Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - President Trump's Quest for Peace, Israel-Gaza Latest, Mark Levin Weighs in on the More Powerful Leader & Republicans Outraise Democrats

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

Tonight's rundown: Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, August 19, 2025. Stand Up for Your Country.  Talking Points Memo: Bill explains President Trump's work for peace, and why Vladimir Putin is not acting rational. Hamas accepts latest Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal proposal. Host of “The Mark Levin Show” and best-selling author Mark Levin joins the No Spin News to discuss the negotiations between Putin and Trump, who is more powerful and why Trump has not yet sanctioned the banks. How much more has the Republican National Committee raised compared to the Democratic National Committee? A look at new data showing the Biden administration placed over 11,000 migrant children with unvetted sponsors. Final Thought: Check out GlobalPost.com to keep up with the latest world news, and use code BILLOR for 50% off an annual subscription. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, August 19th, 2025. Stand up for your country. You got Mark Levine in a bullpen. He's almost ready to come in here, but I have to set him on up. He's got a new bookout that's pretty interesting. So we're going to talk to him about that. President Trump, I think it's fair to say, even if you don't like him, he's a decent problem

solver. I mean, we got the border. We got stopping some wars that people don't even recognize in Africa, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. You know, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things that Donald Trump's come in and solve pretty quickly, neutralizing Iran and the decision to bomb them. I mean, that quieted them down and was decisive action. But now, two vexing problems remain for the president, and neither one is going to be easy. Number one is Putin, and it's just Putin.

It's not Ukraine, it's not EU, it's Putin, one man. The other is high prices for essentials in America, which is very, very difficult. vote. And the president needs to start a campaign to get those prices down if he wants to control the power level that he has after the midterms. So we're going to take a look at Putin because that's a hot subject this week and that is the subject of the Talking Points memo right now. Okay, so in the first four years of Trump's presidency, 16 to 20, Vladimir Putin was under control because Trump used the same techniques in negotiation that he used to be successful in business. And those techniques are basically saying to whoever you're negotiating with,

be my partner. And if you're my partner, we're all going to win. We're all going to prosper. That's the art of the deal. Flattery, all of that. It comes all into, it's you and me against the world. And it's worked very well for Trump. And it worked for four years with Putin. You'll remember who went to Crimea under Obama, he did not respect Obama, took it, boom, and Obama didn't do anything. But then Trump came in and Putin calmed it down. He was still a villain, he was still evil, doing bad things beyond the scenes, but nothing that was roiling the world. And then as soon as Trump lost to Biden, then again, no respect on Putin's part for the Democratic machine in America. He marches into Ukraine to kill more than a million people.

If you count up the Russians and the Ukrainians and all of the people who've been wounded and all of that displacement. And then Trump gets back. One of the keystones of Trump's campaign to be reelected was I'll solve this Ukraine thing on day one. Now, he said it many times. And if I were president, it never would have happened. Putin confirmed that in Alaska. I mean, you know, I mean, it's subjective, but it's not out of the realm. possibility, certainly.

But I'll solve it on day one. That obviously didn't happen. And the reason it didn't happen is because Putin has changed. And President Trump did not recognize the change. I believe, and I can back it up in my new book, Confronting Evil, that Putin is mentally ill. So I went on News Nation last night, and here's what I said, go. So now there's going to be a reset. You have to do whatever you can, all right, to try to get Putin to stop.

And that means a third meeting. It means this. It means that you've got to placate him to some extent. But the bottom line is you're not dealing with a rational person here. You're dealing with a person who would kill millions of people. So you've got to be very methodical. But the way to get on this is Putin doesn't want to die. Now, when I say Putin doesn't want to die, I mean it literally.

That's why the Mullahs stopped, because the Mullahs knew the next step was to kill them. That's why they stopped in Iran. If Putin feels that his own life is in jeopardy, because his people are starving, and you can do that by very, very stringent sanctions, or military action, which I would not do, not over Ukraine. okay. He feels that it's his neck in the news to use a cliche. He'll get pause. Now, if you think that I'm overstating this, I am absolutely not. And again, I'll go back to confronting evil. Adolf Hitler got progressively worse as he maintained his power in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He became a total lunatic. He wasn't stable to begin with, and neither was Putin.

