Tangle - INTERVIEW: Bill O'Reilly

Starting point is 00:00:00 Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

Starting point is 00:01:05 your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and today we are sitting down with Bill O'Reilly. Before Tucker Carlson, the most consequential news anchor in America was Bill O'Reilly.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Under his leadership, Fox News became the most popular television station in America. In 2009, the O'Reilly Factor was the number one cable news show in America for 106 consecutive weeks, sometimes drawing more than 3 million viewers a night. His views on national politics regularly dominated the front pages, and his style was fought and often mocked by the left, but rarely ignored. Yet O'Reilly was also fundamentally different than what Tucker Carlson became. He did not and does not consider himself a conservative or even an ideologue. He's maintained friendly relationships with liberal contemporaries like Jon Stewart.

Starting point is 00:02:55 In 2020, after Donald Trump's election was lost, he was one of the few news anchors regularly watched by Trump supporters who was telling them that the election was not stolen. Today, O'Reilly runs an independent nightly broadcast. He was ousted in Fox News in 2017 after a New York Times article revealed that he and the network had settled multiple sexual harassment allegations in court costing millions of dollars. Advertisers fled when the story broke, and Fox News eventually let O'Reilly go. In previous interviews, he said that he regrets not fighting the accusations. While his ouster from Fox News may have taken him out of the limelight for many liberals and progressives in America,

Starting point is 00:03:30 he's still a force in the more conservative-minded media ecosystem. After O'Reilly interviewed me on his show a couple months ago, hundreds of his viewers signed up for Tangle. In September, when Tucker Carlson interviewed O'Reilly on X, their conversation drew over 22 million views. After appearing on O'Reilly's show a few times and his repeated references to being a Tangle reader, we decided to turn the tables. I reached out to his team to have him come on the Tangle podcast. I had a lot of questions for him. I wanted to ask about the 2024 race, the state of the media, his relationship with Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson and Jon Stewart, his ouster from Fox News, and I tried to hopefully get him to say something nice about President Biden. It took some arm twisting, but he eventually did. He is deemed President Biden the second worst president in U.S. history, and we talked about that, too.

Starting point is 00:04:25 second worst president in U.S. history, and we talked about that too. Shortly before the interview, O'Reilly's people emailed us and said he could only do 20 minutes instead of our scheduled 45 minute interview, so we didn't get to some of the things I wanted to get to, but once the conversation started, he actually did hang around for over 30 minutes, close to 40. So today, we're going to bring you that conversation exclusively right here on the Tangle podcast. Hope you guys enjoy it. And don't forget, let me know what you think. You can reach me, Isaac, I-S-A-A-C, at readtangle.com. Bill O'Reilly, thanks for coming on the show.

Starting point is 00:05:01 I appreciate it. Sure. Anything I can do to help tangle. You're a new, a new fan. You've given us a couple of shots. We've got some of your readers on our, on our newsletter platform now, which is interesting. I I'd love to maybe start with a little bit of 2024, where things are at, what you're seeing. You are obviously still a conservative heavyweight throwing his opinions around in this space. This race looks like it's Trump's, obviously. How do you feel about the presumptive 2024 nominee right now? Well, I wouldn't say I'm a conservative

Starting point is 00:05:42 because I'm not an ideologue. I try to be a problem solver. I believe that traditional tenets have really served the country well since 1776, with some exceptions, but I don't buy into the progressive far-left view. Liberalism is okay unless you basically are ignoring reality. And the same thing can be said for the conservative crew. I mean, if you're just going to deny that there are solutions to be found on the left, then it doesn't go anywhere. But my job essentially, Isaac, is to present what is actually happening to my listeners and viewers. And we are the most successful independent news agency in the world now, and they give an opinion about how it affects them. It's a very narrow cast, what we do.

