On Monday night’s “O’Reilly Factor,” Fox News hosts Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly attempted to defend UC Davis police, who were caught on video spraying non-violent student protesters in the face with pepper spray over the weekend.
“I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” O’Reilly said, “especially at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” O’Reilly did not clarify whether or not he would have the right to question police brutality at a conservative campus.
Not to be outdone, Kelly suggested that pepper spray is “like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.” She went on to imply that the incident was not so serious, as some experts have questioned whether or not the pepper spray was diluted (it wasn’t; in fact, it was military grade.)
Video of the inflammatory comments are below:
Despite O’Reilly’s concerns over second-guessing the police, UC Davis has placed police chief Annette Spicuzza on leave and formed a task force to investigate the incident.
Clips like this make it a lot easier to understand yesterday’s Fairleigh Dickinson PublicMind poll, which suggested that Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don’t watch any news at all.
