Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Biden’s Cringeworthy Town Hall, No Power in Texas, and Cuomo Shows No Sympathy for NYC

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Tonight’s rundown:   Remembering Rush Limbaugh, who passed away today at 70 years old “Born a ramblin’ man” - although friendly in his demeanor, Joe Biden stumbled his way through his CNN Town Hall last night As Texas is hit with a historic ice storm leaving thousands without power, the controversy over fossil fuels heats up Trump attacks Mitch McConnell following his statement after Trump’s acquittal – causing further tension within the GOP Bill speaks with Former ’60 Minutes’ producer Ira Rosen about why corporate media is so corrupt California has had some of the toughest COVID restrictions, while Florida has been reopened for months, yet their overall COVID numbers are not that different – why? Gov. Cuomo offers no guidance on how to handle the latest crime spree in NYC, - tells Mayor de Blasio to “figure it out” This Day in History, 2014: Jimmy Fallon begins hosting ‘The Tonight Show’ Final Thought: Australia Takes Cancel Culture Notes from America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Bill O'Reilly, welcome to the No Spin News, Wednesday, February 17, 2021, stand up for your country. Rush Limbaugh passed away from lung cancer this morning. Our condolences, of course, to his family on Ash Wednesday. The reaction, I'm going to get into it. It's kind of messy and depressing for me as a member of the press to see how far down the media has descended. Now, I did not know Rush Limbaugh very well. I met him once, a very short conversation with him. You may remember, I competed directly against him for seven years.

on the radio factor, but I understand his place in history. And I also understand when someone dies, you don't trash them. Interestingly enough, we have a producer from 60 Minutes, former producer, Mike Wallace's guy, who has got a book. We're going to talk about the media with him. So this kind of all folds in. We'll also analyze President Biden's town hall last night. Now, when the announcement was made about Rush Limbaugh, I tweeted this, quote, the legacy of Rush Limbaugh is clear, the most successful radio broadcaster in history. Mr. Limbaugh provided a conservative balance against the dangerous left-wing corporate media machine. History counts few entertainers, and he did describe himself as that,

among those who made a difference in the country. Rush Limbaugh did. more tonight on the no-spin news. So here we are analyzing a Rush Limbaugh. So immediately he was trashed by the Huffington Post. I'm not going to read you any of it. It was just beyond vicious. That is partially owned by Verizon. And tomorrow we'll give you a little bit more information about the Verizon

CEO, Verizon Media. This is what I mean when I say the corrupt corporate media. So these animals that work on the internet are paid by corporations. It's just, it doesn't matter whether you liked Rush Limbaugh or didn't like him or agreed or didn't agree. None of that matters. The man died. He has a family. All right?

You can do your retrospective pieces two days from now or whatever. I mean, it's just beyond the pale in this country. It is. and that is a theme that we're going to hit hard tonight. So in the Associated Press, which is a left-wing organization now, Reuters, I thought, was going to pound Limbaugh. It did not. The Reuters News Service didn't.

He played it straight. But the Associated Press, I'll quote you a couple of things. This is in the body of telling their readers that Rush Limbaugh passed away. Associated Press, quote, he called Democrats and other people. Others on the left, communists, wackos, feminazes, liberal extremists, faggots, and radicals, unquote. All right. You know, the guy was on the air for, what, 40 years, and this is how you describe the body of his work. I'm not going to defend anybody who uses invective.

I don't do that. I don't use it. But when you die, or associated press, quote, Limbaugh influenced the likes of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and countless other conservative commentators who push the boundaries of what passes as acceptable public discourse. There you go. That's the Associated Press. Guy wrote this is named Matt Siddensky. I don't know him, but I know the AP, and it hasn't been a straight news agency in 15 years, maybe more. Finally, Associated Press, what Limbaugh did was to bring a paranoia. and really mean nasty rhetoric and hyperpartisanship into the mainstream, said Martin

Kaplan, a University of Southern California professor, was an expert on the intersection of politics and entertainment and a frequent critic of Limbaugh. Why would you interview a frequent critic of Limbaugh in his obit? Why? You want to do that? Do it two days from now. And then you balance it with somebody who felt that Limbaugh had a worthy message. That's how you do journalism. All right? That's how you do it. So summing up, I did not know Rush Limbaugh.

