'Absurd': Bill O'Reilly Furious After Florida School District Pulls Two of His Book Under Law He Supported
Jan. 13 2024, Published 4:00 p.m. ET
Former Fox News host and conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly is furious at a Florida school district's decision to remove two of his books due to a state law he supported, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Bill O'Reilly isn't happy about his books being banned from Escambia County School District.
Escambia County School District has temporarily removed over 1,000 books from its shelves due to the titles allegedly containing "pornography or obscene depictions of sexual conduct." Two of the books removed were O'Rielly's Killing Jesus: A History and Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency.
The bans were made based on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2022 law HB 1069, which restricts access to materials containing "sexual conduct" in Florida classrooms.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen some books in some of these libraries, I mean you’re talking about kids in middle school, some of the stuff that has ended up there is incredibly, incredibly disturbing stuff,” DeSantis said at the time.
Bill O'Reilly was fired from Fox News in 2017 amid sexual assault allegations dating back to the early 2000s.
O'Reilly told Newsweek that the decision to ban his books was "absurd."
"When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida," he told the outlet. "There were far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, there’s no doubt about it. And the state has an obligation to protect children. But the wording of the law was far too nebulous in Tallahassee …"
"So, that law needs to be tightened up," he continued. "DeSantis needs to come out publicly and say ‘this is insane, we’re not going to cooperate with this and we’re going to investigate the people who did it."
As part of Florida's new "Freedom Summer" initiative, Gov. Ron DeSantis has decreed that all bridges in the state can only be lit up at night in red, white, and blue.
O’Reilly made it clear that he still supports the law but added that the removal of his books is an abuse of the law.
“I want to emphasize the fact that there are abuses in certain school districts that harm children,” he said. “There are materials that are inappropriate, and those materials have to be specifically included in the law with language that is very specific.”
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The same school district sparked headlines after removing copies of dictionaries, encyclopedias and other educational books because the works included descriptions of "sexual conduct."
District officials also had copies of The Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not removed from their libraries, citing the same Florida law.
Other removed titles include biographies on Thurgood Marshall, the first Black supreme court justice, and Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl.
Publisher Penguin Random House and several authors have already filed a federal lawsuit against the school district, alleging that the ban violates free speech.
