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| All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
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| Laura began with the news that CIA boss General David Petraeus has quit the agency after admitting to having an extramarital affair. Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin entered the No Spin Zone with the latest. "General Petraeus went to the White House yesterday," Griffin reported, "and told the President that he felt he should resign. We're now learning that the FBI had been investigating General Petraeus as part of a larger investigation. The name that has emerged is Paula Broadwell, General Petraeus' biographer, who had spent a year in Afghanistan with him documenting his life. There are also questions about whether this affair occurred while he was still a four-star general and whether he could face military punishment." Griffin added that Petraeus, who had been scheduled to testify before Congress next week regarding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, will not appear at the hearing. "The timing of this is very suspicious in that he no longer will have to testify before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. There were going to be some heated questions from members on Capitol Hill who were frustrated by his previous responses after the Benghazi attack." |
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Guests:"I received a call today from a reporter asking me if Mitt Romney lost because of talk radio and the Tea Party, and whether the GOP had to soften its views to appeal to women and Latinos. The media pushed that same narrative after the GOP's 2006 midterm wipeout and after McCain's 2008 loss to Obama. The fact is that talk radio continues to thrive while moderate Republicans continue to lose presidential elections. And while the Tea Party has backed some terrible candidates, it also made the 2010 rout possible. Where's the evidence that pro-abortion or pro-amnesty or pro-gay marriage candidates are the solution to the GOP's problems? Moderates like Scott Brown and Charlie Summers just lost their Senate races in Massachusetts and Maine, and until liberal Republicans start winning their races, why should they dictate the terms of a new GOP agenda? Of course Republicans need to attract more single women and Latinos, but pandering isn't the answer; good politics and good policy is the answer. If you believe, like I do, that conservative social and economic policies are the best hope for the nation, abandoning your positions to try to become more popular is a path to complete irrelevance."
Laura was joined by Republican Senator Mike Lee, a staunch supporter of the Tea Party. "The Republican Party has benefited from the grass roots conservative political movement that started in 2009," Lee declared. "That brought us a Republican victory in 2010 in the House and some victories in the Senate, and it has continued to benefit the party. The fact that we sustained some defeats, in part because we betrayed some of our principles as a party, doesn't mean we should retreat from these conservative principles. It means we should endorse them more wholeheartedly." Laura lamented that Speaker of the House John Boehner has indicated that he might be willing to compromise on a budget deal: "The Democrats talk a good game about 'compromise,' but in the end it's going to be President Obama's way or the highway!" |
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| President Obama held a press conference Friday to reaffirm his determination to raise taxes on wealthier Americans. Laura pursued the tax issue with David Callahan of the liberal think tank Demos. "I hope there is not too much compromise," Callahan said. "There were a lot of people who worked very hard for Barack Obama's reelection, progressive activists and labor unions who don't want to see him give away the store to Republican leaders. Most of the ideas on the table, including President Obama's, don't raise enough revenue and make too deep cuts in social spending. Americans don't want that and the President needs to go for much more revenue than he discussed." Callahan recommended allowing all the so-called Bush tax cuts to lapse, saying "they certainly aren't affordable with the deficit and spending needs we face." |
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| Laura welcomed former Democratic Congressman Artur Davis, who switched parties and spoke at the Republican Convention this year. "This is a conversation Republicans ought to be having," Davis said, "because we've got some work to do. We had the lowest numbers with Latinos ever, we lost Virginia because of the gender gap, and we lost Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because we couldn't close the deal with blue-collar workers. We've got to be the reform party, we've got to talk about education reform and market-based approaches to health care. We lost this election because more people distrusted Republicans than distrusted Barack Obama." Laura pointed out a few of the bright spots for the GOP, saying, "We have 30 Republican governors, we have two Latino governors, and we have more women governors than the Democrats." |
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| Rising Republican star Senator Marco Rubio is heading to Iowa next week to headline a fundraiser. Laura discussed the trip with Fox News host Mike Huckabee. "Marco Rubio is a star in the party," Huckabee said, "and rightfully so. He's one of our most articulate, thoughtful, and effective spokespersons. And once somebody is on the national stage, they will get invited to Iowa and New Hampshire. It's a chance for the politicians to go and get their feet on the ground in those states." Huckabee warned that his party's nomination process can be destructive. "The problem is that the process of the primary becomes fratricide, everybody eats each other alive, and then it's usually the person with the most money and has been at it the longest who is going to win. Also, I don't think we have to punish ourselves and say we were too conservative. This wasn't a message election, it's that we were out-mobilized." |
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| Almost immediately after Tuesday's election various companies announced layoffs. Laura asked Christian Dorsey of the Economic Policy Institute whether President Obama's reelection is generally bad for business. "Nothing related to the election should be a reason for layoffs," Dorsey asserted. "Anyone needing to lay off workers now had systemic problems long before Tuesday. These might be legitimate business decisions, but it's not because of the results of the election. And if the stock market wasn't prepared for Barack Obama to be reelected, then I don't have a lot of faith that actors in the market are rational." Laura reminded Dorsey, "Some of these companies are actually saying it's the result of the election, and that the new monstrosity Obamacare is a big burden to businesses at a time when profit margins are quite narrow." |
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| The Pentagon has revealed that Iran fired at an unarmed U.S. drone on November 1st, raising the question of why this wasn't mentioned prior to the election. Former U.S. State Department official Richard Grenell elaborated on the incident. "This was a provocative act in international air space," he said, "and this attack can not go unanswered. There has also been a plot to kill an ambassador in Washington and the killing of our ambassador in Libya, yet the Obama administration keeps turning the other cheek. It's providing our enemies and others with a sense that we are weak. The second part of this is the timing - why did it take this long to figure out what's going on when it took less than an hour to tell us about the killing of Osama Bin Laden?" |
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