Appearing on the October 29 broadcast of ABC's Good Morning America, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly claimed that he told Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (IL) “face to face” that “Tyra Banks [on whose syndicated talk show Obama appeared on October 1] ain't gonna get you elected, OK?" adding: “You gotta go on the Factor, you gotta go on GMA and answer the questions. What has he been doing for six months? I guess he's been at Club Med. I haven't seen him.” In fact, co-host Robin Roberts interviewed Obama in New Orleans on the August 27 broadcast of Good Morning America, which co-host Diane Sawyer did not note.
The October 29 edition of The Note -- ABCNews.com's daily political newsletter -- highlighted O'Reilly's appearance on Good Morning America and quoted him as saying of Obama: "'What is his poll, 18 percent?' he said. 'What has he been doing for six months? I guess he's been on Club Med. I haven't seen him. Have you seen him?'" The Note simply omitted O'Reilly's assertion: “You gotta go on the Factor, you gotta go on GMA and answer the questions.”
O'Reilly's comments, as he said them on Good Morning America:
O'REILLY: Of course not! He's a -- this is ridiculous. What is his poll, 18 percent? Look, Obama -- and I told him this, face to face -- Tyra Banks ain't gonna get you elected, OK? You gotta go on the Factor, you gotta go on GMA and answer the questions. What has he been doing for six months? I guess he's been at Club Med. I haven't seen him. Have you seen him?
O'Reilly's comments as quoted in The Note:
A piece of punditry from the other end of the spectrum: Appearing on ABC's “Good Morning America,” Bill O'Reilly called it “ridiculous” to think that Obama could challenge Clinton: “What is his poll, 18 percent?” he said. “What has he been doing for six months? I guess he's been on Club Med. I haven't seen him. Have you seen him?” (He doesn't care much for the GOP field, either: “They're like B characters out of 'Dracula Has Risen From the Grave.”)
From the October 29 broadcast of Good Morning America:
SAWYER: I gotta ask you about politics before you go here.
O'REILLY: Sure.
SAWYER: All right, this is “Take Down Hillary Week,” I believe. Isn't it, George [Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's This Week]?
O'REILLY: Who's taking down Hillary?
SAWYER: It's take down --
O'REILLY: You doing that, Stephanopoulos, you traitor? Is he doing that? I'll slap him.
SAWYER: No, no, out there. Out there on the campaign trail. All the --
O'REILLY: Who's taking down Hillary? I'm outraged.
SAWYER: Obama, Edwards, they're all going after --
O'REILLY: Oh, the Democrats!
SAWYER: So can Obama, this week, turn it around? Does he have another round in him?
O'REILLY: Of course not! He's a -- this is ridiculous. What is his poll, 18 percent? Look, Obama -- and I told him this, face to face -- Tyra Banks ain't gonna get you elected, OK? You gotta go on the Factor, you gotta go on GMA and answer the questions. What has he been doing for six months? I guess he's been at Club Med. I haven't seen him. Have you seen him?
SAWYER: Let me ask you about the Republicans. Forty-one percent -- you quote this -- 41 percent of Americans can't name a Republican candidate.
O'REILLY: I know, 41 percent of Americans can't name a Republican because they're so exciting, Diane. These guys are so exciting, aren't they?
From the August 27 broadcast of Good Morning America:
BILL WEIR (co-host): Six billion dollars in federal aid has gone to cleanup and rebuilding, 256 miles of that city's floodwall system is now working, but they have another 100 miles to rebuild. And only about 7 percent of the residents in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward have come home. Less than 1,000 people in that neighborhood. Robin Roberts is in the Crescent City this morning for an exclusive interview with one of those presidential hopefuls, Senator Barack Obama. Robin, good morning.
ROBERTS: I'm here in New Orleans, Bill, a prime stop for presidential candidates from both parties, bringing promises of a better future for those still struggling two years after Katrina. They're here in an attempt to connect with voters but also to point out the Bush administration's shortcomings in fixing many problems that still exist, like those being forced to still live in trailers. I sat down with Barack Obama in one of the few homes rebuilt in this neighborhood and he told me about his own plan to rebuild the Gulf Coast.
