Adam Carolla (4:20)

Gutfeld went on Fallon and was a ratings bonanza a couple of weeks ago. So now there's some precedent for it.

Guest Speaker (possibly author or commentator) (4:30)

Mr. Kirk's death, I think, is going to lead to a renaissance of a demand for justice. That's what I believe is going to happen. But in order for that to happen, you have to understand what is happening in this world right now. And that's why I wrote Confronting Evil. Because most people look away, they don't understand, they don't know what happened. Every One of the 15 miscreants profiled in evil. My book is relevant to today. As far back as Caligula in the Roman Empire, it's all relevant to today. But this is so shocking, so disconcerting, so sad. The assassination of a 31 year old just exercising his freedom of speech with two young children and a wife, that everybody is forced to pay attention. And now you have to inform yourself. So you guys might know that earlier this week on the launch of Confronting Evil, I made a very bold statement that the progressives, of course, attacked. My statement was, if you live in New York City and you vote for Mandani, you are committing an act of evil. Doesn't mean you're an evil person. It means that vote is evil because Mandani has told you, just like Hitler did in the 1920s. I'm not comparing Hitler to Mandani, but it's the same kind of presentation of what they believe. Mandani has told you he does not want to imprison criminals. He'll let out as many as he can. Well, that is going to lead to more murder, more rape, more assault. He's not hiding it. There's no two sides to it. He has said it. So you are voting for that. If you pull the lever for the man. And I'm saying to the American public, you have to stop that. You can't enable these people in Charlotte where the judge let this guy out knowing the man was violent, knowing he had beat up his own sister, let him out to do what he did to that young woman on the bus. Every American has got to say, no, we're not voting for that. Judge should be removed. The fact that she isn't removed, I think she will be. What are you. What are you doing in North Carolina? What are you doing? Same thing in Chicago, south side. 20 years. 20 years of drug gangs mowing down poor black citizens, and you object to a layer of protection offered by the federal government to stop it or at least mitigate it. You object to that? What the deuce is going on? So Americans have got to get as angry as you guys, as me, in order to make Charlie Kirk's death a legacy play. So when people die in this violent manner, if something good can emerge that prevents future deaths, that is very important.

Interviewer 2 (8:05)

Bill, can I ask you. I don't think you're on Blue Sky.

Bill O'Reilly (8:12)

I'm.

Interviewer 2 (8:12)

I felt obligated because I was going to talk about this, because I saw people saying, you will not believe how much vile and just disgraceful celebration was going on on this website, which is the. It's like the left wing, lunatic version of X, because they. They can't, you know, control X anymore because of Elon. So there's this whole place you just go. And Bill, I was going through it last night. Do you think. And it was as bad as everybody was saying. I can. I can tell everybody. It was. It's horrific. Do you think that there is any sense from some of the Democrats who matter, some of the Democrats who have power within their party, that there is something deeply, spiritually, psychologically wrong with the base of their party? I mean, do you get that sense that there's any accountability from within their side, or is this just going to be a. Both sides ism.

Bill O'Reilly (9:10)

And.

Interviewer 2 (9:10)

And some people are going to celebrate it on their team and other people are going to ignore it? How do you see that? Where we are.

Guest Speaker (possibly author or commentator) (9:16)

Right now, only the mentally ill would celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So these people who are doing that are mentally ill, whether they're a danger to society, I don't know. But that's the classification 100% of them fall into. There's no excuse for that. Now, on the Democratic Party front, you are seeing today a total retreat from Trump, is Hitler, from MAGA, are horrible human beings. You're seeing 100% retreat, because if you are on the Hill or in a state office, you are not going to be able to survive by peddling hate in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, you will not be able to survive it. Okay? They all know that. I mean, the View today came on, and this is a very good example, because everybody knows what the View is, all right? And these are radical left women. These are not thinkers. These are. These are people who are in business to make the other side suffer. All of them were lamenting the death of Charlie Kirk. Predictable. Disney would not tolerate it. And they saw what happened to Matthew Dowd at msnbc. But was Charlie Kirk ever invited on a program?

Bill O'Reilly (10:44)

No.

Adam Carolla (10:46)

You have a contents page, as every book does, and there were three that jumped out at me because there is a kind of comforting American notion that we are a flawed people, but we've never been an evil people. But there are three American institutions or Americans in your book. The slavers of the coast off New Orleans, Nathan Bedford Forrest and the robber barons. All from your orientation, purveyors of unforgivable evil.

