Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - What Happened in Venezuela and Was the CIA Involved?, Colombia’s President Responds to Trump’s Threats & Ken Silverstein Weighs in on Media Deception

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, January 6, 2026. Stand Up for Your Country.  Talking Points Memo: Bill continues his analysis of Venezuela, asking whether the military withheld protection from Maduro as part of a deal with the CIA. A look at how Colombian President Gustavo Petro is taunting Donald Trump. Do you approve or disapprove of the U.S. having sent its military forces into Venezuela? Bill examines the latest polling. Investigative reporter and former Associated Press correspondent Ken Silverstein joins the No Spin News to discuss whether the AP and other media outlets are shading coverage due to a dislike of Trump, and how it affects the public’s worldview. Why War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced unprecedented administrative action against Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Final Thought: Bill gives an update on his WABC commentary.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to the No Spin News, Tuesday, January 6, 2012, stand up for your country. Well, it's a good day for us. Once again, we were far ahead of the repertorial pack in telling you about what was happening in Venezuela from Saturday, night onward. And when I go out there and say things, report things, analyze things that turn out to be true, that is a good thing. And that's why you're here. So we are an independent news agency, as you know. We do not do podcasts. We do actual reporting in a broadcast linear fashion. And we have an amazing amount now of people delivering what I say and do.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about true social that it just exploded later on the broadcast. Anyway, what am I talking about specifically? That is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. Okay, so I get a letter from a concierge member in California. Now, we keep the identity of concierge members private. That's one of our services to them. It's private line to me. You have a question.

You have a comment. have a situation you need help with. We are there for you. Concierge program on Bill O'Reilly.com. So this guy writes, O'Reilly, I heard you say something like the Venezuelan military did not protect Maduro because they had a deal with the CIA

to give them up to Delta Forces. What was your source for this information? I cannot find any mention of this anywhere. And you will not find any mention of it. Now, my source for the information is anonymous, so I did not report it as fact. I used it in my opinion analysis on News Nation Saturday night. Roll it.

So the CIA pinpointed where Maduro was that the army would not help him. His own army didn't help him. His own police force didn't help him. Okay, nobody helped him. Delta Force went in. the CIA guy said, there he is, go get him, they got him, and now he's walking around with a silly hat in Brooklyn. Okay, so the concierge member goes,

well, how can you say that if you're not going to source it? And again, the sources are all anonymous, and I don't report anonymous stuff as fact. Which separates me, but I can incorporate it into my opinion analysis. All right. So today, what happens? the Wall Street Journal pops an article that says, quote, late last year, the CIA cultivated a source within Maduro's inner circle who provided information about his whereabouts.

Wall Street General previously reported that. The spy agencies closed tracking Maduro's location, which leveraged other surveillance elements, including stealth drones, allowed the Army's Delta Force to nab him and his wife during the raid. People are familiar with the operation said, maybe they're the same sources as I have. But what the Wall Street Journal didn't report is that the CIA made a deal with the Venezuelan Army. Because you cannot have a foreign army, USA, drop into a military compound where the president of a country is residing, grab that guy, take him out of the country without one single

gunshot fired. That is impossible. I'm not on the level of Sherlock Holmes, but I have some deductive reasoning powers. And I know a deal was made. And there are other deals have been made. And I'll tell you about them as they unfold. But the CIA, which largely resides in the American embassy,

there is no American ambassador to Venezuela, by the way. That has not been, and nobody's been. confirm CIA is run in that country now the Venezuelan military has to go along with it and that's why Maduro is in Brooklyn New York and he'll never get out of prison this guy okay he's there he's gonna get 40 years just like Noriega so I'm telling you all of this because when I say something I'm very very precise about whether it is, I'm reporting a fact or I'm reporting an opinion. And when somebody tells me something, and I'm on a phone all the time, all the time,

with sources in our government, foreign governments, whatever, and they need to be protected, I protect them. And I won't tell you it's fact, okay? Like most of the others will. They'll use anonymous sources as facts. I don't. Okay? And that's why you're here.

