We'll Do It Live Audio

We'll Do It LIVE! - Sid Rosenberg

2026-04-30T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY So here we are on Do It Live, all right, again. And I got a very special guest, Sid Rosenberg. Now, for those of you who don't live in the New York area, and remember, 16 million people do, okay? Rosenberg is a top talk guy on radio for everybody. He just wipes them out month after month after month. But here's the kicker on Rosenberg, he should be dead. All right, he shouldn't be the top of anything. He should be in the ground and somehow survived madness and then climbed to a very, very difficult position. I mean, to be number one in the nation's largest market is a very, very steep accomplishment. So, all right, Rosenberg, I've been nice to you. That's gonna end right now. The national audience may know you from Crazy Imus.

ROSENBERG That's right.

O’REILLY That's where I want to start. So, Imus selects you as his sports guy.

ROSENBERG How it worked was, Imus had a boss, and his name was Mark Chernoff. Well, Imus didn't really have a boss. But Mark Chernov was the boss at WFAN. And I had just done a year at a station called WNEW in New York in the year 2000, doing a sports show, my first year coming out of Florida, and it was awful. The ratings were terrible. Quite frankly, I was terrible, but I guess I did enough to impress the powers that be at WFAN. So after WNEW in 2001 decided not to bring me back, I was heading back to Florida. But I was told by somebody at the fan, hey, before you go back, do yourself a favor. Call Lee Davis, he was the guy in charge of sales. Call Mark Chernoff, they like you. I said, they liked me? This was the worst show in the history of radio.

O'REILLY And no one likes you.

ROSENBERG And no one likes me. And they liked me less back then. But long story short, Steve Cohen was his name. He ran the sports at Sirius XM for about 20 years, not the Cohen who owns the Mets. And he was right, they like me. So Chernoff is a guy who went to Imus, who, at the time, was using guys named Mike Breen, you may have heard of him, and Warner Wolf, and John Minko.

O'REILLY And he fired Warner Wolf, right?

ROSENBERG He did fire Warner Wolf twice in favor of me, but this time in early 2001, Chernoff said, I got you a sports guy, and Imus said, I don't want him. And Chernoff said, you're gonna try him, he's good. So he was reluctant to bring me on, Imus, but it turned out to be a hateful, loving 18-year relationship.

O'REILLY Okay, you were on that show 18 years, that's amazing. And Bernard McGuirk, the late Bernard McGuirk, who I used on The O'Reilly Factor, Gutfeld, and McGuirk. I made Gutfeld, by the way, and I regret it.

ROSENBERG It was Tuesday nights, I remember that vividly, it was great.

O'REILLY You're walking into the cliche-ridden lion's den, because Imus was, would you say he was schizophrenic? Well, he was kind of a crazy guy, Imus, right?

ROSENBERG Crazy, schizophrenic, angry. I never knew, was he mad every morning? Every morning.

O'REILLY Every morning?

ROSENBERG Every morning, and what he would do is, I was making about $1.50 at the time. He was doing very well because he was getting paid by both WFAM, which was a CBS radio property, and MSNBC. He was number one in the mornings. So he was raking in over $10 million a year. And he'd walk into the newsroom with WFM. There was a rule, Bill. You could never look at Imus. Not kidding you.

O'REILLY Who? Who couldn't?

ROSENBERG None of the employees at WFAN were allowed to look at him.

O'REILLY Okay? What?

ROSENBERG The newsroom employees. Not Mike and the mad dog and the talent. But the newsroom employees were not allowed to look at them.

O'REILLY So the techs and people like that?

ROSENBERG That's right. So he'd walk into the newsroom. And everybody would look down.

O'REILLY Was there any explanation of why you couldn't look at Imus?

ROSENBERG Well, he was, he wasn't handsome, man, so that was part of it.

O'REILLY Right, it wasn't a drawback.

ROSENBERG Like Medusa, you know, but he was just not intimidating. That it was a kind of a non-written rule. Don't look at him. But he would walk over to me, and he would lean over. This is like five o'clock in the morning, and he'd whisper in my ear, I need you to be funny today. And he'd walk away. And could you imagine, I'm 31 years old, I have all but three years of where you experience down in Florida under my belt, and here's I who at the time was at the very top of his game, he was really like stern, and he's saying to me, he's making 11 million a year, I'm not gonna be making 75,000, he's saying to me, I need you to be funny today. So when you look back at all my issues with Imus, and I was fired three times, suspended six times, I was in the papers every week, you'll understand why when you know the pressure he put on me as a young man new in this business.

O'REILLY But some of it was your fault.

ROSENBERG Of course.

O'REILLY You know, you'd call people names, and they made it and do a much bigger deal than it should have been, but that road brought you into prominence, the Imus road. Then, people started to know who Sid Rosenberg was in the radio world. Okay, but in parallel to that, you got in trouble with drugs and gambling, two-fer at the same time?

ROSENBERG And drinking. Uh, all three.

O'REILLY Really? You had three.

ROSENBERG Three.

O'REILLY You had a hat trick.

ROSENBERG I had a hat trick.

O'REILLY Of depravity.

ROSENBERG Yes.

O'REILLY This is a good line.

ROSENBERG That's a great line.

O'REILLY Hat trick of depravity.

ROSENBERG This is not Mark Messier against the Devils, this is a hat trick of depravity.

O'REILLY Because you have a very nice wife, I mean, you do, and so you are doing this high-pressure show every morning, and you're gambling, and you're drinking, and you're drugging at the same time.

ROSENBERG That's right.

O'REILLY How'd you get through that?

ROSENBERG I didn't. I. didn't. I ended up getting fired. I ended up...

O'REILLY What'd they fire you for? Did they know you were a loon?

ROSENBERG They knew, you know, back in 2004, for example, I went to Cleveland, a side gig. There was this early days of UFC, this cage match. It was at Cleveland State University on a snowy night during the winter. And it was a big night because they were having ex-NFL players fight against each other. Four-round fight. You know how that works. So Michael Westbrook, he was the wide receiver for the Redskins, took on Jared Bunch. He was running back for the Giants and bought a B and S for it that night. Long story short, I got about $5,000. I'm in Cleveland, and it was a Friday night, and when the fights ended, I wasn't going back to my hotel home alone, I was going down to the flats, the basement, that area, you know. And I got myself into a whole bunch of drinking trouble and never came home for two days. And when I got home...

O'REILLY What does that mean now, trouble? They beat you up?

ROSENBERG No, nobody beat me up. It wasn't any trouble with the cops. I mean, my own trouble.

O'REILLY You were intoxicated.

ROSENBERG I was intoxicated. I ended up taking a whole bunch of money out of the account, which I couldn't explain to my beautiful wife, Danielle. I'll be married 34 years this June. And when I got home, I had to explain to her what I had done. And I had already gone to rehab 10 years prior. And I said, Danielle, if I don't go back tomorrow, I'm gonna die.

O'REILLY All right, so this is his second rehab.

ROSENBERG Second rehab, 2005.

O'REILLY And see how to know you're a little bit off and doing...

ROSENBERG She knew, but she loved me, still does, obviously we're still together, thank God for her, and she just wanted to believe that I was okay, but the signs were there, I was struggling.

O'REILLY So you knew you weren't okay?

ROSENBERG No, I actually, at one point in my trip in Cleveland, which is well documented in my first book, You're Wrong, and You're Ugly, it was two days after I started the partying on Friday night, and I hadn't told Danielle yet why I wasn't coming home. I had a little bit of drugs left in my pocket, and I wanted to kill myself.

O'REILLY Did that thought actually go through your mind?

ROSENBERG More than a thought. I actually walked outside my hotel room. I was staying on the 14th floor. I walked to the very edge of the terrace, and I was ready to do it. I was convinced that my life was basically over. Here I am again, I'll be back in trouble, back in rehab, lost this amazing opportunity. More importantly, disappointed my wife. My son wasn't born yet, beautiful Gabriel, but Ava was. And I went into my pocket to take out what I thought was the end of my drugs, but I had two things in my pocket. One was the drugs, the other was a key chain to my house in Tanafly, New Jersey. And on the key chain... On the keychain was a picture of my daughter Ava, who at the time was about 18 months old. And when I reached for the drugs in my pocket, instead I took out the keychain. I looked at the picture, and I could have sworn, Bill, she said to me. Daddy, don't do it. So I put the keychain back in my pocket. I called Danielle, I said, I'm coming home. And I left the next morning for New York City.

O'REILLY And then after that, you went to rehab.

ROSENBERG I went to a rehab, and WFAN and Imus, all those people were very, very supportive. They let me...

O'REILLY Well, Imus had his own.

ROSENBERG He had his own.

O'REILLY His own bounce.

ROSENBERG At that time, he was probably sober about 15 years, but he was the epitome of a dry drunk. But nevertheless, he was sober, and he was very nice to me, and they kept my jobs, both the midday show host and the Imus sports job, for 30 days while I went away. And when I came back, I resumed both positions, but I wasn't well yet. And it didn't take me long after getting back to make an offensive comment or two, which eventually led to my termination in 2005. And that was the last time I worked a daily show at WFAN. And they did bring me back for nine years, till 2014, in an effort to get me back because they loved my talent and they liked me.

