Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - No Spin News - Weekend Edition - October 4, 2025

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

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Welcome to the NoSpin News Weekend Edition. Pete Hegseth is the Defense Secretary. He's busy this week. He's going to meet with generals and tell him that he doesn't want the troops looking lovingly and I guess some other stuff. But more importantly, he is meeting today with the Gold Star Advisory Council. Gold Star are the parents of fallen U.S. soldiers, Marines, naval, whatever maybe. Okay? This is the first time the defense of the Secretary has met with the Gold Star families. So we applaud Mr. Heggsav for doing that. There is a, before I get to this, I just want to give you some stats. In Afghanistan, the United States lost 2,300 U.S. personnel, and more than 20,000 were wounded.

In Iraq, 4,419 dead, about 32,000 wounded. So that's a lot of folks. And that directly is in play right now. There's a book I want you to bring your attention to it. It's called Tragedy to Tribute. One father's grief fuels a passionate journey to change the mindset of a nation. Book is written by George Lutz, who lost his son, Tony. It was a corporal in the army to a sniper's bullet in Fallujah, Iraq.

Mr. Lutz joins us now from Norfolk. Change the mindset of a nation. How? What do you want to do? Sure. Bill, thank you for the opportunity to share with you. Change the mindset of a nation. It comes down to apathy, really.

You know, when my son was killed and you mentioned all the stats of those. was, you know, my son was early on in 2005, you know, I realized that as I went out and I started to talk, talking to individuals, to families, to veterans, to just the regular community, most people didn't care. They didn't understand, you know, what it meant to have this military loss. And that kind of put me in a quandary because when I got that knock on the door and those five words spoken to me, we regret to inform you, you know, it rocked my world. And I thought to myself, what am I going to do? How am I going to react? How do I grieve through this because nobody wants to lose their child? Nobody wants to lose their loved one. And so I began this search of how

America remembers. What do we do? What do we say? You know, what emblems do we have? You know, how do we communicate as a nation that loss that should be so precious to everyone? And, you know, I found very little. I found that we focused a lot on the active duty and the veterans and the wounded and we should. We absolutely should. But we kind of left behind those that gave their lives, right? Those that made that ultimate sacrifice and what it came down to. And so what I realized, even beyond that was there was this whole clethorub bill of families that were still here with us, right? Grieving. Their loved one was gone. But these these families, family members were all wondering, hey, did anybody care? Does anybody remember? How do they show us that they remember? And I thought, well, the best gift that I could give these Gold Star families was to create a symbol, a national emblem by which we all could show our appreciation, right? And you're saying that the Secretary of War has finally got together, you know, a group of coalition to talk about Gold Star families. Well, those Gold Star families,

have been dying for generations, right? And so the horse is out of the barn, in a sense. All right, so there's a flag that symbolizes that Americans do care about those who lost their lives defending this country or an act of military service. Is that the flag behind you? Yeah, the honor and remember flag. Now what? Okay.

Do you want people, do you want people to buy the flag? I have a flag, exact same thing, Mr. Lutz, in World War I. You know, I'm a collector of history, and I have a flag that when it was displayed, this was to honor the fallen U.S. soldiers in World War I. Is that what this is? You want people to acquire this? A national symbol of remembrance, Bill. This is what my mission has been for the last going on 17 years.

It's a national symbol of remembrance. Okay. But I want to get into the realistic nuts and bolts of this. I mean, nobody's going to argue with your campaign. It's certainly noble. But there is an MIA-P-O-W flag that flies around the country underneath the American flag. You've seen it. It's all over the place, right?

Absolutely, yes, sir. And that's to remind people about the horror of Vietnam, that all the people, all the Americans that were involved have not been. accounted for. Is that what you want this flag to be? Maybe fly underneath the American flag and the POW flag? Absolutely. I'm actually aligned with the MIA POW movement. You know, those MIA families are KIA. They deserve to be recognized as fallen heroes. So yes, my goal is to have the honor remember flag fly in concert. To me, it completes a circle of tribute, right? Our American flag, our U.S. history, our unity, the POW MIA flag recognizes those that were missing

or captured, there are no more captured, but are now missing and need to be accounted for. But then the tens of thousands and millions of those that never got to come home and be a veteran and live their lives and raise their family, the honor and remember flag would be that beacon for all of Americans to be able to appreciate the sacrifice that we live under every day. Okay, certainly, as I said, a noble goal. How can people acquire the flag? What can they do to get in touch with you?

