Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Bill O'Reilly Analyzes Late Night TV's Liberal Shift

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Bill O'Reilly breaks down late night programs, and why programs are more liberal in the age of Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I was growing up, I'm old enough to see the entire late-night comedian thing evolve. Steve Allen, so many people are, as a certain age, will know about Steve Allen. First host of the Tonight Show, NBC. Genius. Steve Allen, if you go and you Google, the guy's hysterical. I loved them. Even as a little kid, I used to sneak down when my parents were asleep. and watch a little Steve Allen with Jose Jimenez

and the other crazy characters that he had on his show. And I just loved it. He gave way to Jack Parr, who was kind of a nut. I never really liked Parr. He wasn't particularly funny. And then Carson. Johnny Carson came on the scene, and Carson was a genius. And Carson redefined the late-night genre and dominated.

For the entire time, he was on there, and more than 30 years. And Carson's genius was that he placed himself above the fray. He was a liberal man, no doubt about it. A heavy drinker, not a nice guy from all... I've never met him, but I know people who know him, and I did talk to Ed McMahon, his sidekick. But Carson was really a good entertainer.

And he floated above, he didn't get involved with politics per se or anything like that. He made jabs at all sides. jabs at all sides. He didn't like Ronald Reagan. I'll tell you that. I mean, you could see it, that he did not like President Reagan, but he disciplined himself. He did not want to alienate his massive audience. There's about 9 million people watching Johnny Carson at his height. Now, if the late-night people get 2 million, they're happy. And they rarely get that. So that was a very positive part of American culture, the late-night TV. I like Merv Griffin okay, but he was kind of a softball.

And I didn't particularly like Joan Rivers. She had a short run. I thought Dick Cavett was very smart. But Cavett, well, he was witty, wasn't going for the entertainment that Carson was going to. But Cavett did carve out an audience, but it was much more elevated back then. Now we have, and I'm involved with this transition, because I was on with Jay Leno, who took over from Carson, and Letterman, who was a Titan, and Kimmel, and all of them. I mean, I do more than 20 appearances late night on all of them, maybe 30. I didn't count them before I came on the air tonight, but lots of them.

of them. And I was in that mix, and I did pretty well in those forums. You can Google it, if you want to see them, especially with Letterman. It was a good back and forth. And I enjoyed it. And when I had a book, like I do now with confronting the presidents, I had a book to promote it. It helped the book because there were millions of people watching. And it wasn't as social media driven as it is now. Okay. So I'd go out to Burbank and I'd sit with Jay and kick it around. Then I'd go across the street to the CBS theater in New York, kicking around with Letterman who didn't like me, but it was fun watching him get frustrated trying to get me when he couldn't.

The last time I went on Letterman, I got a standing. Oh, I thought he was good at his face. I got a standing over it, and it was a long, loud one. Kimmo, very respectful. He's in Hollywood. I go out there, and he was very respectful. we had a good time. Everything changed when Donald Trump became president and won the election 2016. Everything changed. The corporations that run NBC, CBS, and ABC hate Trump. Now, in the

beginning, they used him because he's good for ratings. But once he got power, then they turned on him in a vengeance. The late night guys now know that. It would be impossible for anything. any person working for NBC, ABC, or CBS to be a conservative, a Trump MAGA person. They would not give you the job. You would not get the forum. You can't even get on those programs if you're not a liberal. We traced back Jane Pauly, who looks like somebody's nice aunt, and she never uses anybody who's not a liberal as an author.

and CBS Sunday morning sells books. You can't get on there. It's a total black wall across it. But what it's done is it is destroyed the late-night franchise. So let's run them down for you. Jimmy Fallon doesn't care about politics at all, all right? I like Fallon. He is a very good comedic actor.

Not classic stand-up guy, but he's okay. But Fallon once had Trump on. And you'll remember this. Fallon must stop Trump's hair. He says, is that real hair? And Trump bent over and he'd make it. And it was funny. Jimmy Fallon caught hell for that.

From his friends, from other people in the business, why are you humanizing Donald Trump? From that moment on, Fallon hasn't been hostile, but he's been snippy. And never says anything good about Trump because he took so much hell for that sequence. And again, if you don't remember, Google it. Now, Jimmy Kimmel, when I spoke with him, he wasn't, he was liberal, but not crazy left.

Now he's really in a crazy left category. I don't know what happened there. I like him. He's funny. All right. And I got along with him great. But I don't know what happened. I guess the pressure out there in Hollywood, I guess, but nobody watches Jimmy.

And Fallon, nobody watches him either. They're below two million. Colbert gets about two. He's always been a far-left ideologue, committed liberal. Nothing wrong with that. Okay? You can be liberal, and I think people would appreciate your honesty. He's saying, look, I'm a liberal person, but I'm going to bring in other people, too, that aren't,

don't see it the way that I do. No. Colbert demeans anybody that doesn't see it the way he does. He's nasty, dishonest, in my opinion. Okay? And I mean, I never watch him, and he was mentored by John Stewart, who's the opposite. Yes, Stewart is an ardent liberal, makes his money in those precincts. But when I do Stewart, and you know this, because I just did them a few weeks ago, it's back and forth funny. I mean, it works. We both get our points across, and that's all I ask. But Colbert is a nasty SOB. And he is.

Now, you would think that the combination of all three of those people on all three networks late night would really help the Democratic Party. It doesn't, not at all, because people know the fix is in, and they have fled late night. They're watching Netflix or whatever. They're not watching that. In fact, the guy on Fox, Gutfeld, who comes on an hour earlier, he does ratings that are competitive. He beats, I think, Fallon and Kimmel now, and he's a conservative, hardcore conservative. So the right people have gone over to him. Anyway, I long for the old days.

I wish that Leno, Letterman, Carson, all those guys are still around, very talented people. We've really dropped off the face of the earth on late night, and it's really a shame.