Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Highlights from O'Reilly's No Spin News - December 25, 2024

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

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It has been a wild three months with the election and all that. Wild. Not a lot of sleep going on here. So it takes some time. And this is the perfect time of the year to do it. We will be back, okay? On Monday, January 6th, live. radio and TV. So, and I hope you check in with Bill O'Reilly.com because I'm going to be,

I'm going to be tweeting. They don't call tweeting anymore, but I still call tweeting at Bill O'Reilly. Anything happens, I'm going to be right on it. Boom. Because my staff, most of them, you know, we alternate all, but they'll get it out there. And we have columns and we have all kinds of stuff. Photo album, really nice photo album on Bill O'Reilly.com. Holly, the Terra Dog, you know, we have everything. So I hope. we check in with us. And there isn't going to be much breaking news unless the hostages are released in Gaza, which I know they're working on. That could be the big breaker, but we are on top of it. The Talking Points memo this evening is the federal spending controversy. It never

ends. Every three months we go through this, you know, that's boring. And let me just lay it out so everyone understands this. The federal government spends way too much money. President Biden, the biggest spending president in our history by far. Donald Trump spent a lot of money too. COVID played into that, but Biden totally out of control. Totally. And we got to stop.

And the Democratic Party doesn't want to stop because they buy votes. We'll give you this, we'll give you that. How many times did Kamala Harris get out? they're going to give you this, you know, kid, we'll go that, we'll help, on and on and on and on. Well, we can't do it anymore because if we continue to run up debt the way we're running it up, we'll have a depression in the United States. So what's going to happen? And so we have to stop. Trump knows that. But Trump has got some big commitment. It's got to rebuild the military again because Biden just let it go. And then we got Social Security and Medicare through the roof.

You're going to have to up the age, not for people getting it down, don't panic, but for the younger folk. Instead of, you know, kicking in at 62 or whatever it is, it's going to be, you know, four or five years later. It's got to happen. Trump doesn't want to do it. No president does, because once you get into that, then people don't like you. All right. So this latest brouhaha, and today Congress is supposed to leave. The House supposed to leave today and Senate tomorrow.

So I don't know what's going to happen. I mean, I'm taping this in late afternoon. It's still chaos. I don't know. Who knows? But every three months, we've got this big short-term spending bill. That's ridiculous. Listen to some of this stuff in this present bill.

All right. Big raise for Congress. They haven't gotten a raise since 2009, and they're going to bring them up about 4%. To about 180,000K. That's okay. I don't begrudge that. This is ridiculous. The Washington football stadium, the commanders, goes from the control of the federal government at RFK Stadium to the locals.

Well, you know, the local D.C. can't do anything. That's going to be a huge boondog of lair, a total waste of money. So I don't want that to happen. Then the State Department's Global Engagement Center, we don't need that. We don't need that. That's just millions and millions of dollars are throwing it out. window. There's no good at all. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff in there that you can't do this, you can't do that, nothing to do with spending. So Trump is right. I mean,

Trump said, I'm going to quote him in a minute, but Trump is right going, look, this is just ridiculous. I don't want to start my term with this short-term budget thing. So here he said, quote, if Republicans try to pass a clean continuing resolution without all the Democratic bells and whistles, that will be so destructive for our country. All we'll do after January 20th is bring the mess of the debt limit into the Trump administration, rather than allowing to take place in the Biden administration. Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should and will be primary. So that's a threat to Republicans in the House and the Senate. If you sign on with the Democratic bill, short-term spending bill, then you're going to get a primary challenge. It's going to

cost you a lot of money. Okay, that's the way the game is played. So, I think a deal will be made. And this always happens on the last minute and then all of us say, oh, we got a deal, we got to, it's boring to me. And, but it's important, I understand. So when you have Joe Biden four years, carries a deficit of two trillion, that means under Biden's four-year term, the government spent $2 trillion more than I took in from the taxpayer. I can't do that. And our debt now, let me just get the exact number, because it goes up every second, $36.2 trillion.

You can't sustain it. All right, on Biden's first day in office, it was $27.8 trillion, and now it's $36.2. You guys, a maniac. It doesn't care. They don't care. They're buy votes. That's what it's all about.