Bill O'Reilly (11:21)

I think that's accurate. Slave trade was the worst thing that ever happened in the United States by far. And the two guys who ran it, we profile, one lived in Virginia, the other in New Orleans, became the richest men in the world. And they knew exactly what they were doing. And they didn't care. They didn't care to tear families apart. They didn't care if you were hanging the slaves from a tree. They didn't care as long as they got paid. So we go through that step by step. And wait till you see how it worked on the Robber Barons. I included that chapter because of Teddy Roosevelt. I want to put some good in the book, you know, unrelenting bad. And Roosevelt went up against JP Morgan and Rockefeller and Carnegie. He went up against him and he won. He beat them. Because what they were doing was squeezing the American worker. And they were dying by the thousands in the mines, in the factories. Kids working, 8 years old, they're exploiting them. I mean, it was horrible. Meanwhile, at the Gilded age, they got 18 homes all over the place. These guys, they knew exactly what they were doing. Rockefeller was freezing people out of their homes so he could boost the price of oil artificially. Come on. And that's not taught in school. We are a noble nation. There's no doubt in how we free billions of people. But those things. And then Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the biggest war criminals of all time, the Confederate general who founded the Ku Klux Klan. And again you go, Nathan Bedford Forrest. They're like statues of them in places. Right. Is crazy, because people don't know. So my job as a journalist, historian is to shed, you know, to tear down the shroud. I don't want Americans to be like the Chinese and they don't know anything. All right? We need to know as much as possible. And that's why we're the best selling nonfiction authors on earth. Right? With the Killing Books and now the confronting books.

Adam Carolla (13:27)

19 number one bestsellers. That is a formidable record on the slavers. The reason I thought that was so important is you were not talking about the transshipment. You were talking about what had already been outlawed, which was the importation, but the trade of enslaved Americans who were here, which is a part and a dimension of that story, much of which is not taught in schools, but that is really not taught. And I thought you admirably brought that to the surface.

Bill O'Reilly (14:03)

Thank you. I appreciate you reading the book. Because a lot of interviewers don't. You know the phrase up the river. Yeah. The cliche. Well, that's where that came from. Yeah. Because when you were sold in New Orleans, you went up the river, the Mississippi river, to whatever plantation bought you. And the real devastation. And again, it's in play to this day in America. So the 16, 19 stuff, they're on the wrong track here. They've lost it. Okay? But the devastation that slavery cost the African American community still lingers. The bitterness, the disassociation, the. The fracture of families. All of the stuff that happened after the Civil War that Nathan Bedford Forrest contribute to with the Ku Klux Klan. That's all in the DNA. And it's important for all Americans, no matter what color you are, to understand that. Okay. Because once you understand it, then you can deal with it more effectively. So I'm not buying that, you know, slavery built America. That's ridiculous. What, did Boston just appear because slaves were there? No, no. But there is a reality that we Americans should face is that some of us Native Americans, black Americans, other minorities, have a much rougher road of it. And we, as fair people, noble people, have an obligation to try to mitigate that a bit.

Adam Carolla (15:48)

And when President Trump says, as he has recently, that inclusion of stories like this are by their very nature hostile to America, are anti American, and should be in some way policed out of either the Smithsonian or other institutions, where do you come down?

Bill O'Reilly (16:06)

I come down on the truth has to be told. So there's no question that in many museums, in Washington and other cities across the country, there's an anti American strain that they put up the event as. Everybody accepted this. Everybody was down with this. No, no. A million Northerners were killed or severely wounded trying to free the slaves.

Interviewer 1 (16:40)

Right.

Bill O'Reilly (16:41)

What Trump wants, and I know this because I talk to him about it all the time, the history of it, is a balance. He doesn't object to telling Americans the truth about their country, but he wants the whole truth, not just a ideological presentation like 16, 19. He doesn't want that. So I think he's got a valid argument, but it depends on. On what the policy is you're talking about. You want me to give you a real contemporized view of this for your CBS audience?

Adam Carolla (17:20)

Please.

Bill O'Reilly (17:22)

Donald Trump has the power to put troops on streets of Chicago, Memphis, whatever other city he wants, and the Supreme Court will rule that way because of what U.S. grant did. U.S. grant, after Andrew Johnson, one of the worst presidents ever, ignored the brutalization of blacks after the Civil War. Totally ignored it. Yep. Okay. Grant came in and said, you know what? We got to stop this. He sent federal troops to South Carolina, didn't ask permission to wipe out the Klan. And they did. And they did it under the banner of public safety, the same banner that Trump is using to stop this horrendous violent crime in Chicago. Now, he hasn't sent them there yet because they don't want to be reversed by the Supreme Court with Posse Comitatus. So they're trying to get in, but theoretically, he has the power to do it based upon what happened to the Klan and us. Granted.