O'REILLY Did you... This sounds like self-destruction, you know, that's what it sounds like. The conduct itself, that you felt you weren't worthy of the success, or I'm not a psychiatrist, but.

ROSENBERG You sound like one.

O'REILLY I know enough about life. It sounds like you had everything, which you did, but you didn't feel you deserved everything.

ROSENBERG You nailed it. That's exactly what all my therapists said to me and Danielle, and there was a time I was going to a lot of meetings, 12-step meetings for alcohol, 12-step meetings for drugs, psychiatrists, psychologists, and they all said the same thing, that I had mastered the art of self-sabotage, that I wanted no part of any success. And as soon as I got to that point, because there was time at WFAN, I was doing the Giants pregame show in front of 10,000 people. Outside of Gate D every Sunday, and they love me. I was hosting the midday show with Joe Beningo. I was doing sports on Imus. I was in my 30s and started to become a legitimate sports star. And every time I got close, I did something to make sure I never got...

O'REILLY You think that's what it was?

ROSENBERG I think, yeah, I think some of it was this fear of, oh my God, am I worthy of this? Can I do this? I don't know for sure. You know, look, the truth...

O'REILLY You were raised by decent people, I know Rosenberg, you were raised by decent people.

ROSENBERG Very good people, and neither one of them had drug problems

O'REILLY And you weren't abused, and you weren't thrown out in the street when you were 8. You're not a ghetto kid.

ROSENBERG No.

O'REILLY Had no money in the home to develop whatever you wanted to develop. So it had to be all within you. You say you relapsed, then after you came back. When you relapse, the guilt gets worse. Right?

ROSENBERG It was terrible. It was, you know, I had gone to Atlantic City, and my wife was furious. They paid me maybe a thousand or two, it wasn't much. It was a fantasy football draft for a very popular magazine at the time called FHM magazine, and my agent Mark Lepselter at the time said, I'll take you, I watch you, we'll go, make a couple thousand dollars, and you'll come home. And everybody was against it. My boss, Mark Chernoff, said, you're not coming back. I said, will you stop it? I just got back from rehab, show some faith. Same thing with Danielle. They were vehemently against it. And I knew in the back of my mind that I was probably risking it, but that was part of the fun, right? That's part of, part of a thrill. So I went to Atlantic City, and I went to this party, and they paid me in cash, which was a big mistake. And I said goodnight to my agent, everybody else. And I headed towards the boardwalk, and there was a gentleman who rides those, they're kind of like buggies on the boardwalk, take it back to your hotel. And I had a couple thousand dollars cash in my pocket, and I said, hey, where's the party? And the next thing you know, it's Sunday morning. I'm supposed to go back and host week one of the Giants Carolina Panthers pregame show. Week one, I'm the host. My third consecutive year. My dad, who will be dead six years in July, man, do I miss him. He never missed a game. He'd be out there in his big Giants sweatsuit, all proud of me. And they were all out there waiting for me, and my agent came down to my hotel room, and I said, I'm not going. I had a pile of drugs in the room, I had booze in the room, and I was so ashamed and so afraid because I was really high.

O'REILLY So you didn't show.

ROSENBERG I stayed in Atlantic City. My agent, who comes under a lot of fire in my house, I think some of it's unfair, he did the best he could, he physically tried to remove me from the room. He actually had a bit of a fist fight. I did not come home, I stayed.

O'REILLY Okay, so that's two you're dealing with now. So, finally you got yourself cleaned up from that, you went back to...

ROSENBERG No, I did not get cleaned up from that. That was really just a couple of months after I went back to rehab for a second time. And I remember I took a cab home that night, it was $400. And Mark Chernoff said, listen, we gotta talk in the morning. And my wife woke me up very early, and she said, we're gonna drive to WFAN because I feel like you'll have a better chance of keeping your job if you speak to Mark Chernoff face to face. This is now 2005, and I've had two different major collapses and blowups.

O'REILLY Right.

ROSENBERG So, we started to make our way towards Queens. I'll never forget this. We're on the bridge, 59th Street Bridge, right there, and Chernoff called, and Danielle picked up, and he loved Danielle, still does, we're still very close to this day. He's like a father to me, and he said listen. I've got some bad news, and she said don't even say it, We're gonna be there in 20 minutes. He said, don't come. And she said, but Mark, we're almost there, he said. He said, don't come, nothing's gonna change in the next 20 minutes, I love your husband. I think he is one of the most talented people. He goes, I've worked with Imus, I've worked with Stern, Mike and the Mad Dog, he's as good as any of them. But he's never gonna work here again. And it breaks my heart, and he started to cry. And Danielle started to try. And we turned the car around and went home. Now, mind you, mind you, that was 2005. It did not take 14 months for Mark Chernoff to call me back and put me back on Imus from Miami, which he did.

O'REILLY You went to Florida in exile, right?

ROSENBERG I went to Florida in exile. That trip...

O'REILLY Did you clean up down there a little bit?

ROSENBERG I did. The trip to Florida, Bill, I have to tell you, we just bought this beautiful house in Tenafly, New Jersey. My daughter was home there the first night she was born. My wife loved that house, so did I. And I knew I was about to lose it. I couldn't pay a mortgage, didn't have a job. And I had a kind of a it was a nice size SUV car, and I put Danielle in the car, and I put my baby little girl in the car, and my dog Lucy. And I started a long trek from New Jersey down to Boca Raton, where Danielle's cousin Linda and George lived. They're still there. George passed away, but Linda is still there, and they offered to have us live with them because I had no money, no job. And I was driving and somewhere around Virginia, if I remember correctly, it was by Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech plays their football games, I started to just... Cry uncontrollably, and Danielle woke up, and she said, what's going on? And I said, I blew it. I don't know what I'm gonna do, I'm sorry. And it was a brutal trip, just thinking, well, Danielle slept most of the time, and so did my daughter. Thinking about what I'd done and the scarier part was not what I had done, but what was I gonna do?

O'REILLY Right, you always had that balance where you might be more self-destructive. Now, you worked in Florida, right?

ROSENBERG I did.

O'REILLY Somebody hired you down there.

ROSENBERG Eventually, I got a job at the number one sports station 790 The Ticket. Some very familiar names work there, guys like Dan LeBatard and Boo Shambi, and some big Florida names, and I worked there. I ended up working at three.

O'REILLY Were you functional there?

ROSENBERG Oh, more than functional. I was never not functional, even in New York. I never drank, or did...

O'REILLY Were you still a drug addict, though?

ROSENBERG Oh, oh sure. Listen, you know, it's funny, I saw Randy Grimes, he played for the Buccaneers on Fox News a couple of weeks ago. They brought him on to talk about Tiger Woods. And Fox News puts at the bottom of the screen, they go, former drug user, drug addict, drug addict, I'm sorry, former drug addict. And I called Randy, and I said, I gotta tell you, you're great on television today, but what do you think about Fox News calling you a former drug addict? And we both laughed. Bill O'Reilly, I will be a drug addict forever. Thank God, I am sober and clean for a long time. God has taken away the desire. I have no desire.

O'REILLY Well, when did that happen?

ROSENBERG It probably happened about seven years ago. You know, I still had my battles with sobriety down in South Florida. I'd be good for a longer time than I wouldn't. I was much better than I was in New York, but I was... Far from perfect. I was not perfect.

O'REILLY Were you still going to rehab and stuff?

ROSENBERG No, no, I did my two rehabs in 1995 and 2005.

O'REILLY That was it for the rehab.

ROSENBERG And that was it.

O'REILLY Did you have a personal guy?

ROSENBERG I had a sponsor, or I went to meetings, but probably not enough, you know? I started to feel pretty good about myself, and I was becoming a big radio star again, and you know, I was seemingly okay. But the desire was lifted many years ago. I don't think about it. I don't care. You know, there was a time.

O'REILLY You don't know why it was lifted.

ROSENBERG I don't know why.

O'REILLY A lot of people say it's the higher power.

