O'REILLY Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to another edition of We'll Do It Live. And I just want to remind everybody that I did not want to do this podcast or long form, whatever you want to call it, because it's basically the title of it, We'll Do It Live, mocks me. So every week I have to mock myself, and I'm going, why am I doing this? So if you don't know what We'll Do It Live is, just Google O'Reilly and we'll do it live, and it will pop up. Now I don't recommend you do that, okay? You'd probably be a better person if you don't do it. But that is what this is named. We're very pleased to have the very talented Howie Mandel coming to us from his lair in Los Angeles, California, where I was a few months ago doing his podcast. So, Howie, he decided to return the favor. Now, you know...
MANDEL I'm a huge fan of yours, Bill, and number one, I'm already enjoying your mechanics of not getting anybody to look up We'll Do It Live.
O'REILLY Right.
MANDEL Which it was part of, it's the closing of the podcast you did with me. I know. It's epic. You can't miss it. It's, and I love the fact that you celebrate that moment, which is probably in the moment, not one of your defining moments.
O'REILLY But I don't know if celebrate is the right word. It was like my younger staff said we have to do this, but I want to alert everybody that the podcast is going to go downhill from here. So the high point has been reached in the intro, and now we're going to descend into.
MANDEL What a gracious host you are. I've just joined you, and now you're touting the fact that this is going downhill.
O'REILLY Yeah, it's going to be a disaster. So I want to tell people two things about you. The first thing is that Mandel makes me laugh. And I'm not exactly a hysterical guy, right? But there's something about him that makes me laugh. I paid good money to see Howie Mandel at the Westbury Music Fair in my hometown. And I dragged along a date, and I said to her, look, she goes, what is this, a talent show or something? I said, no, no. This guy is just, he just gets it, and it's true. And then, how it was nice enough to allow me in the dressing room for 38 seconds, he had a stopwatch, and we just commiserated there. And then when I went on Mandel's podcast, I was surprised a bit, because a very successful podcast, Howie Mandel Does Stuff. And people don't know this, but you spent tens of thousands of dollars getting that title, right? Howie Mandel Does Stuff?
MANDEL I had Does Stuff. I didn't have Howie Mandel secured.
O'REILLY So his daughter is on a podcast, Jacqueline. She is a liberal woman. And I saw on a few occasions when she was questioning me, and they were all very smart questions, that she's a little disdain there.
MANDEL She gets, I don't know what the language barrier is on this broadcast, but she is accused of having a resting bitch face, which is just, you know, it's genetic. Her mother has the exact same face. So I don't know that it's disdain as much as it's just that expression.
O'REILLY Okay. But she, I think, looks upon me as millions of people around the world do, as kind of a Neanderthal. Would you see that?
MANDEL No, but I do think that she thinks that you're of a different thought than her, a different mind than her. And she loves to discuss it. And I know for a fact that she enjoyed your appearance. Does she agree with you? No. Does she want to talk to you? Yes, we are, and I shouldn't speak for her, but because she's an adult and she is a chalene liberal. But to that end, she is open to hearing from everybody. Our whole family is. And the one thing that I have taught my children, as was taught to me, is respect and just respect for everything and anybody. You cannot, you have to earn disrespect. I think we come into whatever the issue is with respect.
O'REILLY Do you see that philosophy as prevalent in the show business industry?
MANDEL Well, you know, it's very funny because people will talk about prevalence in show business. Show business is just, it's a microcosm of humanity. People who are in show business happen to be, and you are in show business, happen to be recorded and projected out there. And if you're Joe or Dave or Lisa, that works in the bank, you aren't. I find it really funny that people in, not the people in show business, but the people outside of show business, have this gravitas respect for somebody who pretended to be something. You know, it's just pretending. It's not that big a deal to pretend.
O'REILLY But there are people, and you know them, who say, look, if I say good things about Donald Trump, I'm not gonna work. I'm gonna lose jobs, and people will scorn me. I won't get invitations to the Hollywood Hills cocktail parties. So I'm going to say anything.
MANDEL I don't know that that's true as much as what's true is if you get into the...it's not somebody saying something positive about the other side, I think it's when the rhetoric has gotten beyond compliments or even something positive or negative, the rhetoric become... It's rhetoric. It's not positive or negative, it's you know, you're an idiot, you know you're a racist. It becomes name-calling, or if you are kind of framing somebody who thinks different than you in this negative frame, then they don't want to work. They don't wanna spend time with you. So I don't know that you're going to lose jobs because you're, I think there's Republicans and right-wing people doing very well in this business.