We'll give you, give you, give you, give you, stop, stop. We need a balanced budget amendment, number one. That's got to be passed by the Republican Congress. Number two, Trump's got to take a look at the military and the Social Security and the Medicare. Take your time. Everybody wants a strong defense, not everybody, but sane people. But you can't keep paying ridiculous prices for.

for equipment, you've got to have discipline in there. Have to. And finally, look, any politician going to take on the entitlements, Social Security and Medicare, it's going to be controversial. If I were Trump, I take that on the last two years. Get your border, get your prices down, get your Ukraine stuff, then take the, because that's going to be really a blowout. And that's the memo. All right, Joe Biden did nothing today. and Donald Trump does nothing on the calendar. You know, they're both socialized, it's Christmas, people in, people out.

Here's a very fascinating story. So you remember Fannie Willis, Fannie. Okay, she hates Trump. And she is the DA for Fulton County, Georgia, and she did a lot of dumb and perhaps corrupt things trying to get Trump. Well, now the second division of Georgia's appellate court has kicked her off the case,

the election interference case. Enjoyed it. Bye, Fannie. Someone said about a year ago that this was going to happen. Roll it. But summing it up, is Fannie Willis thing?

Gone. And what's going to happen, I predict, is a judge going to throw her off the case. It was judge is threw her off the case. Am I Nostradamus or why? Come on, come on.

Every prediction I made in 2024 has come true. I think everyone, every single one. So finally out. So now a new prosecutor has come in. This case is never, ever going to get anywhere. It's over. I don't know whether it should be or not. I don't know what, but it was obviously a hate Trump play.

And so that leaves New York with Trump. And Trump will beat them in New York. He'll beat them. You wait and see. All right, media madness. Liz Cheney. How many of you like Liz Cheney out there? Anyone?

Hello? Anyone like Liz? So, Liz Cheney led the January 6th committee to try to hate Trump. Blame Trump for insurrection, all of that. Liz Cheney is a Republican. Congresswoman from Wyoming. She lost the election. She's out.

She teaches at the University of Virginia now. Okay, so Liz Cheney is the most vehement Trump hater on the J-6 committee. Well, the oversight committee in the House now says that Liz Cheney may have tampered with a witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, who had testified under oath in front of the J-6 committee. This is the allegation. Now, we afford due process to everyone, all right? We'll have to see. But I went on a News Nation with Cuomo last night, and here's what happened.

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866, 326, 5576, or text bill to 998899. Again, that's 866, 326-5576, or text bill to 998899. Hey, I'm Caitlin Becker, the host of the New York Postcast, and I've got exactly what you need to start your weekdays. Every morning, I'll bring you the stories that matter, plus the news people actually talk about, the juicy details in the worlds of politics, business, pop culture, and everything in between. It's what you want from the New York Post wrapped up in one snappy show. Ask your smart speaker to play the NY Postcast podcast. Listen and subscribe on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Liz Cheney is the biggest villain in Republican circles there could possibly be. Why? Because she's a traitor.

The House of Representatives said, no, because she was so hateful to Trump. And the voters of Wyoming booted her out, even though the Cheney family is one of those powerful families in that state. But when the Republicans in Congress say she witnessed tampered, and then the press makes it out like this is some kind of revenge play, if Liz Cheney witness tampered, she deserves the FBI being all over her front lawn. I'll tell you that right now. Yeah. And I think there's enough evidence to go in and investigate. What they're calling witness tempering, I mean, I've only looked at what they're saying so far. Obviously, they haven't produced anything else, not that that's some new standard.

It's certainly not a legal standard of witness tampering. And there is no small irony. Yes, it is. It's going to go after her. Well, depends on what she did. And I don't know. So far. Oh, no, no.

Well, you're wrong. I know what the law is. And you're a lawyer. I know I am. What I'm saying is we'll see. If she did it. We'll see it.

If she tried to convince Cassidy Hutchinson, yes. Oh, you give her a due process, certainly. But if she tried to convince Cassidy Hutchinson, all right, behind closed doors, which is the allegation, to testify a certain way in front of the J6 committee, then this woman violated federal law, period.

