In a bizarre turn of events, Donald Trump has come off seeming less racist than the person who interviewed him. In an “O’Reilly Factor” interview on Tuesday, host Bill O’Reilly focused on the lack of employment across the nation. But in asking about Trump’s strategy for appealing to African-Americans, O’Reilly couldn’t resist diving in with his own theories.

Ironically, the interview began with O’Reilly adamantly defending Trump against recent charges of racism, claiming he’s known Trump for 30 years and has never seen a sign of racism from him. “What’s your message to African-Americans?” O’Reilly finally asked, to which Trump simply responded that he will “bring jobs back.”

The fact that Trump reduced a significant portion of the population to a single issue was overshadowed by O’Reilly jumping in to explain his own worries:

How are you going to get jobs for them? Many of them are ill-educated and have tattoos on their foreheads, and I hate to be generalized about it, but it’s true. If you look at all the educational statistics, how are you going to give jobs to people who aren’t qualified for jobs?

Trump continued to assert his strategy—he’ll bring jobs to America, simple as that—but O’Reilly refused to stop pressing the issue. He seemed determined to get Trump to agree with him on the outlandish idea that most African-Americans are less capable of skilled work. “You gotta get into the infrastructure of the African-American community,” he said, going on to give a fictitious example of a poor kid in Harlem who would be “unqualified” for work. The interview wrapped up with Trump talking about the lack of “spirit” in America and the low employment rates of college graduates.

To his credit, Trump acknowledged some very real unemployment problems faced by African-American youths (although the origins of his 59 percent unemployment rate are unclear), and while he didn’t go into much of a plan, he certainly avoided diving into the racist rhetoric that O’Reilly employed.

A discussion of the barriers African-Americans face compared with their white counterparts would be groundbreaking on Fox News, but unfortunately, O’Reilly spoils any chance of real analysis with his absurd stereotypes of “the minorities.”

Watch the full interview below (and if you’re looking for a fun waste of time, try to count the number of times Trump says the word “jobs”):

–Posted by Emma Niles

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#2016 election#bill o'reilly#donald trump#fox news#gop#job market#o'reilly factor#politics#racism#republicans