Bill O’Reilly exploded and repeatedly called George Will a “hack” tonight in a fierce battle over whether O’Reilly’s book Killing Reagan is factually accurate.

O’Reilly’s gotten criticism from people close to Reagan over the book, and he fired back by saying they don’t want the truth being told. Will yesterday took things one step further when he tore into O’Reilly’s book and called it a “no-facts zone.”

Well, responding last night was not enough for O’Reilly, and he invited Will on today. To start, O’Reilly said that Will libeled him and claimed Will was supposed to call him before running the column and didn’t.

Will said he had no such obligation and snarked that it wouldn’t be the first time O’Reilly’s gotten something wrong. When O’Reilly kept on the point, he asked, “Do you want to talk about Bill O’Reilly or Bill O’Reilly’s book?”

O’Reilly moved on to Will taking issue with his use of a memo by a Reagan aide. The memo features what Will called “slanderous assessments” of Reagan that its own author disowned. O’Reilly said he only did so “under heavy pressure” and Will literally laughed out loud.

O’Reilly confronted him on a bunch of statements from people close to Reagan to refute what Will was saying and accused Will of “actively misleading people.” Will shot back by saying O’Reilly’s “something of an expert” in that field.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

When Will called out O’Reilly for not talking to pivotal Reagan administration figures, O’Reilly shot back that he didn’t want anyone with “skin in the game.” He insisted Killing Reagan is laudatory, but Will said not only is that untrue, but charged that “it is doing the work of the left” to discredit Reagan.

O’Reilly cried, “You’re a hack! You’re in with a cabal of Reagan loyalists who don’t want the truth to be told!”

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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