That's true. The FBI should be looking into that. That's fine. Well, that's not what I... They got to investigate. You know, and the press is going, all this revenge, revenge, revenge, revenge. It's not revenge, it's justice. Can't have a congressperson.

You know, the word, the legal word is suborning perjury. I don't know whether she did that, Cheney, but the allegation, and I think they can back it up, is that she met with her. Hutchinson and guided her testimony. That's against federal law. You can't do that if you are a sitting congressperson. So, yeah, investigate it. But it's not revenge.

You've got to have this. You've got to have some standards of behavior in the federal government. But the press, oh, the revenge, oh, yeah, we don't. Does the press want to know what Liz Chenney really did? Do they? no they don't okay so let's get another point of view on this joining us from indiana is david massiotra he is a journalist author of the book exerbia now the battleground of american democracy so david where am i making my mistake here well thanks for having me bill

and i like the way you said the title of my book the sense of theatrical flare uh Your analysis is a little too broad and a little too narrow at the same time. So starting with the former, much of the decline, as you call it, in ratings and revenue, is temporary. So many liberal, progressives, left-of-center people felt such a punch to the gut by Trump's victory that they're just checking out. And the audience will return once Trump inevitably has some scandals, some failures, some lunatic behavior, the likes of which we saw during his first term. Second, American culture is undergoing a series of degradations, most of which is an intellectual degradation, a consequence of which is journalistic decline. So adding to your analysis, we can talk about how two-thirds of newspapers have shut down since the year 2000. Over half of radio stations have shut down.

Americans, fewer and fewer of them, are even consuming the news. They're no longer interested in debate. They're no longer exercising a civic responsibility. So the one thing on which I agree with you entirely is Fox News's success is because it's something of a Pravda for Trump voters. And you're correct, that's not going to last either because once Trump takes an exit from the stage, where are those people going to go? Well, they'll stay. I mean, Vance is Trump light. So MSNBC and CNN's numbers were never, ever strong in the last. 15 years. They're always marginal numbers. So even if their audience comes back, they're coming back to mediocrity. All right? I did it for more than 20 years on Fox. Those people never came

close to me, ever. In any way, at any time, we wiped them out, five, six to one, and it never got closer. So now with corporations cutting ties with MSNBC, they're not coming back anywhere. You're not going to be able to find them. That's how bad that is. CNN, I don't know what they're going to do, because even when there was a hope that Kamala Harris would win, CNN's numbers were terrible. So let's turn our attention to the big three networks. They're all in the morning below two million. They used to do five, six million. Late-night comics, barely get two million. Carson did nine million. So you've got to see that the eyeballs are not there, and I don't believe they're coming back. I disagree with you on that.

Some will come back, not all, because it's part of a larger cultural trend in which fewer and few people have any trust in traditional media. Why is that right? Why don't they trust it? Why don't they trust the traditional media? Well, first of all, most don't even pay attention to it. I mean, the rates of civic political knowledge in this country are awful. But second, they don't trust it because there were a series of mistakes. You're going to say liberal bias, but things like helping the Bush administration sell an invasion of Iraq,

for which the Washington Post and New York Times felt compelled to apologize. Missing. Yeah, but those mistakes, I was there. those mistakes were honest mistakes because you were getting information from a guy like Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, all right, that Saddam Hussein was peddling weapons of mass destruction, had them. So they were honest. When you see an interview that 60 Minutes does with Kamala Harris, okay, and then you see a promo that's totally different. And then you ask politely to see the transcript of what Ms. actually said. This is right in the middle of a campaign. And CBS has blanked you with the middle

finger. You can't, you can't recover from that. CBS is not going to recover from that. Part of part of this bill is a cycle in which for decades and decades, right-wing commentators and journalists have clutched their pearls whining and pleading. that the so-called liberal media is biased against them, and it has an indoctrination effect in which now you have half of the politically engaged public unwilling to believe anything they see on so-called mainstream media. That's a good point. There has been indoctrination, but the indoctrination was based on facts.

So in 1996, when the Fox News Channel started, the business plan was simple that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the three networks, CNN, did not give traditional conservative people access. They wouldn't book guests. They wouldn't even consider their point of view. And so Fox said, we're going to be the opposite. We're going to give traditional conservatives access. We're not going to ban left. I had just as many liberals on the O'Reilly factor as conservatives, because I like the job. I like to do that.