Interviewer 2 (18:32)

You, of course, have a nice chapter on one Vladimir Putin. And it's my sense, Bill, that Vladimir Putin made a massive miscalculation about Donald Trump. My theory is, and I think there's evidence to support this, that Putin came in and thought, okay, Trump's coming in. Trump is. Is willing to consider some kind of reset. He wants a negotiated settlement. And I think he interpreted that as weakness on Trump's part, that he could roll this guy. And so Putin decided to put the pedal to the metal and go all in on the military solution to gain an advantage over the last several months. Donald Trump doesn't like a lot of things. One of the things he doesn't like is somebody trying to make him look bad or push him around. And that has sort of reinvigorated, I think, Donald Trump's opposition to Putin and willingness to go to the mat against this guy. Give me your assessment strategically of where we stand on the situation with Ukraine, and then give me a sense of where you think it's going, because I share your view that Putin is a calculating guy. He's not an ideologue, but he is an evil guy who wants to sort of reconstitute the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. And the question is, is that kind of guy even capable of negotiating a deal?

Bill O'Reilly (19:58)

Well, in 2017, I did an interview with Donald Trump, the Super bowl, and in the interview, a very famous clip where I said, are you going to deal with Putin? He's a killer. And Trump kind of slopped it off, saying, well, we're not so great ourselves sometimes. But I knew from the very beginning about bad Vlad. In the first term, Trump's first term, he was able to contain Putin. Now, I don't know how he did it exactly one on one, but they had a decent relationship in the sense that Putin didn't cause massive trouble. Cause a little bit of trouble, but not massive. But evil changes people. You get worse and worse and worse when you have unlimited power. So Putin is not the same guy now than he was when Trump left office. He's much worse. He's a psychopath. I don't think he lives in the real world. Putin, he enjoys slaughtering women and children with drones. He likes it. He's got a million casualties on his own side. Couldn't care less. I believe he would use nukes if he were up against the wall. Now, Trump has realized that it took him a little while to see the change, all right, but it's there. And now you're in a position where the only thing that's going to moderate that Ukrainian slaughter is if Putin feels that his power is in danger. And there's only one way to do that without military, and that is just to strangle his economy. But the president still has not pulled the trigger. Pardon upon on that.

Interviewer 2 (21:53)

Are you optimistic that he will?

Bill O'Reilly (21:56)

It depends.

Interviewer 2 (21:58)

I question whether Putin would even want a negotiated settlement. Unless, of course, his job is on the ground.

Bill O'Reilly (22:04)

He doesn't want. He doesn't. Yeah, It'll have to be forced upon him. But there are a lot of other things in play that people don't know about. China. China is a big player here behind the scenes, and you don't know what the Chinese are going to do. Chinese turn on Putin, Putin's got a big, big problem. So there's a lot of other stuff. It's not as A, linear A leads, B leads C. These news analysts drive me nuts. They don't know anything. I mean, every day I'm listening to these people go, oh, my God. It's not that I'm a genius, but I know. I know what's happening. They don't know. Putin doesn't want to make a deal. He wants to take over Ukraine. He wants to be a macho man. He wants to, as you said, be Stalin light. Stalin's his idol. We go through that in confronting evil, but he can be forced to do it. But it's gonna be very tactical. It's gonna require some big surprises.

Interviewer 3 (23:06)

You commented. You talk about, like, that, you know more than most people. And the fact that you've been asked to go and address the Chinese politburo, the fact that Donald Trump seeking your advice, I think does speak to the evolution of your career. You wrote something in your newsletter I thought was just noting. It says your humble correspondent is walking a tightrope between journalism and policy. I have no choice. My career span is now more than 50 years. I know a lot. It's my responsibility to help my country, I guess. Is that something that sort of evolved over time, or did you just wake up one day, like, look, yeah, I cannot just be a journalist. I have to engage and try to help make a difference?

Bill O'Reilly (23:44)

No, it's life. You know, life. Life presents you with opportunities. And I never in a million years thought I would be in. I'm not. I'm about as far away from a diplomat as you could possibly. Okay. I never thought I would be involved at this level with very important matters for the United States of America. But if you look at my resume and you look at what I've done, it makes sense. All right, so now we have worldwide technology. Every nation on earth knows who I am. They know I'm sitting next to the President of the United States of Yankee Stadium. They. They can see the pictures. They know. And the president and I have a very respectful relationship. Again, I don't call him up and say, you should do this. You should. I never do that. Ever. When he asks, I give him an honest answer. But my contacts all over the world are unmatched. And I can get in touch with the Most important people on the planet who, who really know what's going on. And they will tell me a lot of times off the record, but that's all right. So I'm in that position where what I'm doing, I'm doing not for money. I got plenty of money. I don't need any more money. I'm doing it to try to help this country. And one of the things I said to the Chinese was, look, this is doable. And I actually gave them a proposal called a Partnership for Peace and Prosperity. I said, if you just look at this, it's absolutely doable. It doesn't set you back in your internal dealings with your people at all. Let's do it. And that's the point. You have to get them to both sides, said, okay, doing this. If the United States and China would ally together to tamp down all the other madness in the world, this world would be 1000% safer place.

