The Chris Cuomo Project - Bill O'Reilly

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

Bill O’Reilly (political commentator, author, and host, “No Spin News”) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss his independence in the media since leaving FOX News, why he believes that standards in the modern media have dropped, how smartphones are making people more callous, why history suggests a strong leader will emerge soon in America, and much more. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are few names in the history of media, let alone current media culture, that provokes opinions and feelings the way Bill O'Reilly's name does. Hey, I'm Chris Cuomo. How you doing? Welcome to another episode of the Chris Cuomo Project. Try to bring you provocative things here. That's why I appreciate you subscribing, following, checking out the free agent merch. Be an independent thinker. Be a critical thinker. That is our way through the challenges that face us today. Thanks for checking me out at News Nation, 8 and 11 every weekday

night. Now, if you do that, you see Bill O'Reilly once a week on the show. Why? Well, one, because I like the challenge of countering or complimenting what it is that he's seeing in the world around us. I believe you need strong and impressive and relevant voices that sometimes will challenge what you want to be true or what you think is true or what you know is true, even if you don't like it, especially when you don't like it. And I wanted Bill O'Reilly to come down to the Chris Cuomo Project and come on here and just talk about where his perspective comes from in his life. As a journalist, as a parent, as an American, where is Bill O'Reilly coming from?

You want to know? Here we go. Bill O'Reilly, what a treat. Thank you for making time and taking this opportunity. Okay, Cuomo, what do you got? Well, I have a few different things I wanted to discuss with you. And it's a little awkward

because some of it's about you and I know you hate talking about yourself. But my first question is, the success that you're having with BillOReilly.com and the absolute independence and autonomy, even though you've had such a celebrated career working for Fox News and really all the networks before that,

do you wish you had gone out on your own sooner? No. You know, it's almost like Orson Welles, you know, you tell no wine before it's time. I believe that there is a regulator in the universe. That's why I'm a Roman Catholic. And I did 20 years plus at Fox News. I did two years solid at ABC News. I did about a year at CBS News and six years at Inside Edition. All of those timeframes worked for me in the sense that I was doing work that I liked and we were accomplishing what I thought were good things for the country. But, you know, the statute of limitation runs out on every job. And

when I left Fox six and a half years ago, almost now, I knew that I was going to segue into Bill O'Reilly.com because we already had it established. And I knew that I was going to basically run my own show for the rest of my life, which gave me comfort because I had had it pretty much with the corporate world at that point. Could somebody get you back? Well, I've had offers to go back, but they didn't really. I'm making almost as much money now as I made at Fox News. So why would I go back economically that it doesn't worth it? And I want to listen to some pinhead telling me what to do. No. You mentioned sell no wine before it's time. If you were a wine, what would you be? I don't drink. So I'll be Dr. Pepper. I mean, that's pretty much my extensive beverages.

I don't drink any alcohol. I don't know wine. I don't know any of that. Have you ever drank? Never. I was always an athlete. I played four sports in high school. And I was always sweating and perspiring or in the shower or in a workout room.

And I never appealed to me. And then when the Vietnam thing happened and all the drugs and pot came in, I was in college and I looked at how stupid these people were being inebriated. And I go, do I want to be like that? No. And then in my family, because I'm 92% Irish Celtic, we've had alcoholism and people have died young because of it. And I wasn't lost on me. So I said, you know, I don't really need alcohol. If I did drink, I'd be in the penitentiary. There's no doubt about that. How'd you handle it with the kids? I just told them, look, and luckily so far, the urchins aren't substance consumers. urchins aren't substance consumers. I just tell them, look, life is short. And if you want to make it shorter, then get into the intoxication game. Because either you'll die, you'll kill

somebody else, or your whole persona will change for the worse. And it was a pretty simple, I'm a simple man. I don't lecture. I don't do this. I just say, you know, it's better if you live your life in complete awareness. When you look back, do you come from a place of, I wish I had done this differently, or I would have done that differently, or do you leave the past in the past? or I would have done that differently, or do you leave the past in the past? No, I made a lot of mistakes, and I wish I hadn't made them because it made my life a lot harder. Mistakes are not something you can learn from them, but they're not something to appreciate. And the foolish things that I did, trusted the wrong people, took unnecessary chances, uh, put myself in danger, um, was too callous toward certain people, not kind enough. Those things I wish I hadn't done,

but nobody's perfect as the cliche goes. And I try to learn from my mistakes. Would you have picked a different path in journalism? That was my calling. So if it didn't happen, I would have gone into law enforcement. But again, then I would have been in a chain of command situation. I'm not real good in chains of command. Kind of a maverick kind of guy, with all apologies to Tom Cruise. You're like three Tom Cruises. You'd have to pile three on top of each other to get to one Bill O'Reilly and Hyde. But you got to admire Cruise in a sense that I don't care about his Scientology or I don't care about any of that. The guy has been successful against all odds.