ROSENBERG Listen, I believe that's true. I did get arrested once in South Florida. I had another terrible night, and I was leaving a Miami Heat basketball game and had gone to a club, and I decided I had to fight with Danielle that night. I was trying to get to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida to sleep, to find a place to sleep. And I was about two miles away from the hotel and casino. I remember, I do remember pulling over to a residential community in front of somebody's house. Because I started to feel sick, and I knew I wasn't going to make it. And the next thing I knew, there was a cop in my face. So it turned out that I tried to exit the vehicle, I did open the door, I ended up throwing up all over myself, and I passed out. So a guy on a bicycle drove by and called the cops and said, hey, there's a dead guy. Literally, he said, there is a dead guy in his truck. Come get him. And the cops came, and that wasn't nearly as popular in South Florida as I am now, for example. I've, you know, I've gained some pretty good popularity, as you could appreciate, but I was pretty popular. And the cop knew who I was right away. And he said, you're lucky you're alive, but you're going to jail. So I called Danielle, my wife's a big-time attorney, and I said, Dee, I'm in trouble again, please come. And my kids were babies at the time, there was no babysitter at two o'clock in the morning. She threw the kids in the car, there were babies. And she arrived at the scene, and she said, listen, you know my husband, he's working really hard at trying to keep his life together. He had a bad night, no question about it, but if you arrest him, he's gonna be in the Sun Sentinel, he's going to be in The Miami Herald, and he's gonna be done. For the sake of my two little kids here, let me take them home. I'll take them all home, we'll get the car moved. And this cop, all he can think about was, are you kidding me? I'm gonna be in the papers tomorrow. I arrested Sid Rosenberg. I'm going to be on the news. So he didn't pay attention to Danielle. And they arrested me. And I remember, you talk about times when you start to figure out the gig is up. They placed their handcuffs on me. I'm sitting in the back seat of the police car. My daughter Ava, who is now 22, graduated Wales, Cardiff University in Wales, and is working with Arthur Idala. I mean, on some of the biggest cases in the city right now, she's an amazing kid. She's going to U of Penn for her LLM in a couple of months. She was seven. And I remember turning around in the back seat, handcuffed, vomit all over myself just... an embarrassment. And I remember seeing her crying. Like, why are they taking Daddy in that car? And I'm not going to tell you that I never drank or did drugs again after that because I'd be lying, but I will tell you, that was a pivotal moment in my life, and the amount of times that I did that after that, you can count on one hand. That was the beginning, I think, the beginning of...

O'REILLY So Ava saved your life twice.

ROSENBERG Ava saved my life twice, in my book, You're Wrong and You're Ugly, the first book I wrote, I actually referred to my daughter as my angel.

O'REILLY So then you turn it around, and you get another shot at New York City. So you come on in, but you didn't have the same demons, or did you have the same demons?

ROSENBERG No, I wasn't gonna do it again. I just, I still had them, I'm sure. Thank God.

O'REILLY But you were able to conduct yourself on a day-to-day responsible level?

ROSENBERG I was.

O'REILLY Okay.

ROSENBERG A lot of people, just so you know, Bill, a lot of people went out of their way to get me back. You know, Chad Lopez, one of them, everybody said to Chad, are you nuts? Including Imus. He didn't want me back. There was a...

O'REILLY I mean, sure.

ROSENBERG He wanted Mike Lupica. There was a big fight between who should replace Geraldo Rivera. Here were your two choices. Mike Lupica, doing the show from his house in Westchester and making a lot of money or getting Sid back from Florida, had a built-in fan base, teaming them up with Bernard, keeping the Imus thing going, pay them less, and have them do the midday show. And a lot of folks, the majority, including Don Imus, wanted Lupika. Chad Lopez said, nope, I'm bringing Sid back. He was not the only one. So here I am, I'm gonna, once again, have my wife move back to another state, take my kids out of school. And it occurred to me that I can't keep doing that and disappointing everybody. So it wasn't gonna happen again here in New York.

O'REILLY Okay. But you're coming into a station that was last in the market.

ROSENBERG Last.

O'REILLY Brutal.

ROSENBERG Dead.

O'REILLY Okay. And then you take it to number one in the morning.

ROSENBERG Yes.

O'REILLY And that's a pretty stunning achievement. I've done it, so I know.

ROSENBERG Yes.

O'REILLY You have to work your butt off to do it. But you also have to have armor. Armor, because when you're on your way up, people try to drag you back down, you know how it is.

ROSENBERG Who knows better than you about that?

O'REILLY Nobody.

ROSENBERG Nobody. Well, maybe Trump. They didn't try to shoot you three times, but close.

O'REILLY No, but they would have if they could have.

ROSENBERG Right.

O'REILLY But you're on the ascent, okay? And I work with you, so I know it's because you're authentic.

ROSENBERG Thank you.

O'REILLY And New Yorkers, they want authenticity. They want people they can identify with, and you're that. But you're also a dope sometimes.

ROSENBERG Yeah.

O'REILLY Okay, which is okay in radio.

ROSENBERG Of course.

O'REILLY Television's a little harder to be a dope.

ROSENBERG Yes. No, it's true.

O'REILLY But anyway, you come, and then you make the show and carry the station with you, obviously, mornings are everything, into the position of prominence. Number one, did you know you were gonna do that? Did you have confidence?

ROSENBERG I did. I did. I knew it, I, you know, the show I did in Florida, I had a guy, a couple of guys, you never heard of him. Their names were Steve Zimak, he's my producer, and Eric Lengel, they're gonna love this. You guys are famous. He was my board op. I approach the show every morning from a late-night television type of philosophy. So I said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do all the stories we're supposed to do, whether it's politics or sports, but we're going to talk about music, and we're going to talk about our kids, and we gonna talk about lifestyle. Going to the restaurant last night, going to the ball game. So I knew that if I had the opportunity in New York to take that same exact show that I did in Florida and do it in New York, I'd have huge success. I didn't have that early on. Don't forget, we started doing mid-days, me and Bernard. Imus was still there, okay, for a good couple of years. And there was a time when Imus fired Warner Wolf again, and I was doing sports on Imus and the mid-day show with Bernard. When they finally forced Imus out, when he retired, and gave me and Bernhard the mornings, you know, we were working for Cumulus. John Catsimatidis, we had two other stations that were not doing great, WPLJ, and the nearest country station that actually was doing pretty well. So there were all kinds of issues, all kinds of issues. And to be honest, I love Bernard, and I miss Bernie every day. He was one of my best friends. I tell people all the time, I miss the on-air Bernie less than my friend. Not because he wasn't great or talented, he was. But we had two different notions of what the show was gonna be. He became this political animal, right? He was the cut-up guy on Imus, always getting into trouble, like you called me a dope? Bernard took that to the nth degree on Imus. Then he decided, listen, I'm 60-something years old, I'm about to have grandchildren, I gotta calm down. So he would get like 90,000 political cuts every morning and try to keep it really newsy. And I was still trying to do sports, and music, and fun. So when you listen to Bernie and Sid early on the morning show, it was almost as if you were listening to two different shows.

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O'REILLY All right, so you get into the position where you're dominating, and then you take a pivot into politics. You're the ultimate Trump guy, okay? So, did you know Trump before he got into politics? Did you know him?

ROSENBERG I did. So I did sports, and I covered boxing. And for years, HBO had what they called Radio Row at all their big fights, Bill. I'm talking about Las Vegas, Dallas, Los Angeles, specifically Mike Tyson. So, I think I probably did my show live from the HBO Radio Row for Mike Tyson fights 20 times. Now, this is after his prison stay. So, you know, he's...the back nine, but he's winning. He's beating Francois Botha, he's beating all these basically tomato cans until he runs into people like Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. But I would see Trump at these events, and Trump was a big Tyson guy, and I had him on the show once or twice. In fact, when he was on, not the last time he was on, the president, but the time before that, he was still campaigning, he wasn't president yet. We're going back a couple of years. And he said, you know, Sid, he goes, I'm proud of you. He said, You don't remember, which I do. He said, you don't remember, but I knew you when, when I was struggling. And let me say this about President Trump. He's never had a drink, you know this, maybe your audience does, maybe they don't, he's never had a drink. He loved his brother, and his brother died from alcoholism. The fact that I've been able to maintain my sobriety and achieve what we've been talking about, sober and good, for all these years. If you don't think that's part of the reason why President Trump has this affection for me, not you, but you're somewhere between naive and stupid and closer to the latter. He absolutely loves that about me, that I put it away. I don't do that stuff anymore, he's never done that. So he said to me, he goes, I remember you when I was out at Super Bowl parties. I would see him in different locations, and I was whacked out. So I did know him, he did do my sports shows every now and then, but certainly not the friendship that we've got today.

O'REILLY Okay. So, in New York City, a huge anti-Trump movement. When you became full-fledged Trump guy.

ROSENBERG I mean, the worst. I'm the worst.

O'REILLY Well, you love him.

ROSENBERG I love them, yeah.

O'REILLY I know. Did you take a lot of heat from the Upper West Siders? I mean, were you getting death threats and all that?

ROSENBERG All that. So, God, you ask great questions. You know, in 2015 in Florida, I was still in Florida doing sports. And I had this lady, she worked at my sister's station. It was a political station. Her name is Joyce Kaufman. She's number one in news talk down in Florida.

O'REILLY Yeah, I know Joyce.

ROSENBERG Oh, you do? Great. So I would do her political show. She would do my sports show. And she loved Trump. And I'd say, what are you, nuts? Listen, I like the guy too, but the guy, he does a television show. How's he gonna run this country? We're a mess. Obama killed it. I hated Obama. I said, but this guy can't help us. So I came to New York in 2016, and the first year of my show with Brenard, the midday show, all we did was fight. That's all we do. He loved Trump. They have a nice little relationship. And I liked Trump, but thought he was, I thought he was one of the worst candidates I've ever seen. I actually told him that. I said I knew nothing about you. You're going to build a wall and wear a stupid hat. That's all I saw from you. What else were you going to do?

O'REILLY So you weren't immediately on his team.

