Bill O'Reilly needs to be tougher on Donald Trump, according to television critic David Zurawik.
Zurawik appeared on the "O'Reilly Factor" Thursday to discuss his recent column in The Baltimore Sun, titled "Could cable news hosts kiss up any harder to Donald Trump?" In the column, Zurawik called out the Fox News host for his softball interview with Trump last week.
"You are so good at this genre -- you have so mastered performance in this genre -- that you are like a wrestler who can look like he is giving someone a fierce bark, body slam, but you're really not hurting them," Zurawik told O'Reilly on the show.
He pointed out that while O'Reilly did ask Trump tough questions about his positions on immigration, he ended the interview asking for the candidate's approval, asking him, "Was this interview fair?"
O'Reilly defended himself on that point, saying, "All that is, is basically after a tough interview -- which that was -- is just having a little goodbye, thanks for being here and all of that."
Later in the interview, Zurawik said O'Reilly should be tougher on Trump because of the way the business mogul has attacked his colleague, Fox News host Megyn Kelly, after Kelly asked Trump during the first Republican presidential debate about his history of sexist comments.
"I remember when NPR fired Juan Williams, how you guys came out breathing fire as a tribe at Fox and defended him," Zurawik said, referring to the NPR analyst who was fired after making offensive comments about Muslims. "I think you should be doing that on behalf of what Trump is trying to do to Megyn Kelly."