Bill O’Reilly Responds to Orlando: ‘We Need a Declaration of War’
Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox talk program The O’Reilly Factor, critiqued the government’s response to the Orlando shootings on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Monday night. He agreed with Colbert that Donald Trump‘s response to the tragedy was self-congratulatory (or, as Colbert pointed out: complete grandstanding).
“Trump is betting that the United States wants an avenger,” O’Reilly said. “He’s making a political tool out of a terror attack … bringing a robust ‘I’m gonna get these guys’ [mentality].” While Clinton’s response was more nuanced, he said.
In response to the Orlando shooting, O’Reilly’s opinion was that Congress should pass a declaration of war against Islamic terrorist groups. An official declaration would broaden the authority of U.S. military to detain individuals suspected of hate crimes, such as Omar Mateen, he said. It would also draw NATO countries into the cause as opposed to “outsourcing the fight to the Kurds.”
“Guys like Mateen think ISIS is winning,” O’Reilly said. “Once the world sees these people are being annihilated, the whole thing of ‘we’re winning’ vanishes.” O’Reilly compared ISIS to the Third Reich. “Mateen used ISIS ideology to justify him killing gays because ISIS wants to kill gays, just like Hitler wanted to kill gays.”