Starting point is 00:06:34 So here we are in early February 2024 with the presidential election coming up fast. We've got a big intrusion on the Supreme Court and a big movement to eliminate Donald Trump from the ballot in November. And that is being led by the Justice Department of the United States. There's no question that this prosecution by the special counsel is designed to take Trump off the board. It's not designed to impose justice or inhibit behavior in the future. It is solely a political act. And the reason I say that is because you could do this to any president. George W. Bush, for example, after he left office, you could say that he incited torture. And it was because of him that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib in Iraq and all of that,

Starting point is 00:07:27 and all of these suspected terrorists were roughed up and waterboarded. You got to prosecute that man. Hey, you can't do that. And Trump is basically saying, look, I as president believed, and he did. He absolutely did. I know Trump as well as anybody in the world knows him, that the election was fraudulent. So I took steps to counter what I believed, and it's my right to do that as president. So the D.C. Circuit Federal Court said no. They threw it out this week. But if you look at it in a fair way, Trump has a very strong point. If it gets to the Supreme Court, I think Trump may win. They'll reverse the lower federal court in D.C. One more point. Trump cannot get a fair trial in a district. So the special counsel Smith

Starting point is 00:08:22 knows that. You've got to move that trial to central Virginia or somewhere where he's got at least a shot of getting a jury that doesn't hate his guts. 5% of the electorate in D.C. voted for Trump. 95% did not. You tell me he gets a fair trial there? He does not. All is very disturbing to me i'm i'm glad you went there because i wanted to talk a little bit about this and and kind of the state of some of his legal troubles so i agree with you on some things and disagree on others i think the things i agree on are i agree that he can't get a fair trial in DC. And I agree that there are some political

Starting point is 00:09:07 motivations behind parts of this prosecution. Obviously, Jack Smith is trying to speed it up to get it out before the election, which, you know, some people believe there's justification for. Plenty of people can frame that as being politically motivated. I think I disagree about whether Trump should be liable here. I mean, just to give you a quick analogy, if I believe somebody stole my computer and I break into their apartment to steal it back, but they didn't actually steal my computer, I still just committed a crime by breaking into their apartment and stealing something that didn't belong to me. So Trump's belief that the election was stolen is not necessarily an excuse for him to commit a crime and doesn't absolve him of any criminal acts if the election wasn't stolen. So I'm curious how you think about it

Starting point is 00:09:55 in that context. I mean, do you believe that there were things going on in the 2020 election that he had a right to take some of the actions that he took? Well, I'm not looking at it. I'm looking at it from a purely legal point of view. There is no evidence that that election was fraudulent on a mass level, but we know that. If there were evidence to that, it would be in the court system. It is not. But remember something, be in the court system, it is not. But remember something, you have to prove in a criminal court, which is what this is, which is myth, beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed a crime. So what crime is Trump charged with? He's not charged with insurrection, although the media says that every day that he is, he isn't. He's charged with a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do what? According to Smith, the conspiracy is to undermine an election

Starting point is 00:10:56 and nullify the votes of the American people. Trump can go in and will go into court and say, this advisor, this constitutional attorney, this person all told me that I had the power to raise these questions and to raise scenarios of alternate electors under the Constitution. And those people will testify to that. So if you go back to Bush, and remember, Isaac, I'm a historian. The most popular historian in the world. You are talking to him right now. Okay? In the world. George W. Bush's defense on torture, which absolutely happened,

Starting point is 00:11:43 and he ordered it, was that his advisors told him that it didn't fall under the torture statutes. That was it. Okay? Nothing was brought against him because it was in his job purview. Same exact thing here. Trump's going to walk in. He's going to say this one, that one, this one, that one. Told me that all of this was legal.

Starting point is 00:12:13 And because I believed it to be true, this is what I did. There's no way on earth you can convict him. Because if you do convict him, you can convict every subsequent president. Like Biden with open border. You can convict Biden of dereliction of duty, of failure to uphold his oath to obey the laws of the United States, because he has clearly not obeyed them. But Biden's going to go in and tell you, oh, no, no, no. My guys told me I can ignore the asylum situation that was passed by Congress. I didn't have to follow it. You see what I'm talking about here?

