← Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis
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- [00:01]
Announcer
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- [00:42]
Bill O'Reilly
A quality candidate within the first day.
- [00:45]
Announcer
ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free at ZipRecruiter.com Zip that ZipRecruiter.com Zip ZipRecruiter.com Zip welcome to the no Spin News Weekend Edition.
- [01:07]
Bill O'Reilly
Joining us now from South Carolina is the former acting chief of staff under President Trump in 2019-20, Mick Mulvaney. You see him on News Nation. And he is the co chair at Actum Actum, a global consulting firm. So my over to doing it here. Am I, I too agitated for my own good? No. Where to start?
- [01:34]
Mick Mulvaney
I, I'm, I'm with you on where the meeting is and oh my goodness gracious, I can't believe he's coming to the United States. What did we extract if you wanted the meeting to take place, Bill, it was going to take place in the United States, period, end of story. Why? Because it's really hard to move the president, especially on very short notice. If they were going to have this in Oslo, for example, it probably would have taken six weeks. Trump didn't want to wait six weeks. He wanted to meet as soon as he could possibly put together a meeting. That means it's going to be someplace in the U.S. yes. There's a military base in Anchorage. I think it's attached to the airport there. Believe it or not, a little piece of trivia. I think it's where we held the very first people that came back from Wuhan at the beginning of COVID on the layover back to Southern California.
- [02:22]
Bill O'Reilly
So it's a very, it's a transit stop. And it's also the place where Sarah Palin saw Russia, I think.
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Mick Mulvaney
Yeah, you can see her house from this place, which is fantastic going forward as well. Okay, so it's much ado about nothing on where the meeting is.
- [02:36]
Bill O'Reilly
The meeting?
- [02:37]
Mick Mulvaney
Of course not where the meeting is.
- [02:39]
Bill O'Reilly
All of this is just garbage. So are they traitors? Are they miscreants, these people? Because I use two sound bites, Mick. I could have used 20. I have 20 sound bites.
- [02:52]
Mick Mulvaney
Yeah, you know, I don't know, Kelly, so I won't opine on that. I know Bolton. Bolton would say anything to make President Trump look bad. I don't know what that makes him. I don't know if it makes him a traitor or a miscreant or just an idiot. I'm not really sure. But he really, really hates the President Trump Derangement syndrome is a real thing.
- [03:11]
Bill O'Reilly
Yeah, absolutely. From an emotional mouth.
- [03:14]
Colby Hall
All right.
- [03:15]
Bill O'Reilly
When I talk to President Trump about these things, he's very clear with me, and I'm a kind of judgmental guy. If I'm talking to you, even if it's off the record, I'm assessing what, you know, what you don't know and what the message is. What I get is that President Trump really understands that the only way this will be solved is to give Putin something. And I expect that to happen. Okay, now, I didn't read the sound bite from Zelensky, who's basically saying, well, we're not going to give up anything. Well, you're going to have to give something. You're going to have to, if you want to stop the bloodshed in your country and hundreds of thousands of people being killed and maimed in going to have to give this villain Putin. It's not right, it's not fair, but that's what's going to have to happen. That's how I see it.
- [04:11]
Mick Mulvaney
I don't remember anybody starting a war over Crimea. I know the Ukrainians were upset about it, but I don't even think they went to war over that. I know that we didn't. The Europeans didn't. I can't imagine Zelenskyy actually going on TV as he did this weekend and saying, look, all of Ukraine is Ukraine, and there's no negotiating.
- [04:27]
Colby Hall
That's wrong.
- [04:27]
Mick Mulvaney
Crimea is gone as part of any discussion here. That's just. That's the way it's going to be. And if the U.S. russia and the EU all want to stop this war, and the price of that is Donbas the next and Crimea, that's how it's going to end, because the Ukrainians cannot fight this battle by themselves, and they.
