Should Trump Go To Prison? Rep. Maxine Waters Says President And Fox News Host Should Be Incarcerated

In the wake of a New York Times report revealing $13 million in settlements for sexual harassment cases against Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly and President Donald Trump’s vocal defense of the pundit, Rep. Maxine Waters, D- Calif., called for both men’s imprisonment Wednesday night. She also labeled the news channel a “sexual harassment enterprise” and called out Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and supposed adviser on women’s issues, for her absence.

“It shouldn’t be in America that you can sexually harass women and then buy your way out of it because you’re rich. If they continue to do this in the way that they have done, they need to go to jail,” Waters told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, adding that Trump “didn’t do himself any good” in defending O’Reilly, but that she was “not surprised” that he did. “They need to go to jail. Bill O’Reilly needs to go to jail.”

Read: Russia Collusion Will Result In Impeachment, Maxine Waters Says

O’Reilly denied the allegations by the five women—two of whom had previously made headlines when reports of their cases surfaced—who received settlements for agreements to avoid litigation or any mention of their claims, including allegations that he’d made vulgar comments, unwanted sexual advances and phone calls while masturbating, according to the Times investigation.

In a Wednesday interview with the newspaper, Trump came to O’Reilly’s defense, calling him “a good person.”

“Personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled, because you should have taken it all the way,” he told the Times. “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”

When asked about Trump’s defense of the Fox News host, Waters linked O’Reilly’s behavior to that of the president, citing leaked audio published by the Washington Post in October.

“It’s coming out of the mouth of a man who has said some horrible things about women,” she said of Trump’s support for O’Reilly. “Don’t forget he talked about grabbing women by their private parts, and because he was important he could get away with it, and so they are two of a kind… But it’s all catching up with Bill O’Reilly and that sexual harassment enterprise that they created over there at Fox.”

The network, which faced a slew of sexual harassment allegations surrounding its chairman, Roger Ailes, last year, and several more implicating him this week, lost close to 50 advertisers on O’Reilly’s show, though many kept their placements on the broader channel in place.

Read: 'Get Ready' For Charges, Maxine Waters Warns Amid Russia Investigation

Fox News aside, Waters had one final target, aiming her pointed remarks at the woman charged with advising her father on women-friendly policy, who told CBS Tuesday not to “conflate lack of public denouncement” of her father’s misogynist words “with silence.”

“Where was Ivanka?” Waters asked Hayes. “She’s supposed to be his adviser. She’s supposed to be the one that’s standing up for women. I think she either advised him wrong or she’s absent, and she’s not in it.”