I understand why he was successful. Conservative traditional Americans are bombarded with messaging from the corporate media that they are bad people. And Rush Limbaugh stuck up for the conservative traditional society. all right as far as influence on me he had none i i'm a television guy i did the radio factor it was an extension of the o'reilly factor on the fox news channel man who did influence me it's mike wallace and as they said his former producer is coming up all right now we're going to have more uh tomorrow on mr limba i'm going to monitor what happens on tv tonight and all i ask is civil behavior. That's all I'm asking for here. So Joe Biden last night. The headline was that

Mr. Biden says there'll be 600 million doses of vaccine available by July. That's twice the population. Good. We need it, obviously. He also said when he took office, there was no vaccination available. No vaccine available. That's not true. Mr. Biden himself was vaccinated before the election. I don't know why he said that. Joe Biden, the president, has a tendency to ramble. And I thought of the song by the Allman Brothers, Lord, I was born a rambling man, trying to make a living, and doing the best I can.

Because his demeanor was fine. All right, President Biden was fine last night. He came across empathetic, friendly, appropriate when he was talking to the civilians asking questions. it was a very soft venue he wasn't challenged no follow-ups he could say what he want but he just he's such a ramble you know and i'm going allman brothers would love this all right i got three sound bites for you and they're not really important but i got to run something right in case you didn't see it i don't have the ratings yet i'll have them for you

tomorrow all right the first sound bite uh was pretty surprising to me go The nation is not divided. You go out there and take a look and talk to people. You have fringes on both ends. But it's not nearly as divided as we make it out to be. And we have to bring it together. Well, he must be living in a magical place because the United States is as divided as it has been since the Civil War. It's more divided now than in the Vietnam.

Vietnam era. And that's because the progressive secularists have gained a lot of power. And Mr. Biden is in that crew. And they want to change, fundamentally change everything in America. Everything. We are a bad country, a racist country. We got to wipe everything out, okay, including George Washington, Abe Lincoln, everybody else. And, you know, traditional conservative Americans aren't going to, I'm going to put up with that. So Joe Biden says the nation is not divided. this worries me. Okay, soundbite number two. This man who asked a question is named Danny Evans.

He is a pastor in Milwaukee. Go. Defund the police is discussed as an option for reforming policing. However, there are communities where people live in fear, not of the police, but in fear of the violent gangs who commit crimes in those neighborhoods. How can we be sure that we don't. over-legislate police officers so that they can't do their job to protect the law-abiding citizens who live in these high-crime neighborhoods and yet train officers to police with

compassion. By number one, not defunding the police. We have to put more money in police work. So we have legitimate community policing, and we're in a situation where we change the legislation. No one should go to jail for a drug offense. No one should go to jail. No one you to go to jail for the use of a drug. They should go to drug rehabilitation. Every kid walking across the street wearing a hoodie is not a member of a gang and is about to knock somebody off. So it's about education. Okay, so drug users shouldn't go to jail, but drug pushers should. The epidemic of opiates is killing thousands of people, tens of thousands of people in America and around the world. The Mexican drug cartels are undermining our national security.

really has no clue on how to deal that. Rehabilitation. Most addicts don't want it. I mean, ask any substance abuse counselor. It's, you know, they don't want it. So what are you going to do? All right? You've got to have rules, public safety rules. The second thing is education, stop with the education. All right, they spend almost $30,000 per student a year here in New York. 30,000. The Catholic schools spend 10,000, and the Catholic schools have higher scores than the public school, $30,000 kids. Education is basically discipline and competency, holding the kids accountable for their behavior. That is not done in the nation's public schools, and Joe Biden is not going to change that. So to say all of this drug gang and murders and all that's education base is just a myth.

bite, and this is the most controversial thing said all night. Go. That is the greatest threat to terror in America, domestic terror. And so I would make sure that my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks, and I would make sure that we, in fact, focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. And I just tweeted out, where? There's the rise in white supremacy. And then I got attacked, viciously attacked, by the far-left cooks and charlatans and liars who want you to believe, and apparently Joe Biden does, that this nation is just white supremacists all over the place.

