Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - No Spin News Special: Bill O'Reilly vs. the Elite Players

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Bill has interviewed some of the elite players in politics and media this year, including Gordon Sondland, Tom Suozzi, James Comer, Tom Homan, Stephen A. Smith, Mike Pompeo, Dan Abrams, and Senator Ron Johnson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let's shift all over to your expertise here. So I think the situation in Ukraine is worsening for Keef, and that's an advantage to Putin, unfortunately, because Putin doesn't care how many Russians are dead. He does care about the ruble collapsing in his economy and jambles. He cares about that. but they didn't care about the dead. So Trump has now got a more difficult problem with Putin than he would if the battle was a stalemate, which it isn't. And Trump knows that. He actually said that to me. He said, you know, Russia's when I said, I know they're winning, but you have

to make it painful for them to win. But now, the specter of more economic sanctions against Russia, that's what Trump came out last week and said. How do you see this going down? I actually think Putin is going to regret doing what he did for the simple reason that if he winds up at Donald Trump's pleasure by retaining any amount of Ukraine that he was able to take since the invasion, and I don't know if that's going to be the case or not, but let's assume that it is. The payment he's going to have to make for that is a structure that guarantees Ukraine, ironclad security. If that's short of joining NATO, it'll be some kind of a NATO compact

umbrella. But the deal will be very simply, okay, you get X, Y, and Z. You never get another inch. And if you take one more inch in the future, all bets are off. And we go toe to toe immediately with the United States and NATO all in with Ukraine. So you're locked. It's all over. When is that deal? Are they going to go to Iceland? and me, do you have any scenario that might happen in the next month or so? I think it's going to happen very quickly because I think President Trump believes it's his personal duty to stop the bloodshed. He sort of promised it. Absolutely. That's one of his big signature items to try to get something there. And then he might get the Nobel Peace Prize

if he does at least nominated. All right. So that's all conjecture. We can just guess at that. Greenland. So, this is another thing. I wrote a message of the day on Bill O'Reilly.com where I was making fun of the Gulf of Mexico being the Gulf of America now.

And Greenland, again, I changed the name to Mara Koldo. Because it's, you know, but there is the lithium, and that's what this is all about, because China has the lithium market worldwide to

make the machines and the United States want the world dependent on China. And so we need the lithium there. But instead of negotiating a deal, which you could do, I think you could probably do it in a week with the Danes. You know, he goes, ah, we might take it over. Is that the right way to do it? Well, look, if you speak fluent Trump speak, what you realize is he's taking what is a very complicated deal and putting it in words that everyone can. understand. He doesn't mean it literally when he says, we're going to buy Greenland. It doesn't mean he's going to write a check and they're going to hand us a deed to Greenland. What it really means is we're going to get in bed with Greenland more than we've ever been in terms of military. I know that and

you know that, but the folks in Europe don't know. Yeah, but they don't know. And the Danes are running around. I mean, it's certainly, that's the first thing that's an awakening them since November. So cold over there. But I think it also shows me that META Frederikson does not know how to manage Trump the way Georgia Maloney of Italy knows how to manage him. Whatever it may be. Americans don't care. We just don't want conflict. I think that'll work it out. I think they'll work out something economically, right? They're already talking. Absolutely. That's what I think. Panama is the same thing. That guy down there is going to give Trump what he wants, but Trump goes in and says, hey, we're going to take it. So I don't know. I actually had a conversation with the president

long about this. I say, you don't have to humiliate. The guy's going to do what you want. But it seems like Donald Trump wants to create that chaos. He feels it's easier to get a deal out of that once he creates this hysteria. Am I wrong? Well, there's something else going on here as well. He's showing our adversaries, our true adversaries, and none of these people are adversaries, they're actually our friends. He's showing, you know, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, particular that he is not effing around when he says something, he means it, and he plans to take immediate action. He is a check your watch, not your calendar kind of president. And that's what we've needed for the last four years. I got some questions for you. Number one, your party was

hijacked by far-left people under Biden. There's no doubt about that. That's why Trump won. How did that happen? You're not a far-left guy. How did your party get hijacked by the far-left? I think that both parties are prone to being hijacked by their extreme bases, both parties. In the case of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden is not the greatest messenger in the world. I think he did a lot of good stuff, but he's not the greatest messenger in the world. And too many people are intimidated to speak up against their extreme base. And as a result, I think the Republicans effectively weaponized the extreme elements of our party to say, like, you're all for defund police, you're all for open borders, you're all for all this extremist stuff, and it worked. There are

plenty of extremists in the Republican Party, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Burburt and Matt Gates, but we did not effectively weaponize that. And the bigger spokesman was Donald Trump, so you couldn't paint them with that brush. It was just the message he was selling as opposed to... But I still don't understand. If you're a president of the United States and you go into office and open the border and 14 million foreign nationals come in unattended, that's a far left play. Do you have any idea why that man Biden did that?

Any idea at all? My belief, I genuinely believe is Bill. Joe Biden is a creature of the Senate. And he thinks that, you know, to make long-lasting change, you've got to negotiate a deal in the Senate, and to come up with a compromise. And he worked on trying to do a compromise for years. Ultimately, they came up with this compromise in February, 2024. It was too late. And he did an executive order in June of 2024.

I sent him a letter along with a Republican, Brian Fitzpatrick, asking him to seal off asylum applications in between. between the ports of entry, and he did it, and the numbers are down from what they were when it was really bad back in the end of 2023. But it just waited too long, and as a result. But too long, it's three years of damage. The first year, the first year was not that bad because we were still having the COVID hangover,

and there were not that many people crossed the point. You know how bad it was. You said it in your campaign that it was wrong. No, no question. Am I campaign? You said it. So why did he do it? Why did he do it for three years?

I think he was focused on other stuff and he did. Other stuff? Look, he was a major issue. He rams through. I don't give me, COVID. Bill, Bill, COVID was a major issue when he first came into office. So what does COVID have to do with an open border? Nothing.