Interviewer 1 (26:02)

Is there a danger. I've been watching a lot of people reacting to this, and I agree with everything you've said. But is there a danger in people on the right playing into the same place that they have always criticized the woke left in particular of occupying, which is the enemy of free speech, wanting to cancel people, wanting people to lose their jobs over things that they've said? You know, I mean, for example, I'll play you a clip. This is of Kimmel reacting to the cancellations of Tucker from Fox and Roseanne Barr from his own network, abc. Let's take a look.

Bill O'Reilly (26:37)

That's right. Fox News has severed bow ties with Tucker Carlson after all these years. They are parting ways, which means he was fired. I mean, that's really what parting ways means.

Interviewer 1 (26:52)

You know what would have been interesting, Bill, would have been if the conservative right to a man and woman had just reacted by saying he shouldn't be fired. He would have absolutely exposed the hypocrisy if on the left, if they had just not called for him to go. It seems that I reckon Kimmel was going to get fired anyway based on ratings and how much money it was costing. Just like we saw with Stephen Colbert, it would have been a natural thing to happen. But by demanding he be fired and gleefully celebrating it, is the right not falling into that trap of behaving exactly the way they've always attacked the left for behaving?

Bill O'Reilly (27:33)

Well, the quote is, when they go lower, we go higher.

Guest Speaker (possibly author or commentator) (27:37)

Right, Right.

Bill O'Reilly (27:38)

That was Michelle Obama. But extremists never go higher. That's why they're extremists. So you're hearing the amplification of voices on both the left and the right that are not rank and file, they're loons. There are people who don't want to hear the other point of view, who despise the other point of view and oftentimes want to hurt the other point of view. You open this conversation with you and me and a lot of controversial people have always been in danger. I had to have security to live in my house for a time. Even now when I go to events like the Yankee Stadium event 10 days ago with Donald Trump, it was security, massive security. We all know that there is a danger to speaking your mind and that's why a lot of people won't do it. But you're never going to get the extremes on the right and the left to be logical. That's why the word extreme exists. They're fanatics. And you've seen that all throughout history.

Interviewer 1 (28:55)

Just final word for you, Bill. In the memorial service, you had kind of two really memorable moments. One was Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow, saying she'd forgiven the assassin. And then you had almost immediately afterwards, Donald Trump, the president, saying, you know, he could never do that. He hates his opponents and sorry, apologize. He was kind of half joking, but not really. What did you make of those two moments? And was Trump, was that a sensible thing to do, following what Erica Kirk had said to sort of ratchet things up about hating opponents?

Bill O'Reilly (29:35)

Well, number one, the comments by the president were not scripted. They were off the cuff. And he does that all the time. I thought it was an extraordinary moment for America when Erica Kirk said that she forgave the man that killed her husband. And you have to put it in this kind of context. What does she say to her three year old daughter? And when her one year old son becomes cognizant, what does she say? They don't have a daddy yet. She stood up there in front of millions and said, I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus. Jesus forgave the people who murdered him on the cross. And I'm going to do the same thing. Just step back for a moment with all the emotion flying and go, that's just absolutely extraordinary for a human being to do that. Now, Donald Trump was honest when he said, yeah, he has a very hard time emulating Erica Kirk. And I can identify with that. It's very hard for me to forgive the people that tried to destroy me and my family, who've harmed me and my family. I know who they are. I know what they've done very hard. And I say to my priest, because I actually go to church every Sunday, go to mass. I have to. I can't get behind in the atoning. But I say, look, if somebody asks me for forgiveness, they say they're sorry. I'll forgive them like that. But these people have no remorse, and they'll hurt other people. And I have a very hard time with that. And that's the essence of confronting evil. All 15 men in a book, they did the most heinous things you could do. They none of them showed any remorse at all. And so the question for the theologians is, are we collectively supposed to forgive Hitler and Mao and these other people, Lee Harvey Oswald? It's very, very difficult. But I admire what Erica Kirk did, because that is such a positive message. But I have to be honest myself. I'm like Donald Trump in that regard. I have a very, very hard time.

Interviewer 1 (32:09)

You know, if I'm honest, I'm probably more sided with you guys than I would be with Erica Kirk. And that's why it was such an extraordinary thing for her to do. And said I was interested that Trump said, you know, he's gonna talk to Erica and maybe they can persuade him. I think probably good luck with that. But it would be very interesting to hear those conversations, particularly as he's become. He's become, I think, more profound about his faith since surviving the assassination attempt on his life. I've talked to him about that. One word answer to my last question. Bill. Is there any way back for Kimmel at abc, do you think?

Bill O'Reilly (32:40)

Sure. I don't like what happened to Jim. As I said, I had a good relationship with him. He was respectful to me when I was on his program. But at this point, what I would advise him to do. And here's an interesting thing I offered about a year ago through Adam Carollo, one of his best friends, I saw where Kimmel was going. I saw it. I've been around a long time on tv, and I said, look, tell Jim I want to talk to him, because you can do this satire. You can get your point across. You can do all that without being hateful, without being, you know, a person who's just loathing. Okay? But Kimmel never called, and I know Carolla passed on the message, but I don't think he should be banished or canceled. But I think he needs a little bit of time off.

