Bill O'Reilly: Actually, the Slaves Who Built the White House Had It Pretty Good

On Tuesday, conservative commentators sprang into actually to “fact check” Michelle Obama’s remark about the White House being built with slave labor, successfully missing the point of her story to note that, hey, lots of non-slaves worked on it too. Bill O’Reilly went one further, however, weirdly stating that the slaves that did work on the White House were “well-fed” with “decent lodgings.”

“Slaves that worked there were well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802,” said O’Reilly on his show Tuesday evening, according to Media Matters. “However, the feds did not forbid subcontractors from using slave labor. So, Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, but there were others working as well.”

“I just can’t get rid of that history teacher thing,” he added. “You know what I’m talking about?”

I don’t think I do?