Watch Bill O'Reilly's tense pre-Super Bowl interview with Barack Obama

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- As the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks readied for their Sunday night Super Bowl matchup, another heated head-to-head took place on Fox News.

Conservative commentator and O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly sat down with President Barack Obama for a testy, 15-minute conversation about the Obamacare rollout, the 2012 Benghazi attack and reports that the IRS investigated Tea Party groups for political reasons.

"We all anticipated there would be glitches," Obama said of the notoriously flawed Obamacare rollout. "I don’t think I anticipated or anybody anticipated the degree of the problems with the website."

O'Reilly asked whether telling Americans who liked their insurance that they could keep it was "the biggest mistake" of his presidency, Obama hit back, "Oh, Bill, you’ve got a long list of problems of my presidency."

"This is one that I regret, and I've said I regret it," Obama added. "I try to focus not on the fumbles, but on the next play."

O'Reilly also referred to the issue of the 2012 Benghazi attacks, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed.

"The fact of the matter is that people understood at the time something very dangerous was happening," but added that his team could not have "at the moment" known "exactly why something like this happens."

"What happens is you have an attack like this taking place and you have a mix of folks who are just troublemakers, you have folks who have an ideological agenda, you have some who are affiliated with terrorist organizations, you have some who are not," Obama said. "But the main thing that all of us have to take away from this is our diplomats are serving in some very dangerous places. And we’ve got to make sure that not only have we implemented all the reforms that were recommended by the independent agencies but we also have to make sure that we understand our folks out there are in a hazardous, dangerous situation."

"You're detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was terror attack because your campaign did not want that out," O'Reilly pressed.

"And they believe it because folks like you are telling them that," Obama said.

Despite the back and forth, O'Reilly ended the interview on a surprisingly conciliatory tone.

"I know you think we haven’t been fair, but I think your heart is in the right place,” he said.

[Politico]