New york times accounted nearly 60 companies pulled their advertises from the oreilly factor. Oreillys future had been uncertain ever since the departure last summer of roger ailes over allegations against him of Sexual Harassment. Allegations ailes has denied, fueling questions over the culture at fox news. 21st century fox released a statement today, quote, after a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and bill oreilly have agreed that bill oh rile loi will not be returning to the fox news channel. In a statement late today, oreilly himself said in part, it is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to a completely due to completely unfounded claims, but that is the unfortunate reality many of us in the public eye will live with today. I will always look on my time at fox with great pride and the unprecedented success we aeverybody chooed and with deepest gratitude to all of my dedicated viewers. The Murdoch Family sent out an email of their own saying, by ratings standards, bill oreilly is one of the most accomplished tv personalities in the history of cable news. In account fa, his success by many measure is indisputable. Lastly, we want to underscore or consistent commit to fostering a Work Environment build on values of trust. Michael schmidschmidt. And congresswoman bass. I want to get to the corp. Ralth Decision Making involved here and the news value and importance. Whats the political impact of the decision that at 8 00 eastern time, bill oreilly will not be there . Well, frankly, i mean just my own bias, i think its a little bit of a relief because i think he was just a mouth piece for the Trump Administration. On the other hand, i also think its another example of grassroots activity because a lot of people protested, and they were concerned about it. Im sure trump didnt have a problem. As a matter of fact, he said so last week. Im sure he didnt see what the issue was considering his own history with Sexual Harassment and sexual assault. Well, tell me about that because that just jumps at me. Tell me about trumps history in that regard. Well, i mean, i know that he gave him his good wishes a week ago and that he said he was a good man. And from his perspective, im sure the complaints, at least the ones that weve heard so far, you know, they dt compare to what trump was caught saying on video. And we know tt he has a long history with this. So i would imagine with what . Im sorry. Youre making an accusation. Just clarify it. I am. What do you know that trump has done wrong regarding workplace situations, with woman, whatever. What do you know . Well, you know, the famous video of him coming and talking about how because he was a celebrity, he could grab somebody anyplace he wanted to. You know, that is certainly an example, and all of the women that complained. We know women complained, a number of them did who were a part of Celebrity Apprentice. We also know there were things that happened at Celebrity Apprentice that they suppressed and didnt allow to come forward. But there were enough women that came forward from Celebrity Apprentice that had specific complaints about him. And we know some of those lawsuits are pending. I dont know what will happen with them in the future. Remember, he said that as soon as the campaign was over, he was going to sue the very women that had complaints about him. So i dont i would imagine he would find solidarity with oreilly for two reasons. Number one, hes not offended by his behavior. And, number two, oreilly was a mouthpiece for the Trump Administration. Fair enough. Lets go to Michael Schmidt on this. You brought the story on the front page of your paper. 50 interviews, i remember reading. A big jump. A lot of words, a lot of information. It is interesting that after all the news that weve had about oreilly over the last several years, all the stories about accusations and settlements and blah, blah, blah, what do you think kicked it over this time . What made it happen this time . I think the difference here was that they brought in paul weiss, this outside law firm, to look into these accusations. Like they did with like they did with ailes. When they did that with ailes over the summer, they just kept the investigation on ailes. They didnt want it to go any broader than that. What happens here is they bring paul weiss back in. They start looking at these accusations and they start kicking up things and they see theres some real validity to it. The thing that doesnt make sense is everything we wrote in our story, fox had known for many months. So it wasnt really news. What broke it then . Why now . So was there more stuff that came in that they realized that they couldnt survive if these things came out . Why did oh really make it a joint statement . Why did he say he and them agreed . I dont know. He hasnt said anything and fox hasnt said anything. Thats the whole thing about this. The murdochs havent explained themselves in any of this. They havent explained why they stood by oreillat the time of our story and then days after it, when they had gotten rid of ailes for similar things, and, you know, why is it now . We know that this law firm found more things. We also know he lost a lot of advertisers. You have an 8 00 hour that has like less than ten ads, you know, running during it. I think that was a real problem for them. Gabe, youve been all over this story too. Let me ask you about this because it seems to me that if youre really cynical, people will say, oh, corporations never make decisions against their economic interests. So how did they weigh this . I know that in the short run, theyre losing ratings. They may be able to make it up with tucker. Tucker carlson