AMERICAN conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly has a taste of his medicine when Malays whom he described as “having no money at all” presented anecdotal evidence of their wealth to him.
This came about after the former Fox News host mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping’s official visits to Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia by questioning the economic value of Beijing’s outreach to these Southeast Asian nations.
“Hey, President Xi, let me just break it to you. Those folks have no money at all. They cannot help you, they are not gonna buy your stuff because they don’t have any money,” rebuked O’Reilly on Bill O’Reilly.com alluding to the on-going US-China trade war.
Maybe he’s going there to try and sneak in Chinese goods under the Vietnamese label. But that’s gonna be easily exposed.
So I don’t even know what this is. You know… If China loses the US market. But I still believe there’s gonna be a detente here. It’s hosed. It’s just screwed.
Cause we’ve the money, we buy the stuff. The ‘Malays’ aren’t gonna buy your stuff, they don’t have any money.
Surely the Malays are not going to let their pride be watered down in such a manner as they swamped the comment section of the Malaysiakini (BM) post of O’Reilly’s remarks on X with their tit-for-tat rebuttals.
‘Melayu tak ada duit’, pengulas Amerika perlekeh lawatan Xi https://t.co/zr780sEfj8
— Malaysiakini (BM) (@mkini_bm) April 17, 2025
One of the most ingenious comments is that from Liverpool football fan Argentanius (@Mcmanamy99) who revealed that there are “billionaire Malays around but just that they don’t make into the Forbes list”.
This aptly encapsulates a cheeky view by Jai-yen (@Jaiyen_nakal) who seemingly mocked twice former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who tends to brush aside allegations that he has “billions of ringgit stashed in Switzerland and Taiwan”.
While labelling O’Reilly as having “sexual misconduct”, pro-Madani ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴡᴏʟᴠᴇʀɪɴᴇ 🐺🏴(@iam_ein) chided the 75-year-old TV host and author who is renowned for making provocative remarks for being “unaware that many Malays balik kampung to UK for Raya”.
Another commenter used the layman analogy of “can afford to order sotong (squid) at mamak eateries – something that even Elon Musk can’t afford – to invalidate O’Reilly’s claim thar the Malays are poor.
A handful even sought the assistance of @grok – the artificial intelligence (AI) a.k.a. chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI – to verify the claims made by O’Reilly. In particular, is whether he was referring solely to the Malays or generalising the Malays to refer to Malaysians as a whole.
One even displayed the impoverished condition of penniless white tourists begging for money in Asian countries.
On a more serious note of things, a netizen or two slammed Malaysiakini for its unethical conduct by having provoked hatred or even breached the 3R (race, religion, royalty) code with its reporting. – April 18, 2025