Sure, absolutely. Well, the book tells that 20-year story of how we've got here. We have legislation in Congress right now, Bill, H.R. 1363, which would make the honor remember flag an official U.S. national symbol of remembrance. can be purchased anywhere online on Amazon at, we do have a website, honor and remember.org that people can go to and find out about it. The book also, as I say, lays out the story. What you do need to know is that 29 states have already officially legislated this flag

as their state symbol of remembrance. We're already over half the country. But we need those more states and the country. to say, and they've started to today, apparently, to say that when we say the words you will not be forgotten, that they really mean it. Yeah, they back it up with something. Okay, so honor and remembrance.org,

honor and remembrance.org. Your book is Tragedy to Tribute, One Father's Grief, fuels a passionate journey to change the mindset of a nation. And then there's legislation pending in the house. We can't imagine anybody opposing it. So it's just a matter of getting these people to get it to the floor to vote. So just do me a favor, Mr. Lutz. Keep me apprised of the legislation.

We'll give you some help to push it through. And we respect your crusade very much. It is needed in this country. There's no doubt about it. And certainly your son, Tony, died a hero. And if we can ever do anything for your family, you'll let us know, okay? Thank you. Could I leave you with a thought?

Sure. You may not remember this, but in 2008 in October, and I put this in the book, by the way, you were gracious enough to give us 23 seconds on the air, you know, on your Fox News program through my friend Dennis Miller. And that 23 seconds, Bill, back 17 years ago, launched this mission to the capacity of where it is today. And we might mention. And, but I don't deserve the credit Miller does because Miller wrote the forward in your book. And he has been a stalwart, stalwart in your organization and others.

And people don't know that. And, you know, Miller's retired now. He's living large in California, but he's still very involved. And thank you for reminding me. I hate to say anything good about Miller, you know. But boy, oh boy, is he a patriot. And thank you for that, Mr. Lutz. We really appreciate it.

So we'll talk again, and we want everybody to go to get a flag and to help you as much as they can. Thank you. You're listening to the No Spinoos Weekend Edition. Joining us now is a man who knows the President of the United States pretty well because he's his father. Eric Trump is a new book. It's out October 14th.

Under siege, my family's fight to save our nation. And he joins us now from Palm Beach, Florida. Let's face it, the U.S. economy is under stress. National debt rising, trade war, shaking the markets. And meanwhile, China is dumping the dollar and stockpiling gold. That's why I protected my savings with physical gold and silver through the only dealer I trust, American Hartford Gold. And you can do this.

Get precious metals delivered to your door or place in a tax advantage, gold IRA. They'll even help you roll over your existing IRA or 401K, tax and penalty free. With billions in precious metals delivered thousands of five-star reviews and an A-plus from a Better Business Bureau. You can trust American Hartford Gold as I do. Please call 866-326-5-76-55-76 or text Bill to 99-88-98-99. Again, that's 866-3-26-5-7576, or text bill to 998899. Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief Podcast. If you want straight talk on National security, foreign policy, and the biggest global stories going on of the day. This is the show for you. We publish twice a day, Monday through Friday, once in the morning, again in the afternoon, and on the weekend, we go longer with the PDB's Situation Report with excellent guests,

including National Security Insiders and Foreign Policy Experts. Check us out on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts, also on our YouTube channel, at President's Daily Brief. All right, here's my first question for you. Does your dad listen to you? when you give him an opinion? Well, this is everybody when you give an opinion. That's amazing thing about Donald Trump. I saw this bill starting on construction sites when I was a little kid.

He'd go up to the electrician who was putting an outlet in the wall. He would ask him his opinion. Then he'd go to the head of the construction company ask his opinion, and ultimately he would formulate his own based on kind of the opinions of a lot of people and who he thought was credible and what great ideas kind of rose to the top and it's one of the things that makes the guy amazing.

All right. I assume that you discuss politics with your father, correct? Often. And then your wife, Laura, very outspoken. You guys discuss. What percentage of the time do you think he listens to you? 80%? 40? I called him the morning of, you know, and I'm in a unique position.

You know, he asked me to run the company when I was 33-year-old, and I run one of the great real estate empires anywhere in the world. But, you know, I called him the morning of November 6th, I go, pop, I love you to death. I've been there since you came down the escalator. I've stood on that stage every single time. I've done thousands of speeches, and I'm going to get the hell out of politics at this point. I'm retiring.

