Bill O’Reilly Says Slaves Who Built White House “Were Well-Fed and Had Decent Lodgings”

Bill O’Reilly told his audience that the slaves who built the White House “were well-fed & had decent lodgings." Somehow managed to turn his rant into an attack

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Complex Original

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Bill O'Reilly had a rather contrarian take on Michelle Obama's now-famous line from her DNC speech on Monday about how she "wake[s] up every morning in a house that was built by slaves." According to the political commentator, while the First Lady may be technically correct, she was making things sound worse than they actually were. O'Reilly filled in his audience on the conditions the slaves who built the White House faced.

"Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802," he said on Tuesday, according to Politico. He went on to point out that "Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well."

O'Reilly soldiered on, and somehow managed to turn his rant into an attack on undocumented immigrants.

"“In addition, free blacks, whites, and immigrants also worked on the massive building," he continued. "There were no illegal immigrants at that time. If you could make it here, you could stay here.”

O'Reilly comments were unsurprisingly mocked on Twitter almost immediately.

O'Reilly was far from the only conservative commentator complaining about that part of the First Lady's speech. John Gibson of Fox News Radio took a whole column to complain that FLOTUS did not mention that free laborers worked to construct the White House in addition to slaves.

You can watch the Complex News live stream from the DNC in Philadelphia here.

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