Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - No Spin News - Weekend Edition - May 27, 2023

Episode Date: May 27, 2023

Listen to this week's No Spin News interview with former Navy SEAL and author Jack Carr, SMU professor Matthew Wilson, and tax expert Ryan Ellis. We also visit the No Spin News archives and Bill's conversation with Kathie Lee Gifford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the No Spin News Weekend Edition. So yesterday in Japan, Zelensky, president of Ukraine, shows up at the G7. He was invited because the G7 is supporting Zelensky's fight against Putin. So at that G7, Biden apparently promises to send Zelenskyy $375 million more in including ammunition artillery armored vehicles okay so 375 million more we're into you know 40 50 billion i think um now the f-16s this is murky so america has not said we're going to send usa f-16s to ukraine have not said that they say f-16s may arrive but maybe not from us it's Turkey. Now, I said in the beginning they should not be given Zelensky offensive weapons

where he can go in and bomb Russia itself. Because if that happens, that gives Putin the justification to blow the living hell out of Ukraine using nuke weapons. Once the Ukrainians have an F-16 going in and bombing Russian cities, Putin has a new weapons, Putin has a good move. Okay. So you're going to send them, then you have to say to Zelensky, you can't do offensive bombing raids. You can't go outside your border. Can't go into Russian airspace. You can use them as defensive. Okay. It's really fraught with danger here. So that I'm tracking it. Don't know for sure whether those F-16s are going to show up. Now, as many of you know, I really read an enormous amount I have to, to stay ahead of everything. And I've been reading a book

called Only the Dead by Jack Carr. Jack Carr writes contemporary thrillers, okay? And I don't read a lot of fiction anymore because I have to read nonfiction. But I read, I read Carr because Carr teaches me something, all right? He has a lot of credibility with me because he's a Navy SEAL. He served in Afghanistan, served in Iraq. He knows. All right. And he writes about those things. And he writes thrillers and they move along. Okay. And that's another prerequisite. It can't be like trying to get through it. It has to, like my books, the killing books, they have to fly through. All right. So I'm reading only the dead. And in chapter two, a paragraph I'm going to read to you. quote the war in ukraine was not going well from a tactical perspective from a strategic

perspective it had exceeded beyond their rushes expectations the americans were drawn in funding the corrupt Ukrainian government at levels unheard of even at the height of their follies in iraq and afghanistan unquote so joining us now from cleveland ohio is jaccar and And thank you for your service to this country, number one. Thank you for the entertaining books, number two. And as I just said, you in chapter two, kind of cast aspersions at NATO and the USA defending Ukraine. Is that your opinion?

Well, it's coming from a Russian character, in this case, a Russian intelligence official. So I like to show what I think that is in their minds and also encourage people to go a little bit deeper and maybe just not take a singular talking point or a singular tweet as their own opinion because we can take these lessons and hopefully apply them going forward in the future as wisdom. And there's a lot of lessons to learn from the situation in Ukraine. But when we think about NATO and we think about the end of the Cold War and how many countries that used to fall under that Soviet umbrella are now a part of NATO and are right on Russia's borders, I think it's important to take the enemy's perspective into account, especially if you're going to end

up eventually at that negotiating table. Okay, now you're a sophisticated analyst of these things because you were in Afghanistan, you were in Iraq, combat vet, lead men there. You understand, I think, the big picture. And the big picture here and why I support the defense against Putin is because of Taiwan and Xi, you know that, and Putin himself is, you know, really suffering in Ukraine. And the Russians didn't think that it would turn out this way, a stalemate pretty much, and they're losing thousands and thousands of people. So even though we're paying an enormous amount of money to prop up Ukraine, it seems to me globally, as the cliche goes, it's worth it.

am i wrong so there's there's a little more to it than just what we hear in a singular tweet from someone or a singular talking point from someone and my hope is through reading these books that people take that extra effort to go a little deeper into it and think about the end of the cold war think about the new countries that have joined nato since then right up against russia's border to put ourselves in those russian shoes because eventually we the west NATO, Ukraine are going to end up at the negotiating table with Russia. So understanding their perspective, that's all theoretical. I want to get away from the theoretical.

Right now you've got Ukraine fighting Russia to a standstill, to stalemate right now. Okay, that hurts Putin. She's watching this in China, okay? That may inhibit him from invading Taiwan. If we didn't fight Putin with aid and all of the military stuff that NATO and the USA has given him, I think it'd be a lot easier for Xi to invade Taiwan. Do you disagree with that? Our response, for sure, to the invasion of Ukraine is teaching the Chinese something about what happens to them if they invade Taiwan.