OBAMA: We've got to get the -- the levees and the pumping stations working. But we also have to rebuild the wetlands and the marshes around the coast. We've got to rebuild our infrastructure. And so I want the federal government to focus on building police forces here. President Bill Clinton had a COPS [Community Oriented Policing Services] program that put 100,000 new police on the streets. We think we should at least have a focused program right here in New Orleans. We want to make sure that we've got additional moneys to attract doctors and nurses. And the same goes for our education system. We want to make sure that we're providing more money to attract teachers to come into this region. And then finally, just fixing the FEMA bureaucracy, making sure that applications take no more than two months to actually be processed and to get an answer back to homeowners.
ROBERTS: How do you go about doing that?
OBAMA: Some of it is just a function of who's in charge. And one of the things that we proposed is the FEMA director should be independent, should have a six-year term like the FBI director, not subject to politics, reporting directly to the president on this reconstruction process.
ROBERTS: Does that really change anything? And is it, is it better, perhaps, just to start from scratch where FEMA is concerned?
OBAMA: What we know is FEMA has worked in the past because it was independent, because it was managed by somebody who actually understood emergency management. And part of what I think the next president is going to have to do is to re-inspire a new generation of civil servants who wanna get into the federal government. And so we're gonna have to do some restoration in rebuilding that agency, in part because there's no reason to assume that this is the last controversy that we're -- or catastrophe that we're gonna be dealing with in the years to come.
ROBERTS: Also part of your plan, calling on the insurance companies --
OBAMA: Mm-hmm.
ROBERTS: -- to play a part when there's a catastrophe of some sort.
OBAMA: Yeah. Homeowners can't get help - get home insurance that is affordable. So what we've proposed is to have a catastrophic insurance component, a national catastrophic insurance reserve that is paid for in part by fees charged to the insurance companies that caps the kind of exposure that any single homeowner can have.
ROBERTS: This fund, in essence, a goodwill fund.
OBAMA: Yeah.
ROBERTS: And a lot of people are gonna say, “Well, Senator Obama, the insurance company, they have laid many roadblocks,” many people think --
OBAMA: Mm-hmm.
ROBERTS: -- in this recovery role. Is it realistic to think that they would be a part of something like this?
OBAMA: I think it's fair given the extraordinary profits that the insurance companies have been mounting over the years to say, “You've got to be a part of this, this process of solving this problem.” Insurance can't just be a profit-making machine where they don't have to pay. And when you finally have to pay, they walk away.
ROBERTS: But that's how it's been. How can you change that?
OBAMA: Well, I, I think you change it by having a president and a Congress that takes this problem seriously, that sits down with the insurance companies and says, “We believe in you making a profit, and we believe in the market, and we believe in insurance. But what we're not gonna allow you to do is to simply cherry-pick those profitable lines of business and not get involved when people desperately need insurance.”
ROBERTS: And late last week, Senator Clinton made a remark that raised a lot of eyebrows.
CLINTON [video clip]: But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world. And so I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that.
ROBERTS: How do you feel about what she said?
OBAMA: Everybody in America is committed to preventing terrorism from happening. That's not a partisan issue. And I don't think that there's room in this campaign or any campaign to use terrorism as a club to beat opponents over the head with. You know, Karl Rove and this administration perfected that politics of fear. And I think that part of what we wanna see is a -- is a change from that approach to one that says, “We're unified in making sure that America is secure.” And that's how I'm gonna approach this campaign.
ROBERTS: And you just recently said you would reach out to Republicans, that there are some key --
OBAMA: Mm-hmm.
ROBERTS: -- Republicans that you would bring in and want to work with.
OBAMA: Absolutely. Well, you know, there are people like Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, Dick Lugar from Indiana, John Warner from Virginia, who are very capable, smart people. I don't agree with them on every issue. But they do come out of a tradition that has been lost, and that is that foreign policy, you know, is one of those areas that shouldn't be subject to partisan politics, that our differences should end at the water's edge.
ROBERTS: And this week, there will be no fewer than five presidential candidates traveling to this region. We will continue our reports throughout the week. And on Wednesday, we'll be on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see where things stand two years later. Bill?