- [04:46]
Bill O'Reilly
Can'T Fight it without the United States arms. I mean, because now Trump is committed to sending arms over there. So what I expect to happen is there's going to be some land given to Russia. They'll occupy the land and maybe they'll have a vote two years away, which will be a ridiculously corrupt thing. But then there'll be some guarantees from Putin that this will stop and he won't go further. That's the way I think it's. And that Ukraine won't join NATO. I think that's probably how it's going to be.
- [05:19]
Mick Mulvaney
I'm not sure about Ukraine joining NATO, but if you want to look to something that Trump has done already that doesn't get the attention that it deserves, there is a de facto security guarantee already. It's that critical minerals deal that Trump cut and he didn't get nearly enough credit for it.
- [05:33]
Bill O'Reilly
Right.
- [05:34]
Mick Mulvaney
Look, I'll criticize the guy if I have to from time to time. This was genius because it's a non security guarantee. Security guarantee because Trump knows that Russia is not going to invade Ukraine if Alcoa is pulling aluminum out of the ground there. So I thought that's genius and I think it lays a foundation for what the next round might look for. No, I don't think Ukraine is going to NATO, but there's going to be some type of structure that guarantees their security. At least Russia doesn't go into Kiev.
- [06:00]
Bill O'Reilly
Do you think the Trump derangement is worse now than it was when you were in the White House in the first term? Yeah.
- [06:06]
Mick Mulvaney
Cuz they really don't know how he won again. They were able to convince themselves back in 2016, 17 that he pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. 2024. They don't have any idea what's going on because Donald Trump was the most well known person in the world and still won the election. And they don't get it. There's a cognitive sort of dissonance between that. They don't understand a world where Donald Trump can become president. By the way, Democrats aren't the only one. I think, you know, Mitt Romney never was able to grasp that. Mitt Romney was never able to accept how Donald Trump was president and he wasn't. So it's not partisan, it's heavily Democrat, but it's not exclusively Democrat. No, it's a real thing. I see it every single day.
- [06:44]
Bill O'Reilly
But to be fair, Donald Trump did attack Mitt Romney. The Bush family and I understand the portraits in the White House of Bush the younger and elder have been moved into the janitor's closet someplace. And that brings me to my next question. If he would. If President Trump would just stay on the issues, which I think he is right on most of the time, and stop the bombast and the, you know, the small ball, wouldn't it be better? Did you ever advise him? Hey, let that go. No.
- [07:20]
Mick Mulvaney
I mean, Bill, I don't know how old you are. You're a little bit older than I am, but not much. My guess is I'm not doing much to change your personality. At this point in your life, you are who you are. There's an old saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks, and that's true. You were never going to change Donald Trump. He got where he was. I remember having a conversation one time about the campaign in 2020, and he wanted to do X. And I'm like, Mr. President, maybe Y is a really good idea. I'm not sure about X. He looks at me, he goes, how many campaigns have you won for president? Zero.
- [07:48]
Bill O'Reilly
Right. He always does that. But it's tactics, you see, if they're.
- [07:53]
Mick Mulvaney
His tactics and they work right.
- [07:55]
Bill O'Reilly
You just pointed out that the mineral deal in Ukraine didn't get the attention it deserved because something else not important overrode it. And that is, I believe that if Donald Trump gets the peace deal in Ukraine and sorts out the Russian, the Chinese trade thing, which I'm involved with, I don't know how that happened, but I am that. He then propels himself into the top 10 presidents of all time. But he could go faster into that arena, and that really means a lot to him if he would just stop some of the bombastic stuff. That doesn't matter. Am I wrong? You know what?
- [08:39]
Mick Mulvaney
Look, we're having a discussion about style, and I get it. A lot of folks don't like his style. His style works for him. And he may listen to you because you've achieved a tremendous amount in your life and you're very successful. So he might listen to you, but he's not gonna listen to very many people when it comes to changing his style. It's worked for him. He's been elected the president, you know, twice, he thinks three times. So I don't think he's going to change.