Interviewer 4 (33:41)

Explain your definition of evil and why you believe it's on the rise.

Bill O'Reilly (33:47)

Very simple definition. If you hurt another human being intentionally, you know, you're Hurting them, and then you have no remorse. That is evil. And if you do it over and over and over, then you become an evil person in every way, shape, or form. There's no getting around it. That is the litmus test. You cannot hurt another person intentionally and have no remorse about it. That's evil.

Interviewer 4 (34:20)

I'm looking at this and I'm wondering what made you decide to write this book at this particular time? Confronting Evil. Why this right now?

Bill O'Reilly (34:29)

It's a good question. Because a year ago. It takes a year to research and write these books. I was coming off confronting the President's big success, so I had to follow it. And I noticed a rise in evil in the United States and around the world. Putin is the poster boy for that. He's on the COVID of Confronting Evil with Ayatollah Khomeini, Hitler and Mao. I put Putin's front and center to send the message that this isn't just a history book, this is happening now. And the book came out September 9th and September 10th, my birthday, I wake up and Putin lobs missiles into Poland. Extremely dangerous situation for the world. And a few hours later, we have the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And an interviewer said to me, that's just eerie, the timing. But I knew a year ago that evil was on the rise the world over. And I knew it because I have eyes. I can see. And I'm watching social disorder in la, New York, Chicago, all the big liberal cities right in front of you. I'm watching conduct that never would have been accepted even 15, 20 years ago. Never. You couldn't openly sell narcotics in the street. You would have been dealt with. Not anymore. So people are looking away from evil. And when you do that, and every society proves it, evil then rises and gains power.

Interviewer 4 (35:59)

Would you consider our president evil?

Bill O'Reilly (36:02)

No. Evil is an intentional infliction of pain and suffering. Donald Trump is a flawed man because we all are flawed men and women. There's no doubt that he wears his personality, his bombastic personality on a sleeve a lot like you do. A lot like I do. We can identify with him because we're people in the arena who pretty much speak our minds. I don't believe he's a bad man. I've known him 35 years. I don't hang around with evil people. With the exception of Chris Cuomo. I had to do that. That's a joke.

Interviewer 4 (36:39)

It's a joke. It's a joke.

Bill O'Reilly (36:43)

But Trump, in his private moments, and I'm there for some of them, is very concerned about the suffering of other people. He wants to stop the Ukrainian war in all the blood. He sincerely does. So to call him evil would be like calling him a Nazi or whatever they're calling him today. Wrong and insulting.

Interviewer 4 (37:06)

You also said those who turn away from evil don't confront it. Not just somebody who's not evil, but also somebody who's turned, who doesn't turn away from it. Do you believe he turns away from it enough, or do you believe he confronts it to your satisfaction?

Bill O'Reilly (37:24)

I don't have the data to answer that question with any authority. I don't follow him around. Got it. I know that he's the president. I know the other presidents, four of them, fairly well. They have to pick and choose what causes they take on. Trump has obviously selected migration as his number one, crime as number two. And a lot of his supporters believe he's done a lot of good in those areas his attractors don't. That's our country. But I think that, on balance, in my lifetime, there isn't a president that has been evil in my lifetime. I think that James Buchanan, who was a coward and allowed the south to rise in ferocity, bordered on evil because he knew people were going to die, slaves were getting hammered. He knew all that, did nothing. And there were a few other presidents that were wicked, Harding wicked. But in my lifetime, most of the presidents have tried to do the right thing, perhaps because of expediency for themselves. Not saying they were noble, but I hadn't seen anybody in the office that I would. Even Biden, who was a terrible man.

Interviewer 1 (38:46)

That's why I was.

Interviewer 4 (38:46)

I was getting ready to go there, ask you about Biden.

Bill O'Reilly (38:49)

You're talking about Biden. You had him as your second worst.

Interviewer 4 (38:51)

You had him as your second worst president, is that correct?

Bill O'Reilly (38:55)

Yeah. And he was lucky he got second because the Civil War is pretty big. But Biden was, and you're going to see over time how bad he. He actually was. Now he's going to have an asterisk next to him, his name, it's going to say, well, he might not have known what he was doing, and that's a medical condition. And that might be an excuse, but, boy, he was bad.

Interviewer 4 (39:19)

You also write about the Mexican drug cartel in this book, speak about their impact on society, in your estimation.

Bill O'Reilly (39:27)

Well, we're looking at a country totally out of control. Mexico, it's run by criminals who make billions of dollars selling poison and kill millions of people all over the world. Fentanyl kills millions of people and hundreds of thousands in the United States and these people have no remorse. That's another designation of evil. They never have remorse, and they make so much money and they abuse people. So we focused in on two of them, one Mexican, one Colombian. And we tell you about how they live their lives, what they do, how. It's just astronomical. But the Mexican government enables that they know what they're doing because they have, you know, 200,000 homicides in Mexico over the past couple of years, 200,000 murders. And you're going, well, why are you permitting that? And then when Trump offers to help Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, she turns him down. That's just crazy. But drug dealing at any level, street level, cartel level, whatever, is evil. That's it. It's evil, and you cannot justify it in any way.