ROSENBERG Bill, I voted for Hillary, and I told him that. He comes on with me and Bernard in 2017, and that's the first time we ever had him on. And I said, Mr. President, Bernard, ask him some question, I said, Mr. President, I say, I got to be honest, I've known you for years, oh yeah. I said I didn't vote for you. I said, I really didn't think you could become the president that you are today. So the good news is it took me about three months to come to the realization, you're the best ever. But the truth is, I didn't vote for you. I didn't buy it. Your whole campaign, I thought, was silly. So the interview goes on about another 10 minutes, and Bernard's about to wrap up the interview, and he goes back to it. He goes, how about it, Bernard? I changed him. I changed him. That's all he wanted to talk about was that, yes, he loved it. Listen, all the folks that loved him when he came down the escalator, he likes those guys. Even some of the folks that hate him. But you showed Trump somebody, who he was able to change to the guy I am today, which is the biggest Trump supporter in the world. He loves that. That's me. Didn't like him as a president. Took me a very short amount of time to figure out, boy, this guy's good.

O'REILLY And then I know you're invested in Israel, and he's obviously an Israel supporter, President Trump is, and has helped Israel. So that was a part of it, right?

ROSENBERG Well, when you say helped Israel, it's fair to say that no president in the history of our country has come even close.

O'REILLY Harry Truman, he did a lot.

ROSENBERG He did, but not Abraham Accords, moved the of course the embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Golan Heights. I mean, I can go over 10 things that Trump did. Harry didn't do that. Harry's terrific, no question, but no one's come close to Trump.

O'REILLY So then you become an activist on Trump's behalf, all right, and you go to Biden's State of the Union, and I don't know why they let you in, I certainly wouldn't have. Just the tan alone, you wouldn't have gotten by the door. And you yell out, okay, says who?

ROSENBERG That's right.

O'REILLY What did Biden say that rankled you there?

ROSENBERG I'm going to tell you. By the way, I yelled that out, Alan Dershowitz, who announced last week he's now a Republican, after 87 years, he's a brilliant attorney, I love Alan, he's writing a new book, and he's doing a whole chapter in the book on me saying says who at that speech. He felt like that was a huge moment. Believe it or not, this is Alan Durshowitz. So that's surreal for me. So I'm sitting upstairs, right, because I'm not one of the House members. Anthony D'Esposito from your neck of the woods, he brought me to the State of the Union. I'm sitting upstairs, and at that point, we're really in the heat of the Israel war, real heat. And they're starting to get some unfair criticism from people in the United States and all across the world, and I'm getting angrier about the anti-Semitism in Israel every day. And I figure Biden's going to get to that in the speech, okay? He had hostages sitting up there with me, hostages, okay. Ten minutes in, nothing. 20 minutes in, I'm like murmuring, screaming under my breath, but it wasn't under my breath. So the CNN guy in front of me, the episode was going, hey, sir, could you calm down? We can hear you. I said, okay, I just, you know, I get frustrated. When's he gonna talk about Israel? 40 minutes in, nothing. Finally, about 50 minutes into this dreadful speech, and man, was dreadful. He was all jacked up on something, I don't know, so he wasn't falling asleep, but was awful. He finally gets to Israel, and he goes, listen. He goes, we, you know, we're friends with Israel, but according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which you know, Bill O'Reilly, the Palestinian health ministry is run by...

O'REILLY Hamas.

ROSENBERG Bang. According to Hamas, he could have said, the Israelis have already killed 30,000 Palestinians. This is three years ago. My blood started to boil. I actually considered jumping over and just landing on top of him, and pummeling him, I swear to God.

O'REILLY You would have been shot to death.

ROSENBERG Of course. I don't know, these days, you know, they couldn't shoot our guy a couple of nights ago. But on a serious note, I stand up and I go, says who? And it took seconds. Three guys come rushing in, Capitol Police Secret Service. They grab me, and they say to me, sir, you have to leave. And I said, why? Look at those ladies down there with the white shirts, the Democrats with the white shirts. They're dancing, they're singing, they've got paddles, they're yelling, all this stuff. I said two words, I'm not going anywhere. So the Secret Service guy, Bill, puts his hand on my wrist. This is when you know I'm crazy. I go, you don't wanna do that. I'm talking to the cops. This guy could arrest me, and then it occurred to me, wait a second, I can't say that to him, you know?

O'REILLY But it did occur to you.

ROSENBERG It did occur.

O'REILLY All right.

ROSENBERG Yes, and he said, okay, well, here's the deal. If you don't get up and leave now, we're going to arrest you. We may arrest you anyway. But at the very least, give yourself a chance. So I exited the room.

O'REILLY On your own will.

ROSENBERG On my own will, Jim Comer is out there from Kentucky. Way to go, Emily Austin, one of your people from Nassau County, way to go. You're a hero. And I'm standing there for 30 minutes because the sergeant at arms was considering whether to arrest me or not. When they decided after 30 minutes, I can go home. I had to get Anthony D'Esposito, he was down in the chamber, to escort me out of the building like your daddy would do when you're eight years old at school, but needless to say, that hit the wires at NBC less than an hour later, and I became that guy, thrown out of the State of the Union, still one of my finest moments.

O'REILLY Did you explain it to your kids that way? Because I'm sure they were curious about their father almost being exiled to Devil's Island, you know.

ROSENBERG My kids always assume the worst. Yeah, they're like, Daddy, what'd you do? They love me, thank God, we're a very close family. They love me. They're proud of me. Tell me every day. I love you. I'm proud of you. But they always assume, Daddy, what did you do? When I explained it to them that the President of the United States was actually relying on Hamas instead of Israel. They said, good for you, Dad, way to go. You didn't go to jail. No big deal.

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O'REILLY All right. Then, uh, fast forward...

ROSENBERG You go then, because there's been so many things already. You know, you started us off by saying you should have been dead.

O'REILLY The goal of this, We'll Do It Live, is to destroy you. How am I doing? Am I doing all right?

ROSENBERG You're doing exceptional work.

O’REILLY So in March of this year, you called the mayor of New York, Mr. Mamdani, a cockroach.

ROSENBERG That's right.

O'REILLY Okay.

ROSENBERG Well, that was the end of the statement. I also called them, because I don't care anymore, anti-American, anti-Semite, jihadist.

O'REILLY All that's right, but once you get insects involved, then you've got, you know.

ROSENBERG You know what's funny about that? You're right. And the insect part for me was, for me, when I wrote it, it was like the least inflammatory. Like, I just--

O'REILLY But you're from Brooklyn.

ROSENBERG Right, we call people that.

O'REILLY Right.

ROSENBERG We call people insects, we. You know, look, there's an old slang word for homosexuals that we used in Brooklyn, had nothing to do with sexuality.

O'REILLY Don't say it.

ROSENBERG I'm not going to. But when you go with anti-American, radical, jihadist, all these things, I'm going, that's...

O'REILLY Cockroach is way worse.

ROSENBERG Yes, yes, I was shocked by that.

O'REILLY But then there was an outcry in the city, generated by you know, Mamdani's people, of course. They got the publicity out of it.

ROSENBERG Same night, Bill. Same night I went for, I tweeted this out, let's say it was four o'clock in the afternoon, seven o'clock that night I'm at my local Italian restaurant with my kids and my Twitter's... I look down Letitia James, hey Sid, I've never met her in my life, never talked to her, he's Sid, like we're best friends. This is Islamophobic, this is racist, I go, whoa, the attorney general. Before you know it, in the next hour, Governor Kathy Hochul. Former mayor Bill de Blasio, all of them, Julie Menon, the speaker of the city council, Jessica Tisch, who's my dear friend, we're very, very close, police commissioner, all of them. De Blascio, Ritchie Torres. One by one, and they all wrote the same exact thing.

O'REILLY Sure.

ROSENBERG So, as you said to me, in a private phone call, which is now no longer private, you said clearly this was an orchestrated effort by City Hall.

O'REILLY No doubt.

ROSENBERG A thousand percent right.

O'REILLY And you apologized.

ROSENBERG I did, but there's a lot of erroneous reports. I read something even just yesterday to John Catsimatidis, my owner of my radio station, was interviewed. He gets interviewed all the time, you know. And they always bring me up. Hey, you got that morning guy, he's crazy. And he courses himself, and it said in the column that John Catsimatidis even at one point had to force me to apologize. Let me set the record straight right here on, We'll Do It Live. Nobody, and I mean nobody, not John Catsimatidis, not Chad Lopez, not my wife and daughter, who I spoke to the night before. Not the clergy people, who spoke the night before, nobody mandated to me that I must apologize. I've just been through this, as you've heard through this. Fired many, many times. I know how things all of a sudden take on a different life, even things that are silly, stupid. Right, so I just started on my own, there was nothing from my boss that said do it. I did it on my own, and I will tell you that that day I still beat the living daylights out of Mamdani. I just left some of those other words out.

O'REILLY But you did the right thing by apologizing because you don't want to get down in the gutter with the Jimmy Kimmels, okay? I mean, I'm serious.

ROSENBERG No, you're right.

O'REILLY Because there's a line that you can cross that leads to insanity.