O'REILLY All right, but there is a perception out there. Now, I was in a restaurant off Melrose a few years ago, and Chelsea Handler walked in. You know her, right, Chelsea?
MANDEL Yeah.
O'REILLY Okay, lively lass, would you agree?
MANDEL That's a word that hasn't been uttered or two words that haven't been uttered since the late 50s, Bill.
O'REILLY I'm a Renaissance guy. So anyway, I'm sitting.
MANDEL You're not on a dating app, are you? Because do you look for lively lasses?
O'REILLY No, I'm just trying to set the scene. So I'm sitting there eating my tofu on a Melrose afternoon. And she walks over to the table, there were a few other people with me, and she goes, you're not allowed to be here in LA. So I said, all right, check please, you know, we'll leave immediately. But there was an edge there, that Oh, boy. And that's what I was talking about.
MANDEL You don't think she was just trying to be funny?
O'REILLY I don't know her well enough, maybe?
MANDEL I'll tell you she's a comedian and she's smart and she's outrageous and she's outspoken, and that seems on brand for her. Is she really perturbed that you are sitting eating tofu on Melrose? I doubt it. I doubt it affected her for one brief moment.
O'REILLY You just wanted to give me a hard time. Now, you were born in Toronto, Canada, and raised as a Canadian, correct?
MANDEL Yes, I am.
O'REILLY Did you have skates on when you were four, and you were with the little hockey stick? Did you do that? I mean, were you doing that?
MANDEL No, we were, I was at a young age, I was sent out in the forest to retrieve maple syrup from the trees. That's what they do with their children, the youngen. The youngens are sent to work, and I had to draw sap, maple sap from the maple tree.
O'REILLY In Southern Canada, there's a lot of funny people. Ackroyd comes out of there, Lorne Michaels comes out there, a bunch of the SNL people, you, and all of this. So is it just the region that produces this humor? Or are you just so happy you don't live in Nova Scotia that you're making jokes all the time?
MANDEL Now you're making fun of the country. I will tell you that it is even fascinating to me that so many people that I am fans of in front of and behind the camera come from Canada. Per capita, we probably have the highest rate of talent, whether that is even in music, from Celine Dion to Drake to so many others to film directors, Norman Jewison, writers and comedians, and just producers like Lorne Michaels. For such a, you know, we have a 10th the population of all of America. You guys have 300, we have, I live here, 330 million people. We have 30 million people, and most of that population is in like three little ponds of population, and that would be Southern Ontario, like Toronto, in Quebec, around Montreal, and then on the West coast around Vancouver. And so many, that's where Michael Bublé comes from, so much talent in such a small area is, there must be something in our water. I don't know what it is.
O'REILLY When you look back, the contrast of your upbringing to your daughter's upbringing in L.A. must be, it's two different worlds, right?
MANDEL And I say to my wife, and I, my wife's also from Toronto. I've been married for 46 years to the same woman, and my world, her world, I'm talking about my daughter's world, my son's world, and my other daughter, I have three children, is so vastly different. Well, first of all, when we first moved here, and I don't know if it's LA as much as it's America, this was somewhat of a culture shock. You know, just the American way is a very different culture. And it was a culture that I adhered to, that I love. It's that go-get-it kind of, you know, Canada is a beautiful place to live and a beautiful, safe, wonderful giving environment. And here it is like... It feels like, and there's nothing wrong with this. And that's what I liked about it. And this is what I got my career about. But it is every man for themselves. You know, and it's that go-get-it attitude, and you can have a dream and make that dream come true. That's what AGT is about. And I did, you know, everything I've ever been punished for, expelled for, gotten in trouble for is what I seem to get paid for. And I turned what was considered a, you know, a behavioral problem into my own little industry. So, but my kids, you know, they went to public school. And both my wife and I, we come from, you know, I grew up in an apartment and shared a room with my brother. They didn't, they were lower middle class, and I've tried to instill into my kids the importance and the gratitude of hard work and respect, and they've all done that. You know, I told you, the daughter that you met spent every day driving out to, you know, Crenshaw and Watts and East LA, which are really kind of underserved areas in LA, and she taught and was in those schools where there was violence and corruption and, you know, so that they did that. My son, who actually runs my company, and not because I gave him a job, it's not nepotism, it's more nepotism that he hired me. He does one, I'm one of maybe 30 different podcasts that he produces that have nothing to do with me, and he built this building that you see. He was a YouTuber and made a fortune by himself as a YouTuber as a kid, and then realized he kind of gleaned that entrepreneurial spirit that I have. I'm much more entrepreneurial than I am creative. And my other daughter, who doesn't ever want to be on camera, doesn't even want her picture taken. It was hard to talk her into being in her wedding album, is a physiotherapist. So I think they see things that I never got to see in Toronto as a kid. I mean, they're obviously much more privileged, and we get to do things. And I feel like nobody's more excited and feels surprised and blessed by what this has afforded me to do for me and my family, but they all earn their own livings. They work very hard. They invest their money. They have their own little, they'll buy a property and then rent it out and build their own little world. And I'm very proud of them. And they don't act like anything is coming to them. But I am vastly aware that this is not the world that I grew up in.