No doubt, no doubt about that. So for that reason alone, then to dissuade and invade Chinese invasion of Taiwan, then that may be, a reason to continue this and does it need to be drawn out how long that's the real question is how long does it need to be drawn out what steps can we take here because right now russia might have thought this was going to go a little faster be more and by faster i mean world war one world war two not some of their longer wars than that and what what happened was all that grift that's just inherent in that russian system even more so after the end of the cold war made them think they had more bullets more people, even, more tanks, more aircraft that were operable than they actually had.

So now they're into this thing, and they're digging deep back into the reserves, pulling out equipment that comes from the 60s, the 70s, up into the 80s, but even repairing the stuff from the 80s and the 90s, that gets more difficult. So some of these older stuff we're seeing, we think it's a bad sign, but actually it works a little better because it's not as technical, and they can throw a lot of it at this problem. Okay. You write about the corrupt Ukrainian government.

Do you believe Zelensky's corrupt? Do you think that our money is not being used the way it should be used? It would be interesting to do an audit, that's for sure. But is it any more corrupt than what we have going on here with, let's say, pharmaceutical lobbyists and defense lobbyists and all that? Probably by a few degrees. But I certainly talk about the similarities between their system and ours. Okay. So you don't trust Zelensky. Okay. I don't particularly trust Zelensky either. And he's got full power in that country and do whatever he wants.

When you saw Biden pull out of Afghanistan, it must have been personal for you. You were there. You were there with the seals and doing fighting for the freedom of that country, which was never going to happen anyway. We know that. But what did you think about Biden's pull out of Afghanistan? I mean, it's so disheartening on a variety of levels, but to think that we had 20 years to prepare for this eventuality, and that is the best that we could possibly do from our elected representatives to our military leadership, 20 years. And someone didn't need to have any touch points with the military. Never had to read a book on strategy or tactics to look at that situation and ask a couple questions. Apply some common sense to it and ask, why did we? give up this tactically advantageous position here in Boggroom and put our young men and women

at the at this Kabul airport in a tactically disadvantageous position on the way out of that country so that was the best the united states could do after 20 years at war and 20 years to prepare and i think that's uh contributing to our recruiting issue right now in the military okay and let's get to that a lot of people say the military's woke um they're uh doing the uh inclusion city equity thing there. Any opinion on that? Well, if it's not going to help our country prepare for war, it certainly doesn't need to be a part of how we spend our time in the military and where we allocate our assets in the military. That should be a baseline. But let me let me let me you know guys still in the seals, active guys. Are they saying it's just going downhill?

I have heard that it is not what it once was. I think that's the without me actually being there in those shoes. That's the I'm comfortable saying that. It is not what it once was. And it's a tough time for those guys to be in, especially coming off such a strong run from 2001 onward when we got to go downrange and do the job that we prepared to do and wanted to do. Yeah, it's tough for them right now. All right, Jack. Thanks very much. A book again is Only the Dead.

And I think you guys will enjoy it. We appreciate it, Jack. Good luck to you. 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, wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. You're listening to the No Spin News Weekend Edition. All right, an update on the L.A. Dodgers and L.A. Angels honoring the sisters of perpetual indulgence. We went over this yesterday. The message of the day, I lay it right out there. This is a Christian hate group, transvestites, dressed as nuns, appalling, attacking the Catholic Church, defiling the Eucharist, mocking all of the Catholic icons in public, and they're going to be honored by the Dodgers and angels at their gay pride nights.

Here's what I said. Go. Look me in the eye. This is a hate group. The Los Angeles Dodgers wanted to honor the hate group. The Catholics and a bunch of organizations, protested and so on May 17th 13 days after they said they were going to honor the Dodgers rescinded the honor but five days later they officially re-invited the sisters of perpetual indulgence to be honored at their gay night shocking and appalling joining us now from

Dallas is Dr. Matthew Wilson teaches political science at Southern Methodist University SMU in Highland Park, beautiful campus there. And the doctor also studies the intersection of politics and religion in America. When you heard about this story as a historian and a political science guy, how did you react? Well, I reacted. I think with some sadness and some awareness of the historical context here that people have to remember that there's a long history of anti-Catholicism in the United States and that at different times in American history Catholics have been the target of people on the right and they've been the target of people on the left and that there really is still in this day and age when most religious and most demographic groups are beyond attack Catholics can still be seen as a legitimate target. for ridicule. Just imagine if the mocked were those who had a religious vocation in another faith, rabbis or imams or something like that.