So tomorrow on this broadcast, we're researching it now. We'll tell you exactly how many white supremacists have been arrested and charged in the last two years. Exactly how many. See, I know thousands of people. I go all over the nation. I don't know any white supremacists. I don't know. Maybe they're in the basement.

You know, there's vile stuff on the internet. Yes, the proud boys, a few hundred of them. The FBI is all over them. And they should be. Proud boys aren't doing this country any good. But Antifa, Black Lives Matter, global organization, way more, way more destructive. Unless it's something I don't know. We're looking into it. We're trying to find out. Look, I don't want white supremacist groups,

the clan, the Nazis. I don't want them running around hurting people in any way. And they should be held to account. They should be. And I know the FBI is investigating him, and there's nothing wrong with that. But don't give me all of this. And then you'll remember that Joe Biden said, Antifa, quote, is an idea, not an organization. I mean, he said that on September 29, 2020. And then later on, in the campaign, campaign when he took a lot of heat for that. He said, well, yeah, I condemn Antifa and violence no matter who it is. You know, hedging off. Never a Black Lives Matter condemnation of the Marxist group. He said individual Black Lives Matter people doing violence are wrong. But it's all

about white supremacy, white supremacy, white supremacy. Did you miss Portland, Oregon? Did you miss Seattle? Did you miss Minneapolis? Look, just this week in New York City, a hundred black Lives Matter protesters went out and beat the hell out of a newspaper photographer because they thought he was a cop. I mean, come on. I mean, the equivalency isn't even close, and we'll prove it tomorrow with the criminal justice stats. All right, Texas weather, everybody's blaming everybody. Wall Street Journal leader editorial says that the state of Texas has invested so much in alternative energy like wind and solar, which doesn't work under extreme. snow and cold, the way it should. That's what caused the blackouts in Texas. That same allegation

was made last summer in California when you couldn't get air conditioning. Other people say, no, it's all about the Texas government, not having enough natural gas. I don't know. I have known. I know I lived in Dallas for two years, and I know there was an ice storm there that was amazing, but I suspect that this alternative energy wind and solar, or if it's replacing fossil fuels, we're going to have a problem. That technology is not honed enough to carry an entire state when it has zero degree temperatures or 110 degree temperatures. It's not enough.

Can't do it. It should go side by side. Okay, that's Texas and our friends in Texas. We hope you're okay down there. It'll break this weekend, I understand. National Guard is ending its mission. A lot of mail on this in mid-March. So John Kirby, the Pentagon Press Secretary, says by mid-March, the troops will be out of Washington, D.C.

Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, as you know, McConnell scorched the former president and said he was irresponsible after the election. Trump fought back today by this statement, quote, my only regret is that McConnell begged for my strong support and endorsement before the great people of Kentucky in the 2020 election, and I gave it to him. He went from one point down at 20 points up and won. How quickly he forgets. Without my endorsement, McConnell would have lost and lost badly. Now his numbers are lower than ever before. He's destroying the Republican side of the Senate and doing so seriously hurting our country, unquote. So now we have a war between the leader of the Republican Party, which remains Donald Trump, and the most powerful elected official, which is Mitch McConnell. So here's what Senator Lindsey Graham said about that. Mitch McConnell, working with Donald Trump, did a hell of a job. They're now at each other's throat. I'm more worried about 2022 than I've ever been. I don't want to eat our own.