O'REILLY That's for sure, but I'm giving all the credit to your wife for the kids turning out well. So I'm going to Mandel's studio in a place called Van Nuys, which is north of L.A., and we had never been to the studio before, and we walk into the studio, and it's very elaborate. So your son has done a very good job with it. But there's actually a band in this studio of human beings, five or six of them. And they write a song while the guest, which was me, was talking to Mandel. And then after the party is over, they sing the song. It was great.
MANDEL I, during COVID, and you know, I've been very open about my mental health and OCD and my germaphobia, but, and, and I'm not crying a river, but the OCD was really hard for me. I almost went overboard. And one of my little panaceas was I was on TikTok and listening to live streams. And I heard this Sonny and the Black Pack. They would play, he's got a beautiful voice, and they're great. And they would live-stream for hours. And I DM them, and I just said to them, Hey, listen, I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan. Where are you? That turned out to be in Northern California. They were in San Francisco. And I said, if you ever think of coming to LA and you need a space, you know, I have space here. You know, I'm based in a warehouse. I spend my day in a warehouse, that's where I am right now, and you could, you know, whatever you're doing, you could do it from here. And maybe because you're in LA, there are connections you could make and people you can do content, you know? You'll meet Bill O'Reilly, you can sing a song about him, and they moved down. And now Sonny and the Black Pack are my house band.
O'REILLY It's unique, I've never seen it before, it was very, very impressive. Now on linear TV, that requires a different discipline than social media and the podcast world. So you do America's Got Talent, you do Canada's Got Talent. And I went, are we talking hockey here? But it was just a wise guy remark. But a linear situation is different. Because, you know, you've got to hit the brakes, you've gotta do this, you gotta do that. The shows that you do, are they fun to do, or is it going to work?
MANDEL Well, listen, it...Nobody's more thrilled, and excited, and blown away by the fact that I'm invited to the party. This is even fun, sitting and talking to you. You're somebody that I watch, that I fanboyed on, and then I get to sit and talk to you, and you're interested in asking me a question, it's amazing. So everything I do, I have joy for. My most exciting thing that is not work and that nothing stands in the way is stand-up comedy. I love stand-up comedy, and I still tour. I'm doing, I do... Well, three times a week I drop in at the comedy store, the laugh factory or the improv and any given night, Chappelle and Leno and everybody who's anybody is up there, Sebastian and we just write and there now in the clubs, they lock away your phones so they can't be recorded and they can be repeat and that's the fun. But linear television is ad-supported television. And I also know that I have the responsibility to be responsible because there are people like Ward and McDonough and all these people supporting it.
O'REILLY How do you, when you say you love stand-up, many, many stand-up comics are dark people. You know that, I'm sure. I mean, they're funny, and they have unbelievable wit and talent, but off camera, they are kind of morose, and it's not an easy industry. It isn't, because you've got to make these people react to you. So number one, do you write everything down when it comes into your mind that that's pretty funny, an observation, do you write it down? Or is it just stream of consciousness?