is going to replace him. Hes had a good run at 9 00, but theyll probably lose ratings in the short run. Theyll probably have to do a big payout with oreilly. So short term, money goes out the Cash Register. Its just going out. How do they make a calculation that in the long run, theyre better off . How do they make that . Do you know . Its a great question, chris. I think you have to look at this in a much larger context. While bill oreilly earned millions of dollars for the fox news channel, and, yes, they will have to pay him millions of dollars to walk away, theres on the other side of the ledger there is the possibility of billions of dollars on the table because 21st century fox, the Parent Company of fox news, is in the process of acquiring the rest of european pay tv sky. And now this 14 billion deal, one of the things that critics of this deal in europe and in london have been doing has been saying that this bill oreilly scandal is another example of how the murdochs are not fit and proper to own media properties. So what my sources say inside the company is that one of the motivating factors for accelerating oreillys exit is the pending deal and the deadline next month for the british media regulator to rule on whether the murdochs can acquire sky. You know, its interesting, gabe, and mike, ive watched murdoch for years. The old Corporate Strategy let me go back to the congresswoman now. The old Corporate Strategy of murdoch was go to the right. Take over the times of london, whatever it is, go to the right, and go down market. You know, a little trashy. I wonder if mr. Murdoch is trying to avoid that image anymore because certainly the wall street journal is not going downll. Its a hell of a paper, so right wing on the oped side, but its a hell of a newspaper. What do you think is going on . Do you think its a guy, murdoch and his age says im not going to go out of this world looking like this . Im going to clean up my act. It could be. It also might be the influence of his sons, too, because i know there was differences there. And i also know that they different with their father on a number of issues. They differed with him over ailes. You know, one of them is open to the environment. I think one of his daughterinlaws even works or is involved in an environment organization. So i think moving forward its going to be very interesting to see how they assert their leadership and what differences we might see. You know, the other thing that they differed with the Trump Administration on was the muslim ban. They did a letter to their employees essentially saying that we embrace immigrants. If any of you have problems, please see the h. R. Department. So maybe well see some separation there. It would be nice. Let me ask you about the conditions. Have you any idea . Both you guys are, but reading the piece you did i think was the powder keg here. Is he going to get to say goodbye . Weve been through a lot of this on television. They always want to have that last minute they can talk to their viewers, and the companies, its almost like get your box of stuff and walk out the door. Security is going to help you, those kind of things. Is he going to get that kind of departure where they grab his stuff and throw it out the door, or hes going to be able to say goodbye . I find it hard to believe that fox would allow him to come back and go on the air. Theres been a huge backlash, and if they were to do that, then, you know, it wouldust be putting him out the, resurrecting the issue. It just keepst going. Are they afraid of a howard biel moment where you get out and speak your heart and it doesnt look good for the corporation . Chris, ive reported on this. This is one of the issues on the take in the negotiations with oreillys camp. He wanted to say goodbye. Fox was holding firm. Ive been told that he will not say goodbye. They have put in his replacement, tucker carlson, who will debut at 8 00 on monday, april 24th, which was supposed to be bill oreillys first day back from vacation. So, no, they are not going to give him a soft landing and a signoff to say goodbye to his audience. What do you think the impact is over there in terms of rescrambling the deck. Apparently the 5 00 gang is going to come on at 9 00, but its not as strong a lineup. Lets be honest. Nobody thinks it is. Its hard to beat the lineup of oreilly and megyn kelly. Ive been talking to people inside the network all day and im hearing theres tremendous anxiety because one of the down side of roger ailes success in building this fox news machine over 20 years is that while he had talent like bill oreilly and sean hannity in place, he did not develop a bench of people that could slide in and replace these icons of cable news. So now were seeing the postroger ailes era where they dont have people to turn to, and they are really making this up as they go along. Yeah. Who knows here . I dont think the congresswoman knows it because i dont know it. But you guys are media experts. Is there a chance for him to start his own sort of network somewhere else . He has a huge following. Can he do Something Like glenn ck does, weather that is . The ratings were good and they continued to be good after our story. So if youre sinclair radio or youre conservative talk radio he wasnt good on radio. Hes great on television, not good on radio. He has a following that kept on watching him even after these accusations came out. Gabe, do you think hed make it on radio . Just like, you know, limbaugh wasnt any good on Television Even though roger ailes was the executive producer. Some people can only make it on one medium. I hate to say it but hannity can do it on both. He did try to make it as a talk