Why Bill O’Reilly Is ‘Haunted’ by What He Told Trump Before Iran War

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has opened up about a conversation he had with President Donald Trump before the Iran War and how his own words now “haunt” him.

O’Reilly made the comments on NewsNation on Monday night (August 3) during an interview with host Leland Vittert. At one point in the discussion, Vittert asked O’Reilly if Trump was “intentionally sort of playing along” with the conflict with Iran so that he could end it closer to the midterm elections and give Republicans a boost.

The conservative commentator laughed off that suggestion, saying, “No, if [Trump] could get out of that thing now, tonight, he would.”

He then recalled a call he had with the president before the war with Iran began in late February. “In February, I talked to the president, just him and me,” O’Reilly shared, per Mediaite. “I said, ‘This is the biggest gamble you have ever taken in your entire life messing around with these people. They’re irrational.'”

“‘They are like the militants in Japan in World War II, in Germany in World War II, they’re not going to surrender,'” he continued. “‘It’s going to be exceedingly difficult, and you cannot count on the Persians to overthrow them.'”

O’Reilly said his own “words haunt me because it’s exactly how it came down.”

This is the second time in recent weeks that O’Reilly has admitted to being “haunted” by his past words. Last month, he said on his YouTube show that he regrets his support for the Iraq War.

“I made a mistake with the Iraq situation, and that haunts me to this day,” he stated. “And the reason I made that mistake is that I didn’t fully understand the facts of the matter. I was taking reporting from The New York Times and others that said [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein was harboring deadly weapons. OK?”

“Turned out to be wrong,” he added. “[He] didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction, and the chaos that ensued brought a lot of pain on America. I was wrong. I was wrong. Okay, there’s a reason I was wrong, but that still haunts me.”

On Sunday (August 2), Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that a peace deal with Iran is “imminent,” noting that talks to finalize the agreement will begin on Monday. He also claimed the deal will result in the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a guarantee that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.