Watch: Bill O’Reilly Goes Ballistic

Posted on Mar 6, 2013

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“O’Reilly Factor” host Bill O’Reilly is known for sometimes throwing vitriolic and angry tantrums on his program, but his rage reached a new level on Tuesday night when he erupted at liberal guest Alan Colmes.

The Fox News host became visibly heated during a discussion over the recently implemented sequester when Colmes, responding to the suggestion that President Obama hadn’t proposed anything specific to replace the indiscriminate budget cuts, pointed out the president had offered congressional Republicans “$2.50 in tax cuts for every dollar.” He cited Medicare and Medicaid as specific examples.

The comment incensed O’Reilly and he accused Colmes of being a liar.

“That’s not specific,” O’Reilly yelled. “He has to say here are the programs that are going to go down. Here is how we are going to reform Medicare and Social Security, and the man refuses to do it.”

Colmes responded, “What do you want to yell for?” 

An angry O’Reilly screamed, “Because you are lying. You are lying.” 

After going back and forth on the issue for a couple of minutes, O’Reilly ended the segment by calling the whole thing “bull-blank.”

So who was right? Well, for all his shouting it wasn’t O’Reilly. As Media Matters noted, “Colmes is correct: Obama has proposed $400 billion in cuts to federal health spending, which includes a $140 billion reduction in ‘payments to drug companies’ and a $25 billion reduction for Medicaid and affiliated programs.”

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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