- [09:06]
Bill O'Reilly
And look, I don't know whether. Whether he won or not, but I have talked to him a few times where he has modified. He's modified because I presented in a historical way. I don't want him to change his style. I think that his style has propelled him I agree with him that he never would have been elected president either time if he wasn't a populist bomb thrower, because that's what the country wants. They're tired of the Kellys and the Boltons and the guys who have no solutions to anything, just undermining and undercutting. What, for partisan reasons? They hate that. And that's why Trump is successful, because he isn't a BSer, okay? I would never tell him to change. I think he's wise in presenting himself in a flamboyant way. There are things he chooses to overlook. He overlooks a lot about Putin.
- [10:10]
Announcer
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- [10:40]
General Michael Flynn
I'm Piers Morgan, the host of the Piers Morgan Uncensored podcast. We do big interviews and we do big debates about whatever's getting people talking. We make news, we make noise, and we make a little bit of trouble, too. Come and see what all the fuss is about. You can listen to Piers Morgan Uncensored on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [11:06]
Bill O'Reilly
When you read. And I'll send you my new book after this conversation. Confronting evil. Putin's evil. But in order to get a deal, Trump's gotta overlook it. He's gotta overlook China, the worst police state in history. He's gotta overlook it if he wants the best for America. Right, Bill?
- [11:28]
Mick Mulvaney
I look at this as probably the single most significant couple of days in his two terms so far, and maybe the most significant in his two terms when he's finished. He's done a masterful job. He knows how to play Macron, he knows how to play Keir Starmer. He knows how to play Washington, dc. He's better at all of those folks when it comes to negotiating. I don't think he's figured out Putin yet. I think he really got elected going into office thinking Zelensky was the primary impediment to peace. Now I think he knows it's Vladimir Putin. I think he believes that Vladimir Putin doesn't necessarily want this war to end. He thought that he did, and he doesn't know how to Deal with it. This is the biggest challenge I think he's going to face. And if he does it successfully and manages to negotiate an end to this war, I think you're absolutely right. It rockets him up the list of successes. How could it not with the accomplishments that you go with the style away? You don't get style points for being president. You get results points.
- [12:22]
Bill O'Reilly
Yeah. You don't get results points from the, not from the American media. You're never going to get results points from the American media. Not Trump. And I disagree with you on one very important thing. Okay. I think he knows Putin now. I think you're right. He thought he could reason with Vlad because he did the first term. Right. You were there. He reasoned with Putin. Putin didn't do anything like he did under Biden. But I think that Trump now understands Putin not as well as I do because I've spent a lot of time on this guy, which is we need to see what we came up with. But the only way to deal with Putin is through strength and what, what Trump is likely to say to him in private. Remember, this is not all going to be public because Putin speaks English to Trump in private. He's going to say, look, lad, we'll get your deal here. You're not going to look like a schmuck. You'll get your little Don Bass or whatever you want. But if you don't, I'm gonna break you. I'm gonna crush you. He's gonna say that to him. Last word.
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Mick Mulvaney
And here's my question, and I think this is the seminal issue of this. Does he have the credibility Trump, is Putin looking at him as somebody who keeps changing a deadline, who draws red lines and they can't stand up to him. We know what that did to Obama in Syria, but Trump has changed some deadlines here. He's, he's, he's given him a lot.
- [14:00]
Bill O'Reilly
Of rope, there's no doubt about it. But Trump can shut down those banks.
- [14:05]
Mick Mulvaney
And that's, and that's the issue. How do you reestablish that credibility? I think that's what the Trump team should be working on this, this week. Yeah, you can do it voluntarily, but that's awful. Ham fisted and runs the risk of dramatic escalation. How do you get that credibility back quickly? And I think if they can do that, this could be hugely successful this week.
- [14:21]
Bill O'Reilly
He doesn't need his team. He knows what to do. Okay. Trust me on that. All right. That was a great interview, Mick, and I really appreciate you taking the time I know you're really busy and everything, but thank you very much.
