By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-04-03 15:06:47 | Updated at 2025-04-04 08:43:20
17 hours ago
Former Fox News star Bill O'Reilly had some full-throated advice for Donald Trump when it comes to Elon Musk on Wednesday.
Speaking on the set of on NewsNation's Cuomo, the 75-year-old commentator told Trump to ditch the Tesla boss before its too late.
The conversation largely surrounded a Politico report published earlier in the day, which suggested Trump had informed his Cabinet and inner circle that Musk will soon be stepping down from DOGE.
'As I said very early on, Musk is a short-timer,' O’Reilly began, speaking to former CNN host Chris Cuomo. 'It's just too hot. You just can’t have a guy that hot.'
'He did a good job exposing the government waste. But now, the technicians should take over,' the ex-O'Reilly Factor anchor added, 'I think he'll remain a Trump advisor, but I do think he'll go back to the private sector.
'You don’t need Elon to go out and sell, it’s sold,' O'Reilly added of the initiative. 'Most Americans know that we’re being fleeced, the taxpayer’s being fleeced - so he's accomplished what he wanted to accomplish.'
O'Reilly and Cuomo were both fired by their old, respective networks for alleged misconduct. O'Reilly is now the boss of his own media venture, No Spin News.
His fellow former Fox News colleague Geraldo Rivera was present for the debate as well, and had a much harsher assessment.
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Former Fox News star Bill O'Reilly told Donald Trump to ditch DOGE boss Elon Musk on Wednesday
The conversation largely surrounded a Politico report published earlier in the day, which suggested Trump had informed his Cabinet and inner circle that Musk will be stepping down
'He did it to terrible job in Wisconsin. He did a terrible job in Wisconsin,' Rivera, 81, said, referring to how Musk spent some $20 million to help Judge Brad Schimel win the state's Supreme Court race. Schimel was the Wisconsin AG from 2015 to 2019.
O'Reilly, fired from Fox following claims of sexual harassments from an employee, nodded his head in agreement.
'He tried to buy the votes,' Rivera insisted, two years after he quit the network after being fired from the network panel show The Five.
'He tried to buy the votes,' Rivera again repeated, insisting Musk had made the state Supreme Court race a 'seminal' one.
'He said it was historic. He said it was it basically the end of history,' Rivera said, as O'Reilly expressed disapproval.
'This was the end of an era - It's going to be that Trump euphoria, Trump Valhalla, you Know' Rivera said, speaking from the perspective of a MAGA fanbase.
'And they lost the race. He spent $25 million on a judge - on a judge election,' he emphasized. 'I mean, if People, if Wisconsin looked at that, they started to see this is a guy trying to buy [influence].
'You can't buy love. You can't buy my vote,' Rivera concluded, saying of Musk: 'And I think that whether he stays or not, he's degraded.'
'As I said very early on, Musk is a short-timer,' O’Reilly, 75, began, speaking to the former CNN host and onetime colleague Geraldo Rivera. 'It's just too hot. You just can’t have a guy that hot. He did a good job exposing the government waste. But now, the technicians should take over'
The comments spurred some pushback from Rivera's longtime colleague, who was forced to fork over $9million to former Fox New producer Andrea Mackris to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit against him in 2017.
'Anything Elon Musk had to do with the loss in Wisconsin, it would have shown up on the exit polling,' an exasperated O'Reilly maintained. 'I'm a very a fact based guy.
'I don't know this guy who lost - so, today, I put my Investigators on it. It wasn't hard to get exit polling information.
'And it came back: too conservative, way too strident on abortion,' he insisted, before adding, 'He wasn’t a good candidate, by the way.'
Then 33 and on the cusp of a promising career with the Roger Ailes-run network, Mackris filed a suit against O'Reilly that recalled lewd, menacing calls and conversations with her then boss that saw her forced to listen to his sexual fantasies.
'I’m going to make you play,' O’Reilly would tell her, she claimed the Daily Beast in 2021, detailing O'Reilly's alleged misconduct after the settlement, after signing an NDA that kept her quiet until then.
'Here was my boss, a man who held my career and future in his hands, acknowledging that he knew I’d never consented but he didn’t care,' the now 55-year-old said at the time, spurring a response from Fox News
'The claims outlined in this report took place under the leadership of Roger Ailes, who along with Bill O’Reilly and the management referred to here, have been long gone from the network,' a spokesperson said in a statement.
'He did it to terrible job in Wisconsin. He did a terrible job in Wisconsin,' Rivera, 81, said, referring to how Musk spent some $20 million to help Judge Brad Schimel win the state's Supreme Court race. Cuomo presided over the pair's debate
O'Reilly was forced to fork over $9million to former Fox New producer Andrea Mackris to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit against him in 2017. She was 33 at the time his alleged harassment started in 2004
More recently, O'Reilly posted a video to his YouTube of himself, Cuomo, and ESPN's Stephen A. Smith bantering behind the scenes of his No Spin News. As it stands, the page has just shy of 900,000 subscribers
'Since the summer of 2016 [when Ailes was fired for his sexual misconduct], Fox News has worked tirelessly to transform the company culture.'
More recently, O'Reilly posted a video to his YouTube of himself, Cuomo, and ESPN's Stephen A. Smith bantering behind the scenes of his No Spin News.
As it stands, the page has just shy of 900,000 subscribers, showing O'Reilly's massive following.