And then he rams through regulation. Wait, listen to me. He rams through. regulation after regulation on the energy industry, rocketing inflation so everybody suffers, and then two years in, he takes that off. It takes them two years to figure out you can't strangle the fossil fuel industry and not have inflation. And he takes it out and he drills like crazy. This is Biden. So he's the second worst president ever, in my opinion, and I know what I'm talking about. But let's, let's advance it. You're, you're the coach here of the

problem solvers caucus, right? In, in the House, correct? Yeah, 25 Democrats, 25 Republicans regularly try to find common ground. But here's the problem with that. The most powerful guy in the house is Hakeem Jeffreys. He's a far left guy. So how are you going to get anything done. He's not far left. But I'm working for the people I represent. And I'm going to work to try and find common ground on the border. I'm going to work to try and find common ground on inflation and high costs. I'm going to work to find common ground on public safety. I'm going to work to find common ground on something the president talked about in his speech about chronic disease and protecting children. And there's a lot of things that the president has done and said already

that I don't like. But I'm not going to focus on the things I don't like. I'm going to focus on where can we find common ground to actually solve the problems we've been facing for the past 30 years. All right. Now, you wrote an article in the New York Times. Good article.

I actually texted you that it was a good article. And about Trump. And you just said, on this broadcast, there are a lot of things I don't like that he's done in a week. Give me one. the pardons. You know, I'll just talk about one pardon from the 1600 from January 6th. This guy, Daniel Rodriguez, was there when they were beaten up a police officer,

capital police officers on the ground. Some guys are saying, kill him, kill him. And Daniel Rodriguez takes a taser and sticks it in the police officer's neck, tasers him. The police officer has a heart attack and has traumatic brain injury as a result. This guy, Daniel Rodriguez, texted his friends and said, you wouldn't believe the stuff I just did. And I got away, and I tased the, you know what, out of the blue. He pled guilty. He got 12-year sentence, and he was included in the blanket pardons. And there's a lot of examples of that from some- All right. That's legitimate. I don't think any fair-minded American would disagree with you. Give me a policy thing, though. So we've had a lot of policy in eight days. Give me one

policy thing that you object to? The one thing that I disagree with is the complete effort to eradicate a lot of the climate change stuff. You know, I have a difference with the president on that stuff. I take it climate change much more seriously

than he does. He doesn't look at it the same way. And I'm all for all the above and utilizing the natural gas reserves we have in our country. Why do you think and that breach will never be you'll never reach Daytona? Now, why do you think most Americans have now turned against the climate change zealots?

I think it's been very effectively weaponized. You know, I think that the Republicans and President Trump specifically have done a much better job of navigating the fractured media landscape. You know, it's not the traditional media that you and I grew up with, with, you know, your local paper and your local news stations and cable news. It's now podcasts like yours. It's like social media. It's a so much more fractured environment. And he and his team have done a very effective job of taking anything that they disagree with and blowing it up into a painting of the whole party being a wreck.

So, you know, we've got to figure out how to combat that and how to make our argument. Well, I will give you an open invitation come here. and also your peer, Laura Gillen, who's a Democrat, who's the South Shore of Long Island. I was telling you I ran into Congresswoman Gillen at the Islander game on Friday. And you're both moderate people. I mean, I've known you guys for a while.

You're not loons. But I'll tell you what, Congressman, the power in the Democratic Party still lies in the left-wing zealots. And if you don't break that down, it'll be J.D. Vance will be the, next president. I don't believe, I don't believe in defund the police. No, I know that. But the powerful people, and to say Hakeem Jeffries isn't a far left guy. All you have to do is look at his record

and look at his public statements. Look at the, look at how he categorized. Wait, just do this because this will, you're a guy, you went to the same high school I went to, we have a lot of coming. When those rioters in New York got out of control, you look at what Hakeem. Jeffrey said. That's all you need to see. I'm a little skeptical here because I follow you very closely and your hearings. And I have not seen the cliche smoking gun. If it went into his pocket, Biden didn't put it on its tax returns. You know that. I don't know where that money would have wound up. Can you tell me? I can. So there were two payments that went directly. to Joe Biden from the influence peddling schemes.

Both payments came through a laundered process. The money from China started out as the $5 million wire. That was the wire where Hunter Biden sent the WhatsApp message, where he said, my father sitting beside me. It was just weeks after he left the vice presidency and said we expect those commitments to be fulfilled. So there was evidence of Hunter with his father, according to Hunter, sitting beside him,

demanding that the Chinese comply with whatever deal they made while Joe Biden was Vice President. Days later, a $5 million wire went through a series of shell companies. One company that I said was not a shell, but it was a corrupt company, was Hunter's law firm, even though he didn't practice law. It was his professional LLC. That LLC then took a fee out of that, that $5 million transaction. That fee was for $400,000.

And then money, that $400,000 started going down through a series of money laundering. And the bank suspicious activity reports flagged them as this is the money laundering scheme. There's money being laundered through shell companies. And it ends up the last incremental payment goes to Joe Biden for $40,000. That, ironically, is 10% of hunters $400,000. Now, Tony Babelinski is the one that said 10% for the big guy. Tony Babelinski came in for both a deposition and a committee hearing.

And in the committee hearing, he cited that $40,000 payment and he said, that was the 10%, that was what that deal was supposed to be. He said, but what I learned, what Tony Babelinski learned was it wasn't a legitimate business deal. When he signed up to be a part of that, he thought it was a really a deal, a real energy company in China. But what he realized was there was no deal. It was just a bribe. That's what Tony Bob Balinski said under oath, a bribe to Joe Biden.

But where did the money go? All right, so Biden gets $40K in his suitcase and cash? You put it under his bed? Where do you go? It was a check that was deposited into his Joseph, Robinette, Biden Jr., your checking account. Then there was another payment bill. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So he puts the check in the payment, uh, uh, in his, in his checking account. The IRS is flagged on that, anything over 10K. All right. So it goes in, Biden doesn't have that on his tax return,

does he? No, no. Oh, that's a felony. He disclosed his taxes. We did, we subpoenaed the bank records, not of Joe Biden. We couldn't get those because he was sitting president of the things, but we subpoenaed the bank records of the shell companies and of Jim Biden. So the next payment came from a scheme called AmeriCorps Health. And this was a Jim Biden deal, that $40,000 that ended up in Joe's account was from the China deal through Hunter. The next one, which was a larger one, was for $200,000. It was a scheme through a domestic scheme called AmeriCorps Health through Jim Biden.