President Trump is the most consequential Republican in the party. If Mitch McConnell doesn't understand that, he's missing a lot. But my beef is not with Mitch McConnell because he has the same policy views I do. My beef is that we need to knock this off. Okay, so that's obviously. the Republicans are not being served well by that brawl. Okay, let's bring on our guest, and I don't have the sheet. I thought I had the sheet.

He's got a new book. Ira Rosen is the man. You're looking at him right now after the book, ticking clock. All right? So I don't know Mr. Rosen personally. Our paths have crossed, but I do certainly know much about him because I was a big friend of Mike Wallace and Mr. Rosen produced for Mike Wallace and tells a lot of stories about him. in the book. So how long did you produce for, Mike? I was with Mike from 1980 to 1989,

and then I came back in 2004, and we were working together, but we didn't do stories at that time. Okay, so you went from 60 Minutes to ABC, Primetime Live, right, with Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, who didn't love each other. And I read your book, Ira, and I know all these people, and I know exactly what you're talking about. So it was very interesting to me to read the book. And we'll talk about it in a moment. But first I want to get your opinion. So you were at network news, the highest level.

60 Minutes was the most watched network news broadcast of all time. And there were standards at 60 Minutes that you had rigorous standards that you would adhere to, correct? Yes. That's changed, has it not? Well, when I was there, I was 26 years old when I was hired by Mike Wallace. And Mike taught me that you could have a point of view and you could have an idea, but park it at the door, park your views at the door. And what I learned from Mike, Mike was a fan of Ronald Reagan, for example.

He at one point was offered to be Richard Nixon's press secretary before Ron Ziegler got the job. And what Mike, you wouldn't know what his, views are, whether he's Democrat, Republican, liberal, or conservative, based on anything he said or the way he conducted interviews. Chris Wallace has taken a little bit of that from his father. Chris basically asked hard questions of both sides. And you don't know where his views are either. And when I was with Mike, we did a story on Jimmy Carter. And Jimmy Carter, he didn't like Jimmy Carter personally. And Jimmy Carter went after Reagan, and Mike was squirming in his chair. He was thinking about, oh, my God, what am I going to do to answer Nancy and stuff? But you know what? He

played it straight down the middle. He called balls and strikes. He called it fair. And when you looked at the piece, you felt that Carter got a fair shake. And that's what Mike brought to the table. He was a genius at knowing exactly what button to push to get a reaction out of it. individual. But as far his point of view and politics, you didn't really know what was going on with him. So what's changed? Why has it changed in the sense that every news organization on television now, every single one is infused with ideology. And I can prove that 50 different ways. I've studied it. I know the people. I know what they're doing. Corporations run the organizations. If you watch the Biden Town Hall last night, there wasn't one tough question.

Not one tough question for Joe Biden. He was about to ramble and do whatever he wanted to do. It's a tremendous opportunity. I mean, when you say something like we're not a divided country, you would think that Anderson Cooper, who you speak well of in your book, you would think that he might go, well, maybe not, right? Well, I think what's gone on is you have, you know, you have Fox here, you have CNN here, and everybody is trying to get after that segmented part of the audience. And what you have to do is, as the reason I was successful was I gave everybody a fair shake. I listened to everybody's.

You know, I would smoke cigars with Al Sharpton on one point, and then have dinner with Senator Coburn later in the evening. You know, I appreciated people who have different points of view. And they came to me and with stories, both sides of the other. But Ira, that's gone. That's been, that's what I was, that's what I was saying. Why is it? Why is what's changed.

And what's changed is that you have reporters for major news organizations who cover the White House. And suddenly then they go on CNN and they, to use your word, blow the eight about the person they're covering. that's not the tradition i don't understand that i don't know why it happened you don't know why it happened no i no idea why it happened well they're getting paid as consultants that's why it's happened they're now to manage management wants that you you know where it started with dan rather dan rather was that was the was the guy that took it from kronkite who was an avowed liberal kronkite

