Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - NO SPIN INTERVIEW: JD Vance

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Bill talks with VP candidate JD Vance about the border, mass deportation, Ukraine, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I appreciate you taking a time out there in Nebraska. We're talking to you early in the morning, but you look good. All right, I'm a mess, but you look good, Senator. But thank you for taking the time. This is a policy interview, but before I get to that, six months ago, your life was fairly organized as far as the senator to the United States is concerned. Now, it's 180 degrees different. Since you got the nod for VP, give me two things that have surprised you about the whole process. Well, the first thing that I have to point to, Bill, is having a Secret Service detail is just a wildly different thing.

I think for my kids in particular, Bill, we have a seven-year-old boy, a four-year-old boy, and a two-year-old girl. You know, they can't just, like, walk out the front door and go to their friend's houses anymore. It's just a different, a slightly different world, right? So I think that has been the biggest just adjustment for the family. I think the really big positive surprise is just you see the country in a totally different light as a VP nominee. And what I mean is, you know, I've run for Senate before, did it two years ago. You drive around the state of Ohio, which is, of course, my favorite state in the back of a U.S. Subaru. You know, now I'm flying around in a plane going to every corner of the country.

And you just, you know, whenever we're on the ground, I try to drop into some place that's local, a chocolate shop, an ice cream shop, a deli, just to sort of talk to people and see what it's like on the ground. And it's just a totally different way of looking at our country. It makes you realize, Bill, we have the most beautiful country in the world. And I always try to remind, you know, my fellow conservatives, my fellow Republicans, there is a lot for us to be grateful for and a lot for us to be hopeful about the problem with this country. It's not our workers. It's not our natural resources. Our incredible beauty. The problem is leadership. And that's why we're doing what we do. All right, so let's get into the policy stuff. One of the big issues, as everybody knows,

is the open border, which has caused an amazing amount of pain for the United States of America. And we're talking about drugs. We're talking about fiscal issues, cities going bankrupt, chaos, crime, on and on and on. So Donald Trump, and I think you subscribe to this from my research, wants to deport a massive amount of people, millions of people. So my analysis says that's almost impossible. How could a Trump administration deport millions of people? Well, Bill, before we get to that, I think it is important to set this up and say, you have to stop the bleeding first of all, right?

That's the most important thing, and the thing where I think most Americans actually have near uniform agreement on is we've got 25 million illegal aliens in this country right now. let's not add to it, right? Let's actually re-implement deportations, re-implement President Trump's Remain in Mexico policy, stop this process of catch and release, where for your viewers who don't fully appreciate this, what this really means is that you come into the country, you're asked by your government to come back maybe 10 years down the road, maybe five years down the road, but it's effectively a blanket amnesty policy for anybody who says that they're persecuted, even if they're just a traditional economic migrant. That is one of the biggest reasons why we have

this wide-over border. So stop all that stuff, right? That's for you're right. Okay, so once you stop all that stuff, now you've got 20 million, 25 million people. You have to figure out what to do with them. And I guess the way that I think about it, Bill, is it's kind of like being asked, well, you have a sandwich and it's 10 times the size of your mouth. How do you actually eat the whole thing? And you take it one bite at a time, right?

And I think you start with the million, most violent, most criminal illegal alien elements. There's probably, of the 20 million, there's probably a million who have committed some violent crime. That's an estimate, but I think it's pretty close to the truth. You deport them first and you focus on them first. And then I think you go down the list from there. Are you going to have a special federal task force set up to track down violent migrants? Well, I think you start with the people, again, who have committed crimes, right? So they're going to be in some local database.

Obviously, not every violent criminal is easy to track down, but a lot of them are because they're in the eyes of some local law enforcement. What if they're in prison now? Would you take them out and send them out? or they serve their full sentence and then you kick them out? What do you do? You know, I think it depends, but my attitude would be sending back to their home country, let their home country imprison them,

because one of the biggest problems with our local budgets bill and the problems caused by illegal aliens is, you know, it costs a lot of money to jail illegal aliens. It costs a lot of money to school their children, and it costs, of course, a lot of money to provide medical care. So I think getting back to their country of origin, especially if we're talking about that violent, hardened criminal element. And then I think, look, you are right,