And it was a supposedly a loan from AmeriCorps, Health, a loan made to Jim Biden for $600,000, a loan that he never repaid, he never paid any interest on, and, you know, the loan was made right before the company filed bankruptcy. So of that $600,000, it was laundered through a series of shells to, it went to, it went to, Jim and Sarah Biden, who both got pardons, their personal account, and then they turn around and write Joe Biden a check for $200,000, and it says in the memo line, loan repayment. Well, we caught this, and the media said, oh, it was a, it was a loan repayment. How do you know it's a loan repayment? They said, because it says it on the memo line, loan repayment.

But Bill, if I loan you $200,000 and you pay me back $200,000. You should have evidence that I first loaned you $200,000. The original loan has to be... Joe Biden never produced any evidence. And he tried to say both payments were loan repayments. For what though? I mean, look, it's got to be a contract and there's no contract. There was no contract.

Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, but let me stop you there. So now you're on the committee now and you're not going to walk away from this. You're still investigating. All you got to do is hand us over to the IRS because, as I said, As I said, none of this appears on Joe Biden's tax returns. All right? So if he gets $40K in his personal account and doesn't declare it as income, that's a felony. It is.

If he gets a repayment of a loan that wasn't even made, that's fraud. That's fraud. So the IRS is the, and you know, you know that under the Biden administration, that kind of investigation, But now under the Trump investigation, this doesn't seem like a complicated process. You hand over that to the IRS. They do due diligence for a month or two. And then the FBI goes to the Biden House in Delaware and arrest them. Where am I going wrong?

No, you're absolutely right. And because of the investigation, those two Irish whistleblowers came forward, Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley. They knew about a lot of this because they were investigating the entire Biden family. Sure. But that's all. I want to move it ahead. We know Garland and the IRS under Joe Biden. Now I'm going to do any of this. Now, I don't know if Donald Trump has a heart for this. I don't know. He's been asking a couple of times, look, are you going to go after Joe Biden criminally on these situations? But understanding what Trump himself went through in the whole process of everybody coming after him. Number one, the press is if you have ever did that, the IRS ever, you know, charged Joe Biden. Press go nuts. It's Trump. It's Trump's vengeance. You know, you know what the thing would be. Okay. But have you spoken with the president about this? Do you know if he's going to aggressively go after Biden on these criminal charges? I saw President Trump at Marlago. There were some other committee chairs there a couple of

weekends ago and he talked he came up to me and started talking about the investigation and said you did a great job exposing the the fraud in the schemes and all that and i said well mr president you know the investigation's been done i strongly encourage your administration to follow through and hold these people accountable i said you know at the time he had only pardoned hart hunter i said i fully expect him to pardon jim by now i was surprised that he pardoned the spouses because bill the The only place you will find the name of the spouses involved in the scheme is in my book. And I think whoever read my, they read my book, the Biden legal team, and encourage Joe Biden to issue the pardons for the spouses, too, because there were 10 family members, including Joe Biden.

Well, they all filed joint tax returns. That's why they did that. So they had to because all of his money wasn't declared. And that's the crime. That's like Al Capone. They got him on tax evasion. And this is the same exact thing, all right? And Bill, I come from a banking background, from a family that was involved in banking.

I was the director of a bank for many years. And tax returns don't tell the true story. Bank records do. Bank records don't lie. People can cheat on their taxes. The way taxes are set up, they're set up to be manipulated. But you cannot lie on bank records. And the bank records showed where they were laundering money.

And the banks caught them. So the bank, the private banks did everything right. No, they signaled. Look, the case is overwhelming at this point. The problem is whether the Trump IRS is going to go after it. Like, they did go after Hunter. All right. Now, Hunter's pardon.

They had them. The IRS got him. With the IRS, it seems to me, if all of the things that you have written in your book, and I'm going to mention it again, because if you, You want the details, Congressman Comer has them, all the president's money by James Comer. If the IRS goes after President Biden, even though these offenses were committed when he was vice president, allegedly committed, all right, it's not a hard case to make, is it? No.

No. It's not. And the Irish investigators, when they came forward, we had our committee hearing, they said they wanted to question Joe Biden because obviously the money was coming because of Joe Biden. Yeah, sure, but he's never going to do that. But now he's stripped of all protection. Right. And you've got a new Irish commissioner, Billy Long, and, you know, I hope that they do this. Because if you look at what Hunter Biden was charged with in tax evasion, Bill, the IRS let a bunch of statute of limitations expire on some other tax charges. Right. But this one, no. It's in the zone. But anyway, keep us posted here. And if you don't think the Trump administration is doing what it should, you got to let me know.

I mean, because we're looking out for the country. You can't have a vice president or a president taking bribes. that's right so over the past few weeks the washington post the new yorker magazine the new york times athletic the new york post fox news news nation have all done features on you about your political future in their estimation it's not like you've said anything it's that like that why do you think that is why are you getting so much attention in this area Democratic Party doesn't do at this particular moment in time. I resonate. It's really that simple. And I'm not saying that to brag on myself. I'm saying that to highlight the desolate state of affairs that exist within the Democratic Party. They haven't been very, very impressive,

collectively speaking, of course. And I think that when you see the election and what the election results revealed, Donald Trump gets 77 million votes. He wins the popular vote. He wins the electoral college vote. He wins every swing state. He's up. like 50 counties. He gave her a run for money in New York. They improved in California. And obviously, they won the Senate. They won the House. And they maintained, you know, their stake in the House. I'm sorry, in the Senate. They won the Senate, and they maintained their stake in the House as well. You take all of those things into account, and there's just no question that the Democratic Party is in dire straits right now. And so when you hear me

pointing out some of the things that I pointed out, I'm not one of those guys, Bill, who believes that because you think differently than me, you're a racist. You're anti-black. No, you don't play that yet. I've never heard you play that car. I don't play that game. Why do you think Carville got so upset about this? What is it that you're doing that annoys him? Well, you know this better than me because you're the veteran in politics over the last 50, 60 plus years, 50 years plus. I'm not going to go to 60 route because you're not that old. But here's the deal. In the end, when you look at a guy like James Carville, who came across as a bit truculent to say the least,

I think that, you know, first of all, he misquoted me. I did not say there was no talent in the Democratic Party. I said there was no one who was resonating. They did not have a voice. I happen to know Westmore, the governor of Maryland. He's a friend of mine. I mean, I like him a great, great deal. We've become friends.

I enjoyed my interview with Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. I just finished interviewing a few minutes ago minority leader of the House, Mr. Hakeem Jeffries. So it's not like the Democratic Party is devoid of talent. That's not what I said. But they are devoid of a voice. They are devoid of somebody who resonates on a national level.