but nobody knew it. He hit it. Rather took it into an activist posture. And it ultimately bit him in the Bush, the younger story about the National Guard turned out to be bogus than him rather was humiliated. But rather was a partisan. I worked for him. I know. I was at CBS. All right. I know that he wore his liberalism on the sleeve. And there was a little attempt to rein him in, but not much. But after that, then the floodgates open. And that, and that it's all about money. We're going to target this audience. They'll come to us. Look at the New York Times. How radical left an organization is that? Why? Because they're making their money on subscriptions to liberal people. Not to conservative traditionalists. So that's what they give them. Am I wrong? But you got to break down, you got to break down the New York Times and the Washington Post based on the reporters. And when I was covering the opiate epidemic, you know, I took an honestly. look at this thing and I and you know who who did the worst who caused the opiate epidemic to skyrocket

was during the Obama administration. I mean, I got Eric Holter on the phone who was Attorney General at the time and I said, you're not doing anything. Look at these numbers. The numbers speak for themselves. I mean, well, we're we're arresting some doctors. That's not stopping the opioid epidemic. You got to you got to call balls and strikes. If you're a reporter, you can't say, oh, this is going to be. Ira, they're not doing it. Look, There's a report, the lead reporter on Trump for the New York Times ran 131 stories with anonymous sources. Would Don Hewitt allow you, it's harder to do that on TV, but you could still do it. Would he allow you to do 131 stories on a president with anonymous sources?

That wouldn't happen. But, you know, Don, Don was pretty vigorous about giving both sides a fair shake. And, I mean, you grew up in that period of time, too. You knew Mike Wallace. I mean, Mike was one of the people that you admired, I know. And, you know, he did a profile of you, a terrific piece. But, you know, Mike asked hard questions. Mike was a guy who when he sat down with somebody, would, you know, when he sat down with

Jimmy Carter, I remember this well, Jimmy Carter was criticizing Ronald Reagan's human rights policies. And he said, why is he doing that? Because he's a callous man. And it was like, it was a brilliant question. It was great. And you don't get that anymore. You don't get that kind of thing.

But I'm still trying to hire. I'm still trying to get the Y out of you. I'm doing what Mike would do. Yeah, you're right. We don't get it anymore. Where's the new Mike Wallace? There isn't a new Mike Wallace now. It's all ideology one way or the other.

You can't even get an obit on a guy as successful as Rush Limbaugh without them dancing on his grave. You can't even get an obit. No, I felt the same way when Don Ewitt died. A producer went and on a website and said, just because somebody dies, it doesn't mean you have to say nice things about him. You let him absorb seven days of Shiva. Yeah. I mean, my God. I mean, I was troubled by that. And I agree with you on that point. Would it be fair to say that the money is overridden the ethics and journalism, that they all know they can make money by K. to a group, whether it's far left or far right, they can make money there, and that's what they're going to do,

and people are ordered to do it, and that's it. Would that be a fair statement? No, I don't agree with that. I think what you have is, no, I don't. I mean, what I think you have right now is when I was working with 60 Minutes and Mike and Don, 60 Minutes ruled a roost. It had the audience, 30, 40 million people every Sunday. today you have thousands of different outlets.

Everybody who, you know, bloggers in pajamas is the way we finally called it, sits in a bed and blogs. And people don't know the difference between him versus another one. So people feel like they need to go after a segment of society, whether it's liberal, conservative, whatever. And that's the way they're going to earn their money. But I don't think it's per se that, you know, oh, we have to do this. If we cross the line, it's going to make a difference. Listen, I was trained by the very best, and it was a great training grounds for me. And it was basically, you know, people are black and white cookies.

They're not good guys, bad guys. People are kind of a combination of this. Anybody working anywhere else in other news organizations caught your eye? Well, I think Chris Wallace is, I work with him for a lot of years at ABC. I think he's incredibly fair. Do you think that he gave Donald Trump a fair shot? I do. You do?

In the first debate, in the first debate, do you think Wallace gave him a fair shot? Well, I think that was, you know, that debate turned into a shit show. I mean, I think everybody lost control of that thing. Okay. Now, you write about Chris and Mike Wallace. They had a fairly troubled relationship, right? They did at one point. And they ended up at the end game, make it up.