ROSENBERG You're right, but...

O'REILLY You don't want to be on the wrong side of the line.

ROSENBERG Well, it's not like I apologized.

O'REILLY You weren't groveling.

ROSENBERG No, no, but it's not like I apologized, and the Democrats appreciated it. You know, I say this all the time, and you could appreciate this, but part of the reason why, Bill O'Reilly, you're a legend, okay? It's surreal that I'm doing this, and I mean that, I'm honored. I can't thank you enough. You're a legend. Part of the reason why is that a lot of people don't like you. President Trump is hated by millions. So it's now like I apologized, and now the Democrats and the folks that don't like me said, you know what, that's it. He's not such a bad guy. They hate me. They hate me, maybe even more.

O'REILLY They'll never give you anything.

ROSENBERG Right, so what do we apologize... What exactly are we apologizing for? For ourselves? I felt better.

O'REILLY Now we did take a break for our Premium and Concierge Members. We'll come back. I have a very provocative question, not that I need it, with Rosenberg, who could go four hours. Okay, but I have a provocative question for him about New York City. So, for those of you who watch the We'll Do It Live, thank you very much. We hope you go and become Premium and Concierge members. Because then you get everything. We'll come to your house, we'll cut your lawn in the summer. We do all that. But I'll be back with Rosenberg in a moment.

We'll Do It LIVE! - Jeanine Pirro

2026-04-23T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY So welcome to We'll Do It Live and who better than to do it live with then Judge Jeanine Pirro, everyone here she is. You don't see much of her because she's so busy these days, but we snagged her, and I am very happy that you're happy, and I mean that.

PIRRO Thank you.

O’REILLY Because I didn't know, you know, this five-thing was a cushy job. Hey, come on. This Fox Five thing, you're sitting there, if you can put up with Gutfeld, that's all you gotta do.

PIRRO Oh, boy, if that isn't the point.

O'REILLY Right, right. But it's a cushy job, it's just like, okay, here's a lot of money, just sit there, and then you say a few things, and you go home. This is a hard job, but not a lot of people know what you do. What do you do?

PIRRO Well, first of all, The Five was, you know, not a cushy job, it was a great job because you get hair and makeup, and you make money, and you have to be up on the news. You know that, I mean, you were in the business and you were at the top of the pyramid when you were in that business. But this job is Janine or me going back to my roots. It's the job that I started, and it's a job that I love. I love criminal justice. I love the idea of fighting on behalf of the victims of crime. I like enforcing the law. I believe in law and order. I believe in the Constitution. I believe that things have gotten so out of whack that we really needed to, you know, kind of readjust what was happening. And when I saw that Washington, D.C. had the fourth highest murder rate in the nation, comparable to the capital of some third world country, as recently as two years ago, I said, that's the kind of place where maybe I have something to offer. When the president called, first of all, I was honored, and I knew that it was something that would feed into my wheelhouse. Although I was a local DA in a county of a million people, which is much larger than the district that we're in right now, I was elected and reelected and re-elected again. So I had to be out there in the political sphere. Here, I could do the job, and I'm accountable to the people and, of course, the president.

O'REILLY Okay. But you're the DA of Westchester County, just north of New York City, and everybody knows what you do, when there's a crime committed in Westchester County, it comes into your office, you decide whether to prosecute the crime, and then when you make your decision, the other attorneys go, and they prosecute. Here, you've got the Attorney General of the United States, right across town. All right, you got a mayor that's not affiliated with Trump. It's a locally elected mayor Muriel Bowser. So it's almost like a mosaic. So, say somebody in D.C. murders somebody on federal property. Your case or the DA's case?

PIRRO I am the DA.

O'REILLY I mean, or the attorney general's case.

PIRRO Okay, here's the difference. Remember, we talked about the DA handling local crime, street crime, and then you have the federal United States attorney? My office in D.C., and as the United States Attorney in the District of Columbia, I am both. I am both the local prosecutor and I am United States attorney. I am a double-hatter.

O'REILLY Okay.

PIRRO Everything that happens is mine.

O'REILLY So the attorney general...

PIRRO Of the United States, right.

O'REILLY Right. She doesn't get involved with the street crime or anything like that in the district.

PIRRO She is, it's no longer a she, the attorney general, of course, is now acting Tom Blanche. Okay, but to the extent that the president has decided that he is going to make DC safe and beautiful with his executive order, then I am one of the only, if not the only, United States attorney who has dual jurisdiction of street crime and federal crime. I am the only one in the country that does both.

O'REILLY The attorney general then oversees the FBI, oversees the crimes that cut across...

PIRRO Federal crimes. Right.

O'REILLY Now, I was surprised. I had seen Pam Bondi on St. Patrick's Day. Nice conversation. Always got along with her. I was surprised that she left. That surprise you?

PIRRO I think she was asked to leave, that's my understanding. I'm not surprised because the president wants things done, and he needs someone who is going to aggressively pursue the agenda that needs to be done. And so now I think he sees in Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general...

O'REILLY A more aggressive person.

PIRRO A more aggressive person.

O'REILLY I don't think there's any doubt about that.

PIRRO Yeah, and I think that that's what the president wants.

O'REILLY Do you have anything to do with the Epstein situation?

PIRRO Absolutely not.

O'REILLY Okay, because that vexed Pam Bondi, that vexxed her.

PIRRO Yes.

O'REILLY You know, she made an initial mistake by saying, I got this file, and then everybody goes, what file? Let me see the file.

PIRRO Yeah, and a client list and all that.

O'REILLY But you don't have anything to do with Epstein.

PIRRO No, no, no. Because there isn't anything in my jurisdiction that involves any of the Epstein victims, or if someone had a case where they want to claim, and I just started a hotline, a tip line for Eric Swalwell. Once it was determined in California that he has been engaging in inappropriate, if not criminal behavior allegations, that I would look into it as well. So just as I'm doing that with Swalwell, I'll do that with any crime victim. I am an aggressive prosecutor.

O'REILLY As long as it took place in D.C. area.

PIRRO In my jurisdiction. Right.

O'REILLY All right. Tell me why the nation's capital had so many murders. Why?

PIRRO I'll tell you why. The nation's capital had so many murders because there was not a focus on law and order. There was not, we have a DC council. The DC council has laws that cover the superior court. They can be murders, and they can be, you know, assaults, sex crimes, burglaries, robberies, but they allow for the kind of sentencing that is so absurd, Bill, you would be stunned. So if you have someone who is under the age of 25 and kills three people in the DC court, not even the federal part of my job, but the local, and the court gives him 30 years for one, 30 years another, and 90 years, because of the DC council, after 15 years, he can get out. He doesn't have to prove he's sorry. He doesn't have to say what he did was wrong. They just figured he was under 25. We gotta give him another shot.

O'REILLY So you're saying that the D.C. City Council, elected by the locals...

PIRRO By the locals.

O'REILLY Too soft on crime.

PIRRO Too soft on crime is a kind way of saying it. What they are doing is they are allowing young people, teenagers, to commit crimes in my view, but allowing them to go into the juvenile justice system and the family court, where the focus is not punishment, deterrence, or retribution, it's rehabilitation. But that rehabilitation is yoga and ice cream social. There's no accountability. And so these young punks end up with a rap sheet a mile long. By the time they get to me, Bill, they're committing a murder. I look at their juvenile rap sheet, they've got robbery, car theft, they've gotten burglary, assault with a dangerous weapon. It's crazy. So--

O'REILLY This is like New York.

PIRRO Worse.

O'REILLY It's worse in New York.

PIRRO Definitely worse than New York, because when I was a prosecutor in New York, if you committed a murder at 14, I could prosecute you. Here I cannot.

O'REILLY But you know New York has changed its laws to make it easier for the miscreants to race around. Now why, why did the elected city council of Washington DC decide to go soft on crime?

PIRRO You'll have to ask them, Bill, but what I can tell you is that they think that young people need to be coddled because their prefrontal cortex area is not fully developed, and they are not capable of making reasoned decisions. But my question to you, Bill, is does it matter to you, God forbid, if you were shot, whether it's a 15-year-old who shoots you or a 50-year old? The consequences to you are the same.

O'REILLY Sure, and what if it's my daughter or my son?

PIRRO Yeah, it's even worse.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO Okay, and so they are not inclined to focus on the victims, they are focused on the young punks.

O'REILLY Right. Has that changed since you've been here?

PIRRO No, and in fact, we are demanding that they lower the age of accountability to 15, 16. They're not allowing that.

O'REILLY And they're fighting you?

PIRRO Well, they're not doing it. Look, Mayor Bowser, and by the way... The way to solve these issues is, first of all, thank President Trump, the executive order, make D.C. Safe and beautiful. He gives us the resources. I work with Mayor Bowser and the chief of police every day. We have a great relationship because we have a fundamental belief that we can make a difference.

O'REILLY So Bowser has come over to your side?

PIRRO Yes. I had a press conference with her today on a car theft ring that is international and stuff.

O'REILLY What was the source of this conversion, because she was always a far-left person?

PIRRO You know what?

O'REILLY Is it your personality?