That would rightly not be tolerated. Do you think it would be under the banner of a hate crime? Would the federal government get involved if the sisters of perpetual indulgence throughout anti-Jewish tropes? do you think that there would be legal action against this group? Well, it would depend on what they actually did. All right, well, but let's see.

They went into a church in San Francisco, took communion, and defiled it in front of a camera. So you could go into a synagogue and spray paint the Torah, right? And that would be regarded rightly as a hand. hate crime, desecrating the sacraments or desecrating the religious icons of a faith, would I think rightly be regarded as an... Well, why wasn't it when we all know that if you spray painted a Torah in a synagogue, you'd be charged? Why wasn't the defilement of the Eucharist charged in San Francisco?

Well, that's what I'm saying, because unfortunately there is a much higher tolerance for anti-Catholic hate. then there is hatred, all directed at other religious groups. It is a very regrettable double standard, but the reality is that anti-Catholicism is not really taken seriously by the federal government as a hate crime. Is it partially the fault of the Catholic Church in America because the Anti-Defamation League represents the Jewish faith,

all right, and if you do something anti-Semitic, they're on it. But we don't have anything like that, We have the Catholic League in New York, but you don't, I didn't see any demonstrations against the Los Angeles Dodgers or Los Angeles Angels. Have you seen anything that's been going on for almost a month? It hasn't been any organized, you know, you better not do this. This is insulting. No boycott, call, nothing. So the Catholics seem to be absorbing this kind of punishment.

I think that's largely right. I mean, certainly you've seen people like yourself and others. who have spoken out against this, but nothing institutionally from the Catholic Church. This is something where the archdiocese of Los Angeles ought to be speaking out very, very forcefully against this Catholic display in their community. Yeah, I think Ramos, I think it's Ramos, the Archbishop out. I think he did. But the other thing is that the press yesterday had the Illinois story where over seven decades,

there were 2,000 victims of clerical abuse under the Catholic Church's banner. That was everywhere, and rightly so. Rightly so. All right, that just has damaged the Catholic Church worldwide more than anything that's ever happened, including the Crusades. All right.

However, this Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, you don't see this anywhere. Right. It has not gotten the level of coverage that one might expect. Was it in the Dallas Morning News? Did you see it in the Dallas Morning News? I didn't see it in the morning news specifically. I've seen some online coverage of the controversy.

It was in the AP, Associated Press. None of the networks covered it. Okay, let's go on to the Dodgers and the Angels. These are big organizations, billion-dollar companies. And they saw what happened to Bud Light. All right? But they don't seem to have any feet. They fear the progressives who threatened them once they rescinded the offer to the, you know, transvestite hate group. The left threatened them. And they folded. That's what happened. So it seems to me that the far left, way more powerful than the regular American. Well, and here's where we'll have to see how this plays out in the sense that if Catholics are truly offended by this, they can make their offense known by not showing up for Dodgers games, not showing up for Angels games. There are lots of Catholics who go to baseball games in Los Angeles.

Four million Catholics in Southern California. And if they make their displeasure known, if they actually make these organizations pay a price for. for this anti-Catholic act, then they could start to wield an influence that we see the left-wing roots do. Will they do it? That's very much an open question. Doubt it, because there isn't any central force now in this country that motivates Catholics to do anything. It's really sad. It's a sad. Wouldn't you say we're in a real down cycle here in our country? I mean, you're a political science guy, an expert in this. aren't we in a down cycle culturally and politically here?

Well, that's a big question. I mean, there's a lot of things that contribute to that. But I would say one thing is the erosion of these organizations of civil society, of which churches are a critical one, that for so much of American history, churches played such a powerful role in building community, in building an ethos of good citizenship and of public service. And as church membership and church involvement has wane,

We have a lot of negative consequences in our society, in our city. I agree 100%, doctor. Thank you very much for your expertise. Really appreciate it. And we're hoping to you talk again. Thank you. 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 snap. 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. This is the NoSpin News Weekend Edition. So the BLM people are hemorrhaging money, 8.5 million in a whole, and all the 90 million that was donated to them is gone.

