O’Reilly, Behar address ‘View’ walkout on prime-time shows

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Thursday night that he's "not in the business of sugarcoating harsh reality," while explaining his morning debate on "The View" that led co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off set (watch the initial argument and walk off here).

O'Reilly, arguing that an Islamic community center and mosque shouldn't be built in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from ground zero, declared "Muslims killed us on 9/11!" Goldberg and Behar thought that his remark unfairly implicated all Muslims rather than specifying that the 9/11 attacks were carried about Islamic extremists or terrorists.

[Related: O'Reilly wrote about shocking topic during college years]

"No one I know—no one—wants to insult Muslims," O'Reilly said on Fox News. "But almost everybody I know is tired of the political correctness surrounding the 9/11 attack. The truth is that if moderate Muslims all over the world would stand with Americans against radical Islam, the terrorists couldn't exist. But obviously, that is not happening."

Watch, courtesy of Fox News:

Behar has her own prime-time cable news show. She addressed "The View" walkout on CNN's HLN channel.

Behar said she was "really angry" during the debate and considers O'Reilly's remarks to be "hate speech."

[Related: 'Jersey Shore' star storms off 'Dancing With the Stars' set]

Watch:

Unsurprisingly, the O'Reilly-Behar-Goldberg fight provided fodder not only for the hosts' own shows but for other cable news shows, too. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named O'Reilly one of his "Worst Persons in the World" Thursday night, dubbing his 8 p.m. rival "just another Fox News bigot and Islamophobe."

[Rewind: Whoopi's odd antics draw attention]

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