O'Reilly Explodes on Colmes over Al-Jazeera

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," February 1, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight. With us, our "Barack and a Hard Place" duo Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes. Colmes, you an Al Jazeera fan?

ALAN COLMES, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I didn't know that Sam Donaldson was a spokesman for the far left. That's really news to me. And that he speaks for the entire far left.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: You've got to check it out. Wait, wait, wait. For the last two years, Donaldson…

COLMES: Yes.

O'REILLY: …has been saying radical left things. For the last two years.

COLMES: I don't know what the guy, ok, but does he speak for everybody on the left?

O'REILLY: No, I just asked you, are you an Al Jazeera fan?

COLMES: All right. Yes, in some ways I am.

O'REILLY: You are.

COLMES: Al Jazeera, what -- the people you quoted were guests on Al Jazeera.

O'REILLY: Yes.

COLMES: You quoted people giving answers to questions, featured guests on Al Jazeera.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: And if there was no counter…

COLMES: Not editorial…

O'REILLY: …it wasn't like Monica was sitting next to them.

COLMES: Yes.

O'REILLY: There is no counter.

COLMES: Ok. Well sometimes there's not counter in every instance on every network and every guest.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: No, there's -- there's rarely a counter on Al Jazeera.

COLMES: You know that Al Jazeera is…

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Wait, wait, just stop.

COLMES: Yes.

O'REILLY: And you know why there is not a counter on Al Jazeera? Because people are afraid to be killed if they would go on in opposition.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: Al Jazeera is there -- Al Jazeera is there to speak out and give you the information that…

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Against the Zionists.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: …that people are not getting from the Arabic governments. I would think a populist like you would support Al Jazeera and freedom of the press.

MONICA CROWLEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Oh for goodness sakes, Colmes.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Are you nuts?

COLMES: And yes -- and -- and do you know that just yesterday that the Egyptian President Mubarak…

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: Yes.

COLMES: …shut down Al Jazeera in his country and that's -- and -- and went after journalists. I would think as a journalist you would take the side of Al Jazeera on this.

O'REILLY: I'm not taking the side of an anti-Semitic, anti-American network.

COLMES: No, freedom of the press.

O'REILLY: I don't care what…

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Oh come on, Colmes.

COLMES: Look, its freedom of the press.

O'REILLY: Wait Monica, wait. I'll give you your turn.

CROWLEY: My head is going to explode.

O'REILLY: Listen, listen.

COLMES: Your head is exploding over that?

O'REILLY: You're Jew -- you're a Jewish man, correct?

COLMES: Yes, I am.

O'REILLY: So it doesn't -- it doesn't come any more anti-Semitic than Al Jazeera.

COLMES: I -- I'm…

O'REILLY: They would, they would -- they would do violence to you.

COLMES: Who? And who? A journalist at Al Jazeera will do…

O'REILLY: The people who run that network. They would do violence to you.

COLMES: They would do violence to me? I hardly think so. I hardly think so.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Ok, all right. Ok.

COLMES: You should support a populist network, freedom of the press that gives the information to the Arabic countries that they don't get from their own governments.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: The information about witchcraft at Guantanamo bay.

COLMES: That's what I -- that's guest…

O'REILLY: Yes, now that's good information.

COLMES: That's not Al Jazeera speaking.

O'REILLY: Whoo, witchcraft.

COLMES: That's a guest giving an answer to a question, O'Reilly. Come on.

O'REILLY: Now your turn.

CROWLEY: Thank you, Bill O'Reilly.

O'REILLY: You're welcome.

CROWLEY: Look, Al Jazeera is based in Qatar. It a propaganda outfit for the autocrats who sit on the sands of the Middle East. It is funded by petro dollars that come from Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia. It is a mouthpiece for the governments that Alan says, oh, they are showing freedom of expression.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: The freedom of speech.

CROWLEY: They are bring -- they are bringing words and images to the people in the Middle East that they don't get from their government.

COLMES: Correct. Correct.

CROWLEY: This outfit is a mouthpiece for these governments. It also props up the fundamentalists in the Middle East. Just -- so to suggest somehow that Al Jazeera is the equivalent of the Fox News Channel, or frankly any media outfit in the West or in the United States, is flat-out absurd.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, why do you think a guy like Sam Donaldson and to a lesser extent Colmes, but more -- more Donaldson…

COLMES: To a lesser extent Colmes.

O'REILLY: Why -- why are they cheerleading Al Jazeera, when, look, I could spend the whole hour, ladies and gentlemen, giving you anti-American -- and there isn't a counter-voice on the network. And I -- I was very serious when I said if you stand there in their studio and you say, you know what Mullah so and so al-Sadr, you're a hater, you'll get a bullet right in the head when you walk out. Nobody is going to go on that network and take the opposing point of view.

(CROSSTALK)

CROWLEY: Well, judging from the network too, they will not carry that -- that point of view live.

O'REILLY: They -- I think in America they would but not certainly in their -- in their overseas operation. But why is Sam Donaldson so enamored of them?

CROWLEY: Well, I -- I don't want to attribute this directly to Sam Donaldson but I would say to make a broader point that the far left in this country is essentially anti-American.

COLMES: Oh please, now that's disgusting.

CROWLEY: They are -- and so a lot of their -- a lot of their philosophy.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: That's disgusting. That's sickening.

CROWLEY: I'm not saying you, Colmes, I'm saying the broader far left has an anti-American agenda that in many ways dovetails…

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: Who, who? Tell me who? Who on the left?

CROWLEY: …with the kind of reporting -- reporting that we see come out of Al Jazeera.

O'REILLY: She's saying the far left.

COLMES: Who? Who? Who are you calling anti-American? I'm so tired of people calling people on my side anti-American.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Are you a far-left guy?

COLMES: I don't know. You have called me that.

O'REILLY: Sometimes your positions are far left.

COLMES: All right, fine. But am I anti-American?

O'REILLY: I don't think you're anti-American. But certainly the far left is taking anti-American positions.

COLMES: But look, but let's stop this name-calling. Let's stop demonizing anybody you don't agree with and call them anti-American.

O'REILLY: I just ran a "Talking Points Memo" that backed up, all right, with four specific things that this is an anti-Semitic, anti-American network and I could do 40 of them.

COLMES: But you said those were people on the network as guests.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: There is no counter. Why don't you grasp this -- and I'm getting a little mad at you -- grasp this? There is no counter on it, you got it? There is no counter on it.

COLMES: Yes, I hear what you say. It's free speech.

O'REILLY: So it's this, yes, it's free speech. Shouldn't be praised by a pinhead like Donaldson.

COLMES: And you know why it was praised? Because it helped lead to and open the way for demonstrators.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: For what? For the Muslim Brotherhood?

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: …to come and give aid and support -- not just the Muslim Brotherhood.

O'REILLY: No, they want -- Al Jazeera wants the Muslim Brotherhood in there.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: That is -- that is one of many factors in the Middle East. It's one of many factors in Egypt.