O'Reilly: “Cavuto actually stuck up for the president during the interview with Brown”

From the May 5 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: So, my question is, Why does the White House care what Michael Brown says? Look, we can't control what the guests say. Cavuto actually stuck up for the president during the interview with Brown. So Talking Points believes the deal is phony, a canard, a charade.

Reality: Cavuto let Brown's claims go unchallenged

Brown: Cleanup delay is “pure politics.” During the May 3 edition of Fox News' Your World, Brown commented: “You're now nine days into the storm -- into the disaster, and actually now, only now is the president appearing to be engaged. And I think the delay was this. It's pure politics. This president has never supported big oil. He has never supported offshore drilling. And now he has an excuse to shut it back down.” Cavuto responded: “So, Michael, you don't take him at face value when he says a temporary halt in offshore drilling is just that, a temporary halt?”

Brown suggested administration deliberately "[l]et this crisis get really bad." Brown later stated: “And I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know what, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in. We will be able to shut down offshore drilling. We will be able to turn to all these alternate fuels.” Cavuto responded: “So, by constantly referring to this as the BP spill, the BP leak, the BP disaster, that there's a method to that, right?”

From the May 3 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

BROWN: First of all, you have a disaster occurs, and the Coast Guard shows up immediately. That's their job. In Katrina, FEMA showed up immediately. The president is off in San Diego strumming the guitar. Obama is back East going to White House Correspondents Dinner. You're now nine days into the storm -- into the disaster, and actually now, only now is the president appearing to be engaged.

And I think the delay was this. It's pure politics. This president has never supported big oil. He has never supported offshore drilling. And now he has an excuse to shut it back down.

You've already heard Bill Nelson, senator from Florida, talking about offshore drilling is DOA. They played politics with this crisis and left the Coast Guard out there by themselves doing what they're supposed to do.

CAVUTO: So, Michael, you don't take him at face value when he says a temporary halt in offshore drilling is just that, a temporary halt?

BROWN: No, no. Look, Bill Nelson -- and, you know, they don't say these things without it being coordinated. And so now you're looking at this oil slick approaching, you know, the Louisiana shore, according to certain -- NOAA and other places, if the winds are right, it will go up the East Coast.

This is exactly what they want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, “I'm going to shut it down because it's too dangerous.” While Mexico and China and everybody else drills in the Gulf. We're going to get shut down.

[...]

BROWN: The media has been ignoring it for two weeks. You don't think that there were -- look, they could have gotten on helicopters. They probably were on helicopters. We had other reconnaissance images from there.

But we only started to see them when it started to approach the Louisiana coast. And, then, oh, my God, look, we got to do something. I just -- I think the media sat back. And I would not be surprised if the White House said, you know what, we might be able to, guess what, do what? Use this crisis to our advantage. Let this crisis get really bad, and then we will step in. We will be able to shut down offshore drilling. We will be able to turn to all these alternate fuels.

And I think the problem they have right now is, they waited too long.

CAVUTO: So, by constantly referring to this as the BP spill, the BP leak, the BP disaster, that there's a method to that, right?

BROWN: Oh, absolutely.