And I admire that. And he isn't hurting anybody. His success is built on his talent. Yeah. Which he's maximized. And his longevity. First of all, he's set a standard, you know, look, let's be honest,

a part of that kind of performance is your physicality and how you come across. And he's in his 60s and he looks phenomenal. He's still doing his stunts. My wife once said a very interesting thing about him. I was like, you know, so you think he's handsome? Well, no, he made himself handsome. I said, what do you mean? He like, you know, did surgery or something? She goes, no, it's just the way he comes across and the confidence and all the different roles that he's made himself a standard of what's attractive, which I thought was high praise. So you're a maverick. Journalism was your

calling. Otherwise, it would have been law enforcement. The media is an insider's game with an outsider's purpose. What do you believe is true about the media that people don't get at home? Well, it's changed. So I was teaching high school in a slum in Miami, Opelika. And I knew I didn't want to be a high school teacher my whole life, although I was the original Mr. Cotter. And I had a very good rapport with the kids, and I was doing some good there. But I knew there was more. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to right some wrongs. And Watergate was in, and I said, you know, let me give that a shot. So I went to Boston University. I got a master's degree in broadcast journalism.

And more importantly, I wrote for the Boston U newspaper, the Daily Free Press, which was humongous. It was a third largest newspaper in Boston next to the Globe and the Herald. And I just loved it. And back then, you were based on the quality of your writing, your reportage, your ability to speak and be clear, all of that counted. Somewhere along the way, the money became so big in television news particularly, that a lot of that doesn't count any longer. So it's who you know, it's you've told the line, you do what the corporate masters tell you to do, and you'll get along. The cliche is you go along to get along, or you get along to go along, some stupid thing like that. I went in

with a giant chip on my shoulder saying, I'm going to right some wrongs here. I'm going to go in and I'm going to get the bad guys and I'm going to run them down like the dogs they are. And I did. And I started in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the lowest rung. I had no uncle in the business, nobody helping me in the business, nobody telling me, you know, hey, Bill, if you do this, that'll happen. And I worked my butt off.

The good, old-fashioned American way to success. I worked my butt off. And I made it to New York in five years, WCBS Channel 2. I went to Dallas, I went to Denver, I went to Hartford, Connecticut, boom, right into New York. And I kicked serious buttBS Channel 2. I went to Dallas, I went to Denver, I went to Hartford, Connecticut, boom, right into New York. And I kicked serious butt at Channel 2. And that's how I got into the Dan Rather CBS National program. So my career was based on doing the job well. That today doesn't count all that much. And you can see the difference.

Give you a big example, 60 minutes. Man, I never missed an episode. When Mike Wallace and Safer, Hewitt was the EP, man, they had an edge to them. They went out. Now, they're skilled reporters. I'm not going to denigrate them, but it's not even close to what it was. And I'm not one of these old guys that go, oh, it was so much better back in the day. No.

It's just that the standards have dropped now as the money poured in. Why? Because they don't want to pay. And they don't want mavericks. The worst thing you can be in a network and cable universe is a maverick. They want you to do what you're told. They want to manage you, control you. And I was lucky enough to have some bosses like Roger Ailes who just let me go and said, okay, this guy's going to make me a lot of money. This is Ailes.

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Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. I've actually had to do some work in that area. I've always been hard to manage because I would always ask why we were doing whatever it was, and some stories would seem stupid or thin. And I would think that I was doing the organization a favor by pushing back on it. And, you know, that was kind of disrupting the machine. I mean, even, you know, Zucker and, you know, Bill's heard this many times from me,

but most of you have by now, I think. I don't like how my situation with him went at CNN, obviously, and I'm litigating that in the proper forum. But he's still the best mind I've ever worked for in TV, and he gave me a tremendous opportunity. I got to be fair about it. There's no reason to color everything. And he used to say to me and to my brother, because he had a relationship with my brother, man, you got to talk to this guy. He makes it too hard.