bill that there are going to be some people where it's very hard to find them. But I think that there are a lot of people where it will be easy to find. And you have to be willing to deport these people if you're going to have a real border policy. And let me just give you a, you're going to have to go through the federal court system to do it because the ACLU is going to file a lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. But that's okay. I mean, I want to just get your vision about what to do. So then you have, I put the number at about 15 undocumented migrants who are, law-abiding people. And is there a, have you and Donald Trump talked about a process for those people? Are you going to make them register? What are you going to do to find out what their

circumstance is? Well, I think one other just additional thought here, and it's responsive to that question too, Bill, is we can actually do a very good job of deporting illegal immigrants if we just make it harder for them to work in this country in the first place. You'd have to get Congress to pass a law, that punishes employers who hire illegal aliens. It's not going to be easy to do that, particularly if the Democrats control one house on Capitol Hill. All right, so I... Bill, it's not going to be easy.

It's not going to be easy to do, but I think it's important to do, Bill, because if you take look, if you really want to have a battle with the Democrats over who respects and represents American workers, you've got one party that's trying to make it harder to hire illegal labor and undercut American wages. you've got another party that's fighting that effort. I think that's a fight. Did you ever think about why the Democrats want the open border?

Because they clearly do. The Democratic Party clearly wants an open border. They do not want any standards of who enters the country and who it doesn't. Have you thought about why they want that? You know, I have, Bill, and I don't think you have to think that hard because the Democrats are very open about this. I mean, if you look at Chuck Schumer's floor speeches or go back a few years, you know, what Joe Biden was saying on the floor of the United States Senate, they explicitly want to grant large numbers of illegal immigrants the right to vote, and they think that they're going to vote

for Democrats, and they think that's going to permanently make Republicans a minority in their own country. I think this is a very real driver of what you're seeing at the southern border. That they want to load up the demographics and change the state like California's changed in Arizona and New Mexico. All right, let's get on the sanctuary city. So you have been very explicit here in saying it's simple. this is a quote from Senator Vance,

we're going to end sanctuary cities. So how are you going to do that? Well, look, why does sanctuary cities exist, Bill? Because they get a lot of federal money in order to serve illegal aliens over American citizens. This is really about cutting off the money spigot here. You can, of course, wave the magic wand. You and Donald Trump would say,

we're not sending any federal money unless you cooperate with ICE. That's pretty simple. Exactly. That's exactly right. And you guys are going to do that? You're going to implement that because in this first four years, Donald Trump did not do that. Bill, I think that we have to. And I think that to defend Donald Trump in his first term here, Bill, you have to remember, one, a lot of the Republican Party was fighting him on his immigration agenda.

I think that'll be much different the second time around. And the second thing, Bill, is you mentioned the ACLU lawsuits. A lot of the litigation, a lot of the immigration enforcement was stalled in the first few years of the Trump administration. And he's still got a lot done to be clear, but he could have gotten more done if the courts hadn't been fighting him. A lot of those court cases have actually worked through the system in a way that's favorable to immigration enforcement. A very fundamental principle of immigration enforcement law is the president gets to do what he wants to do. He has broad discretion to enforce our immigration laws. And I think Joe Biden demonstrated that.

That's exactly right. You know, Joe Biden wouldn't enforce the law. It's an impeachable offense in my opinion. but, you know, because the Democrats control the Senate, they didn't even bought it. All right, let's get on to another interesting statement that you made, that I want, this is Senator Vance again, I want to expand the child tax credit, I want to stop those surprise medical bills. All right, now the expansion of the child tax credit, that's obvious. But you agree with the Democrats on that, and that's not a bad thing, all right?

But when you say, I want to stop surprise medical bills, then you're going into the private medical sector and telling them, this is what Kamala Harris is spouting a long time. Well, we're going to price control food. We're going to price control big pharma. That's not going to happen because they're private concerns. Do you have a way that you could stop surprise medical bills? Well, so first of all, Bill, just on the trial tax credit, to give Donald Trump some credit here, it was actually his legislative. back in 2017 that first expanded the child tax credit for the first time in a very long time. And of course, Kamala Harris bought that legislation every step of the way, in fact, voted against it.

