Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - The Death of Pope Francis, Democrats Advocate for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Brian Townsend on the Border's Narcotics Crisis & More Stock Market Turbulence

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Tonight's rundown:  Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Monday, April 21, 2025. Stand Up for Your Country.  Talking Points Memo: Bill reflects on Pope Francis's passing and his lasting impact. The latest on Kilmar Abrego Garcia as Democrats push for his return. Retired DEA Agent Brian Townsend joins the No Spin News to discuss how illegal drugs are entering the U.S. and what can be done to curb demand. President Trump stated to Bill that relief for the stock market is on the way. What prompted the Trump administration to release the files on the RFK assassination? This Day in History: Geraldo Rivera opens crime boss Al Capone's vault on live TV. Final Thought: When you can't solve a problem. In Case You Missed It: Stand out from the crowd with our Not Woke baseball cap for just $28.95! Make Mom happy this Mother’s Day! Gift her our new Not Woke Mom mug, bundled with Killing the Witches—all for just $39.95. Limited time only!  Pre-order Bill’s next book in the new Confronting Series, ‘Confronting Evil’ NOW! Now's the time to get a Premium or Concierge Membership to BillOReilly.com, the only place for honest news analysis.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to the No Spin News from Monday, April 21st, 2000, 25, stand up for your country. Well, the Pope has passed. Amazing story. Easter Sunday, there is an a Pope mobile after pretty intense, two. two months of illness, double pneumonia, 88 years old. And he's out in Madison Square, thousands of people. And then he talks to Vice President Vance, we'll get into all of this.

It's an important story, even if you don't believe in God or the Catholic Church or the Pope or anything like that, because it clashes theology and politics. And that's going to increasingly become important in this world, not just in this country. And that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. So Pope died at 735 this morning, Monday, in Rome. And it was 88, as I mentioned. And people were shocked because of yesterday's Pope Mobile appearance. And he looked very clear and eyed.

as he walked around and greeted everybody, and they were ecstatic. I was in Vatican City, I think it was 81, on Easter Sunday. It's an amazing thing to be there. And the Pope spent 17 minutes with Vice President Vance and gave his children, you know, he had small children, some chocolate eggs, and they had a nice conversation. It was not intense. The vice president said that the Pope invited him.

It was the Pope's invitation. So I guess Vance was the last outsider, famous person, to talk with the Pope. I'd be interested to hear what the Vice President has to say about that conversation. He's in India now, talking to Modi, the Indian president, about, you know, the tariffs and all the stuff that's going on.

All right, a little bit about the Pope. Jorge Mario Burgolio, born in Flores, Argentina, right outside of Buenos Aires. Came a Jesuit priest in 1969, that Jesuits are the intellectual wing of the Catholic Church. It is a liberal group now. Back then, not so much. The Jesuits were involved in a movie The Exorcist in the book. Okay. He was appointed Cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

Now, in that time in Argentina, I was down there covering the Falklands War, so I saw it firsthand. It was ruled by a military junta coming off Juan Perron. There was no freedom there, really. It was a police state. And most of the people were poor, desperately poor, because the oligarchy is, Argentina stole all the money. Very important for you to understand that. So what the Cardinal saw then subsequently the Pope was massive poverty fueled by corruption. And he became a liberation theologian. And many, many Catholic priests who work in the third world are that.

Jorge Mario had was that he put the blame on capitalism for the poverty, and that was wrong. There is an editorial in the Wall Street Journal stating that. It wasn't capitalism that were keeping the people poor. It was the corrupt administration government in Argentina, run by a guy named Galtieri when I was there. And you had to fear him. Galtieri, it was have you killed and i don't blame i don't think there were stories about you know how the cardinal didn't do what he should have a bunch of both all right so then he gets to be pope and he comes on in and eight years ago um i uh almost a day uh i met him in a very brief conversation but i was in his uh proximity for two hours and i'm a reporter and i watched every

move the man made and he dealt with hundreds of people he was exceedingly kind and patient and he was 80 years old and my interaction with him was just a greeting primarily but I he and I like stared at each other for maybe 15 seconds after I said Buenos Aires I addressed him in Spanish and it was eerie he He didn't break my gaze. I don't know whether he recognized me or knew I was in the small group. I don't know. But it was just as something came off of him.

Okay. So the Pope ran into trouble in America and some other European countries because of his, because not sympathy so much, but he, promotion, I think that's a better word. He promoted illegal immigration in the sense that he said, if you are a Christian, you have to treat these people with dignity. That was everything. Now, on December 31st, 2019, five and a half years ago, here's what I said.