And I don't get it wrong. I can't remember the last time we had to correct the story but doing this nine years now on independent news agency and before that, more than 20 years on a Fox News channel. Maybe I corrected three stories

because we are very, very, very disciplined in what we put out there. But my service to you is if I say it, you can trust it. Trust is earned. And that is the memo. Now, the

Trump haters, the dissenters, which is most of the media, they don't know what to do, okay, because the raid was successful. Maduro's out, and that's better for the people who've met Venezuela, but now they see it upon a really absurd situation. Now, a guy named Rick Stangle, you see, I think the editor in Newsweek, veteran journalist. He works for MS. And he says, pay to say bad things about Donald Trump. When you sign on with MS, that's the deal. We'll pay you money. You say bad things about Trump. Here's what Stangles' latest is on Venezuela. Go. I'm going to give you a sentence that never came out of Donald Trump's mouth, which is, I want a really comprehensive airtight plan for how we're going to govern Venezuela after we

deposed Maduro. Well, he doesn't have an really airtight plan because how would you know that? The Trump administration didn't know that Delta Force would go in and get Maduro as cleanly as it did. They hoped they had things lined up. How would you know? And even if the president has a plan in his mind, that plan is going to be difficult to execute. It's foreign country. It's not easy. And why on earth, and Stingle knows this, that's why I don't have any respect for him,

you wouldn't tell the world and your adversaries what you're going to do until you do it. I mean, that's the absurdity of, oh, Trump didn't consult with Congress about the rape. Because it couldn't have been a raid then. Once you go in and tell the world, hey, we're going to get Maduro, then it goes up in flames. Same thing with the bombing of Iran. You can't say, we're going to bomb Iran on Sunday. You got anti-aircraft back, you know, come on, you're putting U.S. service people at risk. These people know this, but they don't care.

They're lying to you. You know, an airtight plan. Moron? But he isn't a moron. Stangle knows. But he's, ah, you know. And if you know any history, which most. television pundits don't. We did the same thing in Vietnam, El Salvador, we, the United States.

CIA goes in to a troublesome country, a country that's hurting America, and they destabilize a country. But going on, this is World War II, OAS, OAS. Okay? And that morphed into the CIA. It's ridiculous. All right. Now we have the neighboring country, Colombia, which is just as problematic as Venezuela. Colombia's population, about 55 million. Venezuela is about 29 million. And Colombia is a whole different animal than Venezuela. Venezuela is fairly manageable.

We have big time CIA presence in Colombia and Bogota and maybe in other cities. And I've reported, as you know, from both Venezuela and from Colombia. I can't say I'm an expert. but I know the turf. And the guy who's running Columbia was elected in 2022. I think it was a fair election. His name is Gustavo Petro. However, he's been accused of being bribed

by the Colombian drug cartels. And I write about that in my book, Confronting Evil. And I don't think Petro is, he'd probably deny it, But everybody in Colombia knows that Petro is a Marxist. He was in a group called M19 as a guerrilla fighter. Those are Marxists. And they all know that he's taken a very light hand toward the Columbia drug merchants. So, you know, now the United States has designated Petro as being involved with the narco-terrorism.

some coming out of Colombia, but it has not been an executive order signed by President Trump. That's a big difference. If you see President Trump sign an executive order designating Petro and linking him to a cartel in Colombia that is designated a terror operation, then Petro's got to worry. However, this is not going to be like Venezuela if they go in after Petro because Petro's army he would fight for him. There would be blood. So I don't think it's going to happen. They'll probably they, being the Trump administration, strangle him economically, already have cut off a lot of aid. That's what I think is going to happen there. Ampetro himself knows that, knows that his army

isn't going to sell him out like Maduro's army did, and he's taunting Trump. I don't think that's a good strategy, but hey, El Exeante. You know? All right, poll on Venezuela. Now, keep in mind of most Americans to know nothing about it. So this is Washington Post. First question, do you approve or disprove of the USA having some military forces into Venezuela or capture Maduro? Proved 40, disprove 42, unsure 18. Political party, 74% of Republicans approved.

13% of Democrats, 34% of independence. Next question was it appropriate for President Trump to order the operation on his own? Should he be consulted with Congress. Appropriate on his own, 37, Congress 63. Now, that's because people don't understand. You can't do covert operations with congressional debate underway. Okay, because the media doesn't really explain that. All right, next question.

Do you think the United States should or should not put Maduro on trial for drug trafficking? Should 50, should not 14? Unsure 36. And that's again, if you're unsure, that's an honest answer, and you don't know. Okay. But I can tell you without any doubt at all, Maduro will be convicted and he will get what Noriega got. The indictment against him and his wife is fairly extensive. Why? Because they got the DEA and CIA all over Venezuela. It means, come on. All right. Now, the Associated Press is part of the problem in the United States right now. because it hates Trump. It hated me.