So I don't think that we should give the Democrats credit here when they say that they're pro expanding the child tax credit. The one big opportunity in my lifetime where it happened, Donald Trump did it, Republicans supported it, and Democrats fought it every step of the way. But stopping surprise medical bills, I don't think you can do that. Well, here's the way that I've thought about this bill, and we've actually worked on legislation during my time in the Senate to work on this. Take, for example, a situation that I've experienced just in my family, and I'm a very lucky guy. This is not the sort of thing that broke the bank, but it could be for a lot of middle class families where you go to the hospital, your wife delivers a beautiful baby, you're excited about it, and then through the process of dealing with all of the shots and the vitamins and the things that are necessary for that new baby, you access. incidentally, and sometimes through no knowledge of your own, go to an out-of-network provider for a particular service and you get home with your beautiful baby a few weeks later and you get a shockingly high medical bill.

I think that there are actually real solutions that exist to be able to solve that problem. The question is, when you have these surprise and totally unforeseen circumstances, who should bear the burden of that, the immigration or excuse me, the insurance companies or the American family? I think that it's totally reasonable. What would the federal law look like to stop that? Well, it would basically say that if through no fault of your own, you engage in an out-of-network, you engage an out-of-network medical provider in order to provide benefits for your family.

You don't get stuck with the bill. The insurance company and the hospital should bear the burden of making sure that all of the insurance stuff has worked out. Not a new mom who gave birth to a baby three hours before and is probably exhausted. And really, it's just a question of where do you put the burden? I think it's reasonable.

But look, I believe in markets and I certainly reasonable. But writing the bill, I wouldn't want to write that bill. We're working on one right now in the United States Senate to that effect. And I will look at it, of course. Please do. Let's go on to another quote, Senator Vance. We are going to stand up to soft on crime prosecutors. So now the federal government is intruding on the state and local.

governments and you know you can't do that so here in new york where i am we have the worst the worst albin bragg you know the worst you can't touch him can you i disagree bill go ahead no no how are you gonna get him because listen if you got away i'm i'm right behind you he's killing the city look i think there's a carrot and there's a stick you can use with some of these local prosecutors. And again, you have to talk about the purse strings. That's where you start with this, right? So look, if you're a local prosecutor, police officer brings in the bad guy and you let a person walk Scott Free who committed a violent crime, then I think the federal government should be willing to say, look, we're not going to give you all of those law enforcement resources that

exist in the federal budget. We're going to be a little bit more willing to use some discipline and how we disperse those funds. If you're not going to use them to actually bring the bad guys. You're going to strangle them. But one other point on this bill, because I think it's very important, when I talk to police officers and I say, what is your biggest problem? What are the ways in which these soft on crime prosecutors make your life harder? The thing the police tell me, it's fascinating, Bill, is they're easy on the bad guys, but they use the full force of their office to really go after the police officers who are, of course, prosecuting the bad guys. I think that we have to ensure that our local police officers have the immunity necessary, that prosecutors, have, that judges have, we got to give our police officers proper immunity so they can do

their jobs. We protect them from these ridiculous lawsuits. We actually make it easier for them to do their job. Let's go to an issue that you and I disagree on, but maybe you have a new take on it, and that's Ukraine. So I'm a historian, and you know that, and I know what Putin's game is. It's obvious what he's done in Georgia, Belarus. He wants to restore the Soviet Union. and he's willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people to do it. There is only one force on earth that can stop this man, that's the United States. And we have NATO help. Okay.

So I am a person who says you've got to stop Putin in Ukraine, and that means you've got to arm the Ukrainians and you have to give them humanitarian aid. Am I wrong? Well, here's where I disagree on some of where you're at, Bill. I don't think that we can arm Ukraine indefinitely because I think that what it is ultimately done is, one, it's subsidized the Europeans and allowed them to not take responsibility. And it also, there's no real end in sight to our present Ukraine policy. So let me sort of start where we do agree.

I don't think that Russia should have invaded Ukraine, and we have to give some due credit here to our good friend, the former president, where everybody accused him of being in bed with Vladimir Putin. But when Donald Trump was president, Vladimir Putin didn't invade his neighbors. He did, of course, during the administration of Obama, the administration of Kamala Harris, and the administration, even of George W. Bush, of course, a fellow Republicans. So let's give some credit. I don't think Vladimir Putin would have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump had been president and he had some deterrence established. I agree with that assessment.