Now Fox, unfortunately, has gone away from that, and it's choir practice. But we made that network based on giving everybody access in it, because there was a wall put up by the left-wing media. You know that, David, if you, any research at all in the New York Times, at a Washington Post, the L.A. Times, is a wall. You can't get through. And a traditional conservative Americans resented that, and still to this day, resented.

I think that you're overrating that effect. I mean, William F. Buckley wrote regularly for the New York Times. In addition to his own magazine, William Sapphire was a columnist with the New York Times. Again, way back, dinosaur. Okay, but they always featured, right, and I just gave you an example where they helped the Bush administration sell honest mistake or not the invasion of Iraq. In 2016, the New York Times top story. They ran more articles about Hillary Clinton's emails than anything else. But I think you're overrating the liberal bias aspect of it.

And you're overlooking that everything you're accusing the mainstream media of committing, right-wing media, is doubly guilty of doing. Not when I was there, it wasn't. I mean, I really went out of my way to present all sides of. of the equation, to the extent that we had paid contributors to come on and present the left-wing side. Let's look forward. Let's look forward. My hypothesis is that the left-wing media has been damaged beyond redemption. You disagree. And I respect that disagreement, because a year for now, we'll have you back and we'll see whether they come back or anything. But say, I'm a

right as I am 90% of the time. I think that the now the surge is into the social media and there's certainly a lot of information there. Unfortunately a lot of it is phony because there are no standards of behavior on social media. But I don't think that's going to ebb. I think that'll even become more prominent. Am I wrong? I absolutely agree with you on that point, and that's indicative of a certain cultural decline. We don't have influence intellectuals anymore. We have influencers. So it was a major discussion point during the campaign if Harris would appear with Joe Rogan, which is like if in the 80s, the biggest topic of conversation was whether or not Reagan would give an interview to Sam Kinnison. You know, there's an absurdity

to it. However, I'm... Rogan's powerful guy. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But I would correct you on one point. I mean, I watched your show routinely throughout the Bush years on Fox, and you did often have liberal, progressive guests. But look at the analysis you offered at the top of the program. You essentially dismissed all of Harris's voters,

tens of millions of people as minorities who are dependent upon entitlements, or I'm cultural liberals who are indoctrinated by their teachers and professors. I contextualized it. I didn't dismiss them. Are you going to really argue, based on all the data that I'm sure you have assembled, that poor urban residents of this country don't lean left because of the entitlement system? Are you going to argue that's not true? I wouldn't argue that it isn't true that they lean left.

First of all, poor people vote in very low numbers. The reason is a Democratic Party is the party of entitlement. That's why they lean left. There are a variety of reasons why they lean left. But the main point is poor people vote in lower numbers than every other income group, as you know. So that's not a major part of the Democratic. the only reason that progressives control new york is because of new york city minority voters that's the only reason if you look at the last gubernatorial vote it's the only you're saying

minorities vote democrat only because they're dependent on entitlement i didn't use the word only i said that was the implication well fine you can take you can take any implication you want that's the driver and in new england the driver is that it's almost impossible for a traditional conservative get hired as a teacher in the entire area. Hey, it's Sean Spicer from the Sean Spicer Show podcast, reminding you to tune into my show every day to get your daily dose inside the world of politics.

President Trump and his team are shaking up Washington like never before, and we're here to cover it from all sides, especially on the topics the mainstream media won't. So if you're a political junkie on a late lunch or getting ready for the drive home, New episodes of the Sean Spicer Show podcast drop at 2 p.m. East Coast every day. Make sure you tune in. You can find us at Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

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 One. Every week, I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors, lawmakers, newsmakers, and even the president of the United States. These are the leaders shaping the future of America and the world. Listen to Podforce One with me, Miranda Devine, every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode.