Starting point is 00:12:53 Let me ask you maybe a quick counter hypothetical, I guess. Would you prefer that President Biden, that George W. Bush and that Donald Trump could all be held accountable for actions they took? Absolutely not. Because that creates unbelievable chaos. If you as a president have a threat of after you leave office being criminally prosecuted for decisions you make, we don't have a country anymore. So what's the threshold or what's the line that a president could cross and then be criminally prosecuted, I guess, for actions he took while in office, in your opinion? Bribery. All right. If you're in office and you're taking money

Starting point is 00:13:40 from somebody and that comes out, then there's no excuse that that was part of your job. Or that you were advised that you could take money. You took the money, you put it in a bank account in the Caymans, they found it, you'd be prosecuted. That's a crime. If you look at the Smith charges, it's all about conspiracy, which you can charge. And I could charge you with a conspiracy today, Isaac. Conspiracy to mislead people by founding Tangle. Now, that would be bogus, but I could do it. You could, feds could march in and put you in cuffs right now. So I do think one of the interesting points of your defense here for Trump that I actually find quite compelling is that he believes

Starting point is 00:14:26 the election was stolen and he has actual professionals and legal advisors around him who are telling him the election was stolen. You mentioned at the top that you have a relationship with the former president. Did you ever give him a whisper in his ear that, hey, maybe these people around you are giving you bogus advice? Was he responsive to that kind of incursion on what people were telling him around him? Well, I can't give you answers about private conversations that I have with Donald Trump, because that wouldn't be right. Everything that the president and I talk about, unless he says, yeah, go ahead. I won't divulge. But I will tell you this.

Starting point is 00:15:07 On my commentary, which we do on a daily basis, on BillOReilly.com, on The First, on DirecTV, you name it, I'm way overexposed. He got the message that I did not buy into this. And he got it fast. that I did not buy into this. And he got it fast, because I told my audience very quickly there was no substance to the election fraud allegations unless they were filed in federal court with affidavits. And that I, as an honest journalist, was not going to listen to Sidney Powell or Rudy Giuliani or any of these people until they filed. And none of them did. Trump knew that from day one. We'll be right back after this quick break

Starting point is 00:16:06 i'm curious how you feel like your former network handled some of this i mean fox news obviously still one of the most influential places uh in the media industry they got a lot of heat for bringing on and airing some folks who were spreading things about Dominion voting system, stuff like that. You obviously left the network in 2017. What was it like for you to watch their coverage of some of the allegations of fraud and post-election stuff? Okay. So if I had been at Fox News in 2020, none of this would have ever happened. None of it. Because I would have used my platform at 8 o'clock, the O'Reilly Factor, to do exactly what I did on the No Spin News.

Starting point is 00:16:59 To look into the camera and say, this is bogus unless you file it. And I would have had Britt Hume with me, and I would have had a bunch of other of our very credible contributors, and we would have laid it out. And I would have put an end to it. There wouldn't be anybody at Fox that would have gone up against us. No one. That's number one. So the fact that I wasn't in the chair cost Fox a billion dollars. That's how much money it cost them. With the judgment that Dominion had, all the lawyers' fees, they got another lawsuit coming up against them, they'll lose a billion. Okay? Now, why did it happen? It happened because after

Starting point is 00:17:40 Roger Ailes left, and then about nine months later, Bill O'Reilly left, there was no central authority in the network. It was fiefdoms. Everybody ran their own shows the way they wanted to. There was no real management level. And so you had people at Fox who were telling the audience, yeah, this is fraud. They're not going to put it on somebody and they're going to say it. And they just sat there mute.

Starting point is 00:18:12 You can't do that. You can't do it. But they did it. And they paid a terrible price for doing it. So that's pretty much all I can say, is that whenever you have a news organization, I've been in this business, next year will be 50 years. You've got to have standards that come down from management about what you can do and what you can't do. That's gone. There's no standards at MSNBC. Those people, I mean, they say the most insane stuff every day. Nobody holds them to account.

Starting point is 00:18:46 Oh, it's a racist country. No, it's not. And you can't just say, oh, we'll bring on a counter point of view, which they rarely do, by the way. Just the fact that you're saying the United States of America is a racist country is an irresponsible statement. Okay, you can pick out one or two incidents if you want, but that's not what they do. So press standards, which is why I actually follow you, Isaac, there are a few places that now I look at. Sem4 is one, Tangle, Daily Chatter for overseas news, where I think I can get a fairly honest take. But I don't read the New York Times or Washington Post. They're not newspapers anymore. They're left-wing journals. I don't read the Epoch Times. I don't do that. I mean,

Starting point is 00:19:36 I'm not in the business of sorting through indoctrination. So your question about what happened was horrible for the journalistic industry. It was horrible. But here's the bottom line of it. People believe what they want to believe. We're living in a country where facts really don't matter all that much to maybe the majority of our citizenry. They believe what they want. And whatever they believe, they want to hear it.