PIRRO It's my over, my personality overcame her.

O'REILLY Because she's totally changed.

PIRRO She may have. All I know is the Muriel Bowser that I know is a Muriel Bowser that I like, that I can work with. We're doing another press conference on Friday on domestic violence, international theft ring. Tomorrow I'm doing something on C-scam and scam compounds in Southeast Asia. I mean, we're fighting all kinds of crimes. This is the best job in the world. I can do terrorism and bring back, you covered Benghazi. I covered Benghazi. I got the ringleader. We knew who the ring leader was from the get-go. Did anybody do anything? No. I got together with Marco Rubio, Kash Patel, and we brought back a guy named Bakush. I was on the tarmac for the transfer of control of this individual. And I met him and now we're prosecuting him.

O'REILLY What was the link to DC on it?

PIRRO We handle terrorism, where Americans are killed abroad. I'm also handling the Lockerbie case.

O'REILLY Any kind of terrorist activity abroad.

PIRRO Outside of the country. Yes.

O'REILLY That's in your jurisdiction?

PIRRO That's mine. Yeah.

O'REILLY I did not know that.

PIRRO This is the biggest United States attorney's office in the country.

O'REILLY I had no idea.

PIRRO Well, you know, if you give me another hour, I'll tell you about it.

O'REILLY And if I don't know, I mean, nobody knows.

PIRRO Yeah. National Guard, they're still here. Yep. And I'm glad they're here. And unfortunately, you know, one of the National Guard was killed. And another one is recuperating, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew, who I talked to his mother and continue to talk to him on a regular basis. You know, we're close to our victims. You know the intern you heard about who was shot at 10:30 at night, caught in gunfire, is the intern who was working for a congressman from Arkansas. His mother and I are the best of friends. She never thought this case would be solved. MPD solved the case. Muriel Bowser, chief of police, solved the case. We worked together. We worked day and night on this case.

O'REILLY Who has jurisdiction over the National Guard in D.C.?

PIRRO Oh, that is a great question.

O'REILLY Well, it's me.

PIRRO You ask great questions. I would say that the president does because there is no governor.

O'REILLY Okay. So that, I think, is the correct answer because the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, and the National Guard is part of the military. So, of course, it would come back to him. And he, how long is he going to keep the guard here?

PIRRO You know, obviously you'd have to speak to him about it, but I think that, you know, the president is focused on the 250th anniversary of the country on the 4th of July.

O'REILLY And he wants a clean D.C.

PIRRO He wants a clean D.C., and we have brought crime down, homicides are at the lowest rate in recorded history, but right now we're seeing a little uptick. Why? Because the weather's getting nicer, people are coming out, but we've made 12,000 arrests under this federal enhancement with the local police. We've taken something like, I don't know, 1,300 guns off the street. You know, those are 1,300 fewer guns that people can use to kill other people.

O'REILLY Now, can the guard take the guns, or can they just detain?

PIRRO Well, the guard can work. They always go with the local police, but they have their own guns that they can use, which is what happened with Lakanwal, who came from the state of Washington and decided to kill the two, or two.

O'REILLY So wherever the National Guard goes, they take the local metro DC police with them.

PIRRO Yes, yes, but no, you'll see them on a street corner alone. And they're there to deter crime. Whether or not they could make an arrest, they would probably concert or confer with MPD or other police agents.

O'REILLY Can they stop a miscreant from running?

PIRRO Yes, absolutely.

O'REILLY Okay. They can.

PIRRO They can detain, yes.

O'REILLY So they're another tool of control to stop...

PIRRO That is effective.

O’REILLY ...People from committing crimes on the street.

PIRRO You know what's happening, Bill? People are able to go out to dinner. They're able to walk the streets.

O'REILLY You sound like Trump.

PIRRO Because it's true. It's true, Bill. I hear it all the time.

O'REILLY Every time Trump says that, he says, when are you going to buy me dinner?

PIRRO Yeah, he could buy both of us dinner.

O'REILLY Okay, that brings us to your appointment. Now, some say that Donald Trump makes his appointments based on friendships with people who've been loyal to him. Is that a fair assessment?

PIRRO I don't know, I'd have to look at all of his appointments.

O'REILLY Oh, that's a dodge.

PIRRO No, it's not a dodge at all. It's a direct answer to your question. If you want to ask me if he appointed me because of our relationship, I would say to you, he knows me. He knew me as a DA. He knows me as a fighter. He knows me as an individual who believes in law and order, and I believe in him as well.

O'REILLY And but you were very supportive of him when you were on Fox.

PIRRO I was, I was, because I know the man. I've known the man for almost, what, 36 years? He's been at my home, I've been at his homes, you know, I'd see him on the street when I was DA in the 90s.

O'REILLY Would you say you understand Donald Trump?

PIRRO Nobody understands Donald Trump. You know who does? Melania understands him.

O'REILLY You think so?

PIRRO Oh yeah.

O'REILLY Okay.

PIRRO Oh yeah.

O’REILLY So I don't know if that's a fair assessment, about the president appointing people that he feels have been partial to him. I think that's...I don't know if that's fair.

PIRRO I don't know that he knows everyone that he's appointed. I mean, you'd have to prove that he knows everyone. He doesn't necessarily know them.

O'REILLY Right, but he's, he reviews it, I know that. He's not gonna put on anybody from MS is not going to be working for you anytime soon. Okay, because he holds a grudge.

PIRRO No, because, you know, these are the people who indicted him, and indicted him, indicted again.

O'REILLY It's a grudge, Jeanine. You know, both you and I know that I'd say 80% of that was just garbage.

PIRRO It was garbage. It was made-up stuff.

O'REILLY It was horrible.

PIRRO I can tell you, I was a DA in New York, just like the DA Alvin Bragg. I was the county judge, just like judge who was there trying the case, Judge Marshawn, okay? I held both those positions. That trial was so ridiculous. There was no crime. It was beyond the statute of limitations. .

O'REILLY This is the real estate fraud, which is insane, and E. Jean Carroll, are you kidding me? Bloomingdale's?

PIRRO Wasn't it Barney's?

O'REILLY No, it was Bloomingdale's.

PIRRO Was it Bloomy's? Okay.

O'REILLY I'm sitting there going... what? Okay, that could never have happened.

PIRRO Yeah. Yeah.

O'REILLY So when you were on the five, you were very, I think you were the strongest of the crew out there, saying this is a bunch of crap.

PIRRO Because I know the man, and I can speak to the man. I can speak to who he is, what he's like, when he parties, late at night, early in the day, seeing him with his kids, seeing him with his family. I've seen him on the street. I know the man, okay? And everyone wants to make him something that he's not. And the truth is, Bill, the very fact that he survived everything that they threw at him tells you that this is not an ordinary man. So don't expect ordinary responses from him every day of the week. He's a different kind of guy. He is, I mean, the man has armor around him. I don't know how he does it. But what...

O'REILLY He's a vampire.

PIRRO No, I don't think he's a vampire. I'm gonna tell him you said that. He's not gonna take you to dinner, he's gonna take me to dinner now.

O'REILLY Yeah, he never sleeps.

PIRRO Oh, he doesn't. He used to call my house.

O'REILLY I know.

PIRRO When my ex worked for him.

O'REILLY Vampires never sleep, Jeanine.

PIRRO He'd say, where is he? I'm like, hold on.

O'REILLY It's the whole night, there over flying around, turning into bats.

PIRRO He's working all night. Thank God for America.

O'REILLY So you're sitting there at The Five, and you're making good money. It's a very successful program. And you get the call.

PIRRO Yeah.

O'REILLY How long did it take you to say, I'm gonna dump the TV thing, and I'm going to go with the public service?

PIRRO Didn't take me long at all. Let me explain something to you. Sometimes the most difficult decisions are not all that complicated. Because when he made that phone call to me.

O'REILLY He did it personally.

PIRRO He called me, yeah. It was, it went right to my soul. This is who I am. This is how I want to, you know, maybe end my career. Who knows? This is a job that I love. This is a job where I go in every day, and I can't wait to get there. I mean, I haven't even told you all the stuff we do. I'm the DA here. I'm a federal prosecutor. I do terrorism. I do civil cases. I do, I defend agencies. I go, I prosecute agents. I mean, this is a huge job, a huge office that I had to turn around, Bill. It was a neglected office. People were quitting, people were getting fired. You know, my...

O'REILLY I don't even know who the DA was under Biden.

PIRRO The guy's name was Matthew Graves, United States Attorney.

O'REILLY I've never heard of him.

PIRRO He was a United States attorney. We're not called DAs. We are United States attorneys.

O'REILLY Okay, I'm sorry, Matthew.

PIRRO Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, I saw his picture. I never knew who he was either.

O'REILLY I had no idea who it was.

PIRRO Yeah. But let me tell you something...

O'REILLY So it took you less than a day to say yes or?

PIRRO It was about a day and a half.

O'REILLY A day and a half?

PIRRO Yeah. It was like, I didn't think you have a great life, a great job, you work for a great company. It wasn't that. It was, like, you got to do what's in your heart. You just got to go.

