Bill O’Reilly, a former Fox News icon ousted by sexual assault allegations last year, told Newsmax TV that if he was in Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ position, he would arrest the mayor of Oakland, California, for working to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.
In an interview uploaded yesterday, “Newsmax Now” host John Bachman spoke with O’Reilly about a collection of topics including Trump’s recently proposed tariffs and calls to appoint a special counsel to investigate the ongoing investigation into suspected Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In one part of the interview, Bachman brought up Sessions’ suit against the state of California over sanctuary laws that make it more difficult for ICE agents to detain undocumented immigrants.
Bachman asked O’Reilly whether he agreed with California Gov. Jerry Brown, who theorized that Sessions may have filed the lawsuit against California to get in Trump’s good graces as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation continues. O’Reilly disagreed and suggested that Sessions should have arrested the mayor of Oakland, whom Sessions specifically criticized in a speech yesterday for warning Oakland residents about upcoming ICE raids.
“I think that President Trump and the attorney general agree on this issue that you can’t have a state defy federal immigration law. I would have taken it a step further, and today the president hinted that that might happen. I would have arrested—arrested—the mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf, for obstruction of justice,” O’Reilly said.
He added, “If I were the attorney general, I would have gone to Sacramento, I would have said, ‘Look, we’re not going to tolerate it. We’re suing the state. We’re going to win.’ And they will win. The federal government will win.”