As for Pope Francis himself, he is a liberation theology guy. He lives in a world where religion, Christianity, and Catholicism are there to improve the plight of the poor. You must understand where he is coming from. That is his mission. The poor, help the poor, the downtrodden, the incarcerated, the migrants, help them, help them, help them. It does not go against Christianity. does not. The only problem with Pope Francis is he gets into trouble when his solutions make the poverty and migrant problem worse and hurt good-minded people, which he has done.

Pope has done that. Remember, when the Pope spouts a political opinion, it had nothing to do with theology, he's not infallible, it's not dogma. It's not, it's not. It's not a any of that. It's just his opinion as an Argentinian cleric, which is what he is. I like him. I think he's a sincere man. I think he tries to help people. And that's my bottom line for Pope. I don't need Winston Churchill in there. 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 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. Power, politics, and the people behind the headlines. I'm Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist, and the host of the brand new podcast, One. Every week I'll sit down for candid conversations with Washington's most powerful disruptors,

lawmakers, lawmakers 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, or wherever you get your podcast. You don't want to miss an episode. So I think that's the most accurate assessment you're ever going to get on Pope Francis. Now, if he's not in heaven, then there's no hope for me, okay? But, and there is that but, he didn't analyze the migrant movements in a way that I believe was effective, number one, or responsible, number two. not. I guess I'm committing a sin here calling a former Pope irresponsible, but he wasn't actively trying to do that, but he couldn't see the big picture. And you'll remember his

quote about the Trump administration, you have to build bridges, not walls. Well, you got to obey the law, your holiness. I wish I had been able to, I was close to getting an interview with him. And I wish I had, because that's what I would have said. You got to obey the law. The law is there for a reason to protect people. You can't just say, ah, I don't like this law, because it hurts some poor people. And it does. Our exclusion of everybody in the world who's poor hurts people. If they could come here, they'd be a lot better off. That's true, but we can't do it. We can't afford it.

We can't supervise it. We can't assimilate it. No nation could on this earth. And that's the truth. So I put this up to the Pope being naive and living in a world of theory. And here's the kicker on Pope Francis. Jesus, the Nazarene, was exactly the opposite. Not in his compassion.

Jesus was the most compassionate person ever to live if you believe in the works, and I do. Okay? But Jesus respected the law. They tried to trap them with the coin thing. And then he said, render to Caesar to the things that are Caesar's. And the message was, look, you have an obligation as a human being to help the downtry.

to help everybody. That's Christianity. You've got to help other people. If you can't do that or won't do that, you can't be Christian. But you have to obey the law, even if it's Roman law. And Roman law was horrible. It was oppressive. There was no freedom. Tiberius made an order. You obeyed it and you're on a cross if you didn't. But Jesus understood that he couldn't preach himself if he defied Tiberius. They would have killed him in a heartbeat, just as they killed his cousin, John the Baptist. They beheaded him because he criticized adultery on the part of the Roman governor.

And if you're going to do that, you're going to die. And Jesus knew it. Jesus' time was not to die. He needed two years to establish Christianity. So Jesus was much more realistic than Pope Francis. I get a lot of mail van all. Pope Francis, walls in the Vatican, he doesn't let everybody in. Okay. I got it. I got it. But that's just, that's not important. What's important is a mindset. All right? that you've got to help people if you're Christian, all right, you have to, you're compelled to, but you can't hurt people in the process. You can't hurt other people in the process. And I don't think Francis ever molded, melded those two together. If you did, I didn't see it

in the public statements. All right, so Donald Trump will be over there, and I was thinking about going, but I probably can't, but I'm going to think about it overnight to go to the funeral, but I don't know if I can do it logistically, but I'll think about it. And that's a memo. All right now, right off the migrant situation, an update on Kilmar, Garcia, 29 years old, Maryland, has got a wife, American wife, he's got a five-year-old son who has autism. Some people say he's a gang member. Some people say he's a good guy. It's being used by the Democrats and the liberals, the anti-Trump crew, to say that Trump is a tyrant.

Trump doesn't obey this. Trump doesn't obey that. This will unfold. Right now, four other Democratic congressmen are in El Salvador trying to do hot-chat it. And over the weekend, you know, the Senator Chris Van Halton of Maryland went over. But the Trump administration is going to do what it. wants to do. I said to bring him back, let him be adjudicated in the court system because he's already in the system. He had applied for asylum. Okay, he's already there. So I bring him back,

let the system handle him. That's what I would have done had I been president. Okay. But Trump thinks he's a bad guy. Roll the tape. You're talking about Abrago Garcia. Is that the one? Yeah. Is an illegal alien MS-13 gang member in foreign terrorists? This comes out of the State Department and very legitimate sources. I mean, I assume I'm reading, I'm just giving you what they handed to me, but this was supposed to be certified staff. Okay, now, he may well be MS-13. I don't know.

