Fox host Bill O'Reilly defended Donald Trump, claiming he's never seen the GOP presidential hopeful show any racism, while correcting Trump's insensitive and wildly inaccurate tweet that falsely claimed that African-Americans are responsible for more than 80 percent of murders against whites. FBI crime data shows that the majority of murders are committed by members of the same race.
Donald Trump faced widespread criticism after tweeting a racially-charged graphic that falsely claimed that 81 percent of white murder victims are killed by people of color:
On the November 13 edition of his show, O'Reilly interviewed Trump, who claimed he was “probably the least racist person on Earth.” O'Reilly agreed with him, commenting “I never saw any racism from you,” then immediately criticized Trump's racist tweet, explaining to him that the statistic is “totally wrong”:
O'REILLY (HOST): Are you aware that the liberal media and the Democratic Party in general are trying to paint you as a racist? Are you aware of that?
TRUMP: I think so. But I think people know better than that. I'm probably the least racist person on Earth.
O'REILLY: Well I have known you a long time --
TRUMP: I think people know better than that.
O'REILLY: -- I never saw any racism from you. However, when you tweet out a thing, and this bothered me, I got to tell you. You tweeted out that whites killed by blacks -- these are statistics you picked up from somewhere -- at a rate of 81 percent. And that's totally wrong. Whites killed by blacks is 15 percent, yet you tweeted it was 81 percent.
TRUMP: Bill, I didn't tweet. I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert and also a radio show.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but you don't want to be -- why do you want to be in that zone?
TRUMP: Bill. Bill. Am I going to check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people @realdonaldtrump by the way.
O'REILLY: You got to. You are a presidential contender you got to check it.
TRUMP: I have millions of people. You know what, fine, but this came out of radio shows and everything else.
O'REILLY: Oh come on, radio shows?
TRUMP: Excuse me. All it was is a retweet. It wasn't from me. And it did. It came out of radio show and other places, because you see all the names --
O'REILLY: Look, you know I'm looking out for you, right? You know that? That I'm looking out for you? I look out for every honest politician, I don't care what party they are in. Don't do this. Don't put your name on stuff like this. Because it makes the other side, it gives them stuff to tell the ill-informed voter that you are a racist. I mean, you just handed them a platter.
According to 2014 FBI data, approximately 82 percent of white Americans were killed by other white Americans in murders where the race of both the victim and offender were known. Additionally, Trump's graphic was sourced to the “Crime Statistics Bureau - San Francisco,” which does not exist.
Trump has made numerous xenophobic and racially-charged comments that were defended and praised by right-wing media. In July, Trump called Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists,” and later cited an “unabashedly racist” deportation plan created during the Eisenhower presidency, dubbed “Operation Wetback,” as an example for his deportation policy. Recently, Trump inaccurately claimed that thousands of Muslim-Americans cheered when the World Trade Center buildings fell, and when asked about a Black Lives Matter protester who was beaten at one of his rallies, Trump responded that, “Maybe he should have been roughed up.”