But there was a story there that Chris was wanted to do a profile of Chris Rock, the comedian. And he was all excited about it. He mainly did a lot of investigations. And so he's sitting down with Chris Rock, and he finds out that Chris Rock would rather do Mike Wallace. And so Mike Wallace ended up stealing the story from him. So I call up Mike. And the way we did things back then, there was no hello, how are you? It was just you start talking immediately.

And so I got on the phone with Mike, and I said, are you ripping your kid off? You're stealing the story from Chris Rock. And he said, what's it to you? I said, listen, you have a choice. Either Chris Wallace is going to speak at your funeral or you could do the Chris Rock story. You're not going to get both. And so he says, let me call you back. And so he calls me back 15 minutes later, and he said, I solved the problem.

I said, how do you solve the problem? He said, I gave it to Bradley. I said, Mike, you're still ripping your kid off. What are you doing? ended up not talking for six months or a year or something they ended up making the piece but yeah you know i i knew i know both of them very well uh mike wallis better than chris mike wallis very very nice to me and he was my role model along with howard cocell and tom schneider um you write though in your book that ed bradley the guy you just referred to as getting the chris rock story he comes across

is the only one who really enjoyed his fame from 60 minutes. The others were fighting, infighting, they had depression, they had angst, they were, you know, on edge all the time, and I know that to be true. But Bradley kind of like just took it and ran with it and had a great time. He had a great time. He would go out on the streets, he'd tell his producer, hey, let's take a walk, and he'd go on the streets and literally meet his fan club, you know, and he enjoyed that thing. He had a share in Netschetz, and he would fly wherever he wanted to go.

He had seats near the floor of the garden. I'm sure you've seen him there, you know, where he would go to Nick Games. And, you know, he really enjoyed life. He was a guy we all admired. We all looked up to. He was an extraordinary interview. You know, he's a former radio guy. So he has this great voice.

And everybody loved them. Everybody loved him. I don't know anybody who didn't like Ed Bradley. Quick story, it's not in your book. And the other one, last thing was, the other guy we all love was Bob Simon, who also tragically tied in a car accident. He was amazing. I was in the end elevator at CBS with Andy Rooney going up to,

and you don't spend a lot of time on Andy. I know you didn't know him because you were on with Wallace and doing the stories out in the field. But I was a young reporter at Channel 2 in New York, and so I'm going up the elevator with Andy. And he looks up, Andy was like 5'4, and I'm 6-4 and he goes, you'll never make it, kid.

He was deadly serious. Thanks a lot, Mr. Rudy. I really appreciate it. He was a curmudgeon, a real-life curmudgeon. One more time. Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters, I know this to be true,

so I know Barbara very well. I don't know Diane that well, but I know her. They didn't like each other at all. What was the root of that? Well, let me do that. I'm sorry, I have to tell you my Andy Rooney story, and then we could go to that. But Andy Rooney and I shared a cab one time, and it was, it was like a $20 fare,

and he said, hey, kid, you got a buck you could give the guy? I mean, he was, it was, even though he was doing quite well, he was, he was like that. As far as Diane and Barbara goes, they were rivals, the Yankees and the Red Sox. That's sort of what the root of it was. They competed for interviews and stories day in and day out. Yeah, and they were both, you know, divas, absolutely divas, and they wanted the airtime and all that. The book, and I recommend it ticking, the ticking clock by Ira Rosen. You really want to know the inside story about all these legends.

There it is. Ira, thanks very much for helping us out tonight. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Well, bye, bye, all right. Here is the absurd quote of the day, Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft, one of the richest men in the world. he says we can't eat real meat anymore okay i do think all rich countries should move to a hundred

percent synthetic beef you can get used to the taste difference and the claim is they're going to make a taste even better over time eventually the green premium is modest enough that you can sort out the change of people or use regulation to totally shift the demand so bill gates wants to get rid all the cows he says i've said i actually see a path but you're right saying to people you can't have cows anymore is politically incorrect. So why can't you have cows? Well, Bill Gates says that they admit methane every time they burp or pass gas. So we can't have cows anymore with real meat or cheese. Bill Gates, everyone. Now, Bill Gates lives in a 60,000 foot home and has a fleet of private jets. But the cows, no. COVID cases dropping. This is amazing.