Interviewer 4 (40:37)

Before I go to my. I had another question for you, but I wanted to go back to Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, and you speak about him being an evil man. The reasons are obvious. He's considered a mass murderer in the eyes of yourself and many, many others. It happens to be factual in a lot of people's eyes. When we consider what's transpiring in Ukraine, a war that he clearly instigated somehow, some way, we've seen Trump take a turn when it comes to how he speaks about the Ukraine, Russia war compared to what he did months ago. Why do you believe that shift has taken place? And do you believe that it may be too little, too late? Because Trump wasn't forceful enough in the beginning.

Bill O'Reilly (41:24)

All right, so in his first term, Donald Trump contained Putin. He was able to reason with him. Putin still misbehaved, but not on any level like this. Putin changed. Evil always makes it worse. If you embrace evil, you get worse and worse and worse and worse. And in five years, Putin became a flat out sociopath and a psychopath. He enjoys killing women and children. He targets hospitals in Ukraine. He targets small towns. He likes it. That's a different cat than Trump dealt with the first time around. Donald Trump didn't realize that he thought he was getting the same Putin. Now, you may have seen the pictures of me and President Trump at Yankee Stadium on 9 11.

Interviewer 4 (42:15)

Yes.

Bill O'Reilly (42:16)

The president invited me to go there, and I knew there was a reason. It wasn't a social occasion. And when I was sitting next to him at his request, and I handed him my book, Confronting evil, I said, Mr. President, look, I know you're busy, but you got to read the Putin chapter. You have to, because this is not the same man that you were dealing with. And this Chapter explains where he is. He would use nuclear weapons. Putin.

Interviewer 4 (42:43)

I don't doubt you, Bill. I'm just saying we kind of knew this before now. How is it that Donald Trump didn't know? I mean, you invited him.

Bill O'Reilly (42:52)

Not last night. It's not a matter of knowing.

Interviewer 4 (42:54)

Okay, go ahead.

Bill O'Reilly (42:55)

It's not a matter of knowing. Trump tried to get Putin to be reasonable, and that's what Alaska was all about. He tried, and I don't fault him for that. You know, he did everything he could to get this guy to be sane, and the guy just gave him the middle finger. So now it's going to change. 24 hours after I gave the President my book, I got a text, went, whoa. Okay. So I know he read the book. And then at the UN and other statements, he's rallying now to really put a big hurt on Moscow. But the key to this all is China. If China would stop enabling Putin, then Putin couldn't do what he's doing. And I think that Donald Trump is working that angle very, very hard. So it's not simplistic, too little, too late. It's not letting them do too much. It's overall strategy. And I think we're in another zone now.

Interviewer 5 (43:58)

You talk in the book, you talk a bit about the moral struggle between good and evil. And I'm wondering, in a time where we're all on this thing, where we're all being hit with Instagram, TikTok, all the crazy stuff that's coming through and the gender confusion and everything else, where do you think Americans should be getting a moral? Well, let's ask it this way. Do you think politicians have any responsibility to be giving a moral. Moral guidance, or should that purely be coming from, like, a religious perspective?

Bill O'Reilly (44:31)

Well, I can't give moral guidance because most of them are immoral. So how can they do that? But they can certainly lay out standards of behavior, and that is very important in the public arena. Because, look, in New York City, where I am, you can sell heroin, fentanyl on the street. Nobody's going to arrest you. And even if they do take you in, you can get prosecuted. That's flat out wrong. You're selling poison to people. You're killing people, enslaving people, children are getting abused, and you're not going to do anything about it. Come on. That's the kind of stuff where politicians have to get loud. And most of them are cowards. They're. And it's like the cleric. So I'm Catholic. I still go to church every Sunday. And when I was in Catholic school, it was a clear right and wrong. Okay, you do this, you go to heaven, you do this. Gonna be a little hot for you. God. Okay, that's gone. So religion is dissipated to a stunning degree. And a lot of kids don't ever hear about it. They don't know what the Bible is. They don't know what, what standards of behavior that is easily imparted by politicians and clerics. But a lot of them are just afraid to do it.

Interviewer 5 (46:01)

So since you mentioned you are in New York City and Mamdami, a guy who I think is replicating a lot of the ideas that some of the people you've written about in the book brought to fruition, how bad do you think New York City will actually get if he becomes mayor?

