Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News and Analysis - Will Putin Accept a Peace Deal?, Trump to Meet Xi in China, Americans Divided on Military Action in Venezuela & Talmage Boston on the History of Thanksgiving

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, November 25, 2025. Stand Up for Your Country.  Talking Points Memo: It’s been reported that Ukraine has agreed to a peace deal, but will Putin accept it?  Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to meet in China next April. Do you favor or oppose the U.S. taking military action in Venezuela? Bill reviews the latest polling. The latest on Senator Mark Kelly as he faces potential charges from the War Department. Talmage Boston, presidential historian and author, joins the No Spin News to discuss how Thanksgiving became an annual national tradition during Lincoln’s presidency. Final Thought: Bill's thanksgiving traditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to the No Spin News for Tuesday, November 25, 2025. Stand up for your country. Holiday Madness is descending. Have you noticed, maybe it's me, but I don't think so. There's more exuberance this year. around Thanksgiving, and I know that'll carry over to Christmas. And I've been watching it, you know, Thanksgiving is always a good holiday, but it's a little understated.

Not this year. People are really looking forward to this holiday, and it's because, in my opinion, they're exhausted. Folks are exhausted in this country by the rapid changes and by the challenges in the challenges in the grocery stores everywhere else pay more money and they're worried a lot people worried about stuff and so when you get a relief mechanism which is what Thanksgiving and Christmas are in addition to being very worthy days now people are really embracing it that's a good thing so we got a whole bunch of stuff we're

going to tell you about which I think will make your Thanksgiving better I hope it will and we will be around okay this weekend it's primarily me I'm giving everybody off but I'll be around all right anything happens I'll be on it tweeting you know we do and we'll have a new column on Sunday and all of that talking points memo is the latest in the Ukraine war don't get overly optimistic here all right because Putin. One guy can do it. But U.S. delegation led by Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Tolbert, who I have never heard of. He's the spokesman for the U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.

They're over in Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf, United Arab Emirates. And they're talking to the Russians and the Ukrainians. And the Russian, it's kind of shadowy. But according to a dispatch today, Ukraine has agreed to a peace deal. Now, you remember the hysteria over the weekend, by the press, that this deal is terrible, blah, blah, blah. And it was all bull, as we reported yesterday. The deal was not even close to being formalized, and it was just a first draft.

But again, I'm not sure about all of this. So last night, Putin killed six more people in Kyiv, rockets, drones, the usual. And Putin knew about this conversation with Ukraine, probably knew that Ukrainians were going to apparently agree to a peace deal. Now, it's been going on for four years. Ukraine has lost 100,000 soldiers killed, about 300,000 wounded, 53,000 Ukrainian civilians dead, thank you, Vlad Putin, I'm sorry, 53,000 civilian Ukrainian casualties in total, 14-5 dead. And 7 million Ukrainians have left the country, including hundreds of thousands of men of drafts, There is a draft in Ukraine. They don't want to fight. Now on the Russian side, about a million

casualties. We can't really get exact figures because there's no free press over there, but it's bad. And estimated cost of the war to Russia approaching two trillion dollars, and they don't have that money. Okay, I mean, it's not like they have a Treasury Department like we do. They get money from oil sales and others, but $2 trillion, four years, for what? Nothing. But Ukraine is very weak, and we said this yesterday. So last night I went on News Nation, and I reiterated it to their audience. Go. Zalinski is very weak now, and for the following reasons. Number one, get 200,000 Ukrainian men are AWOL from the draft. Doesn't have enough soldiers. The Ukrainians are now paying mercenaries to do the fighting. Number two, there's a huge

scandal brewing. Three of Zelensky's very close advisors are suspected of taking millions of dollars in bribes from a nuclear energy concern in Ukraine, all right? Nuclear power. And the third one is that the Ukrainian army cannot get a foot and hold of ground. It's a hundred percent defense of war. Okay, so you're dealing with something here where Zelensky is kind of desperate. And that's why he's going to make the deal. If he makes, again, very cautious. But Putin doesn't accept the deal.

and Putin will probably jack everybody around like you always does. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, and then on Thanksgiving, you'll blow the hell out of him, whoever can do. So I don't know one way or the other, but I want everybody's expectations to be realistic, including the President of the United States. Well, I've not talked to for a while now, all right? I expect I will talk to him in the next few days. I hope so, because we have a lot to talk about. But Putin is the problem. There's no doubt about it.

One man. One man. All of that, millions of people. Dead, wounded, displaced. One man. That's why I put him on confronting evil to cover. That's why he's there. People go, oh, well, Putin, is he that bad to be with Hitler and Mao and the eye?