Probably still does, all right, because I wasn't a liberal commentator. And for years, Associated Press, nasty things about me, never said anything good, even though I was a dominant anchorman in a country, never. So they hate Trump. And they filed a report about Venezuela. It was filed by a White House reporter

for the associate press named Amir, Madhoney, Amir Madhoney, January 3rd, quote, while there are no visible signs of a U.S. presence on the ground of Caracas, Trump was demonstrating hootspah.

That's become a trademark of his foreign policy approach. It's one marked by grand confidence that his will on the international stage is in movable force. Now, this is in a news report, not a commentary. So if Mr. Madhany wanted to write a

commentary, that's fine. No problem. But a news report with the word Hootspah and all this other business about, you know, grand, hey, what are you a psychiatrist? This is what the AP does all the time. And that wire service goes out to all the newspapers all over the world. And people just read this stuff. They don't know the slant that is built into the AP's coverage of Donald Trump. Joining South in Washington, D.C. is a former Associated Press correspondent in South America. He's been around a long time. Ken Silverstein, he now is an independent investigative reporter. So am I making any mistakes in my analysis, Mr. Silverstein, first up?

Well, on Venezuela, spot on. And I have reported from Venezuela numerous times since going back to 1990 and Colombia, too. I mean, the U.S. government, the CIA, clearly cut a deal, not just with the Army, but with Delsey Rodriguez, who is, you know, going out and saying, you know, I mean, we'll never stand for this. Let me interrupt you from mine. The deal with Delci, Rosalie. Rodriguez, the vice president under Maduro, was made after the snatch, not before. No, no, no, no, no way. No, no, no.

Trust me on this, Kent. She had no blank and clue because if she did, she would have blown a whistle. And she did not because you didn't know. Do you deal with the Army generals who control the country, as you know, they control it when you were there when I was there? Okay, they got the guns. Okay, it was made before the snatch. Go ahead. Yeah, no. Well, I disagree.

Okay. Because, I mean, there's no question that she doesn't have the authority to, and the deal had to be approved by the head of the Army and the head of the interior ministry who controls the guns, as you said. But Dulce has a cell phone and could have blown a whistle on any raid before it happened, and that's why she did not know. Go ahead. So anyway, I think it was certainly a deal cut.

There's no question about it. I mean, you know, you... So why didn't the Associated Press report that? Well, I guess... You know it, I know it, I know it, I know it. All the veteran reporters in the country had to know it, or you have to resign from your status of a veteran reporter. What in the AP reported?

I just, I absolutely think that mainstream media, with the exception of Fox News and, you know, Newsmax and, you know. Right, the right wing people, right. The right thing, who are favorable to Trump for the most part. There's no question the media has a bias against Trump, the mainstream media, the elite media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS News, AP. I mean, that's obvious. It was obvious. I wrote an article in 2016 before the election, before the presidential election, shortly before the election which Trump won, which, you know, I'm, my politically, you and I probably disagree on most things. We will agree on some stuff. But I'm on the left, but I worked for the New York Observer, which was owned by Jared Kushner. And I was hired. I was

given a column because I was considered to be like an honest lefty, which I think I am because I will go after the, if I get a good story, I'll go after whoever it is. And, but it was obvious that, you know, the media has always treated Trump unfairly. And I have to say, I guess I'm reluctant to say why the AP didn't do anything because I, maybe somebody else wrote an article that talked about a deal. Not it and we researched it. Okay. Well, but here's my point. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds because the folks are not in our industry. They don't do what we do. But the Associated Press is really the far and away the strongest wire service in the world. It goes out

everywhere, okay, and they cannot stop, all right, with their anti-Trump coverage. Now, they do it a number of ways. They don't report stories, as we just demonstrated. If you and I know what happened, and I believe you did too, because I know your background, all right? It's obvious, yeah. They obviously knew what happened, but they wouldn't report it. That, to me, is sinful. That's deception. That's not, that's hurting the American people. It's hurting the people who rely on these information coming out of the Associated Press. It's fundamental information that you cannot understand what's happening in Venezuela or what happened with the raid to get Maduro without knowing that.

If they didn't report that, if they haven't, and I trust you that you search for it and didn't find it, I haven't, which is why I was reluctant to say too much about this one guy. But, you know, that's a terrible omission. I mean, it's... Right, and then the guy, the White House correspondent concentrates on hoodspah, putting his own opinion in there. And again, fine if he's a commentator, but he's a White House correspondent with the douche you doing.

