after he and the company settled lawsuits with a number of women who accused the host of misconduct.
Fox News was facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion, which was centered on the cable network’s coverage of former President Trump and his allies’ false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The suit was settled just hours before opening arguments in the trial started Tuesday in Delaware.
O’Reilly said in the statement that when he told his audience he did not think federal courts would accept the allegations of election fraud by former President Trump, he lost “more than one thousand premium members.”
“So be it. I did my job,” O’Reilly said. “Money is not the motivating force in this operation.”
He argued Fox News “saw it differently” and said the “nightmare” will go on at the cable company, citing its vulnerability to lawsuits from other voting system companies and company shareholders.
“Fox News saw it differently, and now payment has been rendered,” O’Reilly said. “But the nightmare will continue for FNC.”
The Hill has reached out to Fox News for comment.