Yeah. Yeah, he is. This guy. I got to tell you, when I hear people praising him or sympathizing with him, over. Over. For me, that means the person is not smart enough to engage me in conversation. Okay? And that's a low bar.

I'll talk to pretty much anybody. So, summing up, White House says, Ukraine will sign off on a peace deal that they have propose. Talks will continue in Abu Dhabi. Let's pray it happens. And I use that word pray literally because I do believe that there is a deity that looks out because this has got to stop. But if Putin doesn't stop it, every resource that we have, we being the United States and NATO, got to be used to destroy the man. It's simple as that. enough. And that's a memo. Let's go to China. So they had a phone call. She and Trump yesterday. I got a decent relationship. You know, it's not close. Trump at one time thought he had a

fairly close relationship with Putin. Of course, that did not turn out to be true. She and a business relationship. So as I reported in September, the president will be going to China, Beijing in April. Okay, good. And that was what I discussed with the Chinese officials when I was there in May of this year. I discussed the president's impending visit. And I'm glad it's happening. I had nothing to do with it formally, but I was telling him this is what you've got to do to get them over here.

And one of the things was fentanyl. You've got to get out of that business. And then she's, if the meeting goes well, he'll come to the USA. Good. All that, we need to have China back away from Putin, number one, and have an economic arrangement with the United States that benefits the whole world. That's what we need. Okay, whether you like China and not, no, no, no, no, no. Chinese are still fixated on Taiwan.

And the Japanese are given to Chinese trouble. which I kind of like, because anything that keeps Beijing off balance is good for us. All right, so that's happening. Back home. Now, Trump is pardoning a turkey today. Their name, two of them, waddle and gobble. The turkeys actually stayed at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel before they were pardoned. Now, I stay at the Willard in a Continental Hotel because Lincoln stayed there and U.S. Grant got drunk there.

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by shipping our country's most iconic foods from legendary restaurants straight to your door anywhere in the USA. I just had the main lobster roll and the deep dish pizza. Felt like a celebration. It was good. Now, this Thanksgiving, I am going to do a little pecan pie, I think, and a holiday roast. Everybody's going to be able to enjoy both of those things. Go Belli's reliable shipping make sharing these memorable moments easy and joyful so if you are looking for the perfect holiday gift or want to impress your friends and family with an epic thanksgiving please go to goldbelly dot com get 20% off your first order with promo code bill that's goldbelly

dot com code bill 20% off your first order great deal okay so i like that history so i stayed there and the turkeys stayed there so they're pardoned it's the fifth turkey pardon for president trump now there is no truth of the rumor that uh senator kelly from arizona wanted to be in that pardon crew with the turkeys that is not true okay um Now, this is, I guess it's cute, but it's meaningless. But come on, I'm not going to be a grinch here. Now, the turkey pardon dates back to Abraham Lincoln's son, who asked his father to spare a pet turkey

because they did have Thanksgiving during the Lincoln administration. We'll get to that in a moment. Fascinating. Then the Trumps get on Air Force One. They fly down at Palm Beach, about 6 p.m. Eastern time. He's going to have to work down there. He'll play a little golf and have a little meal, but Venezuela, pretty big. So the new poll out from CBS, U.Gov, Soso poll, about Venezuela.

First question. As the Trump administration clearly explained, the U.S. position on military action in Venezuela. Yes, 24%, no, 76%. I think that's accurate. More explanation would be bad, I think. Second question, is Venezuela a threat to U.S. security, major threat 13, minor threat 48? That brings us up to 61, not a threat 39. Again, that's a pretty good sampling. Just the drugs alone coming from Venezuela, this country, and the gangs, is a threat. Third, do you favor oppose U.S. taking military action in Venezuela?

Favor 30, oppose 70. That's what the action is. You know, that's a bogus question, because we don't know what they're talking about. Final question, do you approve or disapprover using military force attack? Boat suspected of bringing narcotics into the USA. approve 53, disapproved 47. Interesting. That's very interesting. Now, my prediction is, and I could be very, very wrong on this. It's what I'm hearing. Can't report it is fact. That the dictator Maduro, who is a drug merchant, enriching himself, he's going to get out of there. They're going to

make a deal, move him out someplace, maybe Spain, and he'll let him take his money. But he'll be gone. I think a good chance that'll happen. I don't know the time frame. Got it on tape. Meantime, President Trump's got to deal with some angry Republicans while he's down in Ma Aalago. He put forth that he wants to extend Obamacare subsidies for two years because the president really doesn't care about this. Let's be honest, all right?