- [14:34]
Announcer
You're listening to the no Spa News Weekend Edition.
- [14:39]
Bill O'Reilly
Russian collusion. Okay? So the House Oversight Committee, which is going to call in the DC People, their big job now is to uncover hard evidence they can hand over to Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, to indict people in the Obama administration that ginned up and did illegalities concerning the phony story that Putin and Russia interfered in the 2016 election to throw it to Trump. That's what this investigation is all about. And you remember the special counsel investigation. Smaller on and on, okay? They came up with no evidence that Putin or Russia was favoring Hillary Clinton. That's the record. Can't deviate out of that record. Now, one guy who's deeply involved in this has a new book out, and I read the book. I mean, and it's very, very compelling. His name is General Michael Flynn. Okay? The book is called Pardon of Innocence, An Aspiring Story of Faith and Freedom. Now, General Flynn is a patriot. I mean, he served his country all over the place in dangerous zones like Afghanistan, and he is an intelligence expert. Here is his resume that I'm going to give you before I talk to him. So he's 66 years old. He's a Rhode Islander. In 2012, he was appointed by President Obama Director of Defense Intelligence, the D I D. He served for two years there. But he disagreed with Barack Obama over how to confront terrorism in general. Okay? Al Qaeda, isis, all of that. So Trump, Obama had his vision, Flynn's vision didn't coincide, and Flynn left the Obama administration. He was a civilian then for about a year, and he developed a rapport with Donald Trump. So he helped Donald Trump in a 2016 campaign. And when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, he was appointed National Security Advisor. But the Obama people, the FBI and others were after Flynn because they believed he was part of a cabal that helped Putin interfere in the election. Okay? Very complicated. Extremely. So ultimately, Flynn, to protect his son and other things, pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent. Remember, this whole thing was phony. Okay? But then Flynn withdrew, and you can read all about that in his book, why he did it and all that's not what we're concerned with here today. All right? And then ultimately, President Trump pardoned General Flynn and the case went away. But I don't think there's a guy who knows more about this Russian collusion hoax than General Flynn. And he joins us now from Washington, D.C. so the National Guard hasn't chased you around yet? Have they, General?
- [17:46]
General Michael Flynn
It's not yet. Not yet, Bill, but I only walked the streets for about two minutes so far.
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Bill O'Reilly
You know, a lot of people feel the same way. All right, so did I encapsulate your story so that accurately?
- [17:58]
General Michael Flynn
Yes, you did, very accurately. And I appreciate that because you're right. One of the words you use is complex. It's very complex.
- [18:06]
Bill O'Reilly
It's an amazingly complex thing. And people who are interested in their country and interested in this whole fraud should read Pardon of Innocence, your book, because you go over it and it's not 800 pages. I mean, you go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And of course, we verify everything you. You wrote. We're not putting you on here as, you know, some kind of guy. We. We check it all out. Right. So what I'm interested in with you is going forward, I feel that there are a number of people in legal trouble right now. Let's take them one by one. The first one is John Brennan. All right, the former CIA chief under Obama four years. You know him well. You worked with him well. Do you see him in any legal jeopardy here, and if so, how?
- [18:54]
General Michael Flynn
Yeah, I do. I think of all of the characters that are surrounding Russiagate and this conspiracy to basically undermine the country, I think he's probably the one that is at most legal risk. And I'm not a legal scholar here, Bill, but I would tell you that I think that there's enough evidence and enough times where Brennan said things under oath that were not true. And so he's at risk there. And I think that's where the Department of Justice is going to hone in.
- [19:25]
Bill O'Reilly
All right, the perjury.
- [19:27]
General Michael Flynn
I think he's the guy that's at most risk.
- [19:30]
Bill O'Reilly
Do you believe that Brennan, in his position as head of the CIA, was trying to help Hillary Clinton here? What was his motivation to deceive in the Russian collusion hoax? What motivated him?