Congratulations. We won the Super Bowl, and you know, you're going to do a great job for the country. I'm going to do a great job for the company. But, no, listen, there's certain people in his inner circle that he listens to. I express my opinions all the time. And, you know, we certainly share the same DNA in terms of how we think about these issues. I mean, you're talking about crime in these cities. Look what a great job he did in Washington, D.C.

He cleaned up the crime in about two seconds flat. And then he's walking around the parks talking about how he wants to replace the grass to make it look beautiful, to make Washington, D.C. look like one of our golf courses. I think that's a beautiful thing for the country and a beautiful thing for the nation. Yeah, it would be. But last time I was there, I got a sprinkler on me because, no, I'm just swimming around. Okay, now, look, I'm going to ask you this question. You don't have to answer it. I don't want to embarrass you for your father.

Do you ever disagree with him? You ever say, hey, Dad, maybe that's a little bit too much that you're doing here. Maybe we don't want to take over Canada. Maybe that's not the best plan. Bill and all of vendors, I love the idea of taking over Canada. I also like the idea of taking Greenland, right? There are other countries you can keep that are neighbors of ours, but no, I do think Canada should be the 51st state. I certainly think green.

Listen, I think, you know, joking aside, I think, you know, every child has probably slight disagreements, you know, with parents and philosophies and other things. But I've got to say this guy's the most transformational person. I mean, the reason I've stood on the stage is not, Bill, the reason I've stood on the stage is not because I need this job. Believe me, it's because I care deeply. And I think the guy's doing a phenomenal job, as you saw today, you know, when he's talked to every single general about not having Admiral Rachel Levine, you know, as, you know, Secretary of Health and Human Services or whatever the hell she was when she couldn't do a pullup and having a, you know, a guy like Pete Hanksett in there who's strong, who's charismatic. who delivers a strong message, who's actually inspirational. You see the recruiting in our military going through the roof because of him. I know I'm very proud of everything he's done.

I really, totally am. Now, you know that he talks to me occasionally, and I'm not as bullish as you are, and I always, no matter what, who it is, when they ask me my opinion, and I never volunteer an opinion to the president. He has to ask me. I'm not intruding on that level. But when you say that you're in favor of annexing Canada as a 51st state, you know that's not going to happen.

And number two, tourism is down because Canadians are so teed off. They're not visiting here. So there was a downside to that thing that would never happen. That's what I'm talking about here. That kind of a discussion. Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, I think if you kept a couple of the cities, I think Canada would probably go for us by about 85%, right?

I just got back from Canada last week. I was in the Yukon. I was in Whitehorse, and I can't tell you how much love there is coming out of Canada. But listen, irrespective, I think. All right. First of all, Bill, we'd be unstoppable in the Olympics. Let's just start there, especially the Winter Olympics. And I think that would be a great benefit to take in Canada.

You know, I've been to White Horse myself. There's eight people there. But it's really an adventure to go. All right. Now, getting revenge. So your whole book is, and it's a very interesting book, and I hope people check it out, that your family has just been battered for the past nine years. And I know that. I'm an eyewitness to that because I did the first interview with the president when he declared his candidacy, as you may remember. And I've seen the Trump hatred evolve into hysteria in this country. So I'm perfectly, perfectly understanding the situation. But others may not know how intense it has been for your family. But there is a point where a revenge play, as I just pointed out in Canada with a lower tourism now, might come back to hurt the country. So you got to pick your targets. Now, Comey, I'm fine with Comey. I don't know whether you read my column on Sunday, but I'm fine with indicting him.

I get no problem with that, and I'm fine if he gets acquitted. If a jury acquits him, that's our system. But he's a bad guy. I can document his badness, and he should be held accountable. But some others, I think you've got to be careful that you don't want to go too far in the retribution revenge area. Am I wrong? So, no, you're not wrong at all.

Bill, you've known me for probably 20 years, right? You've seen me. I became the most subpoenaed person in American history. I had 112 subpoenas. That's amazing. I didn't know that. I did not know that, right. And Bill, you know why they did that?

Because, you know, my father had constitutional protections being, you know, the President of the United States. Guess who didn't have constitutional protections? His son, who ran his entire empire and everything that he had ever built, they impeached my father twice. They raided our home. They weaponized the DOJ. They weaponized the FBI.