And you'll see, we chronicle his childhood and everything like that, you'll see it. But most of these violent dictators, they've just lose their minds. And that is what has happened to Putin. I have information that says that Putin was ready to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, in the early going. Now, I think the information comes at an ultra-high level. I don't, can't confirm it, but I'm not surprised by it. I believe firmly that if his backs to the wall, Putin will use nukes. He doesn't care who dies.

He doesn't care about his own people either. When you're dealing with that, then, you becomes a totally different negotiation because the person is not rational. Now, I don't know whether Donald Trump can bring the economic pressure to starve the Russian people. I think he can. The EU is backing them. It's China that needs to get on board. And again, I have the best contacts in the world with China. Nobody has better contacts than me.

And you know that. I was over there in May, all of that. But I don't know whether they're going to turn on, Vlad. Okay? If they do, then Putin will have to deal. If they don't, it's going to be, you know, a slog punch out for Trump. But I don't criticize the president for what he's done. I don't care about the red carpet.

I don't care about the flyover. I don't care about the limo. I don't care about any of that. I want the killing to stop. One more point. And this is an important point. I say that Putin's mentally ill and you're going to write me. Go prove it, O'Reilly, right?

Because that's my audience. Bill at Bill O'Reilly.com if you want to write it right now. Okay, you're Putin. You're coming to Alaska. You get on a plane of Moscow, you fly in. There's a red carpet there. There's a president of the United States actually applauding. There's pomp and circumstance.

You're being treated as an equal. You get to write in his car to the negotiation spot. All of that you get. He did not pause the bombing on the drones one minute. He was killing babies and innocent people. while he was in Alaska. Who does that? You couldn't pause for the weekend? You couldn't give a piece of chance, as John Lennon once sang, for two days? No. Is that the action of a rational man? No. And that's a memo. All right, the other big story is there is

another, I think this is a 10,001 peace, ceasefire, whatever, in gossip. This comes from Qatar and Egypt. And it would involve all the 20 hostages that are purportedly still alive, being exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, that's Hamas, terrorists, and then it'll be a ceasefire, and then humanitarian aid would be allowed to go into Gaza. That's the framework. Now, the terrorist, Hamas, yeah, we'll do it. How many times did they said that in the past? You lose count. We don't know what Netanyahu and Israel are going to do about that, but I have to report it. And, you know, that thing is so irrational, so out of control, because you're dealing with evil people. You're dealing with terrorists who kill it. Do you don't, people don't understand that these Iranian mullahs, the Hamas, the ISIS, the Al-Qaeda, would kill every

single person on the planet who didn't conform to their insane theocracy. They kill everybody. Okay. Let's bring him on in. Mark Levin, you know him. He comes on occasionally on this program. We're pleased to have him. He's got a new book out.

On Power, very apropos, of course. hit number one on the New York Times list. Ninth time from Mr. Levin, very impressive. Radio guy, 300 stations. He leads into me on our flagship, W.A.B.C. in New York City. And he joins us now from Leesburg, Virginia. About that, I don't have a red carpet I can give you down there. I would have done that for you, Levin.

You know I would have. You're a good man, Bill, no matter what they say. You're a good guy. And they say a lot. And let me say something out. I really couldn't disagree with the thing you said. Putin is a monster. He's a genocidal maniac.

He's only getting worse. You make a great point. Even today, he's trying to bomb the hell out of the civilian centers in Ukraine. And let us not forget, in 1994, Soviet Union, well, what was then Russia, signed a deal that Ukraine would turn all their nukes over to Russia. And in exchange, the United States, Britain, and Russia would protect their boundaries. And, of course, he violated that. So the key here is, you know, Putin wants all this land. And he also wants those areas where the Ukrainians are really dug in.