Starting point is 00:20:03 And that's what the television news agencies and the newspapers are doing. They're giving the choir the song. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly, that's a core element of why we've built what we've built is because we recognize people are going around and essentially just feeding themselves things that confirm their priors. I'm curious, I mean, you know, you were a headline act at Fox News, like you said, the heavyweight. And after you left, Tucker Carlson took over your spot and became sort of the face of the network effectively. And now he's gone independent as well and left Fox News. Where do you think this is going? Do you view network news stations as being the influential

Starting point is 00:20:53 places they used to be? Or do you think folks who are independent like you are actually driving the narrative in a lot of political circles across the country right now? in a lot of political circles across the country right now? I don't know. I don't know. It's hard for me to calibrate that. But I can tell you this. The audience for all news is diminishing incredibly quickly in this country,

Starting point is 00:21:21 which is very dangerous. Los Angeles Times pretty much got out of business, and they're not coming back because they turned into a left-wing journal, and any moderate or conservative in the Southern California area go, I'm going to read this. This is insane. They're gone. Television, Fox News primetime reaches 2 million people, maybe 200,000 between the ages of 25 to 54. That's nothing. I used to do eight. I used to do a million 25 to 54. What they do now is a shadow of what they used to do. And the others are lower. The others are lower. So their influence has declined dramatically. The network news, the three nightly newscasts, you total them all up.

Starting point is 00:22:13 Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know.

Starting point is 00:22:39 CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history,

Starting point is 00:23:00 and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. 70, about 70, 68, 71 for Fox in that range, because these are the people who don't do technology. They just sit there and they do what they always did. They got the martini, they got the clicker, they don't really care what's on. Okay. And I'm not diminishing those people, you know, but the vibrance of presenting information to the American people is on social media. That's where it is. My audience, the bulk of my audience is in YouTube. I mean, it's incredible because I don't even do any of that. I mean, I'm the biggest Luddite in the world. Okay. So my son is at Oxford in England. He plays lacrosse for them. And he's playing a Wales team, Swansea, and Oxford waxes him, right? So after the game, the tradition is you line up and you shake hands.

Starting point is 00:24:13 Well, as soon as the game ends, about eight guys run at my son. And he thought they were coming to trash him or something, beat him up, because he had O'Reilly on the back of his jersey. I'm going to trash him or something, beat him up. Because he had O'Reilly on the back of his jersey. And they go, are you Bill O'Reilly's son? And he goes, how do you know my father? YouTube. YouTube.

Starting point is 00:24:36 It's everywhere. That's the big change. And I don't even know it. I mean, we do very, very well here at Bill O'Reilly.com and we make a terrific living and I don't have to answer to anybody. I run the corporations, but that YouTube thing, that's the power of the future. I'm curious right now, there's so much media controversy and stuff going on. And, you know, a lot of people don't know this about you, that you actually have a long background in journalism before your sort of on-air career. I know you did a lot of local journalism. You've traveled to war zones like El Salvador to cover international

Starting point is 00:25:16 conflict. Right now, as we speak, Tucker Carlson is in Russia purportedly interviewing Vladimir Putin. He's catching a lot of flack for that. I'm curious what you think about a decision like that to go sit down with a foreign leader. Personally, I think it depends wholly on how the interview is done. But I'm interested to hear your view about this controversy and whether you think he should be there or not. Well, it doesn't matter to me how the interview is done. If Carson's savvy enough to get the interview with Putin, more power to Carson. OK, he's the best marketer in the world.