MANDEL I will write down, during the day, I write down if there's something that I think is a tidbit that I can expound upon. I don't write word-for-word. I'm not as disciplined as Jerry Seinfeld, who is a wordsmith and brilliant at it. I just have an idea, and then in front of the audience I will go, like tonight, I'll be at the improv and the comedy store. And so I'll go and try something that I wrote down and I didn't write the jokes, I just wrote down there's a funny area, and I'll do it there, and then I'll drive over to the comedy store at the improv, and then drive over to the comedy store, and I'll do it again there, and then, tomorrow night I'll do it again. And then you can hone these moments, and then maybe create a piece. I watched the most seminal moment I had in learning or being inspired by this was when I moved out here in '78, I watched Richard Pryor every night go on stage at the Comedy Store and hone together live on the Sunset Strip. And he was a guy who showed up every night. And it was brilliant to watch. And I don't think some of the biggest comics today, you would even know if it wasn't for him. He was the first kind of symbol of authenticity. And you talk about all these people being dark and morose. You know, I have a hard time with my mental health. I have really good light, but I have a hard time. But you know that comedy for me, and I believe, you know, having a sense of humor is not the ability to tell a joke or to laugh at a joke. A sense of humor is to find that sensibility in the darkest place. All comedy comes from darkness, all of it. If you laugh at a clown falling down at the circus, what are you laughing at? You're laughing at a stranger's misfortune. If you're telling a joke and two guys walk into a bar, it's not a joke unless something embarrassing, awkward, or horrible happens to one of them. That's the joke. That's what a joke is. And if you look at the two masks of theater, comedy and drama, they're very close. There's such a thin line between drama and comedy. In fact, comedy is just looking at something incredibly dramatic from another way.
O'REILLY When it doesn't go well, that's the toughest time for a comic, but you have a persona where you kind of just roll along, and you know.
MANDEL Not really. That's the persona. You see, the tough time... I've always used the analogy for me for standup. I love thrill rides. I love roller coasters. And if you look at what a roller coaster is, the higher you go, the faster you go, the closer to being dangerous or being killed, the better it is. I mean, if you like...And you just went on a little straight track that never went up or down a hill, you'd be bored. But your adrenaline is going when you're being dropped 19 stories. By the same token, in those moments when it doesn't work and your adrenaline is running and there's thousands of people who you've never met looking at you, going, well, what's happening? That adrenaline, that excitement, that ability to try and reel them back and get a laugh or get them to appreciate the moment is the joy, the thrill, and the excitement that makes me feel alive.
O'REILLY Carson was the best at it, you know, because he was even funnier when it went south. You know, he had it down.
MANDEL Yeah, he made that his thing. He would always come out and say, this is a good audience. The audience last night, you know, and he would talk about the audience. Carson was also the litmus test in my generation of being considered by the public to even be a comedian. You know, when I came out here and started and did a couple of shows, television shows, and specials, if somebody didn't recognize me in the street, they'd come up, and they'd say, what do you do? And I'd say well, I'm a stand-up comedian. The average person would go, well, have you ever been on, have you ever on Johnny? And that was their litmus test at that time. If you had been on Johnny, then even if I didn't see you, wow, you must be a professional comedian. If you didn't do Johnny, you were nothing in anybody's eyes.
O'REILLY You and I have some in common. David Letterman. So in '79, you did very well on Letterman.
MANDEL I opened for him a couple of times and you know, when I came to the comedy store, he was the MC in '78 and '77 at the comedy store. He had just moved out here from being a weatherman someplace in Indiana or Indianapolis, I don't know where he was a weatherman. So I was there like when he started, and to watch all these guys, we were all these young dreamers who were kind of mischievous little kids, who found this clubhouse where all these like-minded people, semi-like-minded people got together and had fun. It was like the wild west of, I mean, it was the comedy boom of the 80s. Actually, I did well on Letterman, but for years and years and years, in the world of comedy, the toughest crowd are fellow comedians and the meanest crowd to other comedians are comedians. And because when I started out, I used to use a lot of, I was just this hyper guy that had a ton of props. And this is before people would make fun of Carrot Top, who I think is actually brilliant and has the ability to hold an audience and his own room in Vegas all these years. And he designed, not only does he write whatever he's verbalizing, but he has to design and engineer these great little props. But I had props. This is before he even started, and I was a joke amongst the comedians. You know, people loved brilliant wordsmiths like your friend Dennis Miller and other people, monologists. And part of Letterman's top 10 list, sometimes I was mentioned as the joke. They'd go, and we'll make them go to a Howie Mandel. That hurt me because you want your fellow...
