By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-18 16:48:40 | Updated at 2026-07-27 00:25:19
1 week ago
Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has lauded longtime liberal Bill Maher's no-nonsense performance on NPR earlier this week.
The 70-year-old Real Time host took a stab at NPR Newsmakers' Steve Inskeep during the Wednesday appearance. He suggested the organization has been radicalized to the 'extreme-left' in recent years.
O'Reilly, 76, said he saw Maher's take as 'brutally honest' on Thursday.
'Maher's not wrong,' he explained to viewers of his new interview podcast, We'll Do It LIVE!
'NPR lost its government funding... and so did PBS, because, they are.'
O'Reilly laid out his belief that a lack of diverse viewpoints in both stations' coverage had caused them to become stale.
'It’s boring to me. Boring, okay?' O’Reilly said. 'There’s nothing on there that I want to listen to, because I know what they’re gonna say and what they’re gonna do. They never surprise you.
Longtime Fox News host Bill O'Reilly praised political foil Bill Maher this week after the pundit's 'brutally honest' appearance on an NPR podcast
The 70-year-old Real Time host took a stab at NPR Newsmakers's Steve Inskeep during the Wednesday appearance. He suggested the organization has radicalized to the 'extreme-left' in recent years
'It's right down the line. And other news operations are the same way. They know who their audience is,' he continued.
O'Reilly - a Fox News journalist for more than 20 years - warned how modern news organizations essentially 'pay for research' that helps them monetize consumers' political beliefs.
'And the problem is that the management gets a hold of this research, and they pay a lot of money for it, and then they tell their people, "Hey, don't go against the orthodoxy,"' O'Reilly said.
The result was daily helpings of 'progressive soup' from NPR, according to the anchor.
O'Reilly added of Maher: 'And he's right. Anybody who thinks that NPR and PBS are fair brokers of information is just a lunatic. They're not.'
'They don't even have to compete for money because they are donation driven now,' he added.
The private broadcasting body previously responsible for funneling federal funds from Congress to NPR, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), was shut down in January 2025, after officials argued the outlet's coverage was not in the best interest of the country.
Months before, representatives grilled NPR CEO Katherine Maher about a disparity in staff political affiliations, after filings revealed not a single employee at the station was a registered Republican and that eighty-seven were Democrats.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) - the private broadcasting body previously responsible for funneling federal funds from Congress to NPR - was shut down in January
Congress successfully voted last year to claw back $1.1 billion previously poised to bolster public media via a bill titled 'No Partisan Radio and Partisan Broadcasting Services Act' (the NPR and PBS Act).
Katherine Maher and NPR maintained the decision to do away with federal funding was politically motivated and that rural communities that rely on NPR's local stations saw most of the federal money.
Federal funding, meanwhile, only accounted for 1 percent of NPR's annual revenue.
Maher - long considered a classical liberal and a foil to O'Reilly - called out Inskeep on Wednesday for a shift similar to the one O'Reilly described.
'Your audience is gonna love this, by the way,' he said at one point, after chiding progressives for supporting Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
'The audience is a little more diverse than you might think,' Inskeep, 58, replied.
'Really?' Maher managed. 'I mean, I'm surprised you even had me on.'
As Inskeep laughed, the HBO star explained in a serious tone: 'Because I just - I just think of this place as so different than what it used to be.'
'Maher's not wrong,' O'Reilly said, before suggesting NPR's content has become predictable and stale
Inskeep laughed off Maher's remarks during the interview, visibly eager to move on
He lamented the loss of an era where people 'engage' with opposing arguments.
'Tell me if I'm wrong about something. And then we're gonna be cool,' Maher said. 'But that's not what either extreme does in this country anymore.'
O'Reilly launched We'll Do It LIVE! in March. O'Reilly was fired from Fox News in 2017 following a report from The New York Times that revealed he settled five lawsuits that alleged sexual misconduct
The title references the conservative's infamous outburst as anchor of the syndicated newsmagazine 'Inside Edition' in the early 90s, a blooper that went viral upon its release as an early video on YouTube in 2008.
The new show is part of O’Reilly’s latest effort to expand his media presence as an independent journalist, following more than 20 years with Fox.
Maher, meanwhile, launched Real Time in 2003. He has soured on Democrats since the 2024 election.