Starting point is 00:25:52 He's better than me. Makes me look comatose. Carson is an unbelievable marketer. Why would you criticize Tucker Carlson for sitting down with Putin? You already know Tucker Carlson kind of likes Putin, supports Russia and the Ukraine conflict. Everybody knows that. It's not like Carlson's being sneaky about it. For whatever reason, he's thrown in with the Russians. It's his right to do that. So the Russians go, hey, come on over, interview Vlad. Okay. If I got the opportunity, I'd interview Vlad. You'd interview Vlad too, Isaac. Yeah, they're not going to give me the opportunity. It doesn't matter whether they do or not. Vlad's not going to tell you the truth. No matter what you ask him. Hey, did you kill that

Starting point is 00:26:38 Wagner guy in the plane? Of course not. Hey, did you kill the 40 journalists that got stabbed with poison? No, no, no, not me. Hey, oh no, we ought to invade Ukraine because, you know, they threw something. You're not going to get anything out of it. Now, you can ask questions in an artful way, but that takes a lot of training to do that. You got to go in and prepare to ask the question a little bit differently so you may get something. But anybody interviewing Vladimir Putin thinks Vladimir Putin's going to answer any question honestly is insane. It's like Mike Wallace sitting down and interviewing Ayatollah Khomeini. Wallace knew Ayatollah Khomeini was going to answer any questions. All Wallace did, if you watch that interview, was annoy Ayatollah

Starting point is 00:27:31 Khomeini by telling him that Siddharth and everybody else thought he was a loon. He didn't get anything out of Ayatollah Khomeini other than the evil look. You got to know who you're interviewing. But there's nothing wrong with Carlson going over to Moscow interviewing the guy. I would do it all day long. All right. I know we're coming up on time here. I have a couple of quick, quick questions for you before I let you go. First of all, Jon Stewart coming back to the air on Monday. You and John have a storied relationship, used to go on each other's shows, sort of a counterbalance to each other in the nighttime, primetime lineup. What do you think about John coming back? Are you guys in touch? Are you talking? I'd love to hear a little bit

Starting point is 00:28:17 of your perspective on that because I know you have a deep history. I saw him a few weeks ago. He did a show out in Westbury, Long Island. And Stewart is really a talented individual. That's number one. Everybody should know that. He's moved a little more politically, as many, many people have, to the left because of Trump. Trump is a real, you know, polarizer in the sense that there are Americans, particularly liberals, who hate him so much that they think Biden is fine. They'll accept what Biden has thrown out there, which is second worst president ever. And I'll document that in my upcoming book, Confronting the Presidents, which will be out in September. But anyway, Stuart is moved to the left. And again, just like Tucker Carlson, perfect right to move wherever he wants to move. Doesn't offend me.

Starting point is 00:29:21 But anyway, when I saw him, and we have the usual back and forth that we always have, you know, he's a lot, he's about, I don't know, 12 years younger than I am. And I look 10 years younger than him. And I said, you know, you should do what I do, Stuart, look at you. You're falling apart. But I'm glad he's coming back. I think the guy is very provocative, entertaining. I'll certainly look in. I told him that if he were smart, and that's debatable, he would do another rumble with me on the Internet before the election. Can you imagine what that is? When Carlson interviewed me on X, 30 million people watched that thing. And I think if Stewart and O'Reilly

Starting point is 00:30:06 went at it again, you'd get at least 20 million to watch it. But I don't know if he's up for it anymore. I mean, that's a rigorous thing to do. I'm curious, you know, you do a good job, I think, on your show of calling out some of the hypocrisy and failures of various politicians from across the political spectrum. Are there any politicians right now you feel really positively about? People in office who you watch what they're doing and you think that they're leading a worthwhile movement or treading the right line? There are a lot of them, but I don't like to do that because then if I say so-and-so is brilliant and really working for you, and then the next day he takes $700,000 from Egypt, you know. So what I do is a case-by-case, and I think that's the fair way to analyze. And so today on the No Spin News,

Starting point is 00:31:05 And so today on the No Spin News, we said Mitch McConnell's got to go. The turtle's got to go. It's time for the turtle to go out to sea. All right, because this border bill, which is just a catastrophe, it's not going to pass. He got behind that. He didn't even read it. You couldn't have read it and get behind that thing. It doesn't do any good for anybody. So anyway, but there are politicians who I believe want to solve problems. That's my

Starting point is 00:31:36 number one limit test. Do you have a solution to the problem? Do you want to solve the problem? But it is on a case-by-case for me. I don't like to throw names out unless I have verifiable evidence that these people are going to heaven, that kind of thing. That's what's coming back and hitting me in the head. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. All right, last question, and I'm going to hold you to an answer on each of these. I want you for former President Trump and current President Joe Biden to give me what you think are each of their biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses headed into 2024. Okay. So you want to start with Trump, the challenger. Trump ran the country well for four years. If your litmus test is helping the folks,

Starting point is 00:32:38 real wages up, inflation down, border controlled, ISIS eliminated, Iran on the defensive, Putin fairly behaving. Okay, so by all of those measures, Trump succeeded. His demeanor wiped it all out. So the election denial from Donald Trump, and he could have done it in a much more methodical way, could have appointed a special prosecutor to look into it. Did not. That's Trump's Lewinsky. The fact that he denied the election and that led to January 6th overshadowed everything he did. And that's history.