O'REILLY Yeah, you want that prestige from the guys. Here's what, and you can react to this, so I was on Letterman 16 times. And it was a different era. Now the late night won't book anybody that doesn't hate Trump. So if you want to be on late-night television, you've got to hate Trump, and we've documented that here, and it's really too bad, but that's how it's descended. When I was in Letterman, he's not like Leno. Leno would come into the dressing room, he'd give you a little basket of fruit, a sweatshirt, you know, whatever it may be. And it was lighter. Letterman was a Prince of Darkness figure. Studio was 14 below zero. You had to wear earmuffs to go on there. He didn't visit anybody before the show. It was where's Dave, you know. The crew is a little, you know, you don't want to try. I like that because I'm a dark person.
MANDEL I like, I love Letterman. I love the show, and I love David. And I will tell you this, you know, both of them are authentically who they are. David Letterman is not a social butterfly. You know, and when you went on Letterman, you got Letterman, you got him. I think that's...Bill, I would think, I don't know you that well, but I think what people are glomming onto you. You're authentic. I don't think I'm talking to a character. When you watch Letterman, you're not talking to a character, that room was cold because there is a thought in this industry, especially when laughter is what you're kind of aiming for, that if people are hot or it's warm with all those lights, they get lethargic and you don't get the same laughs. But when you're sitting there, and you're up, and you're kind of cold, you're gonna laugh, it makes for a better audience response.
O'REILLY And he liked the environment to be cool itself. But the thing about Letterman was that a lot of people are intimidated. Guests, I've seen the biggest people go on there, and you can tell if you're in the industry, as you and I am, are, they're intimidated by Letterman. I went in there, and nobody intimidates me, ever. If you were raised by my father, nobody would ever intimidate you again. I'm in a tough Irish family.
MANDEL You don't think you have that same element? You don't think you're intimidating?
O'REILLY Sometimes.
MANDEL No, not sometimes, just by virtue of who you are and how you...you know, this character that you've projected, and I think you projected pretty authentically who you are. I've talked to you off camera, too. You are, and David Letterman, if you ever talked to him off camera, and he is who he is.
O'REILLY There's no doubt. No doubt, but what he responded to with me, because we're opposites as far as how we see the world. He's a very liberal man, and I'm a traditional man. I'm not conservative, that's a big mistake. I am traditional, but he tested me. Letterman tested me. All right. He called me a thug one time, you know, he just he's like... I would just look at him in the eye, always in the eyes, and I would go, you want to back that up? And I threw it right back at him. The more I did that, the more respect he had for me. You don't get booked 16 times on a show like Letterman, unless the guy, you know, because he doesn't care that much about ratings, he'd rather do the stupid pet tricks.
MANDEL But he'd also rather do a real conversation. He's a smart guy that wants to, yeah, you know.
O'REILLY No doubt about that, but Leno did that too, and my dynamic with John Stewart was totally different. With Stewart, it was like, okay, who's gonna outmock the other? But with Letterman, it wasn't. If I had faltered, Mandel, this is important, if I had faltered on Letterman, he would not have saved me. On my show, if you falter, I'll save you, unless I think you're the scum of the earth.
MANDEL Are you saving me right now?
O'REILLY No, you can handle me easy. But you're a pro, okay? So what Letterman was getting was he was getting a news guy, a journalist, to come on into a comedy show, essentially, and his view of life was different. Well, he was gonna test me to see if I could swim, and if I sunk, I was gonna drown. And I knew it. Leno would save you. Leno would save you if you were bombing or anything like this, leno would come on in and kind of just take it over. Carson, I didn't know. I was never on. That was before me. But of all the shows I did, Stewart and Letterman were the most stimulating for me because it was a joust. It was back and forth, it was joust.