They took my father off of Twitter. Facebook, Instagram. They gag ordered him more times than you can count. I was getting a subpoena every single day. I was in a deposition every single day. They took him off the ballot in Colorado. They took him off the ballot in Maine. They find us $560 million for never missing a loan payment

and being a perfect company. They did everything they could to break up our family, to debank us, to de-platform us. I mean, that's the whole concept of under siege. And despite the fact that we had, what, negative-9-9-1-7, 28% media coverage, meaning favorability-wise, toward our family, toward my father, toward the movement, we beat these guys. And that's under siege bill. And so when the liberals cry about Comey, who very apparently, you know, lied in front of Congress, lied to Ted Cruz, right? I mean, I think we all saw it. And by the way, this is an FBI director who was literally leaking memos to the FBI. No, it's all. Let the court, let the Justice Department prove that before we convict them here. But what's, fascinating and beyond any challenge is that you were hauled into court, as you say almost every

day. Who paid for that? Who paid for your attorneys? Your family paid for that? It probably costs us $400 million in legal fees because they wanted to make up sham cases. Look at the Russia hoax. I was the guy that got the call from the FBI saying, hey, I hear you have secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower communicating directly with the Kremlin. And guess what, Bill? We didn't have any secret servers in the basin of Trump power. We're largely a cloud-based computer. Okay, all right.

You don't have to convince me or my audience that they went after you in an unprecedented way. Only Aaron Burr, who deserved everything he got from Thomas Jefferson, he's the only one close to what you went through. So you got Don Jr., who's a sympathico with you. I mean, it's the same thing. But Ivanka, your sister, very smart, she's kind of withdrawn from all this. She got out. Why? I think Yvanka wanted to be a mom.

She lived in Washington for four years. She battled like hell. Ivanka's an amazing person. I'm incredibly close. I mean, I think you know how close our entire family is. And, you know, I think she got, you know, kind of done with the political charade. Frankly, I did as well. The one thing I think I needed to materialize for not only my kids, but also for history

and for everybody who got attacked in. in the MAGA movement was exactly what I wrote in this book. I mean, what they tried to do, how they tried to do it, the way they came after us, you know, the 99% that no one actually saw on the front page of the New York Times. And so, you know, honestly, I kind of got out of politics, too. Once we won, you know, in November 5th. Yeah, I know you and I retired from politics because there's no more place for me to run. But you really haven't because your wife's involved.

You wrote this book. Final question. Have any of the networks invited you on and talk about the book? Yeah, I mean, listen, we went to number one on Amazon almost instantaneously in every category. And by the way, I'm right next to you. Your book's doing phenomenal. So congratulations, my friend. Thank you.

You know, shockingly, they have. I mean, I can't imagine New York Times is going to. No, no. I can't imagine New York Times is going to be thrilled to put me at the top of the list, which I clearly deserve. And I think the numbers will get me there. But, no, I mean, listen, CNN was one of the first to call. Yeah, you're going to have to fight it. Yeah, you're going to have to fight it out with Kamala.

But what network invited you on to talk about your book? Well, I think I've gotten probably outcoming from just about every network. I listen, the main ones, am I waiting for ABC? No, I can't imagine they're going to reach out anytime soon. But that's what I mean. I tell you, the amount of coverage for the book has been amazing. No, I know. You know, I mean, you're a big guy.

It's going to hurt a lot of feelings, Bill, and it deserves to hurt a lot of feelings because a lot of feelings deserve to be hurt on that side. I mean, the media in this country is you knew better than anybody in your, you know, You know, they were the, you know, PR arm of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years. And they've lost all their independence. And it's why, you know, independent voices like yours have really kind of... Yeah, it's been longer than 15 years, about about 30 years, yeah. All right, the book is under siege.

You'll be out October 14th, but you can, you know, order it in advance on Amazon. That will send a message. And we appreciate it, Eric. You're welcome anytime here. Thanks very much. This is the NoSpin News Weekend Edition. There's another book out that you should know about. It's called Born Lucky, Okay?