Starting point is 00:33:20 Okay. So his demeanor really hurts him. He should be 20 points ahead, Isaac, today of Joe Biden. 20. Because his administration was so much better than the chaos we have now. Mr. Biden, I believe, is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. I say that because I went through it with my mother. I see the same thing that he's doing, and I saw that with my mother. And I'm telling you, I'm 100% on it. The man can't do a pre-interview for the Super Bowl in a friendly CBS audience. You realize there's not one conservative

Starting point is 00:33:59 on the air at CBS, not one in any venue. And Biden can't do an interview with the friendlies? He can't. And his staff and wife knows it. Because he could say anything at any time, blow up. The way he's run the country is the most liberal president ever. He follows the progressive line down to a T, never deviates from it. Americans are paying 17% more today than they did under Trump for the essentials of life, food, fuel, insurance, all of that. They can say inflation is coming down, you're paying 17% more. More than 10 million foreign nationals are unsupervised in this country, okay, right now, because Biden won't enforce immigration law. Biden is the second worst president in this country's history, only behind James Buchanan, who did the same thing Biden did

Starting point is 00:35:01 by failing to hold the rebellious states in the South accountable for four years. So they grew in ferocity. And when Lincoln walked in, the Civil War was a fait accompli. Only Buchanan was worse than Biden. I didn't hear a President Biden's strength there. Biden's strength there. Okay. Maybe 25 years ago, he had one. Because he got behind 25 years ago, the very tough bill to punish violent criminals. He was a co-sponsor of that bill. Did you know that? I did. But so hold on, hold on a second though. So you don't think there's a single thing that Biden's done that he could run on that is a strength for him heading into this election? The only thing that Biden has done that could be considered a plus is the pressure he has put on the pharmaceutical companies to drop the prices of drugs, especially for senior citizens. And that isn't a law. It's a plan. It's brought drug prices down a bit. That's a positive. But you got to look long and hard

Starting point is 00:36:17 to find something that this man has done in three years to improve this nation. Overseas, zero. Now, if you are a global warming person, you can point to that, certainly, that he's made it very hard for fossil fuel companies to prosper. But in the meantime, he's just wrecked the marketplace in America for fuel. But if you're a progressive, you like him. I'm not a progressive, but I'm not a conservative. I'm looking for what's best for the folks. I would contend, I mean, the war in Ukraine, I think, is both a blemish on his record, I would contend, I mean, the war in Ukraine, I think, is both a blemish on his record, but also he did successfully rally NATO allies to their support.

Starting point is 00:37:15 I think that was the right decision to push back on Ukraine or push back on Russia and support them. But remember, here's where you're making your mistake. And you're a young guy, so you learn from me. Ukraine is reactive. He's reacting to a Putin invasion, which is a threat to the world. Putin wins in Ukraine. You kiss Taiwan goodbye. Not a lot of people don't care about Taiwan, but you embolden the dictators. You embolden them. They're not going to stop. And history shows us that. So yes, you're correct. By supporting Ukraine and rallying NATO, Biden did the right thing, but that's not a policy. I mean, that's something that he had to react to. In Israel, he's not doing that. He's trying to walk the tightrope because he knows his party

Starting point is 00:38:00 doesn't like Israel, generally speaking. All right. I don't know what more America could do to help Israel at this point. But when President of the United States says he's going to veto a standalone $18 million bill that would help the Israelis, that's pretty frightening to me. Why would you veto that? Let me take you on the economy then. I mean, I think the Biden talking point would be he inherited economy and free fall post-COVID, like that was where the world was. And, you know, he invested industrial policy, manufacturing, unemployment's under 4%. We had inflation, but not as bad as a lot of European counterparts. I mean, I think you could make the case that we're watching economic