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General Michael Flynn
Yeah, I think what motivated him. And it goes back to a whole bunch of. A whole series of presentations to Obama because Obama is part of this. But I don't think we're going to see anything happen to Obama. But I do believe that they wanted Hillary to take the. Take the con of the United States of America post the Obama administration. And it goes back to very serious meetings. Like 3rd August 2016 is one of the first times when Brennan went in and briefed Obama on the dossier and let him know, let Obama know at that time that this thing was made up. Essentially, it was part of the Hillary Clinton campaign to have An October surprise to say, you know, Trump is, is working with Putin, right. To help defeat him. And that particular meeting which came out in the Durham report, to me that's one of the most egregious acts by Brennan where he began to promulgate this thing and he did it with the President of the United States, in this case Obama. So I think that where Brennan is at, there's going to be a series of data points and meetings and documents that are clear now. And Tulsi Gabbard's been releasing a lot of them that are going to show a conspiracy to undermine the campaign of Donald J. Trump. And then once, once Trump won, then there was a series of those similar things to then undermine the duly elected President of the United States.
- [21:17]
Bill O'Reilly
Once he was. Now you're saying that Brennan, in August of 16, when the campaign was underway, okay, knew that the Hillary Clinton dossier, the one that her campaign paid for, was phony. He told Barack Obama that. That's according to the Durham report. But Obama didn't quite believe it because he wanted another intel assessment. Correct.
- [21:45]
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- [22:00]
General Michael Flynn
Yeah. You know, I'm not so sure, Bill, now you're asking. You know, I'm speculating a little bit. I'm not sure where Barack Obama's head was at at that time. He might have had other information. He may have known that it was going on or whatever he and Brendan talked about, you know, mano e mano in the Oval Office at that, in that meeting. But I would say that what Obama did do and having worked with commanders and having worked with bosses when it came to intelligences to direct Brennan to continue to pull this thing together. Let's.
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Bill O'Reilly
Okay, so he didn't say it's bogus, ignore it. He said continue to investigate. Is that correct?
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General Michael Flynn
That's what I believe that they are going to find out that he said continue investigate. And it's clear later on with some of the other evidence that now is been exposed by Tulsi Gabbard.
- [22:53]
Bill O'Reilly
Now what about Hillary Clinton's campaign? Now I feel that she will say, look, I don't know anything about this. My campaign people did it all. That that's probably going to be her defense, right?
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General Michael Flynn
Yeah. I mean she can do the old, you know, Jim Comey, I don't recall you know, 150 times or whatever. You know, that's. That's going to be hard to believe. Now, she can do that in a court of law or, you know, in wherever she wants to do that from a legal standpoint, and then throw the burden on her, on Robby Mook or somebody else like that or campaign team. But it's certainly in the court of.
- [23:27]
Bill O'Reilly
Public opinion and particularly conservatives and people who don't like Hillary. They've already convicted her. But in a court of law, it's going to be hard if that's her defense, unless there's a memo or there's some kind of recording or a whistleblower that comes back and says, I was there and Hillary ordered whatever. Now, you mentioned Mikhail Comey, who was head of the FBI. He, at the same time Brennan was looking at this phony Russian collusion accusation. There were two. There was the CIA and the FBI. Right. They're both looking at it and Comey came down where.
- [24:07]
General Michael Flynn
Yeah. So it's just interesting. This is where it gets really complex and I'll try to simplify it as much as possible. So it's not two different organizations looking at the problem. It's actually the two leaders, Comey, Brennan and. And inside. This is where a very famous name that pops up. Peter Strzok. Right, Peter Strzok. Peter Strzok was the deputy head of counter espionage for the FBI, but he was also a liaison to the CIA, so he was a conduit. And we also know of some other people in the Department of Justice, Bruce Orr, who's another name that people may not remember, but he was number four at the Department of Justice. So there was conversations that were moving that this conversation between the FBI leadership and the CIA leadership, meaning Comey and Brennan. This is where Durham, I think, failed in his investigation to really connect these dots. But we now know this is whatever, I don't know, eight years later, and people like Cash Patel, who was watching this very closely, and now he's the director of the FBI, Tulsi Gabbard, who's at the DNI level, who. She's really exposing some of this. So there was a conversation that Comey and Brennan had at some point where they worked this out together between the FBI and the CIA. Because the last thing on this point, Bill, is that it wasn't the whole of the intelligence community that agreed on this. It was really two organizations. The FBI and the CIA.