And they believe they have a very strong line of defense beyond which the Russians have been unable to go. And he wants that too. And, of course, the issue for the Ukrainians is, well, look, how are we supposed to keep doing this? We need security here. This guy's untrustworthy. As Bill says, as you say, this guy is really a head case. And as he's written, Bill, and he's written at length or somebody did for him, it doesn't really matter. He believes it.

This is just the first step. He thinks he's more aligned with Stalin than he is with Gorbachevich. Stalin is his idol. When you read my book, you'll see he models this whole thing on Stalin. But I have a very, very tough question. for you right now. You ready for that? I'm barely. All right.

In this world, who's more powerful? Trump or Putin? I don't think the answer is that tough. I think Trump is more powerful. I'll tell you why. Right now, Putin's economy is a shambles. When you're relying on North Korean

troops who don't know how to fight and you are to some extent. And you were relying on Iran for your drones and you're relying on China and India to pump up your economy. You're relying on a lot of outside factors. And you mentioned in your opening, there have been about a quarter of a million Russians who have died in this war. And on top of that, you have about 900 to a million casualties. In addition of that, they're taking more incoming in terms of death and casualties than the Ukrainians are. You look at their equipment and went back and looked at this.

They're losing tanks and personnel carriers at a clip of about five to one compared to the Ukrainians. And so, plus Donald Trump has basically opened the spigot as much as Europe wants to buy our military equipment. He's going to sell it to them. And also this issue of tariffs against India and China to get them to stop buying oil, Trump could pull that trigger. He hasn't done China yet because he's still working on it. But I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Go ahead. In this negotiation, because I'm going on the framework of your book,

in this negotiation, Putin holds more power than Trump. And the reason is that Putin knows that NATO and the United States will not go to World War III to save Ukraine. What do you think? Well, I don't think that's the test. I think the test is whether or not they'll go to World War III. Putin is more concerned about holding on to what he has, then Trump leaves office. Then he figures he'll be able to roll over any Democrat and most Republicans. That's my concern.

I don't think he's thinking about World War III with Donald Trump a position. See, he saw what Trump did with Iran, and he knows from his perspective, Trump is a wild. car he's not sure what trump's going to do and most people aren't but trump is not the isolationist as some of the fake magus say he is he's not an appeaser he's not a pacifist he's he's a realist in many respects so i also think that he saw what trump was capable of about three or four weeks ago when trump lost his patience with him and started to choke india and was planning on choking china and, again, was willing to flow arms into Ukraine through your purchasing them. And I think that helped bring him to the table because my concern is that after Trump leaves,

he's going to say, all right, let me deal with Trump, let me see what I can get under Trump. Let me, you know, I'll take what I can get. And then we'll wait out. See, they're long-term. Yeah, we'll violate everything when the next president comes in. But why hasn't President Trump sanctioned the banks yet? So he could have done. it, you could have basically said, look, no banking corporation in the world who does business

with Moscow in any way can do business with America or the EU. That breaks the banks. They can't do business with Putin. It starves Putin. Why hasn't he done it yet? Maybe he will. I mean, he might. But what I've done, I'm fine. He's only in their seven months. He's in there seven months, and he's been doing a hell of a lot, and in a lot of parts of the globe. So he may well do that. But maybe he doesn't want to open up yet other fronts of economic battle yet until he's done everything he can. I don't speak for them. They don't sit down and explain it to me.

I'm just giving you my judgment. That's still on the table. And even more than that, choking off their ability to bring any revenue in through their oil sales, that's the killer. Yeah. And you're talking about that second level of sanctions, which would be the bank. If he wanted to destroy Russia, he can destroy Russia economically the way Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union.

He can. And that's why, to answer your initial question on power, Trump has the cards. Number one, Ukraine is not our country. They're an ally. Number two, they're a victim. Number three, they've done enormous damage to Russia. Russia's done enormous damage to Ukraine. The Ukraine has done more damage to Russia than anybody thought was even possible.