You've seen any significant improvement that the Black Lives Matter did for anybody? Anybody. Bill at Bill O'Reilly.com. If you know it, you've seen it, I want to know. Joining us now is a tax expert. His name is Ryan Ellis. He is the president of the Center for a Free Economy

coming to us from Alexandria, Virginia. So you looked at this BLM tax profile. How do you assess it? Well, I'm looking at this primarily as a tax prepare. I'm an IRS-in-rolled agent. I've run a tax preparation business for over 20 years, in addition to all my work in the conservative movement. I prepare 990s.

I run a 501C4, as you said, Center for a Free Economy. I do the first draft of its 990. I'm treasurer of the 501C3. I do its 990. and I do 990s for clients. These 990 tax returns are pretty common, and they usually don't have anything terribly extraordinary on there. I took a look at the Black Lives Matter 990 yesterday

and noticed something that if I was looking a look at it, if my board was taking a look at it on my 990 for one of the organizations that I run, if any of my lawyers were taking a look at it, if the IRS was taking a look at it, they would have some questions because there was a lot in one year, a lot of investment losses that all of a sudden magically appeared.

And I would have a lot of questions about the internal accounting of this organization. All right, so we know that not last year, but the year before, 21, that the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation bought a bunch of mansions, spent more than $6 million on property in Southern California and in Toronto, Canada, I believe. okay but i i don't see anything where they're using the charitable donations they get because it's a non-profit right blm isn't a non-profit it is a non-profit organization any other people have to file a 990 that's how we know what what are they doing with the 90 million what they do they help anybody well there's a lot of grant listings in there to various

and sundry cleverly named organizations i don't know who they are one if i was shelton white house i might call them dark money organizations, went to them, went to some highly compensated individuals as well. I don't see a lot in the way of actually helping black people in this country or helping with any particular exempt purpose that they were created to serve. They seem to be created in order to enrich themselves and then spread around some of this enrichment to their friends. I think that's overwhelmingly clear that that is exactly the case. But the IRS is never going to audit them, are they? No, and keep in mind, this is the same IRS office in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Lois Lerner came out of.

How does that work, by the way, VLM headquarters is in L.A., why is Cincinnati involved? Cincinnati, there's different IRS offices around the country. The Cincinnati office is responsible for anything having to do with nonprofits. So back about 10 years ago. They handle all the nonprofits out of there, and just to refresh people's memory, it was a woman named Lois Lerner, big shot IRA person, who was found to be auditing conservative groups, and she was booted, but nothing really happened to her. Now, why do you think the IRS, and this is all public, they know about it, have to know about it, why wouldn't they go in and do an

audit? Well, they had plenty of resources, don't they? I mean, they just got that $80 billion with 87,000 new IRS agents last year. They're doing a better job picking up the phones, but maybe they could use some of that money to take a look. But why won't they? They should have already done it, but, you know, Damon's got a million dollars from his former girlfriend. It's just, come on.

I mean, how blatant is it? Why wouldn't they have already done it? Because the IRS is a corrupt partisan organization that has a jersey on for the Democrats and for the liberals in this country. How much influence and you as somebody knows the world does a president have on the IRS? Now I remember when I was reporting on Fox News about Bill Clinton, I got audited three years in a row. And my attorneys, after the third audit wrote a letter, it said, we're going to file a lawsuit against you, the IRS, if you continue this. Because it wasn't a

random. It was a targeted. I was targeted. Clinton administration. And I mean, I believe absolutely that either Bill Clinton or his major domos told the IRS, you look at O'Reilly, see if you can get something. So how much influence does a president have? Can he pick up the phone and say, you audit this guy, you audit that guy? He's not supposed to legally. That stuff has made illegal after what Johnson, to a lesser extent, Nixon did in the 60s and 70s. But there's the law, and then there's the way that the world works outside the law. Is there informal, non-legal, political influence that is exerted over the IRS? I've heard too many anecdotes like the one you just said about yourself to believe that

does not exist. It absolutely exists. It's something that is why we need to have an IRS, which is safe, legal, and rare, as Joyce and the Elders used to say, and doesn't bother people, because it is coming from a particular agenda. It is part of the other team. And you do not give extra money and resources to the other team, nor, sadly, can we expect the other team to police themselves particularly effectively. No, and I don't even know if there's an inspector general of the IRS supposedly overseeing

this, is there? Do you know if there's an inspector general? There's a general counsel's office, but whether there's an inspector general or not, they don't report to Congress. There's actually two congressionally appointed IRS officials, the commissioner and the general counsel. That's it. Well, just this week, a reporting named Matt Taibi,

He's the Twitter guy who went in and looked at the Twitter Democratic link. He was audited. He was so... He came to his house. They came to his house, Bill. They came to his house. Right. The IRS came to his house.