He's got a problem with stuff that he doesn't need to be having a problem with. But I actually think that those weaknesses for me as a corporate agent work to my advantage in the job itself, but it definitely comes at a price, man. You are definitely better off in big media keeping your head down. Well, I have a parallel situation, but in the end, it worked out for me, but it was painful getting there. And, I have a parallel situation, but in the end it worked out for me, but it was painful getting there. And if I had had a family at that point, a wife and children, I couldn't have been the person that I was. I mean, because I would look authority in the eye and say, no, I'm not doing that. If it were wrong, and sometimes it was, I'm not. And it was an

interesting thing at ABC News, and I became good friends with Peter Jennings because he liked my swagger, Jennings. And he liked the fact that I worked hard. A lot of people at ABC and you worked there. It's like all the other networks. It's really a snake pit. They're stabbing people in the back. They're trying to get ahead. They're trying to destroy people. And when I first got there and I was in Boston when I came to ABC, they would assign me a producer.

And the producer would come out on the stories with me, which I didn't need. I had so much local news experience with no producer. I didn't produce a story. I didn't need that person. What I found out was happening was the producer was an informer, was going back and telling brass at ABC News, oh, O'Reilly said the F word or O'Reilly did this or O'Reilly did that. And half of it was BS.

They were making it up. And then I said, when I found out, I went to Jennings and said, I'm not working with a producer anymore. And he looks at me and goes, oh, yeah, everybody. I said, I'm not. I said, I'll have somebody in the editing room when I bring the tape and interviews back. They can edit and assemble as long as they –

because I always wrote everything I did, always. There's never a time where I didn't write what I did. I said, I don't need them out there, and they're informers. You know what they're doing. You hear all the stories about me, don't you? And then he'd just laugh. And I said, you know what the game is. I'm not playing that game.

I'm going out reporting the news. You don't like it, don't run it. I got on World News Tonight in two years 100 times. 100 times. Who does that? Very productive, Very productive, especially as somebody, you know, who's being their own person. You know, if I had to make an observation about Mr. Jennings, and I never worked for him, I was on his show in my capacity as the chief law and justice correspondent there, but I was primarily magazine and then I did mornings,

was, you know, he was constantly on the lookout for the next and he could shut people off and shut them away. And I always felt that that was an unnecessary insecurity on his part. Yeah, I never psychoanalyzed him. All I know is I could not have existed at ABC, could not have existed without ABC, could not have existed without Jennings backing me up. So I know what you're saying. I saw it. But having him in my corner meant that I could be a maverick and produce good work. I had to have that.

That was a good set of muscles to have on your shoulders for sure. And look, he wouldn't have done it if he didn't feel that you were delivering for him. So the media today is different. Do you believe, I just read Roger Mudd's memoir, and if people care, they can go Google him and figure out who he is. who he is. I thought it was so interesting that so many of the things that I would criticize about today's media were in play back then, too, even in a much smaller game with much less reach than we have now with all the different outlets. What do you think is substantially different today in a way that matters to the disadvantage of the American people? Well, all the correspondence in Mudd's era, and he was the guy who asked Teddy Kennedy about Chappaquiddick and did a good job doing it,

whereas MSNBC interviewed Joe Biden a few days ago and didn't ask him one question about Hunter. That's NBC News. That's Roger Mudd. I mean, that's how far it's fallen. Not one question. So the Mudd's and the Brinkley's and the Cronkite's and the Rooney's were all World War II guys. Okay? That was the difference. they saw the most important story of the 20th century right in front of them.

Murrow, all of these guys. And when you see something like that, when you gain that breadth of experience so quickly in the space of three or four years, bring that back. And that stays with you. That's your foundation. So I'm not going to name any names because I'm not in the business of harpooning people. We'll leave that to the internet snipes. But most of the anchors today don't have anywhere near that experience. They don't know. They haven't been there. And you know what? They don't really care.

They want to throw to the weatherman as another tornado in Oklahoma. Thanks so much. That's the extent of it. And, you know, I don't want to be arrogant and supercilious, word of the day, but it's not enough for me. I rarely watch them now because I don't learn anything from them.

