← Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis
Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis
The Fall of the Press, Why Democracy Needs the Rich With John O. McGinnis, Iran’s Latest Threat & Ukraine Peace Talks Remain Uncertain
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Foreign. Here. Welcome to the no spin news. Wednesday, February 18, 2026 Stand up for your country. Most Americans don't care very much about the media. I know that it's part of our lives, but it's distant from personal behavior, your personal circumstance. Polls say the American people believe the press is largely corrupt, which it is. And they can't do much about it because we have the First Amendment and all of that. Giant corporate media controls pretty much what you see on television and the major urban newspapers. That's changing because of social media, but it's still there. Now. Television news in particular still has some power. It can ruin people and it's not hard to do that. So linking anybody with Jeffrey Epstein, my God, you know, no matter what the circumstance, your name with his name, brutal. And if a news agency goes after you and wants to destroy you, it can do it. And it can also the American media protect people. That's the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo. So the Rhode island shooting was horrendous. Here's a high school hockey game, all right, And a guy shows up, Robert Dorgan, 56 years old. He kills his ex wife Rhonda and his adult son Aiden. He critically wounds Rhonda Dorgan's parents and a family friend, and then he commits suicide at the arena. I mean, it doesn't get worse than that, right? So it got a lot of coverage, but part of this story was ignored. That Robert Dorgan was a trans person who wanted to be called Roberta Dorgan. Okay, here are the agencies that did not mention that while covering this story. In Rhode island, the Associated Press, cnn, ABC News, NBC News, Mississippi, the New York Times somehow did not mention that the murderer was a trans person. No excuse for that part of the story. I don't know the circumstance of this. Man, woman, whatever, I don't know. But when you are a trans person, that needs to be reported. Okay, but these agencies don't. That is deceitful. Now their excuse is, well, we don't want to demonize trans people. Okay, but that's not your job. If you want to get into sociology, get out of journalism and go into sociology. Your job is report the facts. Canada, not as bad, but the Associated Press is the absolute worst. Now so remember on February 10th, guy kills eight people. 18 year old, he's transing to a woman. But I guess he's a guy, but I don't know. Jesse Van Russelaar, he'll say people. And he wound 17 others in one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history. Okay. The Associated Press doesn't mention that, that he was in transition. The Associated Press goes out all over the world, and I'm sitting there going, I would have fired every single editor at the ap. Again, same reason. Because the Associated Press didn't identify the trans person in Rhode Island. Oh, no, no, no, no. We're. We're not going to do that because it's going to demonize. Now, I'm not the type of guy that says, well, trans people are mass murderers. I'd never do that. You go where the evidence takes you. I'll tell you. It's not a difficult situation. It is a difficult situation, I should say. It's a tough road. And that can cause a lot of mental problems. That story should be told, not told. Okay? So it's disturbing, but it's not unique. The press has been covering for a lot of people. And let me give you a few examples. The biggest example is President Biden. Everybody knew that Biden was not mentally up to running this country. But the only reason that he did not run for re election is because of the debate. Do Americans saw for themselves? Press knew, press corps knew because Biden avoided it. Okay. They knew that he was doddering. They knew he wasn't doing a job. Every day he was knocking off at 3, starting at noon. They know all that. The White House corps knew it, covered it up. No doubt. Absolutely. I knew. All of my journalistic friends knew. Wasn't reported then. You had the George Floyd looters. Remember that? Unbelievable destruction cross country. Do you any follow up on that? How many were arrested, how many went to jail, how many were involved in violent activities, who they were, who financed it. Get any of that? No. Total blackout. Compare that to January 6th, when the rioters there, they were identifying almost every one of them by name and face. So the looters for George Floyd, they get off no exposure. But the January 6 rioters, many of them went to jail. They were pardoned by President Trump. And the final one is Jacob Frye, the mayor of Minneapolis. There's no question I made this, and nobody can refute it that the two Americans who were killed, Renee Goode and Alex Freddie, would be alive today if Mayor Frye had upheld his oath of office and protected the public. Okay, you don't have to subscribe to ice. You don't have to help ice. All you had