But it's so blatant. I've been in a rural danger for 20 years. That never, ever, ever happens. It's so blatant. Basically, the Biden administration is saying, we don't care. We're going to violate federal law. target people we don't like, Matt Taiibi,

and we're going to go to his house and make his life miserable. But you say that's against federal law. It is certainly against IRS procedure. The idea that somebody comes to your house, that an agent knocks on your door, unless you're the subject of a criminal investigation, which he is not, that is extraordinarily unusual.

They claim they were doing some ID protection thing. They don't send people to, I've never once in 20 years heard of the IRS outside of a criminal investigation. investigation, where they're cooperating with the FBI or another agency, send someone to your door. That is, there's a reason they don't do that thing because it would be around. It's, I believe the federal government's corrupt and it's getting worse. Last question. I don't, I think BLM's going to get away with this whole scam. I think, I don't, I know they

don't get much money anymore. You'd have to be absolute moron to give them money. They don't get what they got after George Floyd was killed, all right? But I think you're going to get away with it. everything last word i think you're right and you know who's you know who should really remember that the small business owners who are going to get audited with these 87 000 new irs agents who have they haven't hired those people yet they got them the allocation but if a if a republicans elected presidents elected next time around they'll rescind that that'll be and i'm that's what i'm hoping mr ellis thanks very much have a good memorial day weekend and thank you for helping us out

Here's a gem from the no-spin News Vault. So when I learned that my old pal, Kathy Lee Gifford, an old I use as euphemism, it's not that I'm older, she's old. No, wait a minute, Kathy, let me just set you up, all right, had a new book out called It's Never Too Late, Make the Next Act of Your Life, the Best Act of Your Life, when I learned that this book was out and competing with my book, Killing Crazy Horse, which is fine, two different audiences, I said, we got to get her on. And here she is from her new home in Tennessee. Wow, lots of changes for you, huh? Lots of changes. Hi, Bill. It's great to see you again. And I know better than to try to compete with you in a book situation, but I sing better than you.

Well, your book is designed, and we'll get to it in a moment, to enhance people's lives. And you have really done that throughout your whole career in a variety of different ways. But let me ask you some hard, tough questions that hopefully will make you break out and sweat. The first question, why did you pack it? You and Hoda were doing very well on NBC in the morning. You could have stayed there forever. Why did you leave? Same reason I left Regis.

I could have stayed there forever too. But I'm an artist. And I wasn't having the opportunities to grow as an artist and as a human being. Artists die on the vine if they don't keep creating. And I had these dreams still in me since I was a child. to do these films I wanted to do. I didn't know I'd be writing oratorios, but I am. I didn't know I'd be directing, but I am.

And books come easy to me, so I just write all these books. I love to write them, but that is not my dream. My dream was to write movies, produce movies, a movie that I just had come out this past September, was the number one movie in the country. And now it's all over the world, something called Then Came You, that I wrote from my friend Craig Ferguson. And so, you know, people say, how come you're inventing, reinventing yourself?

That's ridiculous. I can't reinvent what I never invented to begin with. I'm created in the image of God, and so are you. So is every human being. And so I'm just living my life authentically with him, and it leads me down different roads and on an incredibly exciting journey and a journey that sometimes you have to leave a velvet rut in order to continue. it.

All right. So you wanted to do other things you couldn't do in a very hard business, and I think you would agree with me that national television is a hard business. There's not a lot of touchy-feely stuff going on back there. You either do the ratings or you don't, and if you don't, you're out the door. So now you're in a position where you run your own show, same position that I'm in. much happier than I was in corporate America for a variety of reasons. But when you think back on what it was like when you were with Regis,

okay, and what it is now, do you see the enormous difference in the media world? We would have never, we never would have gotten a chance in the form that we did a show. I mean, we were completely unscripted, didn't have a writer. we flew by the seat of our pants and loved it, and that's what made it exciting. It was unpredictable. We weren't concerned about, you know, offending every single person out there. We were just trying to entertain them. We had no malice in our heart.