And so what I want to know from you is, because you work for these people, and it's a whole different outfit now than it was when you were there. Do they know how dishonest they are? Do you think? I don't think they do, and I don't think probably Stengel, you said he knows who's lying. I doubt it because, and this is a question that, you know, we will never be able to answer, really, unless, you know, Stengel sends an email to somebody and says, I get paid to lie. Because it's hard to know.

But I think the elite media is, you know, again, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the CBS, CNN, they are unbearable because they are so sure they're right. They don't do any recording. I was in Venezuela covering an election 20 years ago or 25 years ago. And all of the reporters that came down, all they do is they, you know, they're not stupid. You're right. They're not stupid. They're the cream of the country. They're Ivy League, you know, and they're, you know, I'm sorry. I don't know if you went to an Ivy League school, but you get your, it makes you dumb because it teaches you that you people come out thinking that they really are smarter than everybody else.

No, I know it. There's an arrogance that, and I did go to Harvard, but. I got around that. I took a shot, a vaccination against it. Here's my last question for you. Okay, so if we are in a country that is dependent on a free flow of information, Ken, we are dependent on it. As I said, the regular folks, they don't know Maduro, they don't know what's happening,

they don't know why Trump did what he did, they hear and they're reading and they're not getting the story. I think the younger brigade of reporters aren't smart enough. They don't know what happened in Vietnam in 1964. They don't know the CIA was running South Vietnam. They don't know the CIA deposed the people over there. They don't know anything. And yet they're hired by these outfits to do important reporting. But if the American people can't get the information,

isn't they going to damage our country severely pretty soon? I mean, it probably, it already has, I think. It's, you know, the media is, people, with journalists, you know, if you call, I write about the press because I think the press is an important, powerful institution, as powerful as Congress, as powerful as the White House. It plays an incredible, incredibly important role in shaping the narrative on every story. And, but, you know, you can't call reporters. They don't talk to you, they don't talk to you because they're, you know, they're arrogant, and it's already damaged the country. Yeah, but I see much worse stuff ahead.

You're right. It has damaged the country. And if you compare the Biden coverage with the Trump coverage, I mean, it's just crazy. All right, Ken, thanks very much. We appreciate your voice. Thanks for being a stand-up guy on coming on. Pete Higsev. Okay, you know that I'm not a big fan of his, but the Delta Force operation in Venezuela,

was magnificent. And the Secretary of Ward deserves credit for that, okay, and it's Pentagon planners. So you've got to be honest. So Hexeth is locked in a brutal feud with Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. And the genesis of the feud is a Kelly for some unknown reason. It was a foolish move on his part when public to tell military members not to obey, quote, unquote, unlawful orders. Well, everybody, every military person knows that. So if you're in the field and your commander says, shoot those civilians down, you don't do it. Everybody knows that.

What Kelly was doing was injecting politics into the order situation. So if you don't like the order, don't obey it. Here's what Kelly said initially. Go. This administration is pitting our uniform military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath.

And protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. Now, that's just absurd because there's a politically based commentary by the senator. And I said at the time, I didn't like it, but I wouldn't sanction him. I have changed my mind now on that. So Kelly is in a reserve, so he's a Navy captain, and he gets a pension.

gets a pension, all right? And HECSeth is going to try to bust him in rank and to bust his pension, to punish Kelly for what he said. So in the beginning, I went, I don't know if we do that. Kelly has got a pretty distinguished record of service to this country. But now Kelly is being so absurd, so irresponsible that if I'm commander chief, if I'm the president and this guy is doing this, okay, I'm busting them. So Kelly goes, of course, on MS, Rachel Matta. Go. Well, I'm surprised that they're continuing down this path and taking, you know, these steps to try to silence me, silence other members of Congress, silence retired members of the military, former service members, really silence the American people. I mean, this isn't totally only about me.

This is about all of us. No, it's not. This is about you and your capacity of a military captain telling military members not to obey orders they don't like. That's what it's about. Not about me. It's about you and you're being responsible, irresponsible. Capital I. Then Kelly gets personal.

Here's what he posted on X. Quote, Donald Trump, he deferred the draft five times because he had bones first, Look, not everyone is to serve in the military, I get that. But when you're going to question my patriotism and lecture me about duty to the country and threaten me with a court marshal, four generations of service to this country earns me the right to speak. Five deferments earns nothing. That's a personal attack. It's a personal attack on the commander-in-chief.

