O'Reilly: Food stamps are 'encouraging parasites' to 'take as much as they want'

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Monday declared that President Barack Obama had encouraged "parasites" to take advantage of the food stamp program and other "entitlements."

For the past week, the Fox News Channel has promoted its special, "The Great Food Stamp Binge," which highlights surfer Jason Greenslate as he takes advantage of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Although the 99 percent of SNAP recipients do not defraud the program, O'Reilly only focused on Greenslate during his Monday broadcast.

"The food stamp scandal, right now, 15 percent of the entire American population receiving food subsidies," the Fox News host announced. "And some of those people are conning the system."

O'Reilly said that the president was to blame for changing the work rules for food stamps and allowing "anybody to get them if they know how to game the system."

"I take one look at this guy and he's making money off the books," he explained. "Now I'm not going to make any accusation on national television about how he's making money, but this guy's not just surviving on food stamps. Alright? He's making money. The rat life entails a lot of different things."

"But this guy is a parasite. And my contention is that the Obama administration is encouraging parasites to come out and, you know, take as much as they can with no remorse. And this is how a country declines. This is how we become a weak nation."

Watch this video from Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast Aug. 12, 2013.

(h/t: Media Matters)