Juan Williams Responds to His Firing from NPR: ‘You mean I don’t get the chance to come in and do this eyeball-to-eyeball?’

As we reported early this morning, Juan Williams was fired from his news analyst role at NPR for comments he made on Fox News Channel earlier in the week. Williams, who’s been an FNC contributor for 13 years, was back on the network this morning.

In a taped soundbite during “Happening Now,” Williams explained how his NPR firing went down during a cell phone conversation with the head of news at NPR: “I said, ‘you mean I don’t get the chance to come in and do this eyeball-to-eyeball?’ I’ve been there for more than 10 years.” TVNewser has learned from a Fox insider that SVP of News Michael Clemente conducted the interview.

The former NPR Senior News Analyst will be on “The O’Reilly Factor” tonight to talk further about the situation. It was comments he made on Bill O’Reilly‘s show on Monday which lead to his firing from NPR.

• Video from Williams’ appearance, and the backstory, after the jump. >> Update: O’Reilly calls in to “Happening Now” to defend Williams and trash NPR as a “left-wing outfit.” O’Reilly is calling for “an immediate suspension of every taxpayer dollar” going to NPR.

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