‘Unacceptable & insulting’: Kremlin expects apology from Fox News for calling Putin ‘killer’
Moscow expects an apology from Fox News after host Bill O’Reilly called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a killer.” The controversial term was used to question Donald Trump’s intention to work more closely with Russia.
“We consider the words of the Fox News host unacceptable and insulting,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. “We would prefer to receive an apology to the Russian president from a respected TV station like that.”
O’Reilly deflected the request on Monday night’s edition of his program ‘The O’Reilly Factor’, saying, “I’m working on that apology, but it may take a little time. Might want to check in with me around 2023.”
The Fox News host labeled Putin “a killer” during an interview with US President Donald Trump, in which they discussed the Republican’s numerous statements on his willingness to work with Russia to jointly deal with issues such as terrorism.
Trump shrugged off the comment, saying: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent?”
Trump did not name specific US officials or officials among Washington’s allies as killers, but mentioned the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an example of why he did not consider America to be innocent, saying that “a lot of people were killed” there.
The US president’s remarks sparked anger among many figures in the American establishment, who have criticized him for seemingly putting the US on the same moral ground as Russia.
.@POTUS statement suggesting moral equivalence between Putin's Russia and the United States of America is deeply troubling and wrong.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 5, 2017
Peskov did not comment on Trump’s reply.