Throw it down the road two years. A lot of Republicans, it's costing the government way too much money, and we're not going to sign on to that. So the president pulled back his suggestion of a two-year extension. At the same time, Republicans are going, we can't give people $2,000. in tariff money. Roll that tape.

We can't afford it. I wish you're in a position to return the American public their money, but we're not. Again, we'll have at least a $2 trillion deficit this year. Again, that compares to prior to the pandemic, President Trump had deficits. He's running about $800 billion.

Obama, his last four years, $550 billion a year. Now we're $2 trillion. Completely unacceptable. Yeah, you don't have trouble with all those. government spending by the conservative Republican ranks in both the House and the Senate. I have trouble.

I don't know if enough Republicans are going to rebel, but the president isn't a very, you know, you can see how hard that job is. You know, I want their debt to be paid down. It's $37 trillion. If you can pay $2 trillion off like that, you've got to do it. But at the same time, I do feel that American workers really need a break. I would probably do tax credits on that rather than cash. All right. Senator Mark Kelly, I mentioned him in the Turkey thing.

That was a jest for all you people who are looking to smear me on the Internet. So now the War Department, which used to be the Defense Department, led by Pete Hague. says, is investigating Senator Kelly for demoralizing the troops or something. Because Kelly said, you don't have to pay unlawful orders, but Kelly didn't have any examples of an unlawful order during the Trump administration, so it was just ridiculous. I wrote a column called The Stunt Factor. This was a stunt. If you go to Bill O'Reilly.com, I'll lay it all out there for you, but Kelly is being investigated now. And I spoke about this on News Nation. Go.

Do you agree Pete Higgs's statement that we're going to maybe recall Kelly and put him on court marshal as a stunt? Hague's death is following orders. Okay. So is that a stunt by Trump? What are you doing? No. Trump's a commander-in-chief. He orders the Secretary of War to look into a situation that the commander-in-chief is to serve by, chain of command. That's what happens. That's what happens. If you disturb the commander-in-chief and he believes you're being seditious, undermining the country by encouraging the military to practice anarchy, which is exactly what Kelly did, it's exactly what he did. And the commander-in-chie can say to his

war secretary, investigate this. I would. Now, do I think it's going anywhere? No, I don't. Kelly is a patriot. I don't particularly favor him at this point in history. I think he's lost a lot of perspective. I don't know why. I'm here in New York. He's in Arizona. Now, his co-Senator in Arizona is a guy named Ruben Gallego, who's a far-left crank. Here's what he said. There's no reason why they're going after him. He was doing his duty and just reminding people about their rights as service members. And, you know, Secretary Hexeth, all these guys, fuck you guys.

You're not going to be able to scare us. We have a right to defend the Constitution of the United States. Well, you're a moron. I'm sorry to be disrespectful, but he is. And you people in Arizona know it, and I don't know how he got elected. Number one, you don't have to use the F word. That's beneath the dignity of a senator. Okay?

And if you can't articulate better than that, resign. There are a lot of kids that watch the news. Number two, defending the Constitution of the United States, how so? in what way? There's no debate right now about an unlawful order to the military. What are you talking about?

Something that might happen? You can do that all day long. Oh, maybe. You know, come on. But that's what you get. It's kind of irrational garbage complemented by the F word. Boy, this guy.

But I don't think it's going to lead to much for Kelly. I think they'll probably just peter out. Comey and Letitia James update. There's another one. See, this is what I said at top of the program. Everybody's exhausted by this. It was like, oh, no. So Comey and Letitia James, based upon evidence that has been presented,

both did things that a jury may well, consider illegal. Is that fair? All right, James filled out a phony mortgage thing with a bank. She knew it was phony. And Comey used his friend to leak stuff to the New York Times and then told Congress he didn't have anything to do with it. Guilty, guilty. Me. I'm saying this. Okay. But they deserve due process. So now a Joe, Judge Cameron Curry has thrown a case out and says, I'm throwing it out because the prosecutor, the U.S. attorney in the case, Lindsay Halligan, was not appointed in time to do the prosecution, or something crazy.

Okay? Now, Halligan was appointed on September 22nd. And the appointment, temporary appointment, is 120 days. So she's got another couple of months. But no, because it was another U.S. attorney appointed before her. And that's what Judge Curry says. No, no, no. We got one prosecutor, I guess, in July, and he didn't want the job.

He didn't want it. So he resigned. And then Halligan took over. And she goes, no, no, no, we got to go retroactive back. And the Department of Justice says, no, no. It starts September 22nd. That's how dopey this is. This is about a timeline.

