Ailes mess to begin with. bill shine called me in response to my e-mail promising to deal with o reilly. by 8:00 p.m. that night, o reilly had apparently been dealt with. and by that i mean he was permitted with management s advance notice and blessing to go on the air and attack the company s harassment victims yet again. msnbc contributor dave sherman is a special correspondent at vanity affair who exposed roger ailes. the big news is the allegations of repeated harassment, nonconsensual sexual relationship, a term i m having a hard time getting my head around, sending of gay pornography to lis wheel who is a former fox news legal analyst. everyone s reaction to this is what the heck kind of settlement is $32 million? it s a shocking figure on its face. just for comparison, we look at the number gretchen carlson got $20 million to settle her claim with roger ailes.
Harassment claim for $32 million, and that the very next month after that settlement, fox news extended his contract for four more years at $25 million a year. quoting the times, it was at least the sixth agreement made by either mr. o reilly or the company to settle harassment allegations against him. 21st century fox said while it was aware of the statement when it renewed o reilly s contract that the terms were confidential and his new contract added protections for the company specifically aimed at harassment. 21st century fox is taking specific action to transform fox news. the company added that it did let o reilly go after further allegations came to light. and bill o reilly has defended himself, contesting the figures in the new york times article, in an interview on the new york times podcast daily. we have physical proof that this is bull [ bleep ], bull [ bleep ]. okay? so it s on you if you want to destroy my children further, all right, because it s all crap. this is
Through, horrible what my family went through. this is crap! and you know it. it s politically and financially motivated, and we can prove it shocking information. o reilly released a statement saying that the person involved in that settlement had repudiated allegations against him, and he painted fox news harassment claims as well par for the course. quote, here are the fax. after the chairman of fox news roger ailes was fired in july 2015, dozens of women accused scores, that s 20s, of male employees of fox news of harassment. o reilly also said he had never had one complaint filed against him by a coworker to human resources. but megyn kelly lodged a complaint. and today she described it. and that s next. and my hygienist says it does but they re not all the same. who knew? i had no idea.
People were taken aback when sarah sanders noted that it was unwise to engage in a debate with a four star general that is actually the point of the white house briefing is to make sure that the boss of all of the four star generals in this country are is held accountable and is subjected to questioning. yeah. we have a democratic republican in this country and civilian rule. nothing to sneeze at. i agree with you. that s sort of the point. josh earnest, thanks for joining me. thank you, chris. coming up, bill o reilly s profanity-laden rant in response to reports he paid a $32 million settlement. that s right after that break. we have physical proof that this is bull [ bleep ], bull [ bleep ], okay? this is horrible. it s horrible what i went through.
Greater than what gretchen carlson had. i thought it was incredibly revealing that in response, that o reilly s lawyers issue a statement saying you got to understand the context here, man. they re scores, scores of men have been accused of sexual harassment over fox news. and i couldn t tell if they were trying to say oh, everyone is accusing everyone of everyone. or hey, this is just the kind of workplace it was. it s a little bit of both. at its root, bill o reilly s defense is he was a victim. he is saying i m a powerful guy, people are going to come after me. i think the evidence speaks for itself. he over the years has spent according to the new york times more than $45 million of his own money and the company s money to settle claims with women. i mean, bill o reilly, this just