The travel is important. The exposure is even more important. I think what I saw change over time was, one, you're not in places as long, so you don't get the same amount of exposure to what they are. And a lot of times they're fly in, fly out. And I think that hurts anchors. They don't understand it in the moment because they're checking the box. I was there. You saw me in my khaki, whatever, wherever I was. But they don't have the confidence

of the perspective that will enable them to challenge in a way that doesn't have to be theatrical. That's what happens is when you don't have the substance, you got to go to style. So, for instance, unlike Ukraine, having been there now several times, people can tell you, oh, this is what it is and this is how it is. Yeah, OK. It may be. But it's not like that everywhere because that's not how it was where I was. And when we were on the front lines, this is what we saw. And, you know, these innocent people and a lot of civilians were still there, and they were getting shelled, and I saw it, and it's bad.

You have the confidence to do that. Not that I'm looking to pick a fight, not that I want to be disrespectful to you, but I know you're wrong about this, just in terms of degree. I think it's a very valuable thing. But I would say, and I want your take on this, I would say the big difference in the media today is you have to be on, and people could say, oh, it's always been this way. You can't worry about your critics. No, you won't survive. You have to be on complete alert. If you're going to pop your head up and be special, not if you're

just going to keep your head down and just do what the company says and make sure you get things right, but don't distinguish yourself. Don't make yourself a target. If you make yourself a target, your head's got to be on a swivel 24-7 because there are people coming to take you down in the new digital media for sport. That's what they do. Negativity is a proxy for insight, and they're looking to take you down. It wasn't like that when I started. When I was at ABC News, you knew the critics by name. You knew what they were going to write, and you knew it only mattered to us. Now, it could be anybody on the internet that starts a jihad against you to get you fired.

Yeah, and money's involved, too. That was always in play against me at Fox. It was always big money trying to bring me down through organizations like Color of Change, Media Matters, all of these organized far left movements. They have plenty of money to burn and will go after you in a way that's just dishonest. And there's no restraints. Nobody's going to stop them. and there's no restraints. Nobody's going to stop them.

But on the bigger picture, when you travel, I've been to 85 countries, and I've covered four wars. And when you see what the reality of life is apart from your own experience, you obviously learn that. I mean, it's like going for a PhD. And some people have called me the most feared interviewer in the world. All right. And I'm proud of that label. And they don't want to come up against me. Believe me, I interviewed all the presidents and I could tell even Trump, they don't know what O'Reilly's going to do. And to beat O'Reilly, you're going to have to know more than he does about

whatever he's talking about. So the reason that I am feared by the powerful is because I do know what I'm talking about in two tracks. I've experienced it, and I'm a historian. And I can combine the two, which is unique. You know, we have 19 million history books in print, more than any other non-fiction author who's ever lived in the Killing Series. And all of those are researched to a degree that people go, you didn't know that? You know, that's why they sell and they're fun to read. But it takes a lot of hard work. The corporations don't value that any longer. They value cosmetics. And as you said, keep your head down. Don't make waves. We don't want any trouble. Just do what we're making enough money now that we don't have to.

You know, when Fox started, nobody knew. Ted Turner, oh, we'll squash him like a bug. Nobody knew whether it was going to be successful. And I remember a conversation I had. I said, look, in order to beat these guys, you're going to have to be bold and fresh. And that's the title of my biography, A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity. I said, you're going to have to go out and hit them right between the eyes. And I said, I'll do it. But I don't know how many other people are going to do it, because when you do that, they're going to hit back. And that's where we are.

When you are preparing to interview somebody, how much do you go over the anticipated responses? I know what they're going to say, because my producer, whoever is setting up the interview, is responsible for getting me a POV, point of view. So I know where they're going to say because my producer, whoever is setting up the interview, is responsible for getting me a POV, point of view. So I know where they're going to go if I ask a certain question. But I try to ask questions that they're not expecting. That's the key to all good interviews with powerful people. You don't ask them what they think you're going to ask. Ask them something else.

Because then all the rehearsed answers go flying out their ears. You can even see it. And that's what I always try to do. I try to give them something that they haven't thought about. And the camera is the camera. So let's see how quick you are. Not unfair questions. Always questions that are in context of what we're discussing and why we're discussing it but I'm not a predictable sort and you know that on when we do the your show on Wednesday nights on News Nation you never know what I'm going to say you never know what I'm going to say even though your producers hawk me what do you think about this what do you think about that I give a general sense of what I think about it but you don't know what I'm going to say uh no I mean I read your stuff. I mean,

it's not like you're making it up, you know, and you have very heartfelt and profound convictions about things. So I'm rarely surprised where you're coming from, but I enjoy the conversations very much. And it's interesting to me how unimpressed I am with people enjoying them as much as they do. And that's unusual for me because usually if the audience likes it, then I'm prone to do it because that's what I'm doing here is I'm trying to serve their interests. And I hear from people all the time, and whether they're O'Reilly fans, you know, or not, if they're O'Reilly fans, of course, anything they can get of O'Reilly, that's great.