A dedicated father, a grateful son, my journey with autism. Read by my pal, Leland Vitterd, who works at News Nation. I was on his program last night. He always gets big ratings when he puts me on. That's why Lillen does it. But Leland was born with autism. And it's a harrowing story. the book, I blurred the book, because it gives hope. This book gives hope to millions of American

parents in the same situation. It may not be autism, but disabilities with children. Almost every parent has to deal with this somehow somewhere. Leeland Vitter joins us now from New York City. So the book's out today. Congrats on that. It's number 20 on Amazon right now. After the center view, we'll zoom probably to number one. It's a really good book, Leeland, and you know me. I wouldn't say that if it weren't. We did a special on Sunday night on News Nation. You can access that on NewsNation and on Bill O'Reilly.com.

It's well worth watching. But the first question is for you. Your father is the hero of the book. 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. Trump and his team are shaking up Washington like never before. And we're here to cover it from all size, 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. He saved you, but he didn't want me to interview him. for the book. Why? He doesn't like being called a hero. He's very uncomfortable with it, Bill, and he says that he was just doing what any loving father would do,

which is try to help his son and do everything he could and everything in his power. And the stories and born lucky are that of him working on an hourly basis to keep me from falling apart because of the bullying and the isolation and the difficulties I was going through,

but also to adapt me to the world, to teach me the social skills and emotional interaction that comes so easily to most everyone that I didn't understand in any way, shape, or form. And you're born lucky we take you through those lessons. Now, how old were you, if you can remember, how old were you when the bullying started because you were different from all the other kids? And when I was, when I was four, five, six, I mean, as soon as kids interacted with each other, I didn't fit in. It was very simple. But I want to just follow up on what you asked and just finish the question about what with my dad.

The reason this book is outbill is because I said to him, I'm going to write this. And if you don't like it, I'm not going to put it out. And before I turned it into Harper Collins, I handed him the manuscript. And he read it and he was very uncomfortable with it because it's so personal. It is the deepest and darkest parts of my life and his emotions. It's some really emotional stuff. And he was very uncomfortable. And I said, how about this, Dad?

If when I was diagnosed at 5, the woman who diagnosed me hadn't said there's nothing you could do. She hadn't said, he's just the way he is. And we don't really understand what's happening in his mind. But instead, it handed you born lucky. What would you have thought? He said, I would have read it every week. Because it would have given me hope that I could make an enormous. difference in your life and how to do it?

Well, the narrative of the book, and the reason it's born lucky is that Leland's nickname is lucky, and the reason his nickname is lucky is because he almost died at birth because he had the umbilical coral wrapped around his throat. Now, I don't want to give it any more away. I want people to read the book, but you experience an enormous amount of pain from maybe age all the way through to college when you went to Northwestern. But you were a diagnosis having a very high IQ academically, all right, you could absorb information, but on the social front,

you were not able to communicate with other kids. Is that about it? Yeah, that's true, although also when they did this IQ test, there were parts of my IQ that were very high, and parts that were in the parlance of the day, mentally retarded. I had a 70-point IQ spread between the two halves of the test. 20 points represents a learning disability.

So they said to my parents, we've never seen a kid like this. We've never seen this kind of spread. And what that meant was I had severe problems, learning, writing, articulating myself these issues. And my dad said there will be no special accommodations. I didn't get extra time on tests. I didn't get into special classes. classes. I didn't get a quiet room to take my test or to study in any of that kind of stuff.

Because my dad said, I have to adapt you to the world. I can't adapt the world to you. Because if I do, you're going to not only define yourself by this issue, but you're going to use it as a crutch. If you use it as a crutch in school, you're going to want to use it as a crutch later in life. He wanted to toughen you up. You were going through basic training to be, I don't want to use the word normal, but a regular person. Your father, Your father actually quit his job so he could be there with you throughout the days. He actually walked away from his profession, right? He did.

And look, you know, inborn Lucky, you know, the day that a teacher in front of the entire art class, because I wasn't Picasso, said, hey, look, Lucky, you know, if my dog was as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards. It was my dad waiting at the driveway at 420 every night to put me back together, which he did. every day. And he ended up, you know, crying by himself in a living room, oftentimes after he'd said, good night to me. But I think, Bill, what you're giving at, it's an important question because, you know, people can easily read Born Lucky or see the show here and say, hey, look, that's great that Vitter's dad quit his job. He was an entrepreneur. Great that he turned

into a cable news anchor. I asked my dad, hey, look, dad, you know, what would you have done if you couldn't quit your job? He said, I would have worked the night shift and been there in the morning when you left for school and slept and been there when you got home. He said, I knew your only chance was me being there and me helping you because you were all I, you know, I was all, meaning, you know, my dad was the only thing I had. You know, it's an amazing book, an amazing story. But again, the reason that it's so important, and Leland will tell you then how we got into broadcast journalism and how we worked for Fox News in the Middle East, very day, dangerous assignment. And then now he's one of the main anchors at News Nation. He goes through that.

