President Trump on Wednesday went out of his way to defend Bill O’Reilly against accusations that he is a serial sexual-harasser. And one of the Fox News host’s newly unearthed accusers is firing back.
“I think he’s a person I know well—he is a good person,” the president told The New York Times in response to the paper’s revelation that five women have received payouts from Bill O’Reilly or Fox News in relation to sexual-harassment accusations against the ratings-leading blowhard. Dozens of major advertisers have ditched O’Reilly’s timeslot as a result.
“Personally I think he shouldn’t have settled,” Trump continued, “because you should have taken it all the way.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” he declared of his long-time friend.
Former Fox Business Network host Rebecca Diamond, one of the three previously unreported accusers discovered by the Times, broke her silence on Wednesday evening to blast the president for his reckless absolving of his buddy for cases about which he likely knows nothing.
“President Trump, the women were forced to settle, not the other way around, because of employment agreements prohibiting court trials,” she explained on Twitter—one of her first posts on the social-media site in nearly four years.
In 2011, according to the Times, Diamond revealed to her Fox bosses that she had secretly recorded conversations with O’Reilly containing inappropriate sexual behavior. She left the network, reportedly bound by a confidentiality agreement, and was paid a settlement of an unknown amount.
“Fox has publicly acknowledged it requires employment agreements, which require mediation and prevent going to court. Their choice,” she further tweeted at the president on Wednesday.
She added: “If you don't believe in settlements, get rid of forced mediation employment agreements and women won't have to settle.”
Diamond was a co-host of Happy Hour, one of Fox Business’s inaugural shows which ran from the network’s launch in October 2007 until its cancellation in June 2010.
“President Trump, I have personally met and interviewed three of your children several times while I was a host at Fox Business,” she concluded. “I'm saddened reading your comments. Truly disappointed and vilified all over again.
“Such comments tell women they won't be believed.”
