(NewsNation) — As former President Donald Trump defended spending time with far-right activist Laura Loomer, Bill O’Reilly says she doesn’t matter.
“Does it matter to the American people that Laura Loomer exists? No, it doesn’t,” O’Reilly said Friday on NewsNation’s “On Balance.”
Loomer, a self-described investigative journalist and “proud Islamophobe,” was with Trump during Tuesday’s debate, as well as by his side at 9/11 memorial events in New York and Pennsylvania.
At a California news conference Friday, Trump said “Laura is a supporter. I don’t control Laura. Laura has to say what she wants. She’s a free spirit.”
“I have no idea why Donald Trump does what he does,” O’Reilly responded to host Leland Vittert’s suggestion that Loomer’s presence is “horribly detrimental to his campaign.”
While acknowledging that Trump being seen with Loomer is “a bad look,” O’Reilly countered that “it doesn’t matter to me as a voter. And I think a lot of voters feel the same way.”
O’Reilly also said Trump missed an opportunity to turn the tables on Harris and the ABC moderators during Tuesday’s debate.
“Trump should have narrated that debate — looked in the camera and go, ‘Here’s why David (Muir) is asking that question. Here’s why that question was asked of the vice president — that big softball question. Do I get a softball, David?’ But instead, Trump gets so tied up in his own … emotional field. He gets so distracted by crowd size, and this and that.”
O’Reilly also defended Trump invoking the immigration situations in Springfield, Ohio, and other locations.
“The Biden-Harris administration opened the border, inexplicably. She can’t explain why that happened. She actually said the border was secure for two-and-a-half years, and now, all of a sudden, it’s not secure,” he said.