It's another reason. Oh, out of here, gone. You got to. You have to. You don't have a military. You can't have a guy like. Kelly run around doing this. So I hope he gets busted.

Now, there may be lawsuits in civil court, but it should be tried a military court. Let's go to Minnesota, which is probably the most screwed up state of union right now. I'm bypassing California. So ICE has launched a big campaign there to round up. They're targeting 1,500 deportations in Minnesota. Now, a bunch of ICE agents try to get hotel accommodations because they need to stay somewhere at the Hampton Inn in about 25 miles from Minneapolis. Okay?

And the Hampton Inn said, no, we're not taking your reservation. Now, the Hampton Inn is owned by Hilton. And I used to put out Department of Homeland Security, hey, there won't book ICE agents. So the hell is breaking loose. So the upshot that the story is that Hilton is firing the Hampton Inn. It says, quote, this is the Hilton hotel chain. The independent hotel owner assured us they had fixed a problem and published a message confirming this. Recent video clearly raises concerns that they are not meeting our standards and values as such we are taking immediate action to remove this hotel from our systems.

So Hilton is booting out this Hampton Inn. Good. Good. You know, if you're going to do that, everybody should know about it. Walt, as you know, is out because he presided over that massive billion-dollar fraud. Did nothing about it. Neither did the Attorney General Keith Ellison look the other way. I had to know what's going on.

I had to know. So Amy Klobuchar, the senator, will probably be the next governor of Minnesota. She's going to step into that breach. All right. Minnesota is a screwed up state. Sorry, I love the state. Rainy Lake, you know, boundary waters, all of that. Every time I go to Minneapolis, St. Paul, I have a good time.

Screwed up. They ruined it. Ice workforce. So they launched a $10 million. I'm not sure if that's a $1 million. $100 million, I'm sorry, $100 million recruitment push, it seemed to be a bit excessive. You're trying to cut down a debt here, $100 million to recruit ICE agents,

and they've been successful, 120% increase going from 10,000 ice to 22,000 this year under President Trump. So just so you know, plenty ice agents. Okay, flu everywhere. top states um i got my flu shot by the way i'm not paranoid vaccine person all right states with very high flu activity are main new hampshire new york new jersey massachusetts connecticut ohio tennessee north carolina michigan south carolina georgia alabama louisiana missouri new mexico colorado idaho minnesota um they have very this is quite uh according to cdc okay there it is

So I told my son, who's in school, you better get a flu shot. He's been procrastinating. Okay? And so today I said, look, if you get the flu, nobody's going to help you. Because I'm the only one to help you anyway. Okay? And nobody's going to come in to your dwelling at school and nurse you when you have the flu. They're going to be there, suffering, alone.

Get the flu shot. We'll be back in a moment with final thought. All right, final thought. So I'm overworked. My own kids are yelling at me, and that's true. They're yelling at me, I go, hey, you're an old guy. Why are you working 60 hours a week? I don't have an answer for that other than I think I'm doing a service,

but I got to cut back. And I am going to cut back. I already have. So on WABC, our flagship radio station, and we love that. They were carrying my program 9 to 10, but I was doing fresh material for them in that hour. I can't do it anymore. So I've handed the hour off to Joe Conchie, you know Joe, talented broadcaster. So he's going to take the 9 to 10.

But I'm still going to do the morning commentary with Sid Rosenberg and the noon commentary on WABC. So I can do those because they're not quite as involved as a nighttime commentary. All right. So WABC and I will continue along, but I'll have to do what I usually do for them without the 9 o'clock hour. But I want everybody to know that I'm going to continue doing this, this is our mainstream broadcast, and I have to do that. I told my kids that. I said, look, you take my voice out of the equation and then what do you got all the years that i've been reporting 51 they disappear and i'm honest i'm going to tell you the truth i don't care where the truth lies so i'm gone and then what so i have a responsibility that i'm going to continue to do

but i'm shaving off you know i don't know whether i'm going to write any more books other than confronting america it's hard to write these books particularly when you're working full time i'm doing it now you know about 60% done with it but it's hard and i'm not whining i'm well paid but i don't need the money i shouldn't say that the money that i accumulate now go all goes to charity okay for the foundation so i'm you know i'm pleased to have it anyway that is the final thought of the day i'll be around uh in our very aggressive form but we'll back around the edges. And thank you for watching No Spin News tonight. We will see you again tomorrow.