Bill O'Reilly (46:19)

Well, Mandami is doing the Fidel Castro playbook almost word for word. So you remember in the late 1950s, there was a dictator running Cuba named Batista. You saw the Godfather 2 and that was pretty accurate. Accusers in pocket of the mafia, organized crime, horrible, horrible. And the Cuban people had nothing. Castro's charismatic guy, he's got the little beret, comes in and says, look, I'm getting this guy out of here. We're gonna have a fair economy. We're all gonna be better. Vote for me. And you really don't have to vote because we're gonna take it over. We got more guns now. And that's what Castro did. Mandami, I think, has studied Castro's speeches because the same patterns are in play. Oh, I'm not a communist. Oh, no, no, no. I'm a democratic socialist. Bunch of crap. He would confiscate everything you have, Dave, like that if he could. I agree. Okay. All right. That's what he wants. He wants to confiscate private property. He wants the government to run everything and to give to the have nots or whatever it may be. Okay, if he's elected, then two things happen right away. The police department dissolves, because even now, many, many experienced officers are retiring, looking for other work. They're. They're trying to get out.

Interviewer 5 (47:41)

They're down here with us in Florida, Bill. That's where they've all come.

Bill O'Reilly (47:44)

There's a lot of people going to Florida. So the NYPD, and my grandfather was one. Is 10,000 light, 10,000 under what they should be, you'd have another 10,000 out of there. That is going to give license to every violent miscreant to do whatever they want to do, which they're pretty much doing. Now with the no bail law, okay, And Bragg is the DA and he doesn't prosecute anything. So it's a free fire zone on crime. The other thing is economics. So where I live is just outside the New York City boundary. Real estate in my town has gone up 20%, 2, 0 since Mandani announced. And that's all New York City selling their places, getting the hell out before he comes in. Because what he's going to do is put draconian taxation on everything, not just your income, but everything's going to double because he's going to boom, boom, boom. New York City tax on this, New York City tax on that. And corporations are going, can't do it. So they're going to go to Tennessee, Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, and the people who have homes in the five boroughs are moving to Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, wherever it may be. So that flow out, I estimate to be at a half million people in four years on demand, dummy. A half million will leave the New.

Interviewer 5 (49:27)

York City area and take the tax money with them, which then will only.

Bill O'Reilly (49:31)

Further, only further people.

Interviewer 5 (49:34)

What do you, what do you think about the class welfare or the class warfare problem that it will also create? To me, this ends, this will end. Sort of like the end of Gangs of New York or the end of Dark Knight Rises where. Why wouldn't the poor people of downtown be ransacking the Upper east side and the Upper west side and taking back what is, you know, rightfully theirs? Do you, do you see that it will or do you, would you predict that it would end in that type of violence?

Bill O'Reilly (49:59)

That would be irresponsible to predict that with the diminished police presence possible. But I, I wouldn't predict it. Social order is something that most people want. Even poor people want it. They don't want to have to go out and fear for their lives and their children can't even go to school. So if I had a bet, I would say that would not happen. What will happen is a terrible rise in individual crime and a depravity, public depravity. Homeless drug addicts running all over the place, you name it. That'll rise to record levels. So quality of life will just fall apart. Well, I put Putin on the COVID of confronting evil because he's a present day threat to everybody. So you might remember on 9 11, I was with President Trump at Yankee Stadium. Did you see the pictures that I had, Abrams?

Interviewer 3 (51:08)

I forgot that now that you pointed out. I remember it, I can't remember one.

Bill O'Reilly (51:14)

Of the reasons I was there. And I got the call very late on September 10th. What came out September 9th, to meet the President in the Steinbrenner's box at Yankee Stadium. He wanted to talk about a few things that happens, I don't know, three, four times a year. And so I knew it was important. It wasn't just a baseball game or an honorary thing on 911 for the victims families. And so we did talk about Putin. And I said, Listen, Mr. President, this is a different guy than when you were the first. When you were president the first time. You're dealing with a whole different guy now. He's a psychopath now. And that's what always happens to evil people. They get worse. There's no rehab for evil. And once an evil person gets power goes on and on, it gets worse and worse and worse. So I gave him the book and I said, I know you're busy and, you know, but just read the Putin chapter because it's vital that you know where he is in the world right now. And then 24 hours later, I get a text from him said, wow. And we back everything up in my books, which is why we are the most popular nonfiction book writers in the world. So it's not like a debate. This is Putin. This is what he does. This is why he does it. So the question is, can you deal with Putin? That's what you were asking in your monologue. And yet the answer is you can deal with him, but you have to be ultra careful. And so Trump has two tracks, all right? The first track is to get Zelensky in the real world. So Zelensky has one choice. You can continue the war and see your people slaughtered forever. Russia's not going to have enough to break through to Kyiv and take the country over, but Putin will just keep blowing kids up. Because Putin likes to do that. He enjoys it. That's why he's in confronting evil. Or you can cede some territory. Trump just called it property that Putin soldiers are standing in right now, because Putin's not going to be humiliated in front of his own people and withdraw those soldiers. Now, can he make a deal under those circumstances? It's possible. But he's got to bring pain to Putin. And the pain that he'll bring is China. He'll link in the China deal trade deal, which is the most important thing on earth right now, to China backing away from Putin. And if the Chinese agree to that, and they should. When I was in Beijing in May, that was one of the big topics that I talked to the politburo about you got to get out of the Putin business and OPEC will sell you all the oil you want and so will Trump. You don't need to be supporting Putin killing women and children. That's not a good place for Beijing to be. I told him flat out now what they do is what they do. But there is a chance that if Trump can break through with China and China disengages from Russia, that deal will happen.

