Politics

Jon Stewart to Bill O’Reilly on Justice Dept-FNC investigation: ‘Troubling,’ ‘overreaching,’ ‘upsetting’

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
Font Size:

Although they’re known to butt heads occasionally, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly and left-leaning Comedy Central host Jon Stewart agree that the recent scandal involving the Department of Justice monitoring journalists is cause for worry.

“I got to tell you something and I hesitate to say this — but, boy, is that a troubling scandal,” Stewart told O’Reilly on Wednesday’s “The Daily Show.”

“I don’t know exactly what this is, but it appears that the Department of Justice is really overreaching with journalists,” Stewart continued. “And that is upsetting.”

Later on in the segment, Stewart asked O’Reilly, the author of Keep it Pithy, what it was like for the president’s critics at Fox News to hear of the White House scandals.

STEWART: How is it going over there? So for five years, everything over there is on Defcon-one, red alert. The president is socialist, you know, Marxist. He’s destroying the country. You’re throwing everything against the wall, he is trying to — Muslims and things, the Muslim Brotherhood. You finally have a few things that really look worth investigating.
O’REILLY: Right.
STEWART: Is it joy? Is it sexual arousal? Like, what is — what is the feeling over there?
O’REILLY: Look — I have been too easy on the man, and now I’m the — the real people don’t like him — “I told you!” They’re giving that to me.
STEWART: I know.
O’REILLY: And this is serious business because it looks like the president just simply doesn’t know what’s going on within his administration.
STEWART: Don’t you think they’re trying to make a case for plausible deniability?
O’REILLY: Of course. And I said that today. That’s not only in politics but it is in corporations as well. Keep it away from him, this and that. But the president sets a tone, like you set a tone for this program.

Follow Jeff on Twitter