And I think James Carville took exception of that primarily because he forgot that he was the one saying it too, which is why on my show, when I clapped back at him, I played some clips of him saying the same damn thing that I said. Because he had been lamenting that. And I think that when you're in, you got to get Carville on your podcast, which is very successful. I'm going on. I'm going on his. I'm going on his.

Yeah, good. Yeah, I'm going on. There's a couple of things in play. Number one, there is no leader of the Democratic Party. Now it would be my first question, Carvel. Who's the leader? Chuck Schumer? Come on.

There's no leader. They don't have anybody. Totally true. Kamala resurfaced at the NAACP didn't really make a dent. So it's wide open. Number two, Trump. the gates for populist candidates. And if you ever decided to get into politics,

that's what you would be, a populist candidate. You would be going right to the people and say, look, I feel for you and I'm going to, if you elect me, I'm going to try to solve some of your problems. That's what Trump did. And it's been very successful for Trump. But right now, the Democratic Party is disarray. And Carvel knows that,

but it just seems to be. seems to be he was insulted by... And not listening to him. That's where his real frustration comes from. And I'm not, and please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying they shouldn't listen to him. I think they should have listened to him. But I think that as is the case in our society today on a plethora of platforms and in industries where you've got youngsters on the come up and they sort of ease the elder statesman out of the mix because they want to run things themselves. I deal with that in sports too, where you have an abundance of individuals who were qualified. and they couldn't get a job because the youngsters were placed at the helm, and they didn't want to bring somebody in more knowledgeable than them. Take it to account, you know your sports a little bit, Bill O'Reilly. Bill Belichick couldn't get an NFL job. The man has won eight Super Bowl championships. Two as a defensive coordinator, six as a head coach.

And when he got let go by the New England Patriots, he couldn't get a job. He had to go back to college at the University of North Carolina to get a head coach job. They didn't want to get a guy like that control. I know that. I know that. But what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is transitioning back to poverty. politics, you have people in positions of power within the Democratic establishment that clearly didn't want to listen to James Carvo. So that could be a part of his frustration.

But in the end, he came at the wrong person because I wasn't knocking him. I thought they should have listened to him. But when he clapped back at me, I'm like, wait a minute, you've been talking the same stuff that I've been saying. You must have forgot about that. Let me remind you. And that's about as far as well. You really want to cut through it all. And no Democrat has courage to say this. Joe Biden destroyed the party. You destroyed. Yes, I said that. But you're not, you know, you're not in the political arena. There's nobody in Congress or working in the Democratic precincts. No governor, nobody. Westmore, your buddy, when you talk to him and you ask him, did Joe Biden destroy the Democratic Party? He'll say no. Or he won't answer the question.

Joe Biden destroyed it because he's the second worst president in our history. And it's not even close. I mean, you can never beat James Buchanan because he let the civil war happen. But Biden, if you read my message of the day on bill o'Reilly.com, the guy, that's why Trump is, you know, bouncing up and down like, you know, an 18-year-old on speed because he's trying to reverse all of this stuff that's hurting every American. But the Democrats won't acknowledge that. And they also won't acknowledge that woke culture has destroyed the fabric of the party. That's what the main thing is all about, right? You and I have been, you're absolutely right.

You and I have been on TV together, and you know how I love to disagree with you, but when you're right, you're right, damn it, I got to concede it, and you're right on the money with that, you know, and so when you take into account, first of all, Joe Biden was supposed to leave. He was supposed to be a transitional president, and then was feeling himself when the midterms wasn't a red wave in 2022, so he decides to stay in. office basically betrays the party and then they got to come up with some elaborate scheme to get him up out of there that's what i firmly believe and it turned out to backfire on them and when you

look at the actions of trump right now and people talk about him trying to undo so much that they have done whether you like or dislike what trump is doing and there's plenty of people in the center and clearly on the left who do dislike what he is doing it is no doubt he is trying to do exactly what he said he was going to do, which is also the antithesis of what Democrats at least are not about that. He's going further. So that's the bottom line. He is going further, going to be too far. Nobody expected him to prop up Putin. But as I wrote in my column, this is why he's propping up Putin. So Mr. Homan, I've noticed when you appear on the network news and some cables, that the questioning is often hostile to you. It's not neutral questioning. It's like,

hey, what are you doing? How many people did you throw out today? And I'm sure you noticed that, too. And I'm saying to myself, why? Do you have any idea why that so many, so many of the American press corps are antagonistic to you? Well, I think it's because I served President Trump. I mean, you know, when I work for, I was a third in command of ICE under Barack Obama. We had over 409,000 removals, and they weren't hostile then. So I think working for President Trump makes me hostile anybody that serves President Trump. But look, I'm proud to work for President Trump.

I think he's the greatest president in my lifetime. And especially when it comes to border security and immigration enforcement and national security. So they don't bother me. Look, if I can deliver their heads rent free, I'm okay with that because I'm going to keep telling the truth, whether they like it or not. My talking points never change. I don't care if I'm talking to a conservative or talking to a liberal. They're going to hear the same thing because what I give them is facts. They can like it or not like it, but they're going to hear the truth.

Okay, but they don't like it. Now, when you were working for President Obama who deported more undocumented people than any other president in history, all right? And most of those were at the border that got kicked back fast, and they didn't have this asylum con that they rose up under President Biden. When you were working for Barack Obama, in my research on him from my book, Confronting the President's, he didn't want an open border. He didn't want chaotic immigration. Am I correct there? Well, his first term, like I said, we removed a lot of people in the first term. largely because we're counting board patrol removals with ice removals,

and that's how come the number got so big. But he was pushing for that. He was pushing for more removals. But under the second term, the Obama term, we pretty much got shut down. I mean, once he got the named Deporter-in-Chief, operations really slowed down. And that's one of the reason at the end of that administration that I decided to retire because after four years doing that, I was tired of it. But in the beginning, he was about securing the border. In the last four years, he was not.

