Lupe Fiasco Shuts Down O'Reilly's Factor

Grammy-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco kept his word and accepted controversial Fox host Bill O'Reilly's challenge by appearing on his "The O'Reilly Factor" talk show and defending terrorist-related comments related to President Barack Obama.

Lupe argued his point claiming the terrorist remark simply relates to the president's foreign policy initiative.

Fiasco tried to explain that "every president before and after" Obama could also be described as a terrorist, because of American foreign policy. "If you're going to fight terrorism, to me, you fight the root causes of terrorism," he said. O'Reilly sternly told Fiasco that his followers "are not exactly political science PhD's" and that he was misleading them. "I don't think that that matters," Fiasco said. "I don't think that politics are as complex as people like to make them seem." The two then started arguing about the war in Afghanistan. Fiasco said that the war had been misguided since it had strayed from its original aims. "Why are we in Afghanistan if it wasn't to hunt down Al Qaeda and the terrorist network?" he asked. (Huffington Post)

O'Reilly, while known for his conservative views, defended President Obama's image during the debate.

"Now we are used to irresponsible statements from rappers, but that's really over-the-top," O'Reilly said. "You know President Obama is not a terrorist, he's trying to do what he believes is the right thing to do." ("The O'Reilly Factor")

Fiasco hit up Twitter and spoke on the post-televised broadcast.

"how was the oreilly factor debate?...hahaha...for real though...i missed it...," he tweeted June 20th.

"did they edit out the part about the US military manuals that teach you how to be a terrorist?"

"@Shmmivan Yes. No mention regarding military manuals. <-- Oh really...come on billy...well read em for your self America" (Lupe Fiasco's Twitter)

A couple weeks ago, Fiasco said he did not regret labeling President Obama a terrorist.

"I've got nothing to clarify. It's Obama and the U.S. government," Lupe said, echoing his comments to CBS. "[It's] every president that came before him and every president that comes after him...It's funky because everybody's pulling soundbites from this one interview that we did, but they don't talk about anything else from the interview. So it's really about, 'What do people want to listen to?' It's not what I want to talk about, cause I want to talk about all types of sh*t... there wasn't the same reaction about me having a book club... about me trying to promote literacy in a country with 50 million functioning illiterates walking around, because we have a failed and flawed education system." (Billboard)