So what do you think the kids are going to come out? I'll give it a last one. Yes. My point is that you've dismissed and disparaged tens of millions of Democratic voters as people dependent upon entitlements, or if they're not dependent upon entitlements, they were indoctrinated by the educational system. And that's the kind of narrow, absolutist thinking that pollutes our media and degrades our discourse. I totally disagree. My job isn't to be. politically correct. My job is to tell the truth. And what I told the audience at the top

is the truth. But I respect your dissent. That's what makes this country great. We kick it around. Now everybody knows what you think and everybody knows what I think and they can make their own decision. And if the network media will like that, it would have five times as many viewers, David. Thanks for that. I agree. Thanks for taking the time. We really appreciate. Thank you. Joining us now from Washington, D.C. is the aforementioned Attorney General of South Carolina, Alan Wilson. Pleased to have you.

The fairness thing in Tennessee, South Carolina, and other states, parents say, hey, we don't care. In fact, we want our child to transition. And it doesn't matter from male to female and female the mayor. And you, the state, have no right to stop that. and you say well first off the states have an inherent general police power to do all kinds of things we regulate the practice of medicine as a profession that has done at the state level not the federal level um you know states have has been upheld by the supreme court states can pass reasonable restrictions on when a minor can ride in the front scene of a car when a minor can

buy tobacco when a minor can consume alcohol when a minor can even consent to having sex This state of Tennessee, South Carolina, and 23 other states have passed laws passing restrictions on something that is far worse than those things I just mentioned, an irreversible procedure that can never be turned back. Taking hormones, engaging in chemical castration or genital mutilation is something that cannot be undone. The states have determined that is something we want to place a reasonable restriction on. Again, this is not a parental rights issues. parents have the rights to raise their children however they deem fit but again you can't withhold an education from your child you can't beat your child you can't put your infant in the front seat

of a car in our state you certainly can't give your your minor child alcohol so these are reasonable restrictions so the way you're framing this though if a if a parent or parents want their child to be able to transition they're abusing that child that's really what Well, what I'm saying is that the state has a compelling interest to protect a health and welfare of its children. And again, a parent taking their child out of school and never educating them or giving them alcohol when they're 10 years old could harm the health and welfare of their children. I'm not necessarily accusing parents of, well, I personally think having your 10 or 12 year old engage in gender transition surgery is child abuse. But if you believe that is the case, you know, then you can obviously raise your child however you want. you just can't, you know, have irreversible surgeries performed on them.

That's all we're saying. And you're getting a third party involved. You're getting the state to sanction it. If the state doesn't, if the state says it's, as the majority of states allow this. So they're basically saying, we don't care. If the parents are down with it, we'll go along. What separates Tennessee, South Carolina, the other 23 states from the person? permissive states. Because it's a big

gulf, I think, wouldn't you agree? I haven't read every single gender transition law for minors in every state, but generally they're all the same. There's very negligible differences. Obviously, some states allow you to perform it as early as you want their parents in some states, blue states transitioning their children

as early as two or three years old. I mean, it's really, to me, that is real child abuse. It's horrible. But the states, remember, the states have inherent power, the authority, a general police power, to regulate themselves. That's not a dispute. You're going to win the case. Supreme Court's going to rule 6.3 that the state did Tennessee and every other state has a right to regulate this. But I'm

trying to get into the gulf between New York State, where I am now, and your state, South Carolina. So you feel compelled to protect the minors there from a decision that you rightly described as life-altering can't be reversed. Yet the people here in New York, they don't care. Can you explain that dichotomy? Listen, I cannot get in the head of somebody who would support gender or genital mutilation and chemical castration on a minor child. I just can't, I can't do that. You don't know. You never talk to anybody. I don't have an answer. Yeah. Okay. It's fascinating, though. It really is because the Gulf is so huge. Let's go to the undocumented Obamacare people.

Now, you know you're going to be accused of being heartless and putting these people at risk. They're here, and now the federal judge says, no, you can't, even if they don't have any money, we're not giving them health care. How do you justify that? Well, first off, I mean, it's the law. It's federal law. I mean, I can't imagine anyone in America expecting to go to any European country or Latin American country and expecting to live on their welfare system. again, this isn't about being heartless. This is about following the law. I thought it was heartless to have the immigration policies that Biden and Harris had for the last four years, where you allowed tens of thousands, millions of people to en masse across the Rio Grande into the interior of the United States, releasing them. We can't find 300,000 minors right now who came across the southern border. To me, that is heartless. And Bill, I want to remind you of something, I take very personally, it was in 2009, a congressman on the floor of Congress yelled out at the president, you lie, when he said, that no illegal aliens would ever receive taxpayer-funded health care.