- [25:36]
Bill O'Reilly
Yeah, there was just two organizations. So do you believe. Do you believe that Brennan and Comey collaborated to foist. A fraud on the public for political reasons. Do you believe that?
- [25:55]
General Michael Flynn
Absolutely, 100%.
- [25:58]
Bill O'Reilly
Stop, stop, stop. So that's what the oversight Committee. That's what they have to not prove, but gather evidence. To hand it to Bondi and the Patel. I don't know what they're doing and we don't get a lot of. We're doing X, Y and Z. But we do know what Congress is doing. And these people have been subpoenaed. They have to commit. Do you expect them to take the Fifth Amendment? You expect that Brennan are going to go? I won't answer.
- [26:30]
General Michael Flynn
Well, if, if they take the Fifth, which I have actually done a couple of times because of the burden that they put on you, which is their right to do. But if they take the Fifth, then you are open to have to go in front of a grand jury.
- [26:44]
Bill O'Reilly
Absolutely. Okay.
- [26:49]
General Michael Flynn
This to me, Bill, is something that they got to pay attention to.
- [26:52]
Bill O'Reilly
Final question. There are a lot of conservatives who'd like to convict President Obama as being a mastermind of this whole thing. Okay. That he directed it to me that evidence is not there. After reading your book, am I wrong?
- [27:08]
General Michael Flynn
You're 100% right, Bill. I really don't think that people, as much as they feel and they're emotional about this. I think people need to get over the fact that Obama is going to be indicted and thrown into jail or something like that.
- [27:24]
Bill O'Reilly
Well, he's got executive privilege. He can order any investigating he wants. But if a president of the United States engaged in something like this, it's at the Richard Nixon Watergate level. But anyway, General, I just want on a personal note, you know, I don't know you personally, but I followed your career and you're unbelievable patriot. And you know me, I'm a pretty tough guy. I think you got hosed here so badly and your son and your family and they, they did this out of spite, they being the FBI in particular. Comey is a horrible man, in my opinion. I don't know if Brennan had anything to do with the legal charges. I don't think Obama protected you and he should have. He just sat it out. But that's my assessment. So I'd like everybody to take a look at Pardon of Innocence, an inspiring story of faith and freedom by General Michael Flynn. And it's a pleasure to talk to a real patriot today. General, we'll talk again soon, I hope. Thank you.
- [28:26]
Announcer
This is the no Spin News weekend edition.
- [28:30]
Bill O'Reilly
So this is important. It's not at the level of war and peace, but it's important. So last night I had a dinner here on eastern Long island and urchins, you know, there in the dinner, high school kids and middle school with their parents and run around and they're very interested in my upcoming book, Confronting Evil. Okay, because we got Hitler on the COVID we got Mao gets down, we got Putin, and then there's 12 other guys inside the book that are as evil as you can possibly imagine. Anyway, they. Oh, it's about what's about. These kids are asking me and I'm trying to explain it to them. They knew nothing, nothing about even Hitler. And I said, didn't. Don't they teach you that? No, no, not taught. And then I looked at the parents and the parents kind of embarrassed and I said, well, it's hard to engage these kids in conversation because they're always on the phone. Every waking moment they're in the house, they don't watch TV anymore, not watching tv, they're not reading books, they're on this. And it's very hard to get them away from that. Okay? And I think that is an accurate assessment of where we are in America. So there is a new study comes out of the University of Southern California. The Financial Times printed it, about 15,000 younger people about the effects of the phone. And here are the highlights. 20 to 30 year olds report being more easily distracted and careless. I see that my own urchins, they're on the phone, they forget they got to clean the room or whatever they have to do, reduce tenacity and follow through on commitments. So yeah, I'm going to do this, dad. And it doesn't get done because they forget because they're on the phone. Okay, then there is higher anxiety levels. Why? Why would that be? Because there's so much stuff they don't understand and so much negativity on the phones. Bullying, huge, huge kids, getting bullied by name, getting destroyed in their communities. And kids are anxious about it. And less outgoing, you know, people, they stay in the house instead of going out, jumping in the ocean or the pool or playing stickball. And the stuff we didn't know. Nope, in the room with the phone. So joining us now from Brooklyn, New York is Colby Hall. You may know him, he's the founding editor, media column on how all of this stuff is going to negatively affect the United States big time. And it's coming up fast. Should I have included anything else in my lead before we get to the specifics?