It's not about merit. And you listen to the CNNs or the ABC news. They don't have a blank and clue. Sorry, Senator Gallego. I could have used a bad word there, but They don't have a blank and clue. And they don't care to know. Oh, he's to throw it out.

And then I do it with the merits. It's a little sticking point, a little bureaucratic thing. And now it goes to appeal. Now, both Curry and the person who appointed her, Albert Diaz, a chief judge, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, they're both very liberal judges. Very liberal, always have been. So there's a political component to this. So I assume the Trump administration will appeal it.

No idea what will happen. The Supreme Court has got to be as annoyed as we are. Go, ah, never going to stop. Can you imagine those nine people going? Another one? The case should be tried on its merits. Okay. Most dependable airlines. So a lot of you are traveling. And I feel your pain. I'm not going anywhere. I just can't do it anymore. So finance buzz took Department of Transportation data and came up with the 10 U.S. airlines and ranked them on this state. Thanksgiving time, how dependable they are. Here are the top five. Delta, Hawaiian Airlines.

Remember, Hawaiian Airlines doesn't fly all that many places. Southwest United Spirit. Wow, spirit. Look at that. And then the bottom five, American Frontier, elegant. Is that how you say it? Alaska and jet blue, jet blue, the worst, again. Okay. If you got to fly, you got to fly, you got to get a seat. Those are the way they ragged it. Now, a couple of weeks ago, you may remember, I flew out to L.A. Okay?

Transcon is the big moneymaker for all the airlines. New York to L.A., by far the most traveled, by far the most lucrative. Delta going out. Really good. Really good. Crews were good. Club was good. Plain was spotless.

Nine out of ten, I give him. And for me, American, I took back. both were on time both were on time because there flew overnights you know the last flights um americans crews were good but ground crew amenities and the plane was shabby i was surprised a plane was shabby, Delta plane, balkland. She's telling you, just reporting honestly. I don't know what happened to America. It used to be, you know, but it's really, it's not terrible.

It's not, and I have a friend who works for JetBlue who's just telling me I've got to try it again because I had that terrible experience with them that went viral and you probably remember some of that. But, anyway, but American, you need to up the game there. Now, Secretary of State, Sean Duffy, Secretary of State, Secretary of Transportation, John Duffy. I like him. I don't know him. Okay, our paths didn't cross at Fox.

But he, you know, he's given those air traffic controllers who showed up every day a 10% bonus. I was really good, reported that yesterday. And now he's kind of lecturing Americans about their flight behavior, roll it. How do we, you know, maintain maybe some of that frustration we have as we travel this Thanksgiving season? Maybe we should say please and thank you to our pilots and to our flight attendants. I think, again, I call this just maybe dressing with some respect, you know, whether it's pair of jeans and a decent shirt. I would encourage people to maybe dress a little better, which encourages us to maybe behave all a little better. Let's try not to wear slippers

and pajamas as we come to the airport. I think that's positive. And people do. It's slabs on parade. Not everybody, but a significant minority. You're slabs. You get on that plane. It's like, well, what is this? Come on, you're in public. You're in close proximity to other Americans. You have to dress up and wear a tie, but, geez. I mean, how much polyester do you want to sit next to? And it coming on, it got short pants on, and it's 40 degrees outside, and flip-flops.

It's like, what? Good for you, Duffy. All right, so there's my Thanksgiving recap. I'm going to give you a little food recap in a moment. But first I want to bring in a historian that we like. His name is Talmadge Boston. He's the author of book, How the Best, Did It, Leadership Lessons from our Top Presidents. He joins us now from Dallas.

He's a presidential historian, as am I. So, going back to 1622, the Puritans, obviously, with Squanto, they had the three-day Thanksgiving. And then it kind of went fallow for a while, right? I mean, it wasn't organized, and yeah, the harvest was over, and some states did some stuff. But it wasn't the Abraham Lincoln came into office in the middle of the Civil War that Thanksgiving took on a modern shape, correct? Right. Well, some earlier presidents had tried. George Washington, two different years had proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving during his eight years, John Adams twice during his four years, James Madison twice during his eight years. But nobody was trying to make it an annual national tradition. And in the meantime, several states were making it an annual national tradition, but it wasn't all the states. And so a wonderful woman named Sarah Joseph O'Hale, in the 1840s, decided it needed to be a national annual holiday and she began a serious campaign she was a editor of the leading magazine of her era she'd write all these wonderful editorials describing thanksgiving

and the glowing terms we think of today in terms of families coming together big meals prayers reviewing the year etc etc but her pleas kept falling on deaf ears until finally in 1863 president Abraham Lincoln said, yes, you've got the idea we need, particularly in the middle of the Civil War. And it all started as an annual tradition there in November, 1863, and we've celebrated it every year since then. Now, that woman, lamb, right? Hail, Sarah Joseph. She wrote a very famous song.