In fact, every country that looks at Russia now sees that they're not the conventional military threat that they want to work. They're a nuclear threat. There's no question about that. Yeah, that's the problem. They're not the same conventional military threat that they worked before. I think Putin's place to work through. Trump, as best you can, and then wait for the next president to make further moves. Okay. And that's why I think there will be a deal, but China is the key to it, because

China could speed it up. Now, let's segue into Hamas and Israel. Got a couple of questions, because I follow your commentary on this, and you've had some feuds with people that you believe are anti-Semitic and are shaping their foreign policy against Israel because they simply don't like Jews. One of a little more clarification on this. So in college campuses, the Progressive Left, which has always despised Israel since 1949 and Harry Truman, Progressive Left has always despised it, thinks it's a fascist state, thinks it stole the land from the Arabs, you know the whole history better than anyone. Okay. If a person buys into that, a younger person, say at Harvard or wherever, do they

automatically hate Jews. No, and I've never said that. I think when you platform Holocaust deniers, and you platform people who are sympathetic to Hitler and are trashing Churchill, in other words, frauds, or when you platform people who are, in fact, out of the closet, anti-Semites, that makes you an anti-Semite, too.

If you're marching in the streets against the war, that doesn't make you an anti-Semite, makes you buffoon because the terrorists or the terrorists the same people hit us on 9-11 and we'll have

a different type of debate about that but when you have comics and others who come on and flat out spew you know the KKK lines the neo-Nazis lines or when you have people talking about the river to the sea

when you're marching on that you're talking about the extermination of the Jews yeah you are what you are and many of them are proud of it. Oh, there's no doubt about it. It's a tough line sometimes to delineate. But here's the power quotient there. So you've got Israel, and I open up confronting evil

with the October 6 attack to demonstrate to the reader. You want to know what evil is. Here's what evil is. And we have unbelievable description of what happened on that day. and that's how I kick off the book. But now you have a power, Israel, very capable of defending its own people. It has to be. It has to be.

Against a movement, Hamas, has no rules. There's not one rule. They'll kill babies. They'll hide behind women. They'll blow up hospitals. They'll steal food for people who are dying. We all know that. So that, again, makes it very difficult for an Israel to negotiate anything with people who got no rules, no compunctions, word means nothing, correct?

That's 100%, which is why this whole thing is rather bizarre, I think, and to have Qatar, which is a terrorist regime, and Qatar, which funded Hamas and protected its leaders and they're billionaires, those who are still. alive. Qatar is a very dangerous country. As far as I'm concerned in the United States, it's got its money everywhere and in both parties and in the executive branch and in Congress and everywhere else. And both, as I say, it doesn't even matter who's in charge of what. It's a very dangerous situation. And so as an example, you have Qatar and Egypt, which is on the border with Gaza, which has a real wall and will not allow any of those people out. I mean, even Netanyahu who says, well, why don't you take them, Egypt? You keep negotiating. You're mediating.

And you've got the whole Sinai Peninsula that we gave back. And Egypt wants none of them, not one of them. So they've closed the gate. They have the wall. They won't let them out. Katar keeps supporting Hamas. They used to do it openly. Now it does it behind the scenes. And those are the mediators. Those are the people negotiating. And so it's a very strange thing. You know, Bill, what I see here is more of this Marxist model, this presser

oppressed. And the media, in Europe, in our country, and even some in Israel, have turned Israel into the oppressor. Why? Because Israel can actually defend itself now. Israel needs the equipment. It's a tiny country and nine million people. It doesn't have massive industry, but it's got massive technological know-how. And it's got warriors who are willing to fight because they know the alternative is death. And so all their people, they fight. They come out of the cafes. They have to go wherever they go. But you're right. The idea that you negotiate with terrorists as if they're terrorists. They're called terrorists for a reason. Because I don't believe in rules. But you have to. And to Trump's credit, he has neutralized guitar a bit.

