Bill O’Reilly was as surprised as anyone that Donald Trump made it this far in the presidential race. “That and the assassination of John Kennedy are the most stunning political things in my lifetime,” O’Reilly told us in an interview in this week’s Adweek. “When he told me he was going to run for president last year, I said, ‘What country?’ (laughs) But you have to give him credit. Like him or not. I don’t like some of the things he does and says. But I admire the fact that he was able to beat the establishment and beat them badly,” said O’Reilly who has known Trump for more than 25 years.
We also asked O’Reilly about the upcoming political conventions, what journalists he admires, and how long he wants to keep hosting O’Reilly Factor:
You’ve been No. 1 for 16 years. You’re going to be 67 this year. How much longer do you want to do a nightly TV show?
I don’t know. I go day to day. I don’t want to work this hard much longer. I know that. Because I work hard. I earn my money. But the shocking thing to me is nobody beats me. These young gunslingers, they should be kind of beating me—but they’re not.
So who’s the next Bill O’Reilly?
I don’t wish that on anyone. I think everybody has their own unique presentation. There will be somebody that comes. But it’s not as easy as it looks