Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - BONUS: Bill O'Reilly's Advice For New Graduates

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Bill talks about what new graduates can do to strive for success. He also talks about recent commencement addresses by Derek Jeter and Usher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So it's graduation time. I'm very proud of my son. He graduated from Salve Regina University, cum laude. Very successful four years up there, a fine school. He went to Oxford, his junior year. He's on his way to grad school and it was emotional for me to go up there. But very proud. That's all I can say. And I don't usually talk about my family and my kids.

I don't do that. but boy what an achievement he's light years ahead of where I was at age 21 my god so I'm listening to the speaker who was a former speech writer for Barack Obama that's okay it's Rhode Island it's New England I mean come on the guy graduated from Kennedy School of Government at Harvard as I did and his speech was fine I mean and be nice to everybody and compassion yeah okay I had no beef with it some people thought it was a little left and you know he was kind of signaling that we have to accept all the migrants all over the world but i didn't take it that way i thought it was going uh to a place

where he was emphasizing to the graduate class that success isn't just making money helping other people is that's what i thought his overall thing was a good thing now i would never ever be invited to give a graduation commencement i should say that but it's because I'm so controversial I mean and if you were a college president we think yeah we'll bring O'Reilly and throw our commencement address you know you'd have hundreds of call people screaming and I understand it's a nice day why do you want to inject that you don't okay so I don't mind I'm not insulted but we I asked my producer to say okay give me a couple of graduation speech from famous people that I can

present to my YouTube body incident we'll analyze it and then I'll give you what I would say if I were given a speech okay the first one is baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter former New York Yankees talking to the University of Michigan's grad class go remember goals and dreams can change and they can evolve over time that's okay it's reasonable the process shouldn't change make goals focus your energy and time on turning that new passion into reality. I continue to fail at my new passions, just like you will. I continue to learn from others who've been in your shoes. Continue to listen. That's good advice, and I like the failure part because it's never a straight line, and you really have to be persistent, and you really have to have guts to when you're knocked down and get up. Because we all make mistakes, and we all, you know, do things that don't work out, but you've got to try and try hard. I like more specificity in my in my when I address you and YouTube or when I address anybody in a live performance or live venue I'm very specific and I will get to that in a moment so if I have

any criticism Derek Jeter's message I like the message it was that just honed in a little more personal to these students the second guy is usher the singer musician Emory University May 12th this year go you may be passed on someone for some reason may not understand or feel the same as you do or share the same passion for your commitment but if you can change your mindset you can blaze a new trail within the system the system didn't understand me or rather it didn't know what to do with a student like me they couldn't help me prepare for the future I would have. Now, that's a little grim.

It's true. And Usher is, you know, reflecting his experience, but it's a little grim. So the system doesn't understand anybody. Okay? The system provides opportunity if you do certain things. And that would be my theme to younger Americans. graduates or just Americans in general, which is why I'm doing this YouTube bonus commentary today.

So let's start with Bill O'Reilly and Barack Obama. How about that? So we live in the United States of America, and O'Reilly and Obama are different folks, as what was the song, different strokes for different folks. we have a lot in common. So Obama, no father, father splits. Horrible. Horrible for a baby boy, or baby anybody, but I know, smart. Boom. Mother's a hippie. Mother's flouncing around Indonesia, all over the place. He's raised primarily by grandparents in Honolulu, mixed race. Okay? Don't have a lot of guidance, takes drugs when he's younger and this and that. But he gets wise. He

he wises up. And then because he was mixed race, he gets opportunities because America does provide that and it should. It absolutely should. And he winds up at Harvard and he's on the law review and then he graduates and then he gets into local politics in Chicago and comes a senator and he comes president for two terms. Phenomenal. What advantage did Barack Obama have growing up to do what he did none but he did it because there's something inside of him and I've discussed this with President Obama all right and again I don't see his political vision because I think it's entirely too too much government I'm a big self-reliance guy but he and I just respectfully disagree on that but I admire what

he accomplished now I go to O'Reilly Okay, Levitown, New York, working class, no money in the household, even though my father was college-educated, military officer in World War II. Not have any money. And no motivation, really. I was a little thug. I admit it. I wrote a book called A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, which is the nuns called me.

Now, I did have parents both in a home, discipline in a home, paid the extra money. to send me at Catholic schools, okay? I had that advantage over Barack Obama. No, I had that. I had the family intact. I had, hey, we're going to send this little thug, this Irish Catholic thug to Catholic schools. Advantage O'Reilly. So I went through and I wised up, not quickly, but enough. I went abroad, started the University of London, my third year in college. I put my football career aside to do that. It was a big decision. Then I went to, I taught a high school in a couple of years. Then I went back, got a master's of broadcast journalism from Boston University, and I started my career in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and I worked my way up. And boy, it was tough.

It was so hard. I can't tell you how hard it was. I moved 10 times of 15 years. I got to New York fast, five years, because I was very aggressive reporter. And I made money. for everybody I worked for. I did good work. And I worked hard. Single, didn't have a family. I was able to really devote almost everything to the career. But I got to tell you, I could have used a couple of hands up. I got none. Zero. I just kicked the door and kicked it in, kicked it in. Okay? Nobody given me anything. But I was determined to be the best. not the best that I could be the best now you can decide whether I reach that goal

but I will tell you most successful cable news anchor in history made more money for my corporation than any other human being has ever made in the media for their corporation and the best-selling nonfiction author in the world okay I'm bragging but okay I did it nobody helped me Not a few mentors, I had people do me favors, but nobody who said, hey, this O'Reilly, you know, because I was obnoxious. I wasn't a sympathetic figure.

Peter Jennings helped me at ABC, okay, and a few guys behind the scenes, but, you know, I had to do it. And I did it based on three things. And this is what I look in the eye of any young person. You've got to be honest. Can't be stealing, can't be lying, can't be gossiping, can't be, you can't be doing any of this. Can't be taking drugs, can't be getting drunk. You've got to be honest. And you have to respect the talent that you were born with.

Number one, big. Work hard. You already know that. Okay, you got to work hard. And then when they kick you down, and they will, okay, you've got to get up, ferocious. ferocious and you then start now as usher said and jeter said both of them may want to do something else you got to be nimble you see things that can do that okay you don't want to be undisciplined you always want to be disciplined okay but you don't have to go to it said you know

my mother you say oh you be a good lawyer I don't the last thing on earth I wanted to be with a lawyer okay it's okay mom I wanted action I wanted to get into journalism. So I see the world, 86 countries, cover the conflicts I have, okay? Get on TV. I was terrible on television for five years. I couldn't get relaxed. I couldn't get comfortable, but I paid my dues out. Scranton, Dallas, Denver, Hartford, boom, boom, Portland, Oregon. And I got good. And I was fearless. Not everybody is fearless. And you can't really inject that. What you can inject, though, is when they knock you down, you get back up. Not just in the marketplace, but personal too.

Yeah, you grieve for a while, and you're angry for a while. It's normal. But you don't let those bastards beat you. Nope, you come back fast. Final thing. I could not have done any of this if I didn't live in America. Couldn't have done in Britain, Sweden, Greece, Thailand, no way. Those societies do not offer the pathways to success that this country does.

I recognize very early that. My parents were frightened because of the depression that never left them and they wouldn't take chances. I was daring because I didn't want to be that. I wanted to have options in life. And Obama will tell you the same thing. Nowhere on this planet could Barack Obama do what he did, except here.