And it's the way he operates. I don't know what his personal feelings are about it. I don't know if he has any. He's neutralized him. Last question for you. Is there, a television network, news operation in America, that gives Israel a fair play? Well, I think you do. I think there are certain podcasters who do. I think Fox does. I think Newsmax does. I think the rest of them, not that I watch them that much, but like on these Sunday shows, they're absolutely horrific. New York Times, Washington Post. They have a whole history of being horrific about this, and they are.

They take the Hamas numbers, and they regurgitate them. They bring in the most repulsive politicians, whether it's Bernie Sanders or people like that, who come on, and he isn't out of the closet Marxists. And, you know, he went to a kibbutz, and Israel was a young man that was known as a Stalinist kibbutz. This guy's, and they bring him on like he's just your average politician. and they bring on people like that who will speak what they know, who will say what they know.

So I would say very few. In Europe, it's gotten horrific too. So there's very few. Yeah, even England and Ireland. Even in England and Ireland. Even in England and Ireland, Israel cannot get a fair shape. No.

Yeah. But I have to say, you know, we're friends, but they're friends I disagree with. you're very honorable. You play right down the middle. And playing it down the middle means sometimes you've got to take a side. The middle is what's the truth, what's the morality, what's virtue, what's the belief system. And as you point out, it's terrorists versus a democratic civilization.

And so when you play it down the middle, it doesn't mean six terrorists versus six Israelis. You play it down the middle. The middle is, okay, who's the aggressor? who's acting out of good faith, who is conducting themselves in a highly immoral way and so forth and so on. So when you play that down the middle, it shouldn't be that hard to know who's right and who's wrong. And that doesn't mean you agree with everything, but it means ultimately there's a good guy and a bad guy. Well, you're astute enough to understand because you're a historian like I am, that there are facts in this world. And usually when you gather the facts,

the truth becomes known. So on a Putin, you know, you'll remember in the beginning of the Ukraine war, you had high-profile people in the United States sympathizing with Putin. It was like you had him, you had Joseph Kennedy and Lindbergh sympathizing with Hitler. You had it. It was there. Okay? But I tore them the pieces on the facts.

And I just, last week, I just annihilated him. ambassador Joe, John Bolton. I annihilated the man because he hates Trump so much that whatever Trump does, he's going to oppose for personal reasons. And thereby he helps Putin. He helps Russia by doing it. That's called gathering the facts. And then the truth then exposes itself. And I think that's why you and I have been successful all these years. The book is on power. number one, New York Times bestseller, which makes them deliriously happy. They love to put Mark Levin and Bill O'Reilly's name at the top of the bestseller list. You know, I think they have parties, Levin, when you and I hit number one,

I think they go out and have a bunch of drinks and, hey, those guys have done it again, you know? Well, let me say one thing on your behalf. You send me an early copy of your book. Obviously, I've been busy with mine. I started, I just broke the back of it starting last night. It's another killer book. It's just a fantastic book for the reasons you say. You bring the facts to the table and then you reason through the facts.

I ask people to do the same thing. Just reason through these things. Right. Stop with the agenda-driven garbage. When you have to just struggle to make your position even coherent, you know you're not on the right side. All right, Mark. It's always a pleasure. Hope we can do it again soon.

Thank you for taking. taking the time, I know you're the business kind of question. Well, you'll be coming on my show. God bless you, brother. You take care of yourself. And it won't be boring. When you and I get together, it's never boring. Okay, we'll see you later.

Bill Barr went to the House Oversight Committee. You know that. Comer, the head, he told the Oversight Committee, according to Comer, I don't see anything that links Trump to Epstein in any kind of criminal way at all. That's what Barr said, okay? So the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed documents from the Justice Department, that's Pam Bondi, documents about

Epstein, though it's supposed to be sent over on Friday beginning. I'm on it. Okay, if there's any shenanigans, I'll let you know. This is a bogus story, okay? But desperately, CNN and the others want to link Trump to Epstein a criminal way. That's what it's all about. It's not a shred evidence that exists. Fanduil Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance It's at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling.