Starting point is 00:38:42 sentiment go up right now. And after three years, some of his policies at least have been pretty effective in helping the economy rebound, even on oil. You know, we're, we have more oil production right now than ever before. Prices are not where they were under Trump yet, but they've come down a bit as inflation recedes. I, I think there's a case that he's closer to mediocre than second worst president of all time. That's fine with me, but I can demolish your arguments and it won't take me a long time because I gotta go. Bill O'Reilly, I want to demolish you for your listeners. want to demolish you for your listeners. Number one, Trump left office, 1.4% inflation. Number two, Trump left office, 3.5% unemployment, record employment for African-Americans. Number three, Trump left office, real wages of 7.2%. Okay, guys, sorry to jump in really quick, but I do want to give a

Starting point is 00:39:50 quick editor's note here. We did this in the newsletter. I'm not trying to, after the fact, do a bunch of fact check or pushback here, but O'Reilly makes a couple of ones here that are sort of part true and part not. And I think it's worth just calling this one out specifically. So he said Trump left office with 1.4% inflation. That's true. He said Trump left office with 3.5% unemployment and record employment for African Americans. This was true in February of 2020, pre-COVID. But when Trump left office in January of 2021, unemployment was 6.3%. And then third, he said Trump left office with real wages up 7.2%. Actually, he understated that wages were up 8.7% after adjusting for inflation. So a little bit of a mixed bag there,

Starting point is 00:40:41 but we called this out in the newsletter. I want to call it out here. Earlier, he also did make the claim that everything you're paying for now is up 17%. I'd never heard that number before, but it's related to all this economic stuff. It was a claim made by House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican in Louisiana. O'Reilly's definitely right that things are a lot more expensive. Prices went up about 12% over the course of two years, and they were partially offset by wage increases. So it sort of depends what number you're looking at. I would say the 17% number is not accurate, I think, but it's not far off either. And I didn't know where that claiming came from, but I found that it was sort of a talking point from some House Republicans. I think they're fudging the numbers a little bit on that.

Starting point is 00:41:29 A couple of fact-checking places reviewed that claim, and actually, it got some half-true ratings. So again, not trying to call out O'Reilly and say after the fact that he was lying, but I think it veers in a little bit of like political talking points. Just want to drop that in here. I'm going to give it back to Bill and let him finish up demolishing my argument here. Biden comes in, immediately tax fossil fuels, which immediately ignites inflation. Wham, like this. Then the whole economy contracts. So when Trump left, and if COVID hadn't hit, Trump would have been easily re-elected. When Trump left, the economy was sturdy. It wasn't in decline. It wasn't falling. It wasn't doing any of that.

Starting point is 00:42:19 All the folks were doing pretty well. All right. Biden comes in and he knocks out the remain in Mexico policy, floods the nation with foreign nationals. He puts regulations on and stops drilling for the American energy companies. Energy prices go bump. Then he reacts to all of this crazy stuff. And after three years, he's getting some of it under control. But it's all his fault in the beginning. And when you say we have record oil production, that's true. Where's it going?

Starting point is 00:42:55 It's going to Europe. Because they are suffering under the Ukraine situation because we're boycotting the Russian oil. That's where most, not most, but much of the U.S. oil production is going. And that's why you haven't seen our oil prices come down. They're a buck more than they were when Trump left. So anyway, there's my demolishment. Good question, though, and good debate. And I hope you guys will get a lot of good reaction from this back and forth. I appreciate you coming on. I'm going to score one point before you go, which is I came on your show, Nikki Haley, New Hampshire.

Starting point is 00:43:30 We disagreed. I said she was going to stay in the race. You thought she was going to drop out. She's still in the race. We're coming up on South Carolina. So I'll take that point. I'll let my readers and listeners decide on the economy. Bill O'Reilly, I appreciate you coming on.

Starting point is 00:43:44 If people want to check out your work, BillOReilly.com. And we'll do it again sometime. Hopefully. Thank you, Isaac, for having me. Thanks, Bill. I appreciate it. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing

Starting point is 00:44:05 editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on

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Tangle - INTERVIEW: Bill O'Reilly

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