to do is put Minneapolis cops between ICE and the protesters so nobody would get hurt. So any kind of a violent situation could be defused by the local police before it got into the ICE precinct. That's not hard to do yet, Fry. And many of the press reports treated as sympathetic. We absolutely. Those two dead people are on him and you can't refute it. Absolutely. All he had to do, send a cops out there and make sure that public safety was upheld. That's all he had to do. Wouldn't do it for political reasons. So the press at this point, not coming back. There's not going to be a renaissance, it's not going to be a rise of noble behavior. And many of us have left the corporate media and gone on our own. And obviously you're looking at the poster boy for that. And I have to tell you, so much relief involved. So I have to do this. I can report to you the news honestly. And that's the memo. Here's an interesting story adjacent to the memo. So President Trump says some very nice things about Jesse Jackson, who died yesterday, 84 years old. No mention of President Trump's praise of Jesse Jackson by ABC News, World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NPR or the Wall Street Journal. None. Don't you think that's worth 10 seconds? Now those agencies, all of them are, they'll demonize Trump for anything. But when he says something nice about Jesse Jackson, ignore him. You couldn't work that in foreign. Today, host of Black History Month celebration at the White House, which he should do. It's a noble thing. I don't know how much exposure it's going to get. Probably not much. All right, let's go to the economy. Tomorrow President Trump will be going to Rome, Georgia. Talk about the affordability crisis, which is going to mean who wins in the midterm elections. No doubt about it. And there is a Poll Talker Research. Five thousand Americans online says 90% believe that there is a crisis in the cost of living in America. 90%. Wow. So the President knows that and has to take it seriously. Some stats. We have about 335 million people in America, most of them citizens. There are 935 billionaires out of 335 million. So the billionaire population is minuscule on the millionaire front. 25 million Americans have assets of more than a million dollars. And that is 9% of the population, which is the highest in the world. Okay. We have more millionaires than anybody else because we have capitalism. The median net worth, that means 50% lower, 50% higher. Close to $200,000. That's what people are worth. Half more, half less. And we are behind in that one country. Only Switzerland has a higher median net worth, but there's only 9.5 million Swiss, so it's much easier for them to accumulate money than it would be in a nation of 335 million. Now, there's a new book out that you might want to check, and it's an interesting book. It's called why Democracy Needs the Rich. So remember, the left and the Democratic Party is saying, hey, income inequality is destroying the country. This is the opposite. It's written by a professor at Northwestern University, John O. McInnes, who joins us now from Chicago. First of all, do you think it's a crisis, a cost of living crisis in America right now?
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Well, I do think there are affordability problems. They're not caused by the rich. They're caused rather than by government regulation. I mean, what's striking is that a lot of things have become much more affordable. Everyone can have a library on their cell phone. The communication is much less, much more affordable than it's ever been. But sectors where the government regulates a lot, housing, medical care, education, those have an affordability crisis. But the answer is actually better markets. Not to attack rich people or indeed to. It's deregulation. It's, it's the, it's an old way of providing affordability.
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There's a lot of jealousy in the world. And very wealthy people like Jeff Bezos, who flaunts his wealth in your face, I mean, they don't do a lot of good for the affluent, I don't think. It's my opinion. Would you say that wealthy Americans actually help the country more than harm it?
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Yes, in a whole variety of ways. Well, one way that I think is very important is that they are a group of people with very diverse political views. They're liberals, they're conservatives. And the other people in the country who have a lot of influence in politics are professional influencers in the media, academics, entertainers, they all lean one way to the left. And so one way the rich help is by able to counterbalance these by getting out and supporting people who do not have these views. So that's one important perspective in which they help democracy because democracy thrives through diversity of opinion.
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What about trickle down economics? So wealthy people spend a lot of money and that helps working people. Is there anything to that? That's what Ronald Reagan believed.