And you think it was political pressure, obviously, from the left that caused that? Absolutely. Okay. Now, one of the beefs against Homeland Security is they are not, they are deporting non-criminal migrants along with the criminals. And I believe that's true to some extent, because how could you possibly know when you go sweep a whole bunch of people, say you're a criminal migrant married to a person who isn't a criminal, stuff like that. How valid is that criticism that ICE is now deporting people

quickly without due process that aren't criminals? Well, they all get due process. I mean, the non-criminals, where does most non-criminals get arrested? Sanctuary cities. And I've said this for two months. Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don't want, more agents in their communities, and more collateral arrest. Because if we can't arrest a bad guy in the county jail, one agent arrest, one criminal alien, and they're going to release them, like the major cities, this country, sanctuary cities. You're going to release them back in the community? Okay, fine.

We're still going to do our job, which means we're going to go to the community, and we're going to find him. And when we find them, most likely they're with others. Others that are illegally in the United States, but not a criminal. Well, we're not going to tell ICE agents, forget the oath you took, ignore the immigration law, walk away from these people. No, they're going to come too. So when you look at the collaterals and non-criminales, most of them are arrested in sanctuary

cities because they forced us in that position, we're going to arrest them. That's an important point. So when you do a sweep, if you find a non-criminal migrant, that person gets taken into custody, correct? Yeah, to be clear, when we do a target enforcement operation, we know exactly who we're looking for, and we're most likely we're going to find him. And when we go to that location, look for that target, that criminal target, many times, most times he's with others, especially if you're at a work site, they're coming to. So sanctuary cities are forcing us into that situation.

So if you've said this many times, let us in the jail. That means less agents in the neighborhood. That means less collaterals, but they refuse to assist ice. So we're going to keep doing what we're doing. Just to be clear, when you do an enforcement sweep, it is based upon information provided about criminal aliens. Is that correct? Local, state, federal information, right? That's the sweeper.

Exactly right. I'm going to call it a suite, Bill. I call it a target enforcement operation. We have a target. We've got a sheet. Who's the alien's name? What's his immigration record? What's his criminal record? We're most likely when we find them and it has to be approved by supervisors. We go on the street, look for somebody. We have a whole frigid of operation sheet that details who this person is and we're looking for. And where do you get that information? From the states, from the locals, where does that come from? Do various databases that we use at ICE. I can't tell you all of them for the law enforcement sensitive, but we do targeting based on criminal databases.

We use all sorts of social media. We use a lot of things I don't want to discuss here, but we create those target bases. So you get this stuff, and if there's an undocumented alien who is not a criminal, they get swept up. They get deported sometimes, and it depends on the process. Am I correct? Yes. All right. Now, Michelle Wu in Boston is heading for collision with Tom Holman, who is speaking to me right now.

Again this weekend, she basically said, we're not going to cooperate on any level. We want undocumented people in the city of Boston. And she's backed up by the governor of Massachusetts, Mora Healy. Do you have any plans to take action against Mayor Wu and Governor Healy? Actually, you're the first show where I can make this announcement. So as I promised at Seaback, I was going to go to Boston. I'm going to bring hell with me. And we did.

I was in Boston last Tuesday. I started an operation with ICE, HSI, ERO, FBI, ATF, D-E-A, U.S. Marshals, and the State Department. And in five-day operation, we arrested 370 illegal aliens in Boston and the surrounding communities in Massachusetts. And 205 of those were significant public safety threats, including four murderers, child rapists, armed robbers, a couple Interpol, Red Notice Arrest. We arrested a lot of bad people in the last five days in Massachusetts, many of them in Boston. We just put the numbers again today. You're the first show I've actually been able to talk about this.

The numbers just got put out today, Bill. Excellent. But Ms. Wu is defiant even in the face of those incredible stats. And they are incredible if you know the city of Boston. It's not New York City. It's not nearly that large. So I'm wondering whether the next step for the Justice Department, it wouldn't be, it would be the Attorney General Bondi, is going to go after people like Michelle Woe for violating some tenant of federal law. Do you believe that will happen?

I hope it will happen. I know Pam Bonnie's already put sanctuicities on notice. I know she's there already sued a couple. I sent that report to Pam Bond this morning and who we arrested in Boston in the surrounding area and the public safety threat that we had to take off the street because if we got to go to the street

and rest people like this the job of ICE is already dangerous but to go arrest an aggravated felon murder public safety threat in the general public not only puts the officer at risk it puts the community at risk so I sent the numbers this morning to DOJ so I think Pam Bonnie would take action

and do what she can do but she's already started in Sanctuary City So, you know, God bless Pam Bondi. I think she's going to do the right thing, and I think she's going to try to hold these sanctuary cities accountable in courts. All right. So it'll be civil litigation, not criminal litigation, correct? I'll leave that out to Pam Bondi.

We'll see what happens. But it would be amazing to see, you know, a big city mayor or a state governor, like Pritzker in Illinois, or even, you know, here, Hokel and New York, she plays a double game. the damage that the Biden administration did to the country, and I know this is a political question, but it has troubled me from the very beginning, seems to me to be incalculable as far as the Treasury is concerned, crime is concerned, social upheaval is concerned. Do you have any idea why Joe Biden opened that border for three and a half years? Do you have any idea why Joe Biden opened that border

for three and a half years. Do you have any idea why that man did that? No, I can only guess, and I've said many times I work for six presidents starting around Reagan. Even when Clinton Obama took steps as we discussed to try to take action and secure the border, no one did more than President Trump.

He was unprecedented in his success. We had the most secure border in my lifetime. But Joe Biden's the first president in my lifetime who came in office and unsecured a border on purpose. That wasn't mismanagement. It wasn't incompetence. He knew exactly.

what he was doing along with Alejandro Mayorkes. But there must be chat, though. There must be chat in Homeland Security and the Border Patrol precincts about the why of all this. What did he think he was accomplishing? I think they saw future political benefit and that millions of people into this country.

Remember, when he did everything to secure the border, what else did he do? He overturned the Trump census row, which means millions of people released in sanctuary cities who were recounted next census, which will lead to more seats in the House for the Dams. I think they saw a future political benefit by releasing millions of people

in sanctuary cities in this country. That is my belief. Final question. California is 50% of the undocumented migrants. Newsom is now backpedaling, as you know. But L.A. and San Francisco are still sanctuary cities. Do you expect anything to change in California? I can tell you, ICE is going to...

We'll be going to L.A. and San Francisco very soon. in sanctuary cities. If we can't arrest a bad guy in jail, we'll double the man force in those cities. But we're going to do our job. Sanctuary not. If you're a sanctuary, you want to step aside

and watch us, protect your communities, then have that. Just don't get in the way. Don't cross that line of ignoring, harboring, it will go inmate.