That's why I get the names mixed up. A famous poem. Mary had a little lamb, was her most famous. She had books of poetry. She wrote novels, she wrote short stories, and she had this magazine that had writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Everton Allen Poe and Washington Irving. And so she was a big. She wrote Marietta Little Lamb. So how did she get in touch with Lincoln?

Well, she was a very prominent business person in Philadelphia, and she just wrote a letter to the White House the same way you and I can. But because of her influence, presumably, her letter got to the top of the stack. And Lincoln, during his presidency, was on something of a spiritual transformation. He issued several proclamations for days of prayer and fasting and Thanksgiving. So when her pitch came in in late October, within a week, he said, yes, he was absolutely ripe for taking her idea and formalizing it, and it's been with us ever since. Well, here's the, and I'm glad you wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News, to be on Thanksgiving morning.

I didn't know this, and I rode killing Lincoln. And maybe you can explain to me in 1863. The Civil War was not a fate of complete. It was a bloody mess that the North could have lost. And why would Lincoln want to be thankful for that? Well, what he was thankful for, as far as the fall of 1863, They had big days on July 4th with Gettysburg and Vicksburg. He had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863,

which meant all the slaves from the south were running up to the north, joining the Northern Army, creating a manpower surge that Lincoln thought was going to be absolutely crucial to victory, which, in fact, it was. So, yes, the war was still in full force, but there were reasons to think that there was going to be better news on the horizon. Of course, in 1864, than actually. year when Lincoln seizes on Ulysses Grant as finally the general who can win this war. He's probably got his eye on Grant already since he had been the lead Union General at Vicksburg.

So finally he was coming across generals who could win the war and this emancipation, of course, with his religious transformation, thinking that slavery was a moral evil, that God definitely wanted slavery to end as the great national sin, which Lincoln formalized in his second an argyll address in 1865. So he was going through this transformation and seeing good things happening. But as you point out, there were still a lot of war. Yeah, so he wanted, he wanted to, you know, bring God into it and all that. And then you flash forward to the federal holiday where mail isn't delivered, everybody

is off. That didn't happen in World War II, right, until FDR. Well, it happened every year just because maybe the president. set by Lincoln, whatever it was. We never missed a year after 1863. But as you point out, it wasn't until Franklin Roosevelt's presidency in 1939 when he said, let's make this a definite date. And some years, it was the last, for many years, it was the last Thursday in November, which was not giving enough shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So by 1941, Franklin Roosevelt formalized it's going to be the fourth Thursday in November.

But again, you know, it's the same dilemma in 1941. We're looking at the Nazis in Japan, rising in ferocity. And then all of a sudden, well, it's got a thanksgiving holiday, form a holiday. And you go, what do we think? And thanks is this is a big war coming on. But Roosevelt had a little bit different take than Lincoln did on it, right? Well, Roosevelt was thinking of we're still in the Great Depression, even though World War II was bringing us out. He wanted to make the holiday such that it would be.

maximize the boom to the economy that how to the economic there wasn't so much god it was mana for fdr yeah he wasn't a guy he wasn't a big god guy very fascinating mr boston again uh um tommage's uh article appear in dallas morning news on thanksgiving day thanks for helping us out really appreciated fascinating back with a final thought in a moment okay thanksgiving at the Riley House, very traditional. I put the parade on nobody watches it. Nobody watches the parade on NBC. Why would they? Floats, people waving, Snoopy balloon. How long can you watch that? I never watched it. I see it as I pass by. Rockettes. Never seen the Rockettes. I don't know anybody, and I live here, where the Rockettes are. Nobody's ever seen them. They're there.

Now, I try to get the mass to be thankful that I'm in great condition at this stage of my life. That alone, right? I never get there. There's so much stuff coming in, people coming in. So I should get there. I don't. We eat around four. Turkey, everything, the traditional deal. Lay it all out, people serve themselves, sit at my grandmother's table. It's 120 years old, and we have a nice meal. Watch a little football, but not crazy. All right? A little bit.

And then I look for a classic movie to watch at night. I watch The Wizard of Oz again. You know, not the whole thing, but I like the dog, a little dog. So that's the O'Reilly Thanksgiving tradition. Everybody has a good time. No politics unless they ask me. They ask me because I know a lot, then I'll tell them, but I don't bring it up. I want you to have a great Thanksgiving.

All right, take a break. Two, three days, just relax, if you can. And I will have a Sunday column, and we will see you again on Monday.