But the real importance nationally for this book is anybody with a child who's having difficulty will get hope from reading this book. And that is very, very rare. So very good for you to write this book. Your father is obviously a hero. I know he doesn't want to hear it. Again, there is a documentary, you can go to NewsNation, was it at NewsNation.com, and they'll just punch something. We have it on Bill O'Reilly.com as well. So, Leeland, very good. It's going to do very well, and we really appreciate it. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it. Onward. You're listening to the NoSpin News Weekend Edition. So there's a real war on drugs now, not a phony war. And the war is that the Trump administration,

is attacking in the Caribbean, boats laden with cocaine, blowing them out of the water. And that is just the beginning. All right, I expect to see American military intrusion in Mexico. Don't know when that's going to start. Trump doesn't really want to do that, but I think he's going to have to. Cocaine comes out of Central America. Venezuela is the main transshipment. center. So it's grown in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru. Then it could ship to Venezuela. They say,

hey, come on in. They're all getting money, including Maduro, the president of Venezuela, the dictator. So they're all being paid. It's a narco state. And then it gets on a boats and it comes into the USA. And then if the intel says the boats are laden, boom, we blow them up. Now, there is a task force, in Florida. This is an amazing story. It's called the Joint Interagency Task Force. All right. J-I-A-T-F. They always have an acronym. And they have seized last fiscal year, which ends, I think, today. One million pounds of cocaine, a record. One million pounds of cocaine headed for the USA. Now, that's a good job, but if they've seized a million pounds,

you've got to figure 10 million pounds got in, right? And then the heroin and the fentanyl and the methamphetamine coming across the Mexican border. This Joint Task Force operates out of Florida, cocaine centers. Joining us now from Phoenix, Arizona, is the co-author of a very good book. called After Escobar, taking down the notorious Kali Godfathers and the biggest drug cartel in history. Chris Feistel is a former DEA agent, long time, 26 years.

Twelve of those years, he spent in a very dangerous situation in Colombia, South America. All right, so I like your book. I have a chapter on Escobar in confronting evil, but if people really want to know the micro, because you get into this thing. The whole book is on Escobar and that whole cartel down there.

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There's a difference between the Mexican situation and the South American situation, right? Which do you think is more dangerous? Good to be with you today, Bill. Right now, the Mexican cartels pose the most danger to the United States. They have in February of this year, the Trump administration, designated six Mexican cartels as designated foreign terrorist organizations. So at this point in time, they are the most direct threat to the United States. All right, but he has not taken military action against those cartels, and he could, under U.S. law,

but Scheinbaum, the President of Mexico, does not want that. Do you have any idea why the Mexican government has allowed these cartels to pretty much run the country? Well, Mexico has an historic problem with corruption that dates back many, many years. And the fact that these Mexican cartels are intertwined with various levels of the Mexican government allows them to operate pretty much with impunity in Mexico. And, you know, a lot of these drug cartels, they cannot operate without corruption, without the help of the government. So that is a problem that Mexico and the United States have dealt with for some time now.

You think Overdor was on a take? Because he absolutely let the cartels do whatever they wanted to do. At great expense to his own people, hundreds of thousands were murdered under Obrador. Do you think he was on a take? Well, it's hard to say if he was, Bill, but some people in his administration most certainly were. And he had to know about it, right? I would assume so, yes. Okay.

Now, Colombia, where you spent an amazing 12 years risking your life, that country goes up and down and in and out. Now it's another problem for the United States with the cocaine. They were cooperating. Now they're not cooperating. What's going on there? Well, Colombia and Venezuela right now pose a significant problem for the United States. Both of the countries have recently been decertified by the U.S. government for their not. non-compliance in helping the United States go after, corruption, drug traffickers, extradition, and money laundering.

