Longtime cable news king Bill O'Reilly harshly criticized a Florida school district's decision to purge two of his books from its library shelves, calling the move – under a state law he supports – “absurd.”
Despite that, O'Reilly opinion of the law hasn't changed. Much.
According to Mediaite, Escambia County School District, at the western end of the Panhandle, pulled more than 1,600 books from its shelves at least temporarily “because those books have been ‘alleged to contain pornography or obscene depictions of sexual conduct.' Those include O'Reilly's ‘Killing Jesus: A History' and ‘Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency.'”
The district administers 35 elementary, nine middle and seven high schools, home to over 40,000 students.
In March 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis gave his approval for the law's passage.
“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,” the governor said at the time.
On Friday, O'Reilly expressed his frustration with Newsweek.
Calling the decision to include his books “absurd” and “preposterous,” O'Reilly wants DeSantis to take further action:
“When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida. 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,” O'Reilly told Newsweek.
“So, that law needs to be tightened up, 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,'” O'Reilly said.
O'Reilly also said that he and his team also plan to investigate this, adding that he will “find out exactly who made the decisions to temporarily take them out of the library in this country, I'm going to put their pictures up on television and on my website … and I'm going to ask them for a detailed explanation of why they did that.”
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, O'Reilly said, “We are investigating and are seeking comment from @GovRonDeSantis. This will not stand.”
While O'Reilly maintains that removing his books is an abuse of the law, he still supports removing specific objectionable material in school libraries nationwide.
