Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested during a Monday night interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that he had been informed of a question in advance, an idea the network disputes.
O'Reilly asked Trump if a Boston Globe report that he paid men working for his campaign a third more than women was true.
“The answer is no," Trump responded. "And I just had to check because I heard that this was going to be a question. I don’t know. I have a good source and somebody said that this could be a question.” (See video around 4:50.)
During a January interview, Trump said O’Reilly had agreed in advance to not ask him about his decision to skip a Fox News Republican debate. O’Reilly said Trump was telling the truth about their conversation, but also that he’s “not going to listen to any political person tell me don’t ask me anything.”
While "The O'Reilly Factor" has been largely friendly territory for Trump this election cycle, it would go beyond mere coziness to provide a presumptive presidential nominee with questions in advance of an interview.
David Tabacoff, senior executive producer for "The O'Reilly Factor," said in a statement that "we never, ever tell the guests what questions will be asked."
"Bill O'Reilly is the only person who knows what exactly he'll ask," Tabacoff continued. "We treated this interview like we treat all other guests on the program."
O'Reilly's question about the Globe report came after the Fox News host argued early in the broadcast that Judge Gonzalo Curiel should recuse himself from presiding over civil fraud lawsuits against Trump University given the controversy generated by Trump's baseless attack on the judge and possible perceptions of unfairness.
Trump has said the Indiana-born Curiel cannot fairly judge the Trump University cases because he's of Mexican heritage, a blatantly racist argument that an American citizen's ethnicity should prevent him or her from doing their job.
Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple wrote Tuesday that O'Reilly had followed Trump down the "racist hellhole" in calling for the judge's recusal.
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.