O'REILLY Okay. Did Jesse Waters cry when you met each other?

PIRRO I talked to Jesse a lot. I talk to Jesse...

O'REILLY Through an interpreter? Or do you just talk to him?

PIRRO I do talk to him. And...and you know, I miss, I miss Harold. I miss Jessica. I miss Dana.

O'REILLY I thought that was a good crew, right?

PIRRO It was a great crew. We all liked each other. That's why it worked.

O'REILLY Right. So, despite all of the trappings of that, because usually you get it the other way. Usually, the public servants want to get on television, make the big money, get the glamor. You go the other way.

PIRRO Yeah. Maybe I'm not that smart, Bill. I don't know.

O'REILLY I don't know. I know how much you're making now, and I know how much you made over there. So maybe you want to discuss your finances with me, but you took a humongous pay cut. It's ridiculous.

PIRRO The pay cut I took was ridiculous.

O’REILLY Right. Didn't matter?

PIRRO It didn't matter. The money didn't matter, didn't factor. It was as wonderful as that was. And you know, the old take the yellow legal pad, do the pros, do the cons. You know the cons are ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. You have to move, you have to leave your dogs, you have to do this, you do that, you're not gonna...One line is who you are.

O'REILLY Well, you were always that way, though.

PIRRO What way?

O'REILLY I've known you, what, 25 years?

PIRRO At least, yeah.

O'REILLY But you were a woman of passion in the sense that there were certain things you wanted to accomplish, and you did. You did everything.

PIRRO I don't know about everything, but... I'm happy.

O'REILLY There isn't anything you haven't done. You built your way up in the legal area, conquered that, good job. Now you're in the federal area, and you drove The Five's ratings up to where they are. So you've done pretty much everything.

PIRRO I wrote a few books along the way. I had two kids along the way. And...I think the one thing that I kind of, that I miss is that solitude that you have in your own home.

O'REILLY Sure. But you still have your home. You didn't sell it.

PIRRO Tell me. No, I didn't.

O'REILLY No, you're going back.

PIRRO Not so far.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO But I miss home. I'm in an apartment, which sometimes it just feels like a suitcase.

O'REILLY Well, the way you work, you're not there very much.

PIRRO I'm not, and I miss my dogs.

O'REILLY The dogs. You don't have to walk them, see, that's a good part.

PIRRO I never did, I let them out. I have property.

O'REILLY Just let them, and they run around?

PIRRO I have a property, yeah, it's all...

O'REILLY And the coyotes don't get them?

PIRRO No, no, coyotes don't dare.

O'REILLY Do you ever get the ire of the Trump haters?

PIRRO Yeah, I don't care. I don't even...

O’REILLY I know you don't care, but are you subjected to that? Look, this is big difference from New York.

PIRRO Yeah, oh, it's different.

O'REILLY Huge, okay. Now in New York, they don't like...Hey! It's O'Reilly, Hey!

PIRRO Yeah.

O'REILLY Okay. That's all right.

PIRRO And I yell back at them, by the way. When they come at me, I go right back.

O'REILLY But here it's more in the back. There are people who are working for President Trump, who have come under that scrutiny that they're not invited anywhere, they're shunned by people. You experience that?

PIRRO I don't care. I don't need to be invited anywhere, Bill.

O'REILLY I understand that, but how have you experienced...

PIRRO Yeah, I think I was here two weeks, and I was sitting outside, I have the marshals with me, and I'm sitting outside, and some guy comes out with a big placard and says Pirro's a fascist, and he caught my attention. I said, oh, that's me. And so the Marshalls are like, I said, I want to go talk to this guy, and he goes, you're not going to talk to him. Yeah, there are a lot of those.

O'REILLY They saved you from yourself.

PIRRO From myself. You know that, Bill, because I wanted to fight with the guy.

O'REILLY They're over here. When I walked in there, they patted me down, so they're taking good care of you.

PIRRO Yeah, they're great guys.

O'REILLY Okay, but I know you're not invested in any of that, the social stuff.

PIRRO No, I'm not. I'm not.

O'REILLY Okay, but there are people who have taken it right on the chin, particularly lawyers.

PIRRO You're right. And that's their livelihood.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO Yeah, I already know my livelihood's pretty much down to this compared to what it was, so.

O'REILLY Your livelihood is a lot bigger than theirs, but I'm just wondering how blatant that Trump hatred is in the Washington so-called swamp.

PIRRO Well, let me throw a statistic at you. 95% of the people in the district voted for Kamala Harris. Do I need to say anything else? These are people who sit on the juries. These are the people who sat on the grand juries, you know, these are people who do not love Donald Trump. There's no question about it. But what am I going to do? I have a job to do, and I'm gonna do my job. And the only way to do that job is to work with the judges. It's to work with the mayor and the police and people who don't like me to try to find common ground.

O'REILLY But here's something interesting. Your conviction rate is high, despite the juries being left.

PIRRO The conviction rate is high. There are a few cases that, you know, CNN and some of these other places will say, oh my God, they're losing these cases. They're losing, you know, they didn't get an indictment in this case. You know, but the truth is that there's only 10% of the cases I'm not prosecuting. Now follow me. Matthew Graves, the former U.S. Attorney you never heard of, didn't prosecute 65% of those cases.

O'REILLY Wow, that's a big stat.

PIRRO So everybody knows that I am taking on, I'm taking on all comers. You go after a victim in the district, you go after anybody, and I'm coming for you. And if the jury says guilty, wonderful. They say not guilty, I'll take it. It's fine. Now they know there's going to be accountability. There's going be arrests.

O'REILLY But it looks to me like you're making some inroads in persuading these jurors.

PIRRO I think there is. I think they recognize that what we're trying to do is make it better. And you have to lie to yourself, Bill, to say things are worse under Donald Trump.

O'REILLY Yeah, you can't.

PIRRO They have to admit it, unconsciously, in D.C.

O'REILLY Right, in D.C.

PIRRO In this district, it's totally different.

O'REILLY Now, the media. So you're a part of the pro-Trump media, I mean, let's be honest about it, but most of it's anti-Trump. Okay? Are you going to the correspondence dinner?

PIRRO Yes, I am.

O'REILLY So I'll be there too.

PIRRO I'll see you there.

O'REILLY But I'm being there as a reporter.

PIRRO Really?

O'REILLY Not as a guest.

PIRRO Okay.

O'REILLY Okay? Because if anybody does something untoward, I'm going to confront them.

PIRRO Good.

O'REILLY I don't want you to prosecute me, by the way.

PIRRO Yeah.

O'REILLY Okay.

PIRRO All right. But I'll give you an interview.

O'REILLY I just walked to the line. All right, I said, I don't want Pirro on my case. So there's just a line. But that's why I'm going.

PIRRO Interesting.

O'REILLY Because I don't want the office of the presidency attacked at a stupid dinner.

PIRRO I appreciate that.

O'REILLY Which could absolutely happen. Okay, you know, Dan Rather and Donaldson put out this Dopey letter and, you know. Forcefully confront the president? What does that mean?

PIRRO These people are unhinged.

O'REILLY I think so.

PIRRO There's no respect for the office. I mean, the way we treated President Obama was we disagreed with him, but we didn't create chaos. They disagree with us, and they create chaos, violence, and all kinds of problems.

O'REILLY And you see that?

PIRRO I do see that. I absolutely do see it.

O'REILLY Okay. Does it affect your job in any way?

PIRRO No, and my job, though, Bill, is to turn that office around from a neglected office, the kind of-.

O'REILLY You already did it.

PIRRO No, but I mean, getting these prosecutors to go in there is a tip of the spear. We're here representing the victims. We're not here representing any politics. We're here representing the victims and going after the criminals. You know, there's no, I don't want people like, oh, you know, they don't like us and this or that. I don't care, get that out of your mind. Put your blinders on. This is who we are. I support you in everything that you're doing. I think there was a little hesitation at the beginning.

O'REILLY I did a recent report in San Francisco on how that city has devolved into the unbelievable chaos because laws weren't enforced.

PIRRO Interesting. Yeah.

O'REILLY So we did that on News Nation, and it was a big hit, and what I learned from that was that there are prosecutors who don't care about the law.

PIRRO Damn right. You're right.

O'REILLY They care about advancing their careers.

PIRRO With their followers and their ideologues.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO Yes.

O'REILLY So the guy that gets beat up, you know, and his nose broken and teeth knocked out.

PIRRO Pays the price.

O'REILLY They don't care about him. And so you've been able to banish that, do you think?

PIRRO I think so. I think to a great extent, Bill, I've been able to do that. I think that, you know, this whole idea that anyone is there or anyone is impacted because of politics, I just strip them of that completely. And when we go into court, we go in on the facts and the law. And sometimes we get pushed back from judges. And our job is to push back the judges. I think before me, they didn't push back so much. Before me, it was like, I said, no, no, no. The judge doesn't run this office. The judge doesn't tell us. And I was a judge. Judge doesn't tell us what to do. We decide what we're gonna do. We decide whether there's gonna be a plea. We decide what we think the sentence should be. And that's how far we go with this case. Nobody is gonna control us.