I just found us out. Okay, February 15th, all right, that was Monday in the USA, new cases of COVID, 55,372. A month prior, January 15th, new cases 241,000, drops from 241,000 to 55,000 in a month. So this vaccine, you know, get it out there. This is going to wipe it out. Florida, pretty much an open policy on COVID. I was down there a few weeks ago in September. The governor, DeSantis, said, you know what?

We're not going to lock down anymore. Kids are going to go back to school. Businesses are going to open and without restrictions. All right? So California is exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite. Shut everything down. Continues to be shut down in California.

Florida's wide open. Listen to this. cases as a percent of the population in Florida, 8.3%. In California, 8.8%. Pretty much the same thing. The same thing. And the weather is about the same. Okay?

So all lockdowns, shutdowns, terror in California, you didn't do any good if you compare it to Florida. An amazing story that you will never hear. 90% of Minneapolis residents don't feel safe, according to a survey from the downtown neighborhood association. That's what happened when you defund the police. That's what happened. In New York, the headline, put it up there for the New York Post to Cuomo and de Blasio, stop the bloodshed. And here's what Andrew Cuomo said and reply to that. All I'm saying to New York City is, you figure it out. You figure it out. You figure it out. You figure it out. You have community tension where they don't trust the police. You have NYPD tension where they

feel they can't do their job. Okay, so Cuomo's like blaming the city when he signed the order not to hold anybody on bail, which is driving up all of the violence. In the subways, you can't go. We have slashes down there. Who's going down there? Now, the cops say they're going to flood the zone in the subways. That takes people off the street above. Cops off the street above. But you figure it out. You figure it like, oh, I don't have anything to do with it, even though I sign this insane law. Amazing. Today is Ash Wednesday, and there is a poll on black Americans going to church and praying.

This is very interesting from the Pew Research Center. I do trust that outfit. All right. Do you believe in God? Black adults, 90%. General population in the USA, 72%. Do you pray a few times a month? Black adults, 54%, general population, 28%, just 28% of Americans now pray, a few times a month.

This day in history, Jimmy Fallon took over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno. Okay? So when Leno left, his final program got 15 million viewers. Tonight, Fallon's first program, again, that was in 2014, got 11.3. million viewers. Now, today, late night has collapsed. All right, for the week of February 1st, that's the first week of this month. Kimmel had one million down from 11 million, 476. Colbert has totally collapsed. Two million 190. He's down a million viewers since January 8th, Colbert. Trump's gone.

And Jimmy Kimmel is at one and a half million. Now remember, Johnny Carson averaged about 12 million viewers a night. So that has totally collapsed. Now here in his seven years on the air is probably the highlight of Jimmy Fallon's tonight show career. Go. There's actually been a lot of controversy around these Republican debates. In fact, some of the GOP candidates released a joint letter demanding changes to the debate rules. And now other candidates like Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina are refusing to sign.

the letter. It seems like no one is happy. So here to settle this once and for all with some new demands for the next debate is Bill O'Reilly, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, uh, okay, Bill, whenever, whenever you're ready. All right, we got to wise these people up. All right, so here's the first demand. Stop complaining. Come on. You guys are starting to sound like a bunch of Democrats out there. Here's the next demand. Answer the question.

It's not that hard. Here's an example. Fallon, what would you do to fix the deep ideological divide in this country? Pizza party. Seven years ago. tonight. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we're back with a good mail segment and a final thought. Let's face it, the U.S. economy is under stress. National debt rising, trade war, shaking the markets. And meanwhile, China is dumping the dollar and stockpiling gold.