But the idea of just seeing us talk to each other, whether we agree or we don't, and a lot of the times I have to push to points of disagreement because I want people to see things in contrast, that they appreciate that and they like that. Obviously, there's a deference from me to you because I appreciate you very much and your expertise, but it doesn't matter to me that they like it,

but they really do, Bill. They really do like it. Well, it's because it's not boring. See, it's almost too easy for us because the rest of it is so boring. See, it's almost too easy for us because the rest of it is so boring. How many times are you going to listen to somebody say at the end of the day or deep dive? I mean, can we put a cap on it like maybe 10 times in an interview and that's it? And you get electrocuted if you can say at the end of the day 11 times? I mean, it's insane. It's like listening to a second baseman go, I'll just thank the Lord that we won today at Omnia.

I just tried to hit the ball. You know, there was a guy on Saturday night, Chico Escuela. That's what I did. Chico Escuela is anchoring on NBC now. It's just like, I'm just happy to be here. No. So when we discuss something, we're discussing something. It's not boring.

And that's what people are responding to. They're not responding to the individual takes on life. They're responding to, hey, this is entertaining, and I'm learning some things. Which, again, in the bulk of television news, doesn't exist anymore. You ever watch the morning shows lately? And my God, it's just like, do I need another omelet? Really? Do I have to make another omelet here on Good Morning America?

Wait, listen. Anything else? You know, it's a tricky business. It's a tricky business because— No, it's not. They're lazy. It's a pack animal. People do—it's not an innovator's business.

It's not an innovator's business. Let's make the omelet. We know the omelet's safe. It business. Let's make the omelet. We know the omelet's safe. It works. Different ingredients in the omelet. Get the celebrity in here, six celebrities, even better. You know, play to the reality TV dramas. Give them a little bit of a news in the beginning.

Get to crime. Even consumer has really lost its place on the uh story wheel because it requires too much enterprise uh value of finding stories and digging into them i actually think that's news nation's best bet is when there is so much perversion of the norm, just being regular winds up being extraordinary. And, you know, what I like about them, I really think that if I were doing their marketing, News Nation is the only outfit whose name is a reference to the audience. You know, if you think about it, everybody else is call signals, right? You know, Fox is, you know, a call signal as well.

MSNBC is a call signal. News Nation refers to the American people. And I see that as a tremendous asset for them of creating a sense of equity and ownership from their audience. And that we're just going to reflect all the different slices of what's going on. And yeah, of course, Cuomo is going to have O'Reilly on. He's lucky enough to have the relationship,

but also we want to do contrast here. We want to give you voices that matter. You may not like them. You may not agree with them, but you got to listen. You got to listen if they're interesting. But if they're boring, you won't listen, and people will turn it off. And that's a key.

I mean, it's a skill set of producers and talent coming together and saying, is this going to gauge people's attention? And everything's got to pay off now because you got this in your hand. And if you're not paying off, people are just going to pick this up. I see it with my urchins. As soon as they're watching something on television and get a little bit bored, bang, this comes out. I don't think you can call your kids urchins.

Certainly not your son. He's bigger than you are, by the way. Yeah, but he's not smarter than I am. And he has to look up the word urchin. And he's right under that definition. He's still a kid. Let me ask you something. You think you could compete with him when you were his age?