- [31:29]
Colby Hall
No, I mean, I think you set it up wonderfully. But I also think that in one level, this is kind of obvious to anyone that has kids or you go outside, you go to the park, everyone's on their phone with the study I thought sort of hung a lantern on was just how bad it's gotten. And no one's really talking about what an enormous, not just a generational shift, but a millennial historic shift. And we should start to talk about it because I fear it's going to get worse before it gets better.
- [31:58]
Bill O'Reilly
But there has been talk in New York State, for example, there's a new law that bans phones in school during class time. They are concerned about the distraction, they being the authorities, but it hasn't risen to the level that parents are banging the emergency bell. And that's what I'm seeing. They, they allow the urchins to do this because if they don't, there's tension in the House.
- [32:29]
Mick Mulvaney
Corporate megastores are spending millions lobbying D.C. politicians on one sided policies that send small businesses tumbling. They want to enact harmful credit card mandates that take resources away from your local credit union and community bank, leaving Main street businesses with less access to credit, making it harder for your family to pay for, for everyday goods like gas and groceries.
- [32:52]
Bill O'Reilly
Tell Congress to guard your card and.
- [32:54]
Mick Mulvaney
Oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card mandates.
- [32:57]
Announcer
Paid for by electronic payments Coalition.
- [32:59]
Bill O'Reilly
You know there's angst now with me that never worked because I don't care about angst. I'm going, there's no phones at the table and there never was. And that put the phone down is one of my favorite phrases and do this but I'm a martinet word of the day. But most parents, they let the kids do it. So I think it's the parents fault and I do think it's going to adversely affect this country.
- [33:26]
Colby Hall
Well, I think you're right. I think it's everyone's fault, but the parents are the ones that are responsible. Right. I also abide by no phones at the dining room table ethos as well. And I'm proud to say my 22 year old reads books. He's a big reader. My 18 year old is not. And maybe that's because one just graduated from college, the other's about to graduate, go to college. But yeah, I, I, this is an issue where we need to figure out how we sort of the genie is out of the bottle. The genie's out of the bottle and has got his own TikTok account and is distracted enough to try to solve this. Right. And you know, I put in my column that I compared it to the Gutenberg, you know, inventing of the printing press, which, you know, changed. You know, it spread, it started the Renaissance. It spread knowledge and understanding of Christianity and so many great things came from it. But the, the, the effect of that took centuries to unfold. And for people to read across the world, this is the same thing. But it's unfolded over a decade, right? And so there's been no guardrails, there's been no sort of. You can't really regulate it because it is what it is. I think you make a very salient point that parents need to take a lead role and be a lot stricter about this. And I happen to think, you know, I've done some research on this in the New York public schools. Turns out, you know, who's the biggest fan of not allowing phones in schools are many of the students because they want to, they want to have a break. You know, the, the isolationism and the anxiety, the lack of consciousness. I think a lot of these kids that are addicted to their phones, they're somewhat aware of it. And when they can, when you force them to detox and, I don't know, play a parlor game or spend quality time with your parents or your friends or, you know, I sent my kids to summer camp mostly so that they wouldn't be on their phones and they would be playing, you know, pick up baseball, wiffle ball, you know, swimming, fishing, what have you. Not everyone has that opportunity. But I don't know what's the solution. I think we are at a point where we need to recognize it so we can try to detoxify our brains before it's too late. Because I think raising a generation of zombies who don't even know what's wrong with them, right?
