Disgraced former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly got slammed by his own base on Friday for defending Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. after she was verbally harassed by a man while walking up the steps of the Capitol.
"Some loon stalked and insulted Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez then posted it. This has to stop," O'Reilly tweeted. "We need new laws to protect public officials and others. And we need them now."
O'Reilly was immediately mocked by his fellow conservatives, who pointed out that pundit had left Fox News in 2017 after it was revealed that he'd sexually harrassed multiple women at the network.
"Bill remind me why you got fired from @FoxNews? Didn't you pay for multiple sexually harass lawsuits?" tweeted Alex Stein, a contributor at the right-wing BlazeTV and the provocateur who harrassed the congresswoman.
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"They need protection from perverts like you," echoed conservative author Michael Malice.
Steve Deace, a host at BlazeTV, also joined the chorus, asking, "Why do we make these has-been hacks like Bill 'fire the unjabbed cops' O'Reilly mind-numbingly rich, only to have them then turn around and betray us at every turn later on?"
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The online exchange came just hours after Ocasio-Cortez was sexually harassed by Stein just outside of the Capitol complex while walking up a staircase.
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"Here's AOC, my favorite big booty Latina," Stein says in a video while filming her. "I love you AOC, you're my favorite. She wants to kill babies but she's still beautiful, you look very beautiful in that dress, you look very sexy".
Ocasio-Cortez then condemned Stein over Twitter.
"The normalization of this event and this dismissiveness is dangerous," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. "It's not just about me. It's about every person."
"It's just a bummer to work in an institution that openly allowed this, but talking about it only invites more," she later wrote online, explaining that she "took it down bc it's clearly someone seeking extremist fame."
"Just really sad."
A spokesperson told The Independent that Stein committed no criminal act but described the commentator's rhetoric as "inappropriate."
"The comments, although inappropriate, are not criminal. In the video, the man never threatened or touched the Congresswoman," they said. "Out of an abundance of caution, our officers stopped the man and ran his information, which did not show any warrants.
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