Bill O’Reilly Appears on CNN to Insist Trump ‘Can’t Discipline Himself’ Not To Take The Bait

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly appeared on CNN Thursday to tell host Laura Coates that he thought “neither candidate won” Tuesday’s ABC-hosted presidential debate showdown and lambasted former President Donald Trump for not being able to “discipline himself” enough to avoid taking the bait laid out by Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris .

In a very rare appearance on CNN conservative guest O’Reilly, host of the No Spin News show on The First, gave his scathing take on debate proceedings and performance, accusing Trump of going “Twilight Zone” on immigration and venturing into the “theater of the absurd” while blasting Harris for dodging questions.

When you are assessing a debate like this and you’re going to say, well, who won? The American people should be winners of all political debates. That did not happen on Tuesday night. So neither candidate won the debate on merits.

Mr. Trump allowed himself to be baited into talking about things that are totally irrelevant to our life in America today. I mean, totally. And the vice president simply wouldn’t answer any direct questions. I mean, I listed them. I think there were eight direct questions that she dodged the not answered and, unfortunately, the moderators did not hold the vice president accountable or follow up and say, as you and I would’ve said: ‘That’s nice, but you really didn’t answer the question.’ On that basis no one won. The American people didn’t win.

O’Reilly continued to criticize the “missed opportunities” for both candidates to lay out their policy positions for voters.

Kamala Harris obviously is dubious to many voters. All right, because they don’t know who she is. She doesn’t do interviews routinely. Her people keep her away from all press conferences. Any kind of unscripted event. Here’s an unscripted event that Kamala Harris could say: ‘Look. Here’s who I am, and this is what I believe.’ It’s not enough to say my values are the same. What values? What are you talking about? Is an open border? Value of yours, do you believe that foreign nationals you just pour in here and cause chaos is that a value? What happened to inflation? Why did it ignite so quickly? What kind of value is that? American working people are getting hurt. Those are the kinds of questions that the audience, all 60 million of them, wanted to hear.

Pivoting to Trump, O’Reilly laid out a similarly scathing assessment.

Donald Trump, for whatever reason, I don’t know, and I know the man as well as anybody on Earth. I wrote a book on Trump… I’ve known him about 35 years. He can’t discipline himself not to take the bait. So the vice president baits him with: ‘Have you ever been to a Trump rally? People leave.’ All trump had to say was you would be lucky to have the attendance I have, Mrs Vice President, at my rally.’ That’s it.

Coates asked O’Reilly about Trump’s tangents, discussing unfounded claims that immigrants are eating pets in Ohio, and whether it was “worth it strategically to try to address every insult” instead of pushing back on Harris on the issue “and talk about what could have been the Achilles heels.” O’Reilly agreed, suggesting Trump could have raised the incidences where immigrants have killed citizens or engaged in gang violence.

You’re absolutely correct – 100% correct. Why bother with that? When you’re asked a question about undocumented people causing trouble in the country and you go into somebody’s eating a cocker spaniel. That’s the Twilight Zone. All you do is go, one name: Laken Riley . That’s all. Then you go: Aurora, Colorado. I mean, you don’t go into the theater of the absurd, but for some reason, the former president likes that theater any loses credibility by doing that.

Watch above on CNN.