Compete in what way? Any. No, he's a lot smarter than I was when I was 19. Okay. I was a real idiot. I mean, my God. The dopiest kid on earth. Sports saved me because I loved the competition,

and I was fairly good at it. Not pro level, but just below that. But I was a dopey, you know. And I only wised up, I would say, when I went to the University of London my third year in college. That started me going, you know, it was a little bit more than Levittown, a little bit more than, you know. My father said, well, you know, don't worry about going a third year abroad in London. He didn't want to pay for it. Well, I can get you into the union, the Teamsters Union. I looked at him, I go, I think I'm going to London. So,

and he was serious because he was a working class guy. And I'm the only guy in the O'Reilly chain who's ever broken out of the working class. No one ever did. And we started Third Boat after the Mayflower on my mother's side and in the late 1860s on my father's side. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding. One out of three of us report being sleep deprived. Okay, well, what is it? Well, it stresses all kinds of things, but the wrong sheets can make you hot, can make you cold. I'm telling you, I don't even believe it either, but Cozy Earth sheets breathe. And here's what

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And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo. It's embarrassing. But it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS. embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments,

and you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven, And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP.

And you will get personalized ED treatment options. HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions? You need an online consultation with a healthcare provider. And they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. You know, my pop, you know his story well. And one thing he was really ahead of the curve on that

we're just starting to see now is a real challenge so he was the first guy obviously um you know first generation in the country to go to school and his family was very proud of that but i remember when i was growing up and when he'd be talking about school, first of all, he was the original, completely authentic anti-elitist because he felt second class. He felt these people looked down on him, and they only identified him as Italian, and he would always show me his clippings early in politics, gap-toothed, swarthy, like all these different code words that you probably

couldn't even use today, even about an Italian American. And he would say, you know, this college thing, it's not for everybody, he would say. And he would default right to, everybody needs a good plumber. And let me tell you, you know a trade, you can run a successful business. And I remember he, I used to think he was saying it to be charitable to uneducated people. And he would say to me, you don't know what educated means. And I'd say, well, I mean, you know, they didn't go to college. That is not the measure of an education. He's like, that's a measure of exposure and that's academics. But I promise you, you'll never know anything as good

as a tradesman knows their trade. And I remember when I went to law school, his advice to me was take it like a trade. Pretend you're in the trades. He was so far ahead on that, which was so interesting because he had no tradesmen in him. He could not fix or work on anything. You know, my brother's a master mechanic. He knows like every system in a house, he could

rebuild a car from the ground up or anything else that has an engine. My father wasn't like that at all, but he had such respect for it. And now I'm seeing it again. And I hear myself talking to my son now that he's a junior in high school. And I say, hey, you know, you seem a little nervous about the college thing. First of all, no one says you have to go right away. You're not paying your own way. So, you know, don't go because you're supposed to go. Figure out why you want to go.

And by the way, you keep saying you want to be a businessman. The highest percentage of successful businesses in the United States are trade-based. And it's interesting how we're kind of getting back there again, where a lot of these ideas, like I don't know that college is a great return on investment. What do you think? It depends on the person. So I always tell my urchins, look, the secret to happiness is to find something you like to do and make money doing it.

That's the secret to happiness in the world of commerce. Okay, personal, totally different. And, you know, I help them identify things that they have natural ability in. I can see it and I can, and I can steer them into this. But sometimes it doesn't work out. My son, for example, you mentioned him, tremendous actor. Tremendous actor, all natural talent. He can sing.

I mean, he could absolutely make it in show business. But he knows that's a terrible life, show business. He's very interested in political science. So that's where he's going. Very, very interested. I have a little of it, but I don't micromanage the kids like that. My daughter has just completed her second year in St. John's Law, where your father went. Okay? Did you go to St. John's? No. He hated that I didn't go, by the way. Okay. So my daughter is following your father's path. And again, I'm trying to get to her, identify what she wants to do with the law degree. This is what I said to her. I said, look, you can do a lot of good and you can do a lot of bad.

If you're going to hurt people and make money, if you're going to take cases where you don't know who's guilty and innocent for the money, that's the road to hell. You're going to ruin people, ruin families, so you can bill them hours. It's the road to hell. But you take your education and you use it to protect people, use it to help the downtrodden, that's the road to heaven. You don't want to hear that because it's way too judgmental from the old man, but it's absolutely true. It depends on the person and what the person, what kind of person it is and what he or she wants to do. But you've got to isolate the talent. I agree. I just think that it used to be a catch-all. You go to college, you'll be okay. And I don't see it. And I'll tell you in my hiring,

I don't see it either. The chance that I'm hiring kids from big name schools is very small because I believe that there is, again, I'm generalizing, but the hunger and the appetite for criticism, constructive or otherwise, I see an inverse relationship between the elite status of the school and the tolerance of the employee? I don't see it quite that way. So at Fox News, almost every program is run by people I trained to this day. Because if you could get through me, this is like the Navy SEALs of television news. It is. Because I'm sitting there, these kids are coming coming in low-level positions from the finest schools. I don't give them credit for that or discredit. We say this is what you have to do, and if you do it, you'll succeed.