radio host. It didnt quite work. He didnt develop the audience. The real question, and we dont know this at least i dont know this at this point is what are the terms of his exit package in terms of a noncompete. I imagine if they were going to pay him upwards of 20, 45 million to leave, there would be some noncompete provision that would prevent him from starting his own network. I wouldnt be surprised to see him come back in time, though. He also has his whole Book Business as well. Thank you. Hes got three on the New York Times bestseller list right now, which is something else. Hes not going to starve. Thank you, gabe. Youre doing great reporting. Michael, youre the guy. This is yours. You get pulitzers for this stuff . Im just kidding. Youll get your own anyway. Congresswoman, karen bass, thank you so much. Coming up, a lot more on oreillys ouster. Trump even stood up for him two weeks ago, but tonight oreilly is out. Plus the russian connection. Were learning more aut why trumps Foreign Policy adviser, carter page, came under investigation by the fbi for his contacts with russia. We also now know that devin nuness stunt, the Midnight Ride i call it, was just that, a stunt. And lawmakers on both sides say former Obama National security adviser susan rice did nothing wrong. Nada. It turns out that Aircraft Carrier that trump was said was headed toward north korea was actually heated in the opposite direction. He called it a powerful armada but it wasnt anywhere near korea, finally let me finish tonight with bill oreilly. This is hardball where the action is. , finally let me fin tonight with bill oreilly. This is hardball where the action is. , finally let me fini with bill oreilly. This is hardball where the action is. Finally let me finis with bill oreilly. This is hardball where the action is. Finally let me finish with bill oreilly. This is hardball where the action is. Whoa, this thing is crazy. I just had to push one button to join. Its like im in the office with you, even though im here. Its almost like the Virtual Reality of business communications. No, its reality. Intuitive one touch Video Conferencing is a reality. And now its included at no additional cost with vonage business. Call now and see why 3,000 companies a month are switching to vonage. Business grade. People friendly. This is news, utah republican congressman Jason Chaffetz, he says hes not running for reelection next year. Chaffetz who led the investigation in the benghazi and Hillary Clintons email server such as it was says he may run again for public office, just not next year that means he wont be a candidate for the senate when orrin hatch seeks another term. Chaffetz has been criticized for the way hes handle the President Trump a false claims about voter fraud and wiretapping and well be right back. Raffic . Can we push the offer online . Brian, i just had a quick question. Brian . Brian. Legacy technology can handcuff any company. But yes is here. Youre saying the new app will go live monday . yeah. With help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. With the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes. You totanobodys hurt, new car. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. For years, centurylink has been promising fast internet to small businesses. But for many businesses, its out of reach. Why promise something you cant deliver . Comcast business is different. We deliver superfast internet with speeds of 250 megabits per second across our entire network, to more companies, in more locations, than centurylink. We do business where you do business. Welcome back to hardball. Bill oreilly has been the face on fox news since it started back in 1996 and the network was built on his popularity, his no nonsense, in your face style drew nearly 3 Million Viewers a night. In the days after that, New York Times published the story about sex and harassment allegations, his audience ballooned to 3. 7 Million Viewers. Oreillys attorney said his client has been, quote, subjected to a Brutal Campaign of character assassination that is unprecedented in postmccarthyist america. Is everything about joe marthy and hitler these days . Anyway, with the exit of bill oreilly, the White Working Class viewer is losing its staunchest voice. While President Trump has long been an outspoken video, when the allegations were reported, trump told the times hes a good person. I think he may, you know i think he shouldnt have settled. Personally, i think he shouldnt have settled. He said it twice. I dont think bill would do anything wrong. And back in april of 2016, the president tweets, why does the liberal media think bill oreilly is a complete and total vulgarian. Im joined by republican strategist John Brabender and ruth marcus. I like both of you. Lets hear how this goes. Lets try to ice lay the success of the guy. Lets face it. In our business its run to a large extent by the Cash Register and ratings. If you get a good rating, a lot is put to the side. In his case, they stopped putting it to the side, but he had ratings. What was his reason for getting a great 8 00 at night by the way, i know this because my colleagues have to put their shows on against popular entertainment. Im in sort of the news hour. I have to compete with shows, you know, novelty shows. He has to beat interesting prime time programming to get his regular guy audience. Look, his ratings were huge, and people cant underestimate how important this was that fox news had to get rid of him because he was there franchise in a lot of ways. But he was what you want from a host like this as you know sometimes. If youre very divisive and youre willing to stick it in the eye of the man, which he