Don't cross that line of impeding us because there will be consequences. But we're coming. We're going to do this job. President Trump promised American people are going to do this. American people are given a mandate.

This is the number one issue. We're going to keep President Trump's promise. We're going to be going to every sanctuary city and arresting public safety threats, because that's what the American people want. All right. Unless the court, Supreme Court, says you can't do a certain thing, you're not going to defy the federal court order, correct? No, we're not going to do that. We're not the Biden administration who ignored the courts on forgiveness of a student loan. They told me he couldn't do it. He did it, and he fought him

every step of the way on that. No, this is a law and order administration. We're going to do the right thing. Let's go to Ukraine. So my hypothesis, let me use that word, but it's not really a hypothesis because I know President Trump, as you know, pretty well, and I do talk to him. So he doesn't want to alienate Putin. He wants to soften Putin up, so he gets him to a ceasefire discussion. And that's why you're not seeing call Putin names and do all that kind of stuff. He also wants to tamp down Zelensky's arrogance, which we saw. Is this the wrong strategy on Ukraine?

Well, Bill, what you're describing are the personal interactions, right? So that's a very personalized view of this. I think both of those are correct. There's no reason for the Commander-in-Chief of the United States to mock or call names for any leader. You remember with Chairman Kim, he'd say, we exchanged love letters. He talked about Xi Jinping in glowing terms from time to time. That was the personal. Same with Zelensky in that sense.

I think you're right. I think he was trying to make sure Zelensky understood without U.S. support, they were going nowhere. And I'm untroubled by either of those. The real proof is what's the policy? What's the outcome that President Trump's seeking? And from my vantage point, President Trump has always been someone who understood winning. And in this case, can't be the case that Putin can be perceived of having won. Whatever the outcome, whatever the geography, whatever the disposition in the end, we can't, that kind of aggression can't be rewarded because it'll get you more of it. And if there was one thing I'm proud of from our first four years, Bill, is we were pretty good at deterring the bad guys from doing exactly what they did to President Biden and invading Europe. We're pretty good at convincing folks like Hamas not to invade Israel on our watch.

President Trump's pretty good at deterrence, and that's what he's going to try to get back. I'm counting on it. Okay, but you're going to have to let Putin save a little face. He's not going to surrender because he doesn't care about how many people are dead or anything like that. He just cares about himself. So you've got to give him an exit ramp off. I think Putin wants the ramp, but you're dealing with an evil man here. He's just flat out evil.

Do you believe that there will be a ceasefire? See, I said once Trump was elected, I think that ceasefire is going to happen. Do you believe it? Yeah, there'll be a ceasefire, but the interesting question is really the one that you pose, which is you have an evil dictator like Vladimir Putin, who has, to date, evidenced nothing that suggests he's actually looking for that off-ramp that you described. Maybe he is, but he's been pretty good at masking any, any willingness to concede a single thing. In the end, Bill, what I think, how I think this ends up the call it face-save and call it what you will.

I think he wants to be back in the global world. His economy back connected to the global international system, there's the solution, is that you find a mechanism by which to permit Russian activity back in the economic system. We rebuilt Japan, right? There's a long history. When these wars end, we allow these economies, the people of those countries to engage in the world again, that's what I think Putin desperately needs for his own political stability back home, but also that's the ticket to give him something to say, look, look what I got us back.

Yeah, and if you give them that ticket, you've got to have European peacekeepers in there. So you've got to give the Ukrainian some assurance. I mean, Trump was smart not to sign a document saying Putin breaks the seeds fire. The United States is going to go in with troops. can't do that. But you can negotiate a deal where the UN or the EU would put, and you call them rebuilding, you know, security to rebuild. And it'd be good if Putin kicked in a couple of billion, too, which you'll make easily by, you know, having the sanctions lifted on the oil stuff. So you know Putin pretty well. A lot of people just think that he is some kind of

crazy guy. I don't see him that way. I just think he's flat out evil. Not crazy. And I've been criticized for saying he's actually pretty shrewd. And while he screwed this up, he thought he'd get to Keeve. He thought he'd get victory on the ground. Terrible strategic mistake, no doubt about it. He's not crazy. He is evil and the rationality flows from that. I don't think there's any doubt that his intentions were even greater than that. in my judgment he wasn't fearing NATO was going to attack him for goodness like that's just nutty

he was trying to begin the revisit of something greater for Russia yeah just like Georgia and Belarus he was trying to duplicate that that's it and he didn't get it this is a fail and now he's got to find a way

so now you got to give him a push out but you can't hammer him between the eyes like the idiot Democrats are trying to do it you say to them well if you do that you'll never get a ceasefire and they have no answer. Let's go to China. So China's slap tariffs on the USA today. That situation seems to be deteriorating. Is it? I think it is. And I know some will want to blame President Trump for that. I think this is all Xi Jinping, this challenge that's being faced by the entire

world. And by the way, it's connected to Russia. We shouldn't forget for a second that the primary consumer of Russian energy today is the Chinese Communist Party getting discounted crude oil and gas out of Russia. China is a huge beneficiary of this war continuing in Ukraine, in Europe. But I think it's deteriorating because Xi Jinping now believes that he's got a place where he can actually exert influence and shape things in a way that his predecessors didn't believe. The old, this is a rough translation from Mandarin, Bill, you'll have to forgive me.

But the old motto was, hide your power and bide your time. and Xi Jinping's no longer hiding his power. He's showing it full force and it's going to require a real American response. Well, when you say a response, everybody gets nervous, is that going to be a military response? Can't do that, right?

Well, Xi Jinping's going to, we're not going to attack China militarily. Right. But Xi Jinping is already running into ships in the Philippines, the South China Sea. He's circling. He's going after the last five years of.

As long as he doesn't touch Taiwan, then, you know, The U.S. is going to allow some of that to happen. But I see it this way, and maybe I'm wrong. I think that China's economy is really wobbling, just like Russia's. But China is more intense. And she, like Putin, probably at this point in history, would want a better economic situation. And he would be willing to deal for that.

Am I wrong? I think you're wrong. I think Xi Jinping has concluded that this is the moment. So you've heard some of our generals talking about 2027, and I can't put a marker down as for time, but I think she is willing to sacrifice an awful lot of economy to gain a global advantage to get closer to the political hegemony that he seeks. It's going to be really hard. I agree.