Interviewer 3 (54:40)

But it doesn't seem like again, and who knows if this is a longer chess game.

Bill O'Reilly (54:44)

Right.

Interviewer 3 (54:45)

I mean, it does seem like our relationship with China has gotten worse, not better.

Bill O'Reilly (54:50)

Well, I mean, it's a day to day thing. So what people have to understand watching this program is that these guys all bluster. Word of the day. Bluster. They just bluster.

Interviewer 3 (55:03)

You wouldn't know anything about that.

Bill O'Reilly (55:05)

Well, you know, I made a nice living blustering. And they've attained power. Blustering. There's never been a bigger blusterer than Donald Trump, two term president. Yeah. So bluster can work, but it can't work for justice. You know, bless her injustice. You can't. So when it comes down to it, Trump's going to offer Xi a deal and he'll offer Putin a deal. And I think it's possible that both may, may all right, accede to Trump's vision.

Interviewer 3 (55:42)

But it sounds to me like even you view that as still unlikely.

Bill O'Reilly (55:46)

No, I give it a 50, 50 for Putin and a 70, 30 for Xi. China needs America. They can't survive without our buying their stuff. It's an export economy. They have to feed 1.5 billion. And here's a shocker. Chinese people don't have a 401k, they don't have the gold card, Abrams. They got to eat. And they got to eat based upon what they earn. Every week. Americans are whining about, I don't have any money, but there's ways to refinance your mortgage here, not in China. You got 100, you got 1.5 billion people. You gotta feed them. The only way you feed them is do business with the usa.

Interviewer 3 (56:32)

Well, I think it's a good thing you sent him your book, Confronting Evil, Assessing the Worst. I handed it to him and I'm glad that it sounds like he read the Putin chapter, because I think that is critical that he is reminded of that even as a negotiation. Right. I mean, understanding the guy is critical for an effective negotiation. We're talking to Bill O'Reilly, of course, host of no Spin News, and one of the things about Bill O'Reilly, you may agree, you may disagree, but you're not going to get talking points from Bill O'Reilly, which is one of the reasons that it's always an interesting interview. All right, let's talk about the government shutdown. Every single poll that has come out indicates that more Americans blame Trump and the Republicans, depending how much the Republicans in Congress get, how much Trump gets versus Democrats, meaning if you lump together Trump and congressional Republicans, every single poll is blaming them together more. How does that impact what happens now.

Bill O'Reilly (57:39)

If at all does it? This is all a show of force by the Democratic Party, which had to make a line in the sand because Trump was getting too powerful, he was getting too successful. So the Democrats had to find a way to blunt that power and success. So they seized upon we'll shut the government down. And we believe that the media which favors us will spin it, that we're innocent and Trump's guilty. And that's what's happened. So.

Interviewer 3 (58:15)

But again, Bill, you're one of the people who said that the impact of the mainstream media has so significantly decreased over time. Right. The idea that, oh, the media is the ones that are sort of giving this to the Democrats, they can't do that anymore. You're the one who keeps telling us.

Bill O'Reilly (58:32)

That they can do it, but they can't do it by themselves. They need social media. So social media drives all that. Not the New York Times or the LA Times or ABC News, they can't muster anything. But this collective thought, they call it group think, finds its way into social media. And then the people more and more and more are consuming information from that. And so that's what they're getting because it's like a tsunami of Trump.

Interviewer 3 (59:11)

What about the right wing? Come on, there's far more right at this point. There are far more right wing media influencers than left wing when it comes to social media. In terms of social media Success, digital media, YouTube and beyond, Facebook, the right wing creators are having much more success than the left.

Bill O'Reilly (59:33)

Not on a mass level. If you look at the sites, because they list them that get the most views, most of them are establishment sites, the New York Times, the Washington Post, that.

Interviewer 3 (59:47)

Right, but I was talking social media.

Bill O'Reilly (59:49)

But no, no, but they're getting the views on social media because they all have now their apparatus where you can go, so you go to cnn, you go to this, you go to Fox News is probably the most successful on the right. But Fox News doesn't even do that stuff anymore to watch the full episodes.

Interviewer 2 (60:08)

Of the no spin news.

Interviewer 5 (60:09)

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Interviewer 2 (60:11)

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Bill O'Reilly (60:13)

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