That's why I protected my savings with physical gold and silver. Tharu, the only dealer I trust, American Hartford Gold. And you can do this. Get precious metals delivered to your door or place in a tax advantage, gold IRA. They'll even help you roll over your existing IRA or 401K, tax and penalty free. With billions in precious metals delivered thousands of five-star reviews and an A-plus from the Better Business Bureau, you can trust American Hartford Gold as I do. Please call 866, 326, 5576, or text Bill to 998899. Again, that's 866, 326-5576, or text Bill to 998899. Let's get to the mail, Rusty Rowe, San Antonio, Texas, and I hope you're okay down there, Rusty.

Bill, periodically you say that 2022 could be a turnover of the House and senators to the conservative and Republican Party. But what about the cheating mechanisms the Democrats have in place? You see, that question falls apart when you understand that the Republicans gain 12 seats in the House in November. So, yeah, I think there was some fraud in a presidential election, but it's not that the whole thing is rigged. Tim McSherry, Hermosa Beach, California, and L.A. Bill, your crystal ball has been remarkably accurate recently. Can you take a quick peek and let us know if President Trump will

run again in 2024? Not the Super Bowl, though. I was wrong on the Super Bowl. I was happy Brady won, but Kansas City just did not play as well as I thought they would. I can't tell you whether Donald Trump will run again. I can tell you he wants to maintain political power. That's for sure, can't say whether he's going to run again, that will depend on the economy, how Joe Biden does with the economy. Hakeem Rashid, question bill, if impeachment is largely a partisan democratic attack, as many conservatives assert, then why was this impeachment, the most bipartisan in our nation's history? Because there's only been two others, all right? And in the House, the vote was 232 to 197, that's close. And in Senate 57 to 43, so this was no slam dunk. It was a party line

thing with a few defections. Ralph Brown, Frisco, Texas, Bill, what is wrong and has been wrong with conservatives. Why is it liberals have a stranglehold on so many critical institutions in America? Because of the education system. So colleges turn out journalists and lawyers and politicians and all of this, and these colleges are pushing this left-wing agenda like crazy. And some colleges, it's 10 to 1, liberals to conservatives. That's the genesis of why the country and the professional core has gone left. Nathan Parker, I just shipped a copy of Mike Lindell's video to the Attorney General of Texas. I hope he will watch it.

He's not going to watch it. Mr. Lindel and my pillow guy has to file a complaint. all right before any legal action would be taken he has to file so you're going to say oh watch mike lindel's video attorney general i'm not going to do that he'd do it i think if there was a formal uh situation Sharon concierge members thank you Sharon your questions for president Biden during the town hall tonight were perfect so perfect and realistic they'll never be asked and that's exactly what happened it was a powder puff no doubt about it um Let's see.

If you pre-order killing the mob out May 4th, it would take 50% off killing Crazy Horse. You'll like both books. So that's a great deal. Bill O'Reilly.com bookstore and no cods wallop when writing to us. Back with a final thought in a moment. Power, politics, and the people behind the headlines.

I'm Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist, and the host of the brand new podcast, Podforce 1. Every week I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors, lawmakers, lawmakers and even the President of the United States. These are the leaders shaping the future of America and the world. Listen to Podforce 1 with me, Miranda Devine, every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. Okay, so the United States is so powerful, what we do here culturally spreads all over the world, all right, our movies, our music, the way we present ourselves, even our slang phrases. In England, when I lived there, it was bloke. Look at that bloke. That was a man. Now it's Guy. Guy came from here.

Okay. In Australia, the Australian National University has said that to its staff, you're not to say mother or father anymore. It's the non-birthing parent instead of father and the gestational parent instead of mother. Come on, down under. What are you doing? Don't take this canceled culture politically correct nonsense from us. I realize that we're the problem. And do you realize that they're canceled culture in China and Russia and Iran, not like what we have? They really cancel you. You can die or vanish. That's the cancel culture over there. But here, you just vanish. Let's knock it off worldwide.

We'll see again tomorrow.