MANDEL Because it's a real conversation, you know, Carson and Leno, and I'm not forgetting, they're great at what they do, you know, but 99.9% of the people that you book on a late-night talk show are there to promote whatever it is they're gonna promote, their movie, their TV show. You know for a fact that there's a pre-interview. So, in the pre-interview, and you have these six-minute segments, in six minutes, you have to plug your show. A producer has asked you for a really funny, interesting story, and they want to know what the outline is, so that, you know, what is your punch out? Like, what's the end of that story, so the host knows that that is what the story you're going to tell, unlike you know, I can't tell you how many times you watched Letterman and just he would pick up the card, he wouldn't even look at the card, he would rip it, he'd throw it away, and he wanted to talk. But not a lot of people can do that, you're one of few. I like doing that. There was no pre-interview with this. I didn't know what you were going to talk about. It's a real conversation, whether it's interesting or not, I don't know, but I'm enjoying just sitting down. We might as well just go out and have a sandwich and have this conversation. Letterman, there's very few people that were willing to do that, or could do that, or wanted to do that. They have to come up with a show every day. They have four guests. They were forced to watch a movie or a TV show they don't even care about, or read a book they have no interest in, and they have asked this set of questions. The publicist would... I know for a fact, I did a talk show in the 90s. I'll never forget my first guest was Jennifer Aniston. And at the time, she was dating Brad Pitt. And the publicist came to me and went, what are you going to ask? The publicist went over all the questions and said, you cannot mention Brad Pitt, you can't. And if you do, you're never going to book another one of my clients. And they ended up cutting and stopping tape because my first question is, did you ever see The River Runs Through It? Isn't that a good movie? You know, I didn't ask, I didn't mention his name, but then they went cut, and then the publicists hold all the power in the talk show business.
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O'REILLY See, I think you would be, if late-night wants to resurge, they should hire you. And because you're curious about stuff. That to me, you gotta be funny, and you've gotta have talent. And you've gotta be relaxed out there, and you've gotta be able to relate to the people watching you. But it's the curiosity that really makes the talk show.
MANDEL I think the reason people, the reason at our age, we're still, you know, I don't know if people come up to you and go, why don't you retire? You know?
O'REILLY No, all the time. They demand it. They don't ask, they demand I retire. And they say, we'll do a GoFundMe if you retire. I mean...
MANDEL But the truth of the matter is, what drives me is curiosity. Curiosity is our fuel when we're very young. When we're young, and we're kids, we listen to everything on the radio, read every paper, looked at every magazine to see how people are dressing, what they're listening to, what albums I should buy, what shoes I should wear, how I should dress so I look like everybody at school. At about 40 years old, that gets tiring because life is about research. I can't, most people. And most people will settle into their look, their style, and their music. And then a young person will come to you and go, listen to this song. And then you go, oh, you think that was a good song? Wait till you hear it, real music. Here's real music, but they're not engaged in that. And what I realized, later on, was my son showed me something from YouTube. This is about 20 years ago. And I saw that this YouTube video had 100 million clicks. And the number 100 million was so out of whatever I could have. I mean, this thing from TV and movies was the Super Bowl, which gets 60 million. I said, where's the 100 million? And I looked at this, and I saw all the comments, and they were going, this is hysterical. This is funny. And I realized. I didn't even, not only did I not know who this person was, I didn't get it. I didn't know why they were funny. I didn't, you know, up until that point, even if you don't like, you know, opera, I know why people appreciate it. I understand it's good. I've never bought an opera album. I've never gone to the opera. This was comedy, and I didn't understand what I was listening to. And that put the fear of God in me. I started, from that point on, I realized culture moves on. And what is this culture? How do I engage these people? How do I just understand them? I don't have to entertain you. I just want to understand why you think this is funny. And from that moment on, I live, and I still go see a therapist for this. I live online. I'm aware of every platform. I have a gaming team with T-Pain. I'm on Twitch. I'm TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I'm scrolling. I'm so afraid of missing out. But the language and the way people are, you know, even what you are doing right now with me, think about this. 30 years ago, what is this? This is not a TV show. What is this?
O'REILLY Right. One of the positives of social media is that it allows the folks, I call them, to get to know people that they see in the entertainment, sports, political world, much better. And there is a tremendous hunger for that. I want to know this person better. This format allows that. I didn't want to do this podcast. I like the podcasts. I loved being on your podcast with your daughter. It was a lot of fun. I did Billy Bush when I was out there, it was good. But I didn't want to do it because I'm a hard news guy essentially. I'm a gatherer of information, and I disseminate it, and it's very successful for me. But my younger staff demanding, A, that I humiliate myself with We'll Do It Live title, and that I do this once a week with interesting people that they want to get to know. And that is what's happening here.
