(NewsNation) — Political commentator Bill O’Reilly said NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo did not push Ohio Sen. JD Vance hard enough during a NewsNation town hall Thursday, particularly when addressing the “divisive rhetoric” he and his running mate, former President Donald Trump, have used in the campaign.
Cuomo “let Vance off,” O’Reilly told NewsNation on Thursday evening.
“I would have brought in two examples of divisive rhetoric. Not to try to ‘gotcha,’ but to see if Vance has perspective on it,” O’Reilly told Cuomo.
During the town hall, Cuomo asked Vance if he wished he had handled things differently when it came to his previous false claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.
“Do I wish that I had been better in that moment? Maybe,” Vance answered with trepidation.
He then quickly pivoted to saying he was just listening to people in his community because he needed to trust constituents over the media.
“What am I supposed to do? Hang up the phone and tell them they’re a liar because the media doesn’t want me to talk about it?” Vance asked. “One of the things that I’ve learned in my time in the United States Senate is that sometimes the media doesn’t always listen to people.”
Vance also blamed the media for chasing the comments about the pets instead of focusing on the hardships in the town as a result of an influx of immigrants.
O’Reilly believed Cuomo was imprecise druing his questioning of Vance on the larger issue of illegal immigration and squandered an opportunity to get at the migrant crisis.
“We have statistics like $350 million just this year on illegal immigrants. It’s unsustainable. You don’t have to go into the Alpo thing with the dogs and the cats … you open yourself up to all kinds of charges with the media gleefully hopping on,” he said.
Vance “would have been way ahead if he goes, ‘You know, that probably wasn’t the best thing for us to do,’” and instead focused on the financial strain of the influx, O’Reilly said.
He added that “Americans like it when you [politicians] admit a mistake.”
Cuomo defended his line of questioning, telling O’Reilly that apologies are “weaponized” in modern day politics so it’s rare for a lawmaker to admit any fault.
“You really get beaten over the head with apologies in politics now,” Cuomo said.