- [35:43]
Bill O'Reilly
And they're not getting stronger, this makes you weaker, makes you weaker mentally, and it makes you weaker physically because you're not out there exercising or anything like that. It's easy to isolate yourself in your room with their phone. And my 22 year old, who I think is smarter than I am, he doesn't read many books, but he does research and good research on the stupid phone. But I have to explain to him that, look, you gotta broaden it out, particularly if you want to be President of the United States, which I think he's got a shot at. All right? You can't just be a phone addict. Now the thing that concerns me the most about mental health, and that's big in this country now with all the addiction we're seeing, with all this violence we're seeing across our country. We are the most addicted, violent country in the world, okay? We are. And that's shocking because we are based on Judeo Christian philosophy. But the urchins don't even know what Judeo Christian philosophy is, okay? They don't know. So when I was teaching in high school, I saw the bullying in the halls. I saw it, I stopped it. And I would stop it sometimes in a very confrontational way. Now the bullying is on a machine and they can tear kids apart, leading to suicides and all of that. And a lot of the kids don't tell their parents. They're afraid to tell their parents, all right? Because they think the parents are going to run down to school or they're going to run to the kids parents and they're going to make it worse. That, I think is one of the most dangerous aspects of this phone culture.
- [37:19]
Colby Hall
I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, you've worked in the media space for a long time, as have I, you have developed a certain level of skepticism and you have a critical mind and you can kind of, you can smell a scam a mile away, right? These young teenagers don't have that. They don't have the wisdom of those experiences. I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, right? And that's made me smarter, right? And I can see, you know, a phishing scheme, a spam, some sort of, you know, attack to try to steal your data. I can see that coming. A lot of these kids can't. Two other things. I mean, I think there's been this rise of. I was talking about this with Jonah Goldberg yesterday, who was a, you know, he was a conservative thinker. He started National Review Online. And you know, he was kind of like a comedian. He was, he was sort of a troll. And now he can't do that because the trolling behavior from the extreme left and the extreme right has kind of ruined it for everyone. It's no longer funny. It's just mean spirited. And I don't think that kids are equipped to handle that. And then the one last thing I would say, this isolationism, people just get lost in their own phones. They don't want to engage in the outer world. And there's a lack of community. There's no faith based living. There's no churches. People don't go to church anymore. And so there's a lack of community that is helping. Not every parent can do it on their own. But if there's elders in the community that can help out. That's gone away also. So it's a kind of a perfect storm of negative influences. I feel bad for our kids. We shouldn't blame them.
- [38:52]
Bill O'Reilly
In a free society, there isn't legislation that can stop it. And the cruelty factor is rising because every tape of somebody being cruel is on that machine. TikTok or whatever it is. So the more cruel you are to your fellow man, the more exposure you're going to get. And that they're just absorbing it like this. And it's real. It's not movie. It's not Terminator. Okay? This is real. And now the anesthesia fills in. I've seen it so much, it doesn't even affect me anymore. So I don't know what the solution is. I know you can't legislate against the First Amendment. I do like all of this school stuff. No phones while classes are underway. And I think that we have to spread the word that parents have a responsibility. But the irony is some of the parents are worse addicted than our kids. Last word.
- [39:48]
Colby Hall
I think you're absolutely right. I think we can't solve this problem immediately. But recognizing it is the first step. And calling out adults to parent is. Is a major first step. And take it from there.
- [40:03]
Bill O'Reilly
All right, thanks, Gobi. Appreciate it very much.
- [40:07]
Announcer
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