Bill O'Reilly, Tavis Smiley And Cornel West Have Fiery Clash Over Wall Street, Poverty

Bill O'Reilly welcomed radio host Tavis Smiley and Prof. Cornel West onto his Tuesday show. The resulting dust-up was nothing short of a cable news classic.

Smiley and West have become a bona fide double act, regularly making the cable news rounds. O'Reilly brought them on to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and poverty in America. He set up the conversation by saying that the two were overlooking key statistics in their battle against poverty that showed the problem to be as much one of "personal responsibility" as economic injustice. Then, he turned to West.

"Where am I going wrong?" he asked. West said that his "lens" was wrong, and that he was overlooking the widening economic inequality in America. "The oligarchs and plutocrats that you tend to want to promote rather intensely [are] not only doing well but been too greedy!" he said. "I don't think I'm promoting anybody who's doing untoward things," O'Reilly said. "We're talking about chronic excess!" West responded, causing O'Reilly to try to shut him up. "No filibustering here," O'Reilly snapped.

He said that what Smiley and West seemed to want was for the government to "forcibly seize" money from the rich and give it to the poor. "That's socialism and that's not going to work here," he concluded.

"It wasn't socialism when we bailed out the banks in the first place?" Smiley said. He started to say that O'Reilly had been "right" in a recent attack on Stanley O'Neal, the former head of Merril Lynch. O'Reilly misheard him.

"Lied about it?!" he thundered. "What do you mean i lied about it?!"

"I said you were right!" Smiley said. "R-i-g-h-t!" O'Reilly apologized, and assured his guests he was "calm." Things got a lot less calm right afterwards, though. Smiley asked why O'Reilly was focusing on O'Neal, one of the few black CEOs of a major firm, causing O'Reilly to shout, "we treat everybody the same here!" Smiley disagreed, and wondered why, when Occupy Wall Street protesters were being arrested, no "bankster" had gone to jail "to pay for his crimes."

"They didn't violate any laws!" O'Reilly said, prompting Smiley and West to essentially lose it. "OOOOOHHHHHHHH!" they both said together. "How do you know?!" West yelled. "There's been no investigations! Why would you say something like that?!"

"All right, knock it off!" O'Reilly fired back. "...You don't have any evidence!" West countered that, with no investigation, no criminality could be proven. "You take your law school at Princeton, you develop an illegality and I will put it on the air," O'Reilly said.

WATCH:

Comments

[Shaas]

05:42 AM on 10/19/2011

Why an essentially good guy has to be always on the wrong side?
Come on, Bill, it is so obvious: Banksters as the bearer of capitalism get state money, people's money, unearned money. Socialism is HERE already - in your own yard!

[Dorian Mode]

08:32 PM on 10/16/2011

If my sweet Susie needs a new BMW, I'll just fire you, to pay for it, oh wait, I'll have to fire your friends too, because an new BMW, cost more than 2 people makes.

[Lyaeus 10]

06:11 PM on 10/16/2011

By the way, why is there any outrage for what O'reily said? He has stated previously he is only in this for the profit. He made that clear last week with his "if taxes go up I might quit" nonsense. It doesn't take much thought to realize what he said is this, "my motivation for doing this show has nothing do with truth, entertainment, or enlightening my audience. It is purely about the profit I can make shilling conservatism, so if I can't make the profit I want, I will quit doing it." Does anybody out there want to argue greed leads to honesty and truth. I would love to hear that analysis.