But the government has to lay out its case before the asylum judge, and that's it. That's the way it works. I don't know what's going to happen here. The Trump administration, it's tough. I do know that the hate Trumpers and the media that enables that, loves that, are running with this guy, and they're going to be sorry. Because Garcia, even if he's not MS-13, not a good guy. He's not. And you're making this guy out to be a hero?

Roll tape on CNN. There's a broader pattern of this administration leaning in and trying to get away with as much as possible. And court after court after court across the country, including in some of the cases I'm working on, have to say to them, hey, you are overstepping my orders. We have a president who said he wanted to be a dictator on day one. Well, that's a lie. But this guy, Ison, I mean, he's a Trump hater. He just goes on. And you know what I object to most of all?

You know what Eisen's going to say. You book them, you know. But the anchor at CNN Institute, she knows he didn't say dictator on day one other than that's what he'll do with the car industry. She knows that. Everybody knows that. Yet she just lets it go.

That's irresponsible. I fire her like that. Be fired, boom, immediately. Comes off the set. I said, look, we don't need your services. You've got to be a responsible journalist. when somebody tells an untruth to the CNN audience, got to call them on.

See you. Bye. Have a good life. Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. In my career, I have interviewed seven presidents, covered every major story of the last few decades. But I've never seen an opportunity like this one. President Trump's second term could mirror the economic boom in the 1920s,

a time when unemployment hit 1.8%. Stock soared 265%. ordinary Americans had their shot at real prosperity. That's why I've recorded a special presentation with renowned investment expert Alexander Green called the rebirth of the American dream. Alex will reveal how President Trump plans to slash regulations, cut taxes, bring manufacturing back to America, and unlock the AI-driven tech boom. Plus, you will get details on six specific stocks that could soar

during Trump's presidency. Please visit Trump's American Dream.com to watch our presentation now. Border, lowest in history now. Amazing achievement by the Trump administration. And it is. 673 a day in March. That's it.

Okay, that was down from 5,000 in March 24 under Biden. 5,673, 94% lower because Trump's just, forcing the law. And he got Mexico to put their troops on the northern border. That's why. But apparently illicit drug seizures are not down. What? So some stats, 49 million Americans are involved with substance abuse. 27 million of them drug addicts. That's a big market. 27 million.

okay USA spends 46 billion to fight the drug problem every year 86,000 died from overdoses in the latest stats, 178,000 died from excessive drinking in the latest stats. That's in a year. That's horrendous. I mean, a quarter of a million people biting a dust. Joining us now from Springfield, Missouri is a former special agent of the DEA, drug enforcement. agency. He served in law enforcement 28 years. Brian Townsend, who is an expert on the drug situation. All right, I don't understand. So if you're sealing a border down and illegal migrants, many whom were carrying illegal narcotics with them for the cartels, smuggling him in, why aren't drugs, why are drug seizures actually up from the Biden administration? Thanks, Bill, for having me on.

The problem is these cartels, these criminal networks are, they're highly adaptive, they're very sophisticated, and they're going to respond to our movement on the border and the decrease in apprehensions in a way that makes them successful and unfortunately. Well, it's specific, specific. I mean, if they're nailing down all of the illegal crossings in the night over the river, into the desert, there's a truck, picks them up, takes them to Chicago. If all of that is stopped, how are the heroin, the cocaine, a methamphetamine, the fentanyl, how do you get in? 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 snappy 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. Well, the legal points of entry, the same roads and highways that we would take to go into Mexico are the same ways that they're bringing a lot of the drugs into the United States. They're just, you know, they're trying to overwhelm our resources there with just the high volume of traffic. And, you know, fentanyl is, it doesn't take a lot. to do a lot of damage. I mean, so, you know, multiple small loads is just as effective as, you know, one or two large loads.

And, you know, they'll use tunnels. They'll use, you know, the ocean, Canada. I mean, they're going to adapt. They're going to figure out ways to. All right, I got it, but it should, I'm stunned that the drug importation is up while the migrants have been largely stopped. Now, fentanyl is usually mixed in with heroin or cocaine, and that's how it's sold on a street. The price of drugs on the street is pretty cheap right now throughout the United States, right?