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excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. Get tickets now. Okay. In politics, fundraising is everything. Got to have money. So the R&C, Republican National Committee, is out raising the DNC at this point in history. 80 million compared to 15 million. Whoa. This is a political report. So that's a big number. So the RNC is 80 million in a bank. nobody's given money the DNC plus the DNC had to pay off a $15 million debt

run up by the Harris campaign. We spent a billion and a half to lose. That's hard to believe. But the Democrats are not donating to their own party at this point. It's an interesting

story. So Joe Biden opened the borders and I think that the only rational explanation because he has never explained it and will never explain it. I don't even think he understands it himself. That's how far out he is. Is that the Democratic machine wanted to flood the United States with new voters, primarily, who were poor.

So they would vote Democrat for the entitlements. That's the only logical thing. So 10 to 15 came in under Biden. Well, a lot of kids got hurt on the open border. So the Senate Judiciary Committee, that's Charles Grassley. Okay, I just released a report. 11,000 migrant children were given to people by the Biden administration

unvetted. Biden people didn't know who they were. You imagine that? And 79,000 migrant children under the age of 12 were put it to homes and there were no follow-ups, no investigation.

Now this leads to child exploitation in every area, abuse, neglect, on and on. I'm not saying that every migrant kid who got placed in a home who's being abused, but I'm saying there's nobody watching it.

Joe Biden. Nobody. And that's because of you. Period. Oof. All right, Matthew Perry, the friend's guy, talented man. So he dies at age 42 because he's a drug addict. And the drug he took

was ketamine. So there are five people that supplied Perry with the ketamine. And they've all been charged with crimes. And the latest one is a woman, a dual USA, UK citizen named Jasveen Senga. All right, there she is. These are drug pushers in L.A. Okay?

So they all pled guilty, but they pled guilty to not very serious charges. That's my beef. If you are a drug pusher, number one, you're evil. I don't care what your circumstances. You're evil. You're selling narcotics. Okay. Number two, if somebody dies or goes into some kind of coma or whatever, because you sell them the drug, manslaughter.

Every state should have that law. Manslaughter. Far beyond any kind of debate. And it hasn't happened. MSNBC going to change its name. Doesn't matter. NBC's cutting it loose. I wrote a message of the day,

explain a whole thing on Bill O'Reilly.com. I'm not going to go over it here. You want to know about what happened? Why they dumped MSNBC? It's on Bill O'Reilly.com in a message. And everybody can access it. MSNBC is now MSN now. Exciting.

Roll a tape. The media landscape has been changing a lot over the last decade or so, but it's been really accelerated in the last few years in this particular moment. So it does seem an ideal time to rebrand,

an ideal time to embrace a new identity, as you said, to be an insurgent network. The insurgent network, remember Air America, Al Franklin? They lost, it had to be $100 million. Buy-bye, MS, you can call yourself MS, anything you want. It's over. See you. Not unhappy about it. Maybe that's unfair.

They have done a lot of damage. My opinion, humble opinion. And NBC don't think that you're noble. Don't think you're noble. You backed it. Back with a final thought that is a good tip for you in a moment. All right, there's a final thought of the day. Everybody's talking about foreign affairs.

It's very unusual. Mostly Americans look inward. Now, our foreign affairs partner is Global Post. Okay? GlobalPost.com. They're given all O'Reilly listeners on a radio, viewers on television, whatever you may be, 50% off their annual subscription. And it's not that expensive.

So if you want foreign news and Global Post is honest, they're not going to give you any BS. Okay, I get it every day. GlobalPost.com slash subscript. We got this deal for you. You want foreign news. Some of those articles are fascinating. I never even heard of some of this stuff. You know, I like the foreign situation.

Okay. We will be back tomorrow, Rippin and Roaring. We hope you enjoyed the broadcast tonight. I'm Bill O'Reilly. We'll see you then.