S.E. Cupp: The unbelievable, totally believable return of Bill O’Reilly

If we women weren’t already so jaded about the way powerful men are excused for their bad behavior, this might seem totally unbelievable.

Bill O’Reilly, the former Fox News host who was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and ultimately reached legal settlements with at least six worth a total of $45 million, is reportedly in talks to get a new radio show at 77 WABC.

It gets worse. The station’s owner is billionaire John Catsimatidis, a longtime supporter of another credibly accused serial sexual harasser, President Trump.

There’s more.

Back in 2016, a longtime Fox colleague of O’Reilly’s essentially was forced out of her job at Fox after accusing him of sexual harassment. Her settlement required her silence, as do most, but reports allege that O’Reilly called Juliet Huddy while masturbating, and then retaliated against her professionally when she rejected his sexual advances.

She hoped to find another job in media, but realized, as the Columbia Journalism Review put it, “women like Huddy are blacklisted by the entire news industry.”

So many of the women who made public allegations of sexual harassment at Fox and other news networks have been professionally discarded in the process, finding it hard to land work again in the industry they loved and were trying to protect from alleged predators like O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Mark Halperin.

Of the 15 women who made public allegations of sexual harassment at Fox, only one had found another job in TV news as of April 2018. None who had filed sexual harassment claims found jobs in news, according to the CJR report.

But O’Reilly’s 2016 accuser finally did find another broadcast job, after reeling from the financial consequences of suing Fox. In 2018, Huddy was thrilled to get a full-time co-hosting gig at a New York radio station, where she currently is employed.

It’s the very same one looking to hire O’Reilly.

Huddy publicly is taking the news in stride. But it’s hard to imagine how agonizing the prospect of working alongside her alleged harasser must be and how galling to know her employer doesn’t seem to care.

But we shouldn’t be surprised. Plenty of the men who were exposed during the #MeToo movement feel more than entitled to fully reenter their past lives, regain their livelihood and professional reputations, something their accusers have found nearly impossible.

Former ABC and MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin, accused by multiple women of soliciting sex from co-workers, groping and rubbing his erect penis on colleagues, whined earlier this year that “murderers in our society who get out of prison are afforded an opportunity to go on with some aspect of their life.” He got a book deal in 2019.

Former NBC anchor Matt Lauer, accused of rape by a former staffer and found by NBC to have engaged in inappropriate behavior, allegedly wants to make a comeback too.

Is this really what justice looks like? A professional graveyard of women who put their careers and lives on the line to expose the powerful men who hurt them, and those same men carrying on with their freedom, livelihood and career opportunities like nothing ever happened?

Sadly, despite the relative success of #MeToo, women always have known these to be the stakes and circumstances, which is what prevented us from coming forward in the first place. When we see there are only consequences for us, not them, coming forward just doesn’t seem worth the risks.