That was someone I happened to be related to, Joe Wilson, if you remember. And here we are. We have an administration then Vice President Biden, President Biden now, doing exactly what the Democrats said they wouldn't do. Where does it end? It's a slippery slope that you can't fund the entire world's welfare program. No, listen, I understand that. But if I'm sitting next to Pope Francis, he's going to say,

say, Mr. Attorney General, these are human beings. They don't have any money. They're here, probably shouldn't be, but they're sick. What do we do? Well, I would tell Pope Francis you don't violate the law. I mean, obviously, there's all kinds of social services. There's faith-based groups. There's organizations out there that can help those people in need. But basically, when you basically reward people for committing a crime and you incentivize more of that crime. The system can't withstand it. It cannot hold up.

And we're just going to incentivize. Ronald Reagan tried to deal with this 40 years ago. It was supposed to be temporary. Barack Obama did it again. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. We simply can't afford it. Okay. Fiscally, it is a huge problem.

How much has the open border Biden policy hurt your state? The Palmetto state, right? South Carolina? Yes, sir. On January 2nd of this year, the first workday of the year, I had a press conference with state and federal law enforcement agents. We indicted 64 people and seized one and a half kilos of methamphetamine and one kilo of fentanyl. By the way, one kilo, one kilo of fentanyl can kill half a million people. All of it came from the south, across the southern border in conjunction with Mexican drug cartels working with gangs.

It came up through Atlanta into the upstate of South Carolina. This is the fourth or fifth major drug conspiracy that we have prosecuted in the last three years involving Mexican drug cartels piping in that poison into South Carolina. So it has a major impact. Okay. How much of a problem is the trans kids in South Carolina? South Carolina is a red state. It's a conservative state, church-going state, traditional value state. How much of a problem is that trans thing for you?

I mean, we have, the population of trans is so minuscule. That's what I thought. Right. So it's more of a philosophical thing for South Carolina on the books than a thing that you're doing with every day. I mean, absolutely. But philosophical points matter. I mean, taking a stand on principle matters because it leads to other things in the future. Obviously, if we don't win this case in the Supreme Court, what does that mean for men playing in women's sports and vice versa?

I mean, there is a slippery slope, and the principle does matter. Yeah, well, you're going to win. I mean, there's no way this court is going to take states' rights away for under a dubious premise. Because I agree with you. I mean, I can't imagine because kids are kids, and they change. You know, and if once or over 18, okay. But under 18, leave them alone.

Help them out, but whatever right. I want you have a nice Christmas, Mr. Attorney General. It's very nice of you to help us out today. Merry Christmas. So where is Christmas banned? Some places in the world, we cannot celebrate Christmas. Here they are. Afghanistan, the Taliban, they'll shoot you.

Algeria, Bhutan. Now, Bhutan is Buddhist. They're not going to hurt you. but there's no Christmas there. North Korea, they'll hurt you there. Libya will hurt you. Mauritania, that's Muslim. Saudi Arabia, same.

Somalia, same. Tajikistan, same. Tunisia, same. Turkmenistan, same. Uzbekistan, same. Yemen. So the Muslim countries forbid. No Christmas.

Okay. You don't want to be there. How about the ones that are on the bubble? That would be China. Now, there are Catholics, Christians, in China. There are festive lights, but you don't want to be running around dressed as Santa. Iran, there you go. Oh, boy. Watch yourself. Cuba. People rebelled against Fidel Castro when he tried to ban Christmas. So they do it over there. Laos, very communist nation, south of China and west of Vietnam. and Turkey. You got to watch yourself in Turkey. They portray themselves as the modern place.

You're okay in Istanbul. Nice town, by the way. But you're out in the hinterlands of Turkey. You don't watch yourself. So I wouldn't be going caroling, okay, in Ankara. Now, how about some interesting traditions, Christmas traditions, all over the world? In Italy, they have a kind witch called La Bafana, kind witch. And it says she flies around on a broomstick delivering toys to children. This is in addition to Santa. So they got Santa, and then they have the kind which La Bafana. I'm not sure about that.