It is. Unfortunately, we haven't seen a rise in our prices. It means they just saturate the market and they continue to do so. They're very good at that. They control the supply chain, the distribution chain. And yeah, we haven't seen a reduction in the prices, unfortunately. The demand is too great. Yeah, the demand is huge and it's not expensive now to buy a lot of drugs,

even though crimes are committed to get the money by the addicts. My thing has always been, you're not going to win the importation war. You're not going to stop the drug importation. It's just too much corruption, too much money, and you're always going to get it in. And if I'm wrong, tell me, because 30 years in this business, you know more than I do. But you can't stop it, particularly when you have almost 30 million Americans wanting to buy it on a daily basis. But the demand side, you can't stop. And that's what they did in Singapore, where I did my thesis at Harvard on.

They stopped the demand side where if you are caught in Singapore, which is a fascist country, with drugs in your bloodstream, you go to mandatory drug rehab, 21 months. So you're gone. You can't buy any drugs anymore. And they took the market away. So there's no drug problem in Singapore. for. You couldn't exactly do that here, but you could replicate some of it. Am I wrong? Yeah, we could absolutely do more here to reduce the demand. We, you know, first of all, let's,

let's have the serious conversation and let's fund it, you know, instead of putting band-aids on this situation. I mean, we have such a small portion of the world's population, yet we consume the majority of drugs. I mean, we need to figure that out. By far. More than anyone else. Right, because we have money. But you say, fund the drug rehab. You got to want drug rehab. Most of these addicts don't want it. And that comes from the rehab studies. They don't want to get off it. They want to be high every day. And you can take them in and try to rehab them and they back out and they want to use. Right? Yeah, unfortunately, we know it does take, you know, numerous attempts through rehab to to break through, right, to help

them. So why am I doing that? I don't want my money doing that. I don't want to spend money on those people. I want to take them, put them someplace for a period of time, all right, isolate them. And then if they do it again, then the period of time gets more. And then they'll stop because they can't get their drugs. I don't want to be paying for 15 rehabs. Am I wrong? Am I mean? I think we need to isolate why are they using drugs. I mean, that's why we do. What do you mean? Why? They're using it because they want to get high. That's why they're using it. They want to get intoxicated. What do I? I don't care whether they had a bad childhood. All right? Well, I mean, well, it may not be our problem, but, but we can be human towards them and, and fund that

problem because we know that that trauma, waste the money, abuse, those things are, you know, if we can, if we can solve the root problems, we can, we can help them. You can't solve the root problem. This is like migration. You can't sign a root problem. The root problem is a poor in Honduras. We're wealthy. That's the root problem. That's Kamala Harris. He was in charge of the root problem. The real problem of taking drugs is weakness, cowardice. These people are weak. They want to get high.

They don't want to live in the real world. That's what drives me crazy because we as a country won't admit it. Last word. I know we look at this as a moral failing, but I think there's more than this than that. And the stigma and the way that we treat folks because of this, you know, make it difficult

for them to get treatment. And I think if we look at this, a little differently. Yeah, we might spend a little more money on the front end, but I think on the back end we're going to be one is saving people and number two is ultimately saving money. All right. Resources. Well, you and I have a gentleman's disagreement

and you talk about stigma? What about the stigma of these people mugging some old lady going to the bodega trying to get some food? You know, is that okay? Yeah, no, absolutely. What about ruining the city of San Francisco? What about shooting up heroin in your neck in front of children?

What about all that? Does they always feel sorry for them? I'll tell you what, I'm in charge of this, Mr. Townsend. You give me six months. I'll cut it by half. But these people aren't going to like what happens to them. I'm not going to be mean to them, not going to abuse them. They're not going to be isolated.

And that is the only way to do it. We appreciate your time very much. Okay. More stock market turbulence today. I talked with President Trump yesterday. Mr. Sunday, he says reliefs on away, good things are going to happen. I don't reply because I don't know, I wish I did. I wish I had that crystal ball.

I talked to my stockbroker today and I said, you know, I get into feeling that maybe this is bottomed out here because we're down, what, 15%, 10, 12, 15%, and you know, is there any upside or we should be looking at it. He has no blanket idea. And I got this guy for 40 years. Nobody knows. But one thing Donald Trump does know, he doesn't get this under control soon. It's over. His legacy is done. And that is true. Now, you're never going to get an accurate picture on what's going on economically in this country because the media hates Trump. But Redfin, which is a real estate brokerage company, they did a survey about whether people are pausing big purchases than they are. So does President Trump's terror policy affect your

timeline for making a major purchase? 17% say no. 56% say yes. Ooh, that's recession time. We've got to get past this tariff thing pretty fat because that's a big number. So if you're going to buy a house or a car, people go, maybe not now. Let's see how this goes. The longer that goes, smart life. So where I live in Long Island, gas price is down 20%. I don't see that report at anyplace.

