O’Reilly on Fox News lawsuit: ‘I would never sell out for ratings’

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly is slamming his former employer following revelations made in newly-filed court documents stemming from a defamation lawsuit the conservative media giant is fighting.

“I’ll tell ya this, I would never have done what CNN and MSNBC did on Russian collusion or what Fox did on election fraud,” O’Reilly said Monday evening during an appearance on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show. “I would rather be fired, I would leave the job. … I am not going to sell out for ratings, ever. And I never have.”

Fox is facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which has alleged the cable news giant knowingly aired false claims about the company being made by former President Trump and his associates.

Among the allegations made in the filing by Dominion, which cites internal communications by Fox employees, is that top hosts at the network expressed concern about the claims being made by Trump and his aides while they also worried about how the channel’s audience would react to fact checks of those assertions.

Fox has defended itself on First Amendment grounds, and last week in a filing of its own questioned Dominion’s motives and financial valuation.

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan. Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law,” the network said.

O’Reilly, a former top prime-time host at the network, was forced out at Fox in 2017 amid allegations of sexual harassment.

He has since launched a speaking tour with Trump and has appeared on NewsNation on a number of occasions.

NewsNation, which hired Cuomo after he was fired at CNN for misleading its executives, is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which purchased The Hill in 2021.