What are your thoughts on Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump’s Q&A speaking tour?
One of then-President Donald Trump’s last big, mass rallies before the coronavirus pandemic was at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, in November 2019.
He’s coming back, just over two years later.
The former president is teaming up with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for a series of four conversations in December.
The first date, O’Reilly announced on his website Monday, is Dec. 11 at the Sunrise arena. Like all big arena shows, the tickets go on sale six months in advance.
O’Reilly has written several popular books about historical events, and the event planners described him as “historian/journalist.” He was once Fox’s top star, and the cable news host with the highest ratings. His tenure came to an end in April 2017, weeks after the New York Times disclosed a series of sexual harassment allegations against him.
Trump, who has denied pre-presidential sexual harassment allegations made against him, defended O’Reilly at the time. “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” he said. “I think he’s a person I know well — he is a good person.”
Since leaving the presidency, many of Trump’s public pronouncements have continued his false claims that widespread voter fraud is the reason he lost and President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. On Saturday, Trump spoke to the North Carolina Republican Party convention, and hinted he might run again in 2024.
The description of the Trump-O’Reilly conversations, which organizers are calling “The History Tour,” says Trump “will provide a never-before-heard inside view of his administration — which will be historical in and of itself.”
O’Reilly said in the announcement that his job as “a historian/journalist is to get important things on the record in a fact-based way. These conversations with the 45th president will not be boring.”
Trump said the events “will be wonderful but hard-hitting sessions where we’ll talk about the real problems happening in the U.S., those that the Fake News Media never mention. I will be focusing on greatness for our Country, something seldom discussed in political dialogue. If we don’t make our Country great again, we will soon no longer have a Country!”
The tour has three other dates: Dec. 12, at a location to be announced; Dec. 18 at the Toyota Center in Houston; and Dec 19 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Even though the arena’s location is in Democratic Broward County, Trump has many supporters in South Florida. Just off the Sawgrass Expressway, it’s an ideal location with easy access to people from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, as well as the rest of Florida.
Trump filled the 20,000-seat arena to capacity for his pre-Thanksgiving rally in 2019. He also held a rally there in August 2016, but didn’t fill the venue.
Barack Obama, then a Democratic presidential candidate, held two rallies in 2008 at what was then called the BankAtlantic Center. At one of the appearances, he committed a geographic faux pas. He referred to the city of Sunrise as “Sunshine.”
In May 2019, former First Lady Michelle Obama held a book-tour conversation before a sell-out crowd at the arena.