We made more fun of each other than anybody made of us, and we had a ball. It's an old-fashioned word called fun. Had the same thing with Hoda. But I'm grateful I had a time in this. It was like the golden years for me. It's the same way Frank felt about sports before everything became political. Everything became about, you know, culture. Yeah, look, I mean, the stuff that Regis said and you said back then,

which was funny and gentle and harmless, you say it now, you're twittered to death. You're in the executive's board. Oh, you can't say that. What are you implying? You know, you have this unbelievable oppressive culture. I know. that is watching everything in a grievance way. It's the grievance industry has now permeated the creative industry.

Regis Philbin, I sat next to him at opening day Yankee Stadium in 2019. And he was very depressed. And I was talking to him seriously. We're watching a game, of course. And I'm saying, you know, he goes, it's all over for me. It's all over for me. And I went, so what? Look at all you've done.

You're an icon. The name Regis all over the world, everybody knows it's you. Okay? How many people can say that? You know, so I was... No, but that's what made him make me, Bill. What made him happy was being Regis. When he couldn't go out anymore and say,

Regis is here. Hello, it's Regis. When they couldn't see him because he couldn't wear a mask, he was wearing a mask, couldn't go out and be with his friends and reminisce and tell stories because you can't go anywhere in California because everything's locked down.

He was, I had lunch with him two weeks before he passed. And we talked about that. He used to live his life so vibrantly and joyfully. And he's not only, he wasn't allowed to anymore. And that's, I think about the people that are dying of what Regis died from. And not from coronavirus, but from having the life sucked out of them. They can't go out. They can't be.

They can't hug people they love. We're dying from much more. But that'll be over soon, thanks to the miracle of our scientists. But the point I wanted to make to Regis, and it's an important point, is there comes a point in everybody's life where they have to accept their situation. And that man, from the Bronx, I know him well. You know him much better than anybody, but I know him well. I mean, he did something that was extraordinary with his life.

And I wanted him to celebrate that rather than depressed. He depressed, it was all over. But anyway, that's me. Okay, so your book is it's never too late, and it's another uplift for folks who might want to be like you move into other areas that are creative because we've all been giving gifts from God, I believe that, and now might be your time to develop those gifts after you're finished with the corporate world, whatever it may be. Why should I, O'Reilly, spend 20 bucks on this book? You shouldn't. If you're not interested in it, you shouldn't. You know I'd send you one anyway.

It's for people that, first of all, followed me through all these years and are just interested in what's going on in my life still. I've always felt so grateful, Bill, that I had people that no matter what the world screamed about me, no matter what the papers said or anybody said, they knew it wasn't true. I'm deeply grateful for people that knew my heart because whatever I shared on the air all those years was real. So like me or detest me, but it was on an honest basis, a truly honest basis. And they're still there for me. and I'm grateful for that. If this book can help somebody out of the rut they're in or by watching the struggle

and learning about the struggle instead of just the success that people think they know about, and they can learn that struggle is good and God got me through so many horrendous things in my life. And it was all public. It was all public too. And if God can do that for me, he can do it for them as well. It's just meant to be an encouragement to people

that, yes, everything in this world changes. constantly. But the one thing that never changes is Almighty God. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we can count on him. He's the only thing. So it's a faith-based book makes a great Christmas gift. And finally, last question. You're now a Southern Bell down there after spending most of your life up north in Connecticut, New York City. How's it being a Southern Bell? I love it here. I love the culture here so much. I mean, I've worked in Nashville for over 40 years. I did my first sitcom in Nashville.

It was called He-Haw Honeys back in 1978. That's where I met Dolly, who does the forward for my book. You know, down here, it's a culture of kindness. And there are people that are not kind, of course. But I'm talking about the culture, just like there are wonderful people in New York and in Connecticut.

But the culture there's changed so much now. It's a culture of chaos. And it was rotting my soul. It was just rotting me. And I said, I have got to get away. I've got to make a new life. There's a line in the movie that I wrote called Ben K. Mew says, I love you to my ex, to my dead husband, and I've got his ashes.

I say, I love you, Fred. But I got to make new memories of the old ones are going to kill me. And I'm not ready to death. Well, I'm glad you're so happy. I want to point out that on this program, you can say he-hawnies, but if you were on NBC, you would have been hauled in. Okay, so that's the difference. You know what?

Cancel me. Who cares? You'll never be canceled. Kathy Lee Gifford, a good woman, and I can tell you that, knowing her for decades. Kathy Lee, Merry Christmas. Thanks for helping us out tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Mary Christmas. You brought that back, didn't you? I tried. Thank you.

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