They've got huge long run demographic problems. Their real estate industry is way worse than anybody even knows. over levered. So there are many, many challenges. But I think she has concluded that it's no longer time to supplicate to the United States on the economic front. And so he's going to push and push and push until the United States pushes back. And I think you see President Trump trying to push back. 25 percent is a pushback. But if your opinion is correct, why didn't she move under Biden, who is extremely weak? Why did he live four years of Biden? And he didn't really do anything that catastrophic.

Yeah, I don't think, Bill, I don't think for a second he's going to invade Taiwan. The military invasion there, I think he believes is unnecessary. His view is he's going to get Taiwan through propaganda politics, the same way he took Hong Kong, right, force, choked them off, make their economy more difficult. And eventually the people will come to see they, hey, you know, why fight this? And so I think this is a longer march for him. And I think he made real progress on that in the Biden administration, in the Pacific Islands, in Africa. You saw what's gone on in Panama under President Biden where the Chinese got a foothold on our doorstep. I think this is a determined strategic effort, not a Xi Jinping military takeover.

He knows he can't actually win that. The United States would, in the end, crush him. The press, the American press, portraying Donald Trump over the world as a villain. That hasn't stopped. And then they point to Trump denying Keev, U.S. Intel, and then Trump saying NATO, we're not going to do any military exercises. Let's take them one by one. As you know better than anybody, the reportage on the intel is just flat out ridiculous

because British intelligence gets everything we have and they just give it to Keeve. So it doesn't matter what, and you know, the former CIA chief. It doesn't matter what Trump said. We're not going to give anything. The Brits have it all. And they'll give it to them. Am I wrong there? I think that reporting is highly hyped.

I always joke, Bill, that if I watch the BBC, I wouldn't like America either. Right, right. But it's such a most people don't understand that. They don't understand how it works. Okay, you do, because you were in there, and I do because I've been around for so long. The second military exercise thing, I didn't quite get why. Trump did that. Do you know? No, I don't know.

Look, we've been trying to help them with training for an awfully long time. When I was CIA director, we were helping the Ukrainians. It was President Trump who provided the javelin missiles, right? People forget President Trump did that. It was President Trump who put American energy in the front making Vladimir Putin's resources worth less. I don't know why he chose that particular tactic. It might have to do with Putin and some phone calls.

It might. And, by the way, I'm not privy to any of that. I'm not either. But that's the only thing I can think of. All right. Now, a lot of people, including myself, believe that you would have been an asset to this Trump administration. But you weren't invited. Do you know why?

No, I don't know the particulars of why. But again, I get presidents lots of latitude to pick the team they want. He picked. No, I know that, but you did a good job. He picked entirely new team, Bill. He even said you. did a good job. He told me he did a good job. I worked hard. Yeah. I mean, I was surprised

the man of your experience, and you know all of these players, I would have put you as Defense Secretary. I don't think Higgs-Seth is the guy. I would have put you there. But you must have thought about it a little bit, Mr. Secretary, because it is a natural fit. You succeeded with Trump the first time around. Did you guys have a falling out of some kind? Oh, no. Look, I don't know why he chose the people he did. He went through a lot of folks, Bill. I'll leave to him the personnel choices. I had said before, if he asked me to go serve, whatever role, whether it was in the defense

department, wherever I'd happily go serve, and he just made a different decision. I think he's going to ask you. I do. I think he's going to pull you back. Next time I see him, I'm going to get to the bottom of that because that surprised me because you know how let me you let me know bill of course i'll let everybody know um you know the president is uh unpredictable i think that's an accurate word right yeah that's fair yeah um he goes by his gut um i agree with you that maybe he wanted some a fresh look. I like Rubio because he's a good counterbalance to Trump.

I think that's a fairly good play. Yeah, I agree. No, I agree. I think Secretary Rubio is going to do a very fine job. Because when he picked Tillerson, the oil guy, who you saved his bacon, remember that?

I went, what? I do vividly. What? That was a disaster. And then he brought you in, because you're the pro, and then you guys straight and did out. When Trump left office, when he was defeated in 20, the world was fairly stable then. I mean, it wasn't, as you pointed out earlier in this interview, there wasn't a lot of threats on the doorstep. Would that be accurate?

We had things in a pretty good place. If you think about what fell apart relatively quickly, Europe fell apart. The advancements that were the Abraham Accords in the Middle East were dead stopped even before the massacres of October 7th. And then, you know, we had we had come close to delivering on President Trump's commitment to reducing our forces in Afghanistan to zero or near zero. And President Biden came in and pulled the plug and we all know the calamity that followed there, not only the 13 dead and many, many injured, but I think much of the chaos that ensued in the final two and a half years of the Biden administration was a direct result of that epic failure in Afghanistan. None of that happened for our four years. There's no doubt in my mind that that's true.

So number one question, is the media, the linear media, corporate media, losing power in America? Absolutely. That's an easy one. The mainstream media, the media that you and I grew up on, has definitely lost influence. It's lost viewers. It's lost. It's lost its power. It doesn't mean it's powerless. It's still influential, but just doesn't have anything like the sort of influence that it once had. And by the way, I think that applies to the Associated Press as well. I mean, AP used to, you know this AP used to be the thing, right? AP sends something out. It goes to everyone everywhere all over the world. Well, now everything goes to everyone all over That's right. Now, why are they losing power so rapidly? I know there's more competition

with the social media, but I believe it has to do with partisanship that people and all the survey show this. They don't trust the media anymore. It's in business, a preach to the choir, tell people what they want to hear. I think that's the main reason for the decline. I think it's a combination. I think it is definitely the medium. It is the fact that people can get information elsewhere. They don't have to turn on NBC. But why wouldn't you turn it on if you liked it? Yeah, you might. Yeah. You liked it. You know, right. But you might prefer to hear more of what, you know, you want to hear on a daily basis. And I will say that the major loss for the mainstream media has been among conservatives. There is no doubt about that.

