O'Reilly claims CNN's Piers Morgan 'is going to be fired soon

Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly predicted on his show Wednesday night that CNN would soon fire its 9 p.m. host Piers Morgan.

Credit: Getty Images for TIME

O'Reilly made the comment to his colleague, media critic Howard Kurtz, as part of a larger segment on MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who recently suggested someone should defecate in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's mouth. Bashir has since apologized but many critics, conservatives in particular, are calling on MSNBC to to take further disciplinary action.

"CNN doesn't do it," O'Reilly said, "it" referring to personal attacks. "Except there's one guy who does it on CNN. And he's going to be fired soon, the guy in the 9 p.m. slot." He didn't use Morgan's name, but that is his time slot. O'Reilly offered no indication that he actually has reason to believe Morgan will be fired soon.

Morgan shot back with a series of tweets, one of which accused O'Reilly of being "a flaming hypocrite."

"Got to laugh at [O'Reilly] accusing me of personal attacks," the tweet said. "Guy's made a career out of it."

Morgan recently engaged in a one-sided feud with O'Reilly while on a book tour. In one interview, he called O'Reilly "a d**k."