So this is a problem that's going to continue right now under the current administrations with President Petro in Colombia. He recently had his visa revoked by the United States. They have not been compliant in helping the United States as well as Venezuela. So I expect drug trafficking, record amounts of cocaine to be coming out of Venezuela, as well as. as Colombia. Okay. And again, that's the same. Shadows the Mexican thing, a lot of money changing hands, a lot of people getting wealthy in the governments by taking prize, right? Absolutely. And if you look at Venezuela and the Maduro administration and the cartel de los Soles, the cartel of the sons, which involves high-level Venezuelan military and government officials, they're complicit

in that. There's also been a $50 million reward for President Maduro for his arrest and conviction. And that just shows that the government of Venezuela is complicit in drug trafficking, and they continue to pose a serious problem to the United States. Do you trust the DEA and the feds to give us accurate information? Because they could say anything. They could say Maduro is a drug dealer, and this one's that, and that one's this. When you see the information come out to the American public, do you trust it? 100%, Bill.

And it's not that the information that comes out that we trust, They have indictments against various individuals in the Venezuelan government, and in order to obtain those indictments, you need evidence, strong evidence, because the ultimate goal would be to try and convict these individuals, so we can't operate just solely on the premise of information. We need hardcore evidence to be able to pin these people to significant crimes. And once they come here and are tried, like Escobar, they always get convicted. They never get acquitted. Usually they plead guilty, right? Absolutely, because there's overwhelming evidence against these individuals. Now, if you have, like Chapo Guzman to take, for example,

if you have unlimited resources and a vast amount of money to be able to fight these charges, you can go ahead and do that. Obviously, that's their right. But the overwhelming amount of evidence ultimately comes out, and to the men and women who are sitting on these federal juries, they hear that information, they hear the evidence against them. It's overwhelming, and just about every time these individuals are convicted. Yeah, and they can't get convicted in Mexico, Colombia, or Venezuela, because the drug gangs

will kill all the jurors and their families, right? Well, that and as well as the corruption. That's why the United States always pushes for the extradition of these major traffickers to the United States. Right. Chris, I don't think the drug war is ever going to be won, no matter what Trump does or the American military or the DEA or anybody else. Because if you're smuggling 10 million tons of cocaine into the United States, that means millions of Americans are buying it. And they seem to be buying

it more than ever before, despite all of the warnings about fentanyl, all of this, everybody knows they're still buying narcotics at a record rate. The United States consumes more illegal narcotics than any other nation on earth by far. So if the consumer demand in our country is that high, you're never going to beat it. There's always going to be somebody dealing it. Am I wrong? No, you're absolutely right, Bill. And it's the law of supply and demand. So the more the demand that there is in the United States and throughout the world, the more supply that there's going to be. Why do you think there's so much demand in the USA? Why do you think that so many Americans use illegal narcotics, thereby enriching these killers in these foreign countries and destroying their own situations if you're using opiates?

Why? Why are they doing it? That's a great question, Bill, and I wish I had the definitive answer for that. But, you know, I think you see drug usage has increased significantly over the past several years, especially with youth. I think they perceive this as something cool that they can do. And, you know, the United States, we have a lot of people with a lot of money that, you know, don't have a lot of time to spend. They're looking for hobbies. They're looking for outlets. They're, you know, for a variety of different reasons.

But the demand has continued to rise over the last several years significantly in the United States. There's no stigma attached to it now, particularly in the entertainment industry in this hip-hop culture. And the second thing is that in New York and Chicago and L.A., you can deal heroin and cocaine on the street, openly, get arrested, and you won't get charged. You'll be out on no bail. I mean, it's easy to do it. You can make a bloody fortune. And the downside is you get booked. You're in there a couple of hours. The progressive DAs don't want to prosecute you. They see it's a victimless crime. all of that. That's why I think that this drug thing is rising. It's the culture, the permissive culture, and the absolute dereliction of duty on the part of these Soros-backed district attorneys across the country. Last word. 100% Bill, and we've seen that. And in some of these cities where they've tried these experiments to decriminalize small amounts of drugs. There are no consequences. There are no harsh

penalties. People are selling drugs, using drugs. They're getting arrested. They're back out on the streets in no time. So without serious consequences, I think that this issue is going to continue. Yeah, Oregon legalizing. They had to then go back and say no because Portland was destroyed and the kids were going wild. All right, the book, again, I recommend it. Escobar, taking down the notorious Cali Godfathers and the biggest drug cartel in history. Chris, thanks very much. appreciate your service. Number one, there's a long history of putting yourself in personal danger to fight these evildoers, and they are evil, which is why I have them in my book, confronting evil, and we appreciate your service in the book very much. Thanks for appearing.

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