Well, wait a minute. There's two networks that are 100% conservative, Fox and Newsmax. Yes, correct. And I think that they, the ABCs and CBSes and put aside cable for a moment, right? The broadcast networks, the places that everyone used to get their news from, the folks who are on the right will now very often go to someone like Brett Baer on Fox News, to get that quote unquote newscast or they'll go to folks like you by the way who are on their own independent not beholden to a bigger entity and they'll say you know what i like o'reilly uh what does he have to say about this i think people now have a lot more choices than they ever had before and i think that has made a huge difference in these these guys used to be the gatekeepers It was all about, if you weren't, you know, you couldn't get someone to cover it,

then the story faded. Now there's a whole host of opportunities and options to get someone to get a story, your take, whatever it is out there. I think Trump destroyed the media. And he did it passively, not actively. Obviously, this AP thing was active. He doesn't like them. He doesn't like NBC, in particular, those two.

but by hating Trump as much as MSNBC, NBC News, CNN, by hating him, viscerally hating him, to this day, to this moment, fair-minded America is not ideologues, it makes us uneasy. Am I wrong? I think you're right. I think you're right. Look, I think there is, you know, people use the term Trump derangement syndrome, right? And, you know, either people on the right use it and say it with a sort of a smile and a snicker and people on the left say,

there's no such thing. But the truth is, there is such thing. There really is this sense on the part of some. They are so angry at Trump all the time that they just can't do what they're supposed to do in a remotely objective way. Now, I will say this, in defense of some of the folks on the left,

is that Donald Trump has gone into this Trump two, his second effort here, and has definitely taken more extreme measures and positions than he did in Trump one. And as a result, if you are someone who is object, quote, there's no such thing is objectivity, pure objectivity. Let's call it. So you're somewhere right of center, left of center, right? And the guy who's in power is taking positions that are pretty extreme in a lot of ways. You're going to be calling him out. And as a result, you're going to hear more criticism of Trump than you might of another Republican in that role. And the same way, by the way, if you had AOC or Elon Omar, and I'm not saying it there out. No, I wouldn't be at the

same level. It wouldn't be at the same level. I think that's fair. I think you're right. It wouldn't be the corporate media tried to reelect the Biden administration through Kamala Harris. They tried everything. That 60 Minutes thing is a legitimate thing. They try to help her. Oh, come on. You think that 60 Minutes thing was really a big of them? I saw that transcript. I saw how they edited it, and they did not have to edit it that way.

They tried to make her look. We know that they edited it because they put it out themselves. They admit they edit it. They put it out in two different forms. They had to. They put out one. They put out the other. They didn't have to.

Oh, yeah, they did. One is a tease on Face the Nation. They put out the other on 60 Minutes. They were doing it because they just thought, oh, these are two, you know, different ways. ways of getting the same thing. How long did it take for 60 minutes to put that transcript out? That was the mistake. The mistake was not releasing it.

But now that we've seen it, but now that we've seen it, it wasn't that big a deal. It's typical editing. You and I have edited thousands of pieces. I never would have edited my piece that way. In a million years, I wouldn't have done it. I didn't find that editing to be that disturbing. I didn't find it to be disturbing at all. I think they absolutely, and then subsequently every week on 60 minutes, they just bashed Trump.

It's special. Well, that's true. So I'm a simple man, and I'm putting myself in your seat on the senator. And here's my calculation. You're right. The federal government spending is wildly out of control. And the waste is phenomenal, and our system needs to be more disciplined. You're right.

But we're in a crossroads in history here. where the Democratic Party doesn't want any spending cuts, maybe a little in defense, but they don't want any, okay? You know it, everybody knows it. They want to increase it. In fact, more. They don't even want supervision of Medicaid, which we'll do tomorrow. They don't want any reform.

They hated Musk. They hate Doge. They don't want anything. That's where you start. The Republican Party is the party of responsibility now fiscally. But if the Republican Party gets its butt kicked in 26, it's over. And the gates open, and you'll have way more spending than you have now. Is that true?

You're right. Listen, it's easy to be. Okay, wait, wait, stop, stop. Okay, go ahead. So I'm right. Okay. So what Trump is done, and I know this because I have access to the president, he says, I know this bill jacked spending, but my tariffs are going to bring down the deficit and debt.

And as you know, the recent report, in one month, the tariffs have cut the deficit in half. So Trump says, I'm going to get my trade deals. We don't know whether he will or not. Okay? And then all the money coming into the Treasury is going to bring this stuff down. down. So keep me in power with no tax rise, and that'll start to come down because of the money coming in. Is the president wrong? Yes. I'd say that. I'm a big support of the president, but right now the White House is putting out a memo saying the tariff revenue over the next 10 years

will be about $2.8 trillion. Again, that compares to a $22 trillion deficit. And by the way, you extend the tax taxes, they admit that the baseline goes up to about $25 trillion. So it might reduce the deficit by about 10%. And it's still inadequate. And the tariff revenue is very problematic. It's being tested in the court where the President Trump really has this executive power. If the court's aside, he doesn't. And I think it, you know, again, I'm not a legal scholar when it comes to this tariff law.

But if they strike that down, I doubt that Congress is going to expose. sweeping tariffs like that. So again, that revenue is very uncertain. And let me make a final point. I support President Trump because I want him to defeat the deep state. You don't defeat the deep state by continuing to fund it at President Bind's level. So for me, it is. It's spending, spending, spending. We may disagree. But if you hold firm, if if you hold firm, Senator, and you vote against it and others do, Republicans do, then it all blows up. If you vote for it, I think there's a big possibility that if the economy surges, that you'll have a much bigger majority going forward where you can revisit this whole thing without the razor-thin majority in the House and the Senate.

Now, you know you can introduce new spending bills any time you want to introduce them. And if you have the power of the party controlling the Senate and the House, you can revise this kind of thing. But if you have no power, then it's over. Last word. I understand. So, again, what I've been saying is I want a commitment to a reasonable pre-pandemic level and a process, a really strong, robust process to achieve and maintain it. Now, that gives pretty wide latitude.

Again, a one-and-done single bill in this Congress, again, that's what I find unacceptable. I'm more than willing to work with the administration. You know, what is that process? You know, what can we do to make sure that we don't do a one-and-done bill? So, again, you know, the game, not a game, you know, the process has just begun here in the Senate. And I'm just trying to make this a whole lot better. All right. And I'm not your job.

We would have already had, quite honest the border funding. We would have already extended current taxes, take that tax increase off the table. Had we done it in my approach, President Trump decided one big, beautiful bill. But again, if it's a one and done bill, we're really short changing ourselves here, and we're really blowing a historic opportunity. There's no guarantee we'll have the House of the Senate. and we'll have the presidency in 2027, but we can't count on having the majority in the other two chambers. So we've got to do it now.