If you don't, you won't. Okay? But what I do provide is cover. You get in trouble, we have an open door policy. There are managers here who will help you. They're under instructions to help you, and you can walk through my door. So I'm giving them some comfort there. But I don't do that. I give everybody a chance if I believe that they are qualified to do the work. Now, if you walk into my office and you have a tattoo of a panther on your neck, you're not going to get the work. Now, if you walk into my office and you have a tattoo of a

panther on your neck, you're not going to get the job, okay? Because we have to present ourselves in a certain way because we're dealing with the biggest people in the world, okay? If you say cool 15 times and there was actually a fine at the O'Reilly factor for people who said cool in the meetings. If you said cool, it was five bucks you put in a jar, we gave it to the homeless charity. You could not say cool because I had cools coming at me. I thought I was on a Dick Clark show. It was crazy. I said, no, we're going to speak as adults here.

So when you're talking to a senator, trying to convince that person on the program, you're not going, hello. No, that's not the message you want to send. Have you started to yell at people to get off your lawn yet? No. Because you are steaming down that lane. I got a dog that'll do that. I don't yell at anybody. Dog needs to be trained, by the way. I don't think I don't know what you were doing when I met that dog. Dog gets right in my face, growling, you don't say anything. That's right. You don't mess with that dog, Corgi. But anyway, I believe firmly

to treat everybody as an individual because that's how I want to be treated. I always wanted to be treated as an individual, not some cog in a machine. But you get through me and you know that. You know how to do your job in television news. What has life taught you that you appreciate more now? Well, I think that the world is getting more evil. My upcoming book in September is Killing the Witches. You don't get more evil than what happened in Salem in the 1690s. I know that was the high point of evil, where you see it. But from that evil came good. And we trace you through what happened after the 20 human beings were murdered in Salem as witches. And then we bring you into modern times with the good versus active evil in the world.

It's a fascinating book. It's going to do very well, I think. But what I've learned is that the world is getting much more callous, much more insensitive. And this is why. Because people are creating their lives around this. And there's no humanity in this. None. So the art of conversation, flying out the window. Empathy, empathy, right? Stop in the car, somebody's lying on the street. All right, stop in the car, somebody's lying on the street.

Man, you get one out of 10 maybe to do that now. When my parents were younger in the Depression years and then World War II, everybody was helping everybody. And in rural America, that happens still, not in urban America. So I'm seeing a deterioration of civility in this country. Disturbing. I'm seeing craven politicians who don't care about anybody but themselves. And I'm seeing a corporate media that is beyond anything that I could ever imagine. It is the most corrupt media in the history of this country by far.

What's the fix? There is no fix at this point. You can only hope that people will emerge in politics as well. We need a leader in this country, a strong leader who is going to talk straight to the folks and going to put his or herself on the line to improve people's lives rather than this two-camp garbage that dominates now. We don't have that leader in politics right now, and we don't have any crusaders, many crusaders,

in the media. We have a few, but somehow they have to come to the forefront. It will happen. History goes in cycles. Everybody goes, oh, America's through, America's this. Somebody's going to emerge. Downs are opportunities for up. You just have to have somebody seize the opportunity. I appreciate that I was able to seize the opportunity to get time with you, introducing you to the podcast audience here. Always thought-provoking, always someone who's got a lot of thought behind what they say, Bill O'Reilly. A pleasure. Thank you for talking to me here and on the show every Wednesday night, if not more often on NewsNation.

I appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for having me in. You may like it. You may not. And that's okay. Either way. It's about does it make you think?

And I think the biggest concern I have with criticisms of anybody that I talk to is that too often the criticisms come from a place not of intellect or reason, but of emotion, feeling, sentiment. And that's very powerful, but it can also be very distracting. And the point is to be a critical thinker. If you don't like a point, counter it. Don't insult the person who makes that point. That's cheap, that's easy, and that's what you should oppose.

Thank you very much for giving me a shot here for subscribing and following. Give your comments so that we can address them. Mono a mo, as it were. And I'll see you on News Nation, 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern, five nights a week and sometimes more. I'll see you soon. Take care of yourself and take care of the people you care about. you