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I certainly think that's true to some extent. But I think wealthy people help people in a different way through their entrepreneurial ideas. I think that's even more important because we look at particularly our technology. It's one of the things that has actually made things free. People have a library of all information in the world in their cell phones. People have been able to connect to relatives without any costs. People have an access to information that's unparalleled in human history, and that's because of entrepreneurs who've taken a lot of risks. So I think that's really the great way that the wealthy help, by actually bringing new ideas and bringing them to market and making people better off, making things very affordable.
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And Elon Musk would be in that category, right?
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He would certainly be in that category. And he's. And in taking over Twitter, he's also helped diversity of opinion because he's actually made it much less likely that Twitter is going to kick people out for opinions that other people don't like. And he has the ability to do that. And this is crucial about the rich because he is an independent. He doesn't really care so much about a public opinion or what some politician thinks of him. And the independence of the rich is very important for democracy because democracy sometimes is very censorious, and you need to have people to stand up against the majority. And that's happened out throughout American history.
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Well, the best.
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The heart of the abolition movement, for instance.
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Well, the best example would be founding fathers. Most of them were very true, very affluent, and they weren't tied to where they all had a commonality. We don't want a king. But then they were just brawling out. Final question for you, Liberal and Democratic Party demonizing the rich. They're bad, they're greedy, they're hurting you. Purely politics, or is there something else there?
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Oh, no, I think there is politics, because if you reduce the influence of the wealthy, not because they're all conservative, you actually increase the influence of what I call the professional influencers, because they're the people who have influence in politics. The media, academics, entertainers. And they're just tremendously on one side of the political spectrum. So I see this as a political power grab, which has often happened. You scapegoat people you don't like as a way of gaining power. And that's a. That's a. That's a very unfortunate aspect of democracy. And it's something the rich are able to stand up against better than some other sectors of society.
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Yeah, but they have it in New York City because that's exactly what happened. So Mandani is in there, and the city is going to collapse. In my opinion. The book is why Democracy Needs the rich. John McGinnis. And we appreciate it. Professor, thanks for Coming on, talking with.
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Us today, I very much enjoyed it. Thanks so much, sir.
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Overseas, Iran, this is just like Maduro. Remember the dictator of Venezuela was given the opportunity to leave that country with $200 million and he said blank you to President Trump. Well, now Iran is in the same situation. The United States has moved warships in. President Trump says he's not going to tolerate the current regime. But the Ayatollah Khomeini, he's the second Ayatollah. Now, the first one I have on the COVID of my book Confronting Evil, he said this, quote, the American constantly say they sent a warship toward Iran. Of course, a warship is as dangerous piece of military hardware. However, more dangerous than a warship is a weapon that can send the warship to the bottom of the sea. So the Ayatollah is actually threatening the American military. This is like Pee Wee Herman threatening Muhammad Ali. That's what this is like. And this looks to me like self destructiveness. So what I'm hearing, and I can't confirm as fact, but I can report to you, what I'm hearing is that after the Olympics are over, if the mullahs and the Ayatollah haven't signed off on a deal, the deal would include no nukes, no ballistic missiles, and you let the protesters out of prison. They haven't okayed it. Boom. USA and Europe too. Europe's with us on this. Going to hit Iran militarily, no boots on the ground, just destroy their infrastructure from the air. And the Ayatollah is going to be powerless to do anything about it. That should be enough. So the Persian people rise and overthrow the government. No guarantees, but that's what I'm hearing now. Two weeks from now, there's supposed to be another meeting. You know, it's all very murky, but just remember what I'm telling you tonight. Ukraine, same, same thing here. Putin has nukes so he can defy. Ayatollah has nothing, not any weapons, doesn't have any. People have fed up with him. People are fed up with Putin. But he's got the nukes. He's got an army, pays the generals very, very well. That's why they're loyal to him. Okay, so now that they were negotiating, now they're not. And there might be another. USA is not involved with this. It's Ukraine and Russia not going anywhere. Putin, I pretty much lost his mind. Any rational person would have stopped this months ago, maybe years ago. But there's really nothing we can do militarily to Russia. Strangle him. We can strangle them more. I don't know whether President Trump will do that or not. I hope he does. Update Neville Singham. Okay, Neville Roy Singham. So this story is getting very interesting. The New York Post, to its credit, is now picking up the story and reports that not only is Singham pumping money into the United States through 501Cs to pay violent protesters to disrupt our country, he's doing it all over the world. And the money is being sent from the usa. This is what the New York Post is reporting.