There's some magic between Putin and Trump that nobody. I've asked Trump 15 times what it is. He won't tell me. But I think it's that he's tough, but I also think that Donald Trump is smart when he engages with people, Bill, he actually talks to them and engages in real diplomacy. But let's go back to like, what do we do now? Okay, so we're in the situation now. What do we do now? Okay. So here, every European country says that they're going to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense. Most of them haven't actually honored that commitment. So what needs to happen in my view is that NATO,

Europe, needs to focus on Russia and Ukraine so that America can pivot to the real challenge for us, which is China. And I don't think, Bill, unfortunately, that we have the manufacturing capacity because we shipped our industrial base overseas. We don't make enough artillery shells. We don't make enough Patriot Interceptors to support the war in Ukraine indefinitely. So we have to ask ourselves, where can we focus? Where do we have to focus? And my view is, let's focus on China and let's force the Europeans to carry more of their share. I hope you guys are very, will rethink this thing. Trump knows he can't say publicly what is going to do. But I think this is really vital because this Putin, he's really a mentally unbalanced man, in my opinion. You cannot let him

win there. But I'm confident if Trump got in, there would be some day taunt there. Last question for you. I hear you, Bill. And I understand. Just one final point on that, if I might. Sure, sure. I think certainly Russia is in a world of her. I also think Ukraine is in a world of hurt. And again, we have to ask ourselves, can this go on indefinitely? I don't like the Biden administration approach of basically saying, we're just going to keep on doing this thing however long it takes with no strategy, no end in sight. I think Donald Trump actually does have a plan to bring about an end of the conflict. Of course, you're exactly right. He's not going to telegraph it. Right. Okay. He's not going to telegraph it. But I think that Donald Trump is

actually the president of peace and stability in the world. We're going to see that when we reelect hopefully because stability in the world is paramount and we got to stop this people all right last question this is a little bit lighter so you and Oprah Winfrey were best butts all right and Oprah on the TV last night at Democratic Convention she wasn't mean to you she mocked you about the cat lady stuff which believe me is about as inconsequential a statement as I've ever seen I knew what you were trying to do. You were mocking liberal feminists who, you know, don't really respect the family unit. However, Oprah's up there.

She helped your tremendous success, literary success. Did you see it? And what is your reaction to it? Well, first of all, I don't know if it's tremendous literary success compared to you, Bill. I think you've probably sold more books than anybody I've ever talked to. Believe me, your book's a classic. And again, I appreciate it. to get Amy Adams into your movie.

I mean, my God. I mean, Opie did a good job, Ron Howard. He did. Amy was lights out. But Oprah helped you and liked you. I mean, you guys had a good relationship. And now there's Oprah up there. I don't know what Oprah actually said.

I was trying to figure it out. But she was in Mississippi and then she's someplace else. I don't know. But what was your reaction personally to it? You know, I try not to take this stuff too seriously, Bill. when you enter the public arena, people are going to attack you. I wish Oprah all the best. And I wish, more importantly, that Oprah had talked about what Kamala Harris has done instead

of what Kamala Harris will do. My criticism of yesterday is the entire theme of this was about what Kamala Harris, her vision, what she will do when she's been the sitting vice president for three and a half years, we have higher inflation, higher housing prices and lower wages because of it. These people have got to stop talking about Kamala Harris. as if she hasn't been the vice president for three and a half years. So I'm going to keep it, whether it's Oprah or anybody else,

I'm going to keep it focused on policy. I wish Oprah all the best, but I want her candidate to lose because I want the American people to thrive. All right, and just keep this in mind. Vice President Harris has been on the federal scene for seven and a half years. Four in the Senate, no bill got even voted on that she was associated with, none.

And then as vice president, as everybody knows, she backed Biden 100% on all those failed policies. So that wasn't too bad, right? I know your people were saying O'Reilly's too mean and all this, but I wasn't too bad, was it? Not bad at all, man. Again, I'm honored to speak with you. I've been a big fan for a long time, so hopefully we can do it again. All right, Senator.

Any time, and my best of the president, thanks for taking the time today. Thanks, Bill. Take care.