[Lyaeus 10]

06:06 PM on 10/16/2011

I didn't know the conservatives had changed their position on housing and feeding people with substance abuse problems. Best I can recall they have spent the last 30 years arguing the opposite. In fact they have argued we should pay a premium to house, feed, and clothe people with drug problems. Their incessant ranting that tougher sentencing would solve the drug problem and win the drug war has led the U.S. to have the highest incarceration rate in the world. It costs roughly $40,000 state and $70,000 federally to house, feed, and clothe drug addicts. Welfare costs nowhere near these amounts. The increased sentencing for non violent drug addicts has been pushed relentlessly by conservatives for 30 years so I find them to be complete hypocrites when they make the sort of arguments O'reily did the other night. Incidentally he is one for very harsh sentencing because of his fear of drug addicts. He is as big a hyporcite as one could possibly find. Why conservatives don't see jails as social spending I will never understand. I think it some sort of Orwellian doublethink that I can't do.

[Karma2U]

04:27 PM on 10/15/2011

Billo would argue in a room by himself - and still loose.

[runnerin1]

03:05 PM on 10/15/2011

Most of the 9% of substance abusers are employed or affluent. We have luxurious rehab facilities all across the country. You think the poor are among their clients?

[the griff]

11:31 PM on 10/14/2011

Bill is so uninformed if he thinks the unemployed are not being responsible. What a stupid comment. There are no jobs Bill because there are no manufacturing facilities left in this country hardly.. Our government encouraged companies to shiut down in theS and gave them grant money to move outside the borders. Corporate Welfare. Check it out in the General Accounting web site.

[yoosurhead1]

04:26 PM on 10/17/2011

I think that hits it on the head, every time. This thought that if you're unemployed, 'it's because you just don't want to work'....it's the most ridiculous, predujicial thought that's out there....They just don't take the thime to actually see what's going on around them because it would shoot down fantasyland....

[SeaShell226]

01:31 PM on 10/14/2011

more protection of the rich...

[Ajax Johnson]

01:04 PM on 10/14/2011

Substance abuse is the CAUSE of poverty in this nation? -Huh?
He asks his guests a 10 cent question, "show proof bankers violated any law."
Then he expects a Billion dollar Doctoral dissertation in 30 seconds.

We just saw the CEO of the Scandalous Hewlett Packard receive about $25 million in Severance and rewards. And there were 3 HP CEOs involved in scandal in the last 6 years with similar compensation.

Hank Paulson left Goldman with $600 million.

Law violation or no law violation, I sense 99% of us are being raped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HpKiM-CGZ4&feature=youtu.be

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/greenspan-and-paulson/

[moneyernest]

08:18 AM on 10/14/2011

Two dynamic brothers (Tavis Smiley & Cornel West). They made Bill O'Reilly look like the fool that he is.

[ALPHAKITA]

08:22 PM on 10/16/2011

On the contrary.

[TimothyD11]

06:32 AM on 10/14/2011

Ther goes O'Really? again - bringing pebbles to a nuclear bomb fight.

[vmf211]

06:21 AM on 10/14/2011

Man Bill had those guys tougne tied when he asked them what law did the banks and wall st break and prove it. They had nothing.

[Deborah H]

06:42 PM on 10/14/2011

THOSE BANKERS ARE SMILING WHILE THEY SPEND THE MONEY YOU LOST ON YOUR 401 K, TEE HEE YOU AND O'REILLY OUGHT TO FEEL REAL GOOD ABOUT THAT!

[Joshua Helix Guzman]

03:50 AM on 10/14/2011

Ugh, Bill... why do people even listen to your childish tantrums? Anyone that doesn't agree with you gets yelled at and spoken over, yet you say you're fair-minded. BS! I wish Stephen Colbert would royally own you... AGAIN.

[Shenygirl1]

02:36 AM on 10/14/2011

O'Reilly has become the crusader and defender of greed and selfishness. And he has the gall to call himself a christian. He is a joke and receives very little respect or admiration and that is why he is constantly attempting to pump himself up.

[jokamachi]

02:10 AM on 10/14/2011

bill intentionally mishears things - "right" vs. "lied" - in an effort to detail tavis' accusation... clever stuff - then bill gets all ah shucks and delivers the tough guy o'reilly for his final blow... but later gets sympathetic and seemingly impartial... the man knows how to dance about