Bill O'Reilly calls Rep. Barbara Lee a 'race hustler'

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Fox News host Bill O’Reilly came to the defense of conservative Congressman Paul Ryan recently and used some colorful language that some might argue crosses the line.

Ryan has been under fire for recent remarks he made about the culture of inner cities, in which he implied that people who live there lack a desire to work.

“We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with,” he said on Bill Bennett’s Morning In America radio show.

The former GOP VP nominee later apologized for his phrasing but denied he intended any racial connotation with his comments.

“After reading the transcript of yesterday morning’s interview, it is clear that I was inarticulate about the point I was trying to make,” he said in a statement. “I was not implicating the culture of one community—but of society as a whole. We have allowed our society to isolate or quarantine the poor rather than integrate people into our communities.”

While appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, Ryan was supporting by the show’s outspoken host, who pointed the finger at black members of Congress, like Rep. Barbara Lee, (who had called Ryan’s remarks a “thinly veiled racial attack”) and accused them of instigating a controversy.

“These race hustlers make a big living and they get voted into office by portraying their constituents as victims,” he said. “And it’s all your fault, and it’s my fault, it’s the rich people’s fault, it’s the Republicans’ fault. It’s everybody’s fault except what’s going on.”

“What’s going on, as you know, is a dissolution of the family and you don’t have proper supervision of children,” he added. “And they grow up with no skills and they can’t read and speak … and that’s what’s going on. But if you say that, you’re a racist. So no matter what you say, Congressman, you’re going to be branded because the race hustlers don’t want to solve the problem.”