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Fox News is now streaming live on Fox 1. When news breaks, we don't just report it. We go beyond the headlines to get the full story. Get live coverage in depth, analysis and perspectives from the voices you trust, all in one place. Whether you're at home or on the go. Stay connected to the stories shaping our world stream. Fox News on Fox 1 download today. And Singham's wife, Jody Evans, co founder of Code Pink, is involved as well. Okay, so the way it goes is the money emanates from Shanghai. Chinese government knows this. It goes into 501Cs. One of them is named the People Support Foundation. Okay. It was located at a UPS mailbox on East Wacker Drive, according to the Post. Okay, and. And then it goes overseas to destabilize democracies. This guy's a huge villain, this Neville Roy Singh. I'm glad the Post is on it. Every media organization should be on it, but they don't care. They want to do another round of reporting about a kidnapping in Arizona. Not to say that's not an important story, but come on, I mean, how much speculation can you put out there? Final thought on Ash Wednesday in a moment. So today is one of the most important rituals in the Christian community. It's Ash Wednesday. I'm going to get my ashes right after I finish taping this. I'm going over to my church. I'll get the ashes on the forehead, and I'll probably wear them on Cuomo tonight. So I'm on News Nation. Stephen A. Is going to be there. I'm going to be there. Cuomo is going to be there. I'll probably have my ashes on then. That's News Nation. Check it out. Eight o'. Clock. Now, I was surprised, as I asked my researchers, I said, are the Protestants involved with Ash Wednesday? Because a lot of times Protestant sects, religions don't follow Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics were first. They came very soon after Christ was crucified. St. Paul started it and then it spread all throughout the Roman Empire. You know that. And then it was a reformation where the Protestants said, no, the Catholic Church is too corrupt. We're going to have our own church. However, on Ash Wednesday, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopals and Presbyterians all celebrate, I don't know if celebrates the right word, Ash Wednesday. Now, the secularists and the pagans, they don't know what Ash Wednesday is. They have no idea. It's a very interesting ritual, as they said. So the philosophy is you came from dust, okay? You came from really conception, but you weren't here and you will return to that dust. So you'll be gone when you die. And that's to keep people humble. Okay? To say, okay, you think you're really great, O'Reilly. You strut around and you think you're better than everybody else. Now, I don't. But, you know, some people think I do. You know, you're going to be dust like everybody else. So it's a reminder that we're all in it together. We're not better than anybody else. And we're all going to wind up in the same place when we die now. And if you believe in the afterlife, we're not going to wind up in a safe place. But when we die, we're dead. Okay? So that's what it is. But for Roman Catholics, and that's my religion, of course, Irish Catholic lineage, way, way back on my side. It's a, you are acknowledging that you're a sinner and that the 40 days of fasting and thing leads up to Easter. But the most important thing is you're sorry for your misdeeds. So that is very worthy because we all do bad things. We're all sinners. And if we can have a time of the year where we are focused in on that, we can improve ourselves. So that's Ash Wednesday. And I have to do these kind of commentaries because a lot I go to younger people, hey, it's Ash Wednesday. And I go, what? No idea. None. If you're public school reared, if you go from preschool to end of college in a public school, you'll never hear about it. You wouldn't know anything about it. If you have parents who are just, you know, they don't care about. Really, you have no idea. But it's, it's part of our country. It's part of our fabric. We are a Judeo Christian nation. Our philosophy is built on that. Anyway, probably said too much about Ash Wednesday, but I'm trying to atone for some sins, so please forgive me. Thank you for watching and listening to the no Spin News. We'll see you again tomorrow.
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