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O'REILLY Now, I've got a couple of other questions that are just curious to me. I've never been to a therapist. No therapist would ever accept me, even if they're getting a thousand bucks an hour, then it's not worth it. I'm not gonna do him. You say, at your age, that you still go to therapy. What does that do for you?
MANDEL Gives me and helps me cope. You know, everything in life is coping. You know you cope with everything. You cope with success. You cope with failure. You cope with relationships. You cope with...and some people, or at some point in your life, you don't have all the tools. And I just think that it should be therapy, should be part of our curriculum, without a stigma. You're saying nobody would accept you, but that's not true, and that you're just being facetious, but the truth of the matter is, I would imagine that you have...I don't know your personal life, that you've had hard times in your life. And we have no qualms about going to a dentist, even when something's not really bothering you, to go get a checkup. Look, Mom, no cavities. Go get a cleaning, get an X-ray. Why do we not...I always say that we need to take care of our mental health the way we take care of our dental health. We would be more equipped to just deal with what life throws your way.
O'REILLY But my ethos, from where I am from, and my tradition is you tough it out. And I don't really trust a lot of strangers, mercenaries, but that's my neurosis.
MANDEL But you know what? But the truth is, I don't trust a lot of people with anything that people do. You always have to be your own advocate, whether that's mental health, whether that's even your physical health, whether you've got to go in and get surgery, you should maybe get a second opinion. You should understand what they're going to do and how you're going to cope with it.
O'REILLY Okay. I get it. Your whole family, do they do the therapy thing? I don't want to pry, but I mean...
MANDEL Not everyone, but a lot, not a lot.
O'REILLY And that's from the positive results they've seen, you have from it, I would assume.
MANDEL It's not mandated by my family, but I've been so open about it that if they've needed help, they have gone.
O'REILLY Right. People don't understand that in order to, and you made a good point, in order to improve yourself, it's tough, and you've got to have courage, and you've got to confront whatever demons are there, and that's a way to do it in a positive way to do it. You're such an affable guy. Do you ever get angry?
MANDEL My resting emotion is anger and frustration, so...
O'REILLY You do get angry? How does that manifest itself?
MANDEL I will raise my voice and lose my patience and realize that I'm doing that. I don't have, so my coping skill is to stay busy and kind of direct my focus on the now because if I think about it... It's really, I'm a control freak, and maybe that's part of the OCD. But if I see somebody doing something and it doesn't look like that's the way it should be done, I insert myself where I shouldn't insert myself. And if I'm being misunderstood... You know, let's do it live. I watched you. You watch that tape, and you'll see how I assert myself.
O'REILLY Yeah, I got a little teed off at that.
MANDEL I've acted like that many times.
O'REILLY I have an excuse, I'm Irish. That's my excuse.
MANDEL I have an excuse, I'm an idiot, I am. And I always feel bad, and I spend my, you know, I do that a lot.
O'REILLY But not in public, I've never written... I've never seen a bad word written about you. I mean, I got three rooms full of bad words written about me. I've never seen a bad word written about you.
MANDEL I'm not in the arena for bad words to be written about me, but you know, like even as we speak right now, I went and did Kelly and Mark in New York, and I think it aired yesterday or the day before. If you go look at Page Six.
O'REILLY Yeah, I saw it.
MANDEL I did a joke.
O'REILLY I know. They don't care.
MANDEL They said I snapped. But I think that's kind of funny. That doesn't really bother me, and more people probably read these articles than saw the show. So they think I snapped, and I'm really sensitive about my age. I didn't snap, and I wasn't sensitive about my age. I do snap. I did not snap there, and I didn't snap on TV, and I don't snap on the stage, but being on TV or being in front of a camera or being on stage is such a small part of my life, even though I do a ton and I post a lot of things. 99% of my life is not being recorded, like you.
O'REILLY Yeah, but I'm boring, and you're not. That's the difference. And we really, really appreciate you taking the time, Howie. It's very kind of you to do it. If we can ever return the favor, you just let us know.
MANDEL Right back at you, buddy. If you ever need anything, I'm here.
O'REILLY Thank you. And now we're going to do a Killing Time segment for our Premium and Concierge Members on BillOReilly.com. So if you aren't one, and we don't charge a lot of money for this, but you get lots of perks, so you might wanna check that out.