I know, because I'm pumping the gas in the car. That's pretty good. Less than 100 days of Donald Trump, my gas bills down 20%. Thank you. And it's because he took the regulations off, and they're pumping gas like crazy. Nationwide, it's down 15%. Again, media doesn't report it. But here's the problem.

Yes, the corporate media, all of it is declining. And you take Donald Trump away from Fox News. which is 100% relying on the president now. Take that out, Fox News is in dire trouble because they're not reporting things that really are important to your life. But the consumer, the news consumer, doesn't care. I'm seeing it more and more and more and more.

They don't seek information about what's really happening. There are some good things as far as driving prices of gas and food in particular down. With this tariff thing, it's got to get clarified. Okay, RFK assassination files released. Now, I wrote a book called Killing the Mob, a big best seller, number one. In killing the mob, we discussed Robert Kennedy Jr.'s assassination because he was after the mob. He destroyed RFK.

not R.K. Jr., Robert Kennedy destroyed the mob. He was unbelievable. And they wanted to kill him. And we looked into the assassination. Part of that presentation, his son, R.K. Jr., I interviewed him for the book. And he told me, look, that was a conspiracy. Sir Hans, Sir Hand didn't do it. And I went, no. But I put RFK Jr.'s comments in the book, to be fair. All right. The assassination files released Friday. Here is the quote from Saran Saran Saran, what he wrote down himself, the assassin.

Quote, RFK must be disposed of like his brother was. My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession. Okay? That was before he assassinated the man. And you're going to tell me he didn't do it? Okay, this day in history, April 21st, 1986, the most watched syndicated special in the American history, okay, on television, the most watched special. 30 million viewers, watch this special today, 39 years ago. What was it?

Heraldo Al Capone's vault. Here's how Geraldo set it up go. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to the old Lexington Hotel, where 60 years ago, during the height of the roaring 20s and prohibition, this once lavish building belonged or was the headquarters for the notorious gangster Al Capone. I was live, and for the next 110 minutes, Harold obloviated about Al Capone and what he did and the vault in the hotel and all of that. 110 minutes obloviated.

Then the suspense stopped. Go. At least up to now that we've struck out with the vault, I'm disappointed about that, as I'm sure you are. This is one time in my life that pot of gold would have been a lot more fun than chasing the rainbows. Nothing. They found nothing. Now, who is the winner? Heraldo!

He got paid a bloody fortune for doing it and became even more famous. And it wasn't his fault because they didn't know it was in a ball. All right, it was supposed to be, oh, I won't find out now. All right, the Heraldo Al Capone special happened 39 years ago today. Take a quick break. We'll be back with a final thought you're going to like. help your life and that'll be after these messages all right final thought of the day Easter Sunday there was a problem I had to solve and it was an important problem

and it was very complicated it is very complicated so I couldn't solve it and I'm good at that really good at it I couldn't solve it I'm not going to tell you what it is because that's not the point of this final thought. But I spent a lot of time on Easter Sunday rolling this around, trying to get some kind of perspective to how to make this situation better. I just couldn't. I just could not find the pathway. So what I decided to do was nothing.

Okay, that is the Eastern Asian way. way when people who practice Buddhism, believe in Confucius, Shinto, when they come up against something that is not going to get better in the short term, they don't do anything. And then naturally things involved. That's what I decided to do. But it kills me to do it because I'm type A, I can solve the problem. come to me all the time. I feel like Don Corleone sometimes. You know, I have this problem. And 90% of the time I can solve that problem or give them. That's why we have the concierge

membership. You know, give them some guidance. This one I couldn't do. But I know other things are going to happen that will bring me back into a solution. In the meantime, however, I have to protect somebody who's in harms. way because of this problem. I can't solve the problem, but I have to protect the person who may get hurt. There I came up with the solution. Okay? Now, I'm going to be a little vague because I have to be. But if somebody is going to get hurt, then you put the problem aside that you can't solve and you build a firewall to help the person who's in jeopardy. And I did it. That took me five hours yesterday on Easter, but it was worth it. And that's the final thought of the day.

We Americans are an impatient people. We went, get those tariffs right now. Get that stock it up right now. Sometimes you've got to let it ride. But you can always provide protection. Sometimes it isn't easy. That is the final thought. We thank you very much for watching and listening to the No Spin News. I'm Bill O'Reilly. We will see you again tomorrow.