Iceland. Okay? You got the Yule lads. Does anybody out there know what the Yule Lads are? I love this. They're trolls. See, in the Norwegian culture, which Iceland is part of, trolls are little people that run around.

So this is Lila. In Iceland, children leave shoes under the window for 13 mischievous trolls called Yulads. The child has been good. They get sweets in their shoe. They've been bad. They get a rotten potato. Iceland, Austria. This is great. So they have St. Nicholas in Austria. That's Santa Claus. But they also have St. Nicholas's evil twin. His name is Crampus, the evil twin.

So this tradition dates back to Middle Ages, and people would dress up like crampus and chase children down the street in a menacing way if they didn't behave. Can you imagine doing that in America? You'd be in a penitentiary, right? Crampus in Austria. And finally, Sweden has the giant Yule goat. Now, this smacks some paganism to me, you know, owed in the Vikings. and all that. Okay. So the Yule Goat is 40 feet and it's made a straw. It's a statue. I don't know what they do with the statue, but it comes out of the town of Govla. And it's a big deal. It's erected

every year on the first day of Advent. It's even on TV in Sweden. The Yule Goat. So if you guys are interested in crampus or the yule goat or the kind witch now you know back here in the USA 2024 holiday spending expected to reach about a trillion dollars 973 billion that's a 5% increase over last year you know that's interesting people spend them more money they don't have any money but they are 10% of Americans don't give any gifts and you know who you are everybody else does and see Canada gives more gifts they spend more nearly a thousand dollars more in Canada and gifts in Americans too okay and what else half of Americans shop online now you know I have a

hard time shopping online because I'm six four two hundred pounds and if I order any clothes, and they never fit. I got a good tailor, but just a jacket or something. I got and you want to feel the fabric, right? So I'm hesitant on that, but that's my problem. Most Watch Christmas Movies in America. Before I put them up, see if you can guess. Which do you think? Here they are. Most Watch Christmas movies, Home Alone. How the Grinch stole Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, we're off the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, all kids' things. The best Christmas movie ever is a Christmas carol starring Alistair Sim, S-I-M. Best, trust me.

Now, everybody watches It's a Wonderful Life. Not me. Way to modeling and... Donna Reed, she had her own show in the 50s, James Stewart, but we have a big brawl in my house every Christmas time. Oh, you got to watch a wonderful life. Not watching it. Lucky, I have a couple of TV sets. Okay, final thought of the day. I am going to change, not my personality. I'm going to change my clothing. This is like instantaneous. In about 40 seconds, through the magic of videotape, we are going to bring you Holly the Terror Dog, but I wanted to set it up because this is what I'm doing here in my tie-in jacket, but I can't do that with Holly the Teradog because you just shed all over it. Shed-S-H-S-H-G-D.

So you're going to see a transformation. All right. It is about to come your way. And before we get to it, I want to wish everybody a blessed Christmas. All right, take it away. And the final thought today is the Christmas dog. I'm in my Christmas shirt. The Christmas dog is going, why are you torturing me?

Why am I here? Here, the payment to the dog union. I got a treat. I got a tree Christmas dog. So Holly's had a rough year in 2024, two brain tumors removed, and she's really been a good dog. So we pray for Holly, St. Francis, right, Holly? We're big St. Francis fans here. And she's going to have a better 2025.

She's nine years old, Corgi, Pure Blood. Got her in Georgia. They don't have a lot of corgi breeders up here in the Northeast, and I'm a very nice woman down there. And we got to Holly nine years ago. Remember that, Holly? You got on the plane, you came up to Long Island. And she's a very, very sweet dog.

I know, I know. You're not getting after wages to be on TV. Just let everybody see you. Okay. I want you to meet. Wish everybody a Merry Christmas. All right. And we are going to have a good one here because Holly is relatively healthy. So thank you all for your letters and kindness. I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas.

You guys are really the best. You've been very loyal to me and Holly. We really appreciate it. We'll be back Monday, January 6th. Have a good, you know, New Year. Keep it under control. Be very generous on Christmas if you can. Okay, Holly, that's it. We're going. See you on Monday, January 6th. effects.