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O'REILLY Did you have a tough time picking your team? Because number one, you don't know the turf, coming down from New York. Number two, the turf is left. Did you have a tough time assembling these people?

PIRRO Yes. Yes. I had a tough time. I was short of 90 prosecutors and 60 legal assistants.

O'REILLY Ninety?

PIRRO Ninety.

O'REILLY How many is total in your office?

PIRRO Four hundred. Four something. Four thirty. Something like that.

O'REILLY That's a big group.

PIRRO I keep telling you it's a bigger office.

O'REILLY Yeah.

PIRRO And 90 prosecutors, 60 legal assistants. I'm short of 150 people. All right. And then what happened was they started firing people, and then people started leaving because they thought they were going to get fired. And my message to them was, you be a good prosecutor. You get in there and fight the fight. And I don't care who you are. You do the job. And so the ship is calm. We've turned it around. I'm still short prosecutors, because historically, this office is one where people move in and out of very quickly. But at the same time, we've got some really good people in my front office. I brought one of my assistant DAs who worked for me years ago. He was one of the best investigators, Steve Vandervelden. A guy from Congress, brilliant guy, Carlton Davis. And my pals of my principal at AUSA is someone who worked in the office for 13 years. I brought in a guy from NASA, NASA, who's my executive at AUSA. I have a great team. I am very hands-on, Bill. You can't get away with anything in the office. Don't bullshit me.

O'REILLY Well, you tried that at Fox with me, and it didn't work. This U.S. Attorney, Lindsey Halligan, got screwed. Were you involved with that at all?

PIRRO I think that there was some information that she needed from our office that we were able to provide her, but all of that information from the office was from I think 2017, 2019, and but we were not asked to work on the case.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO You know, I think, I think she probably could have used more help.

O'REILLY Well, I mean, look, Comey, the former FBI director, guilty of sin, I'm sorry. I'm a due process guy, but the guy did it. I mean, he misled Congress. He had his friend put stuff out to the New York Times. He denied he didn't do it. And this Ms. Halligan was right in the middle of this. The press, of course, all along Comey's side. And I'm going, what's this? And it didn't look like she had much help.

PIRRO I don't know that she did. We gave her the help that we could based upon what she needed, but that help should have come from main justice.

O'REILLY Should have come from the attorney general.

PIRRO Yes.

O'REILLY Okay. How often do you talk to the president?

PIRRO I talk to him when I talk to him, which means I'm not going to answer your question.

O'REILLY Why?

PIRRO Because the press asks me that question all the time. I don't answer them.

O'REILLY Well, but what's the downside?

PIRRO No, I speak to him frequently. Okay.

O'REILLY Frequently.

PIRRO Don't ask me to define it.

O'REILLY Well, he calls you whenever he wants to call you.

PIRRO Yeah, he is the president.

O'REILLY Okay.

PIRRO How often does he call you?

O'REILLY He calls me occasionally. Mostly, he'd yell at me, okay? You know how it is. But he's the president, I actually have to keep my phone on all night, and because I want to help. I'll tell him, you know me, if he asks me, I'm gonna tell him what I think. A lot of times, he doesn't want to hear that. You're kind of like me that way. If I ask you, you're gonna tell me what you think. You like that with him? No deference?

PIRRO You know, now that I work for him, there's like, you know, Mr. President, Mr. President, I say, Donald, no!

O'REILLY No, you gotta call him Mr. President.

PIRRO Mr. President, yeah, of course, there's deference. He is the president, and I am one of his appointees. I have tremendous respect for him. And I'm honored when he calls me.

O'REILLY Does he ask you questions that go beyond your job? Policy questions, things like that?

PIRRO I'm not gonna talk about what I talk about with him.

O'REILLY But I'm asking you specific questions.

PIRRO I'm not. Yeah, yeah, that's specific enough.

O'REILLY That's specific enough.

PIRRO That's it. That's as far as I'm going.

O'REILLY You believe that he trusts... Well, that's a stupid question. Of course he does, or he wouldn't bother calling you. So I'm not getting anything here? You're stonewalling me here?

PIRRO No. You're not getting anything.

O'REILLY Now, if this was The Factor, I'd have to, you know.

PIRRO Yeah, you'd have to beat me up.

O'REILLY But I'm being extra nice.

PIRRO Yeah. Yeah. I am very grateful for you being extra nice here.

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PIRRO But, you know, one of the things that I think is important for me to say in light of everything that we've talked about is that the new attorney general, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, I think he's doing a great job.

O'REILLY Tough guy.

PIRRO A tough guy, experienced guy, very aggressive, knows the president. I think it's going to be a great run for him.

O'REILLY He's got a lot to sort out.

PIRRO He has a lot of people who believe in him.

O'REILLY Yeah. But that whole attorney general situation now, because you know if the midterms go against President Trump, you know what the hell's gonna happen here. Well, hell's going to break loose. Ready for that?

PIRRO Am I ready? Sure. I'm one of the good news stories. You just said it yourself.

O'REILLY Alright, so you're ready for nutty, loony, I hate Trumpers, you know, trying to denigrate him using the legal system.

PIRRO Absolutely. It's nothing new to him.

O'REILLY You anticipated it? I mean, you guys thought about it?

PIRRO Absolutely, you think about it. I mean, I've been around a long time, Bill. I understand how they play. We all understand how the play. What they're going to do. What they will do to get power back. You saw how they got power the last time. I mean everything from the Russia hoax, and the liars, leakers, liberals.

O'REILLY But it would be foolish for them to impeach him. That would hurt the party.

PIRRO You think so?

O'REILLY I do. The nation has had enough of that. And independent voters, they're not going to go for that. But there are other ways to do it.

PIRRO How?

O'REILLY Well, they can trump up, pardon the pun, anything they want and make it almost impossible for him to govern unless the legal system steps in, and says bull, this is garbage, and we're not going to entertain this, and you're still going to have the power to do that even if the Democrats win. But I think that the attorney general, yourself, is going to be the bulwark there. You guys are going to the first one in defense when the Trump haters, if they get control of Congress.

PIRRO Well, they're coming at us, there's no question.

O'REILLY Right.

PIRRO They're coming at us.

O'REILLY How would you describe to somebody who lived in Poland what the atmosphere politically is in Washington, D.C.? How would you describe that to somebody that has no idea?

PIRRO Well, first of all, you know, Washington, D.C. is filled with politicians, and I think that politicians themselves are just less than credible to begin with, most of them, okay? What I've seen since I've been here is that, you know, there's a lot of lobbyists and a lot of parties and a lot of this and that, I mean, there are very few of them who are so committed to getting the job done as opposed to just fighting with each other. All right, that is the game. It's to make them look bad, and we're not even a part of it. Forget, not even pawns. We're not part of the thing. And then when you go outside of Congress, then you've got just the haters. The people who believe that they know more than everyone else who may be experienced in the law, and that we're all corrupt, and that Trump and the prosecutors and the court system... You know, we're just trying to put people in jail, and that we're not protecting anybody. And you know, if a cop gets assaulted, too bad. He probably deserved it. Or in one case, we had a police officer who was brought in, I think it was an FBI agent. He was brought, and he was African-American, and the jurors sat in the deliberation room, because they come and tell us. Well, they only brought him in just to make sure that you realize that we had someone black working on the case. I mean, it's just, it is like, there's so much animosity. You know, they're looking for so much collision and fighting in this district. It's like you're on a side or you're the other side.

O'REILLY So they want conflict all the time because that gives them a reason not to move ahead on what their original job.

PIRRO Or it gives them a reason to, you know, to vent against someone. I don't know, maybe they're frustrated. They just need to fight with people.

O'REILLY Well, with Trump, it's everything's personal. Everything.

Highlights from BillOReilly.com's We'll Do It LIVE!

2026-04-16T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, boy.

SCHIRRIPA Yes, sir.

O'REILLY Okay, so this is what I don't understand. So your mother is Jewish, and your father is Italian. Yeah. That must have been quite a house.

SCHIRRIPA Well, you know, the thing is my mother was raised kind of like by Italians. So she was, she fit right in. You know what I mean? She was cursed in Italian, cooked Italian. So she was...Like kind of more Italian than she was Jewish, you know, but I had a whole Jewish side of the family. Comedy club. That's where I started. It was an improv, right? Then they, I took over, there was a topless show, and then there was a female impersonator show. I was running it, making a lot of money, a lot of tips. Those are the days you could still, you know, I wore a tuxedo. You still had to pay, you had to get a good seat. And that's where I started acting. Of course, I was working with a lot of comics, Bill Maher, Richard Belzer.

O'REILLY Were you the MC?

SCHIRRIPA No, no, I just was seating people in the back of the room. They would say, hey, you know what? I'm doing this little short film. You know, why don't you come and do this? Kevin Pollack. He said, come on, do an HBO special. I played a bouncer in his thing, and it was just fun to me, it was fun. I had no, I never read a script, never did anything, I flew myself to LA. I had a ball, literally a cliché. I got literally high from doing it.

O'REILLY So it was meant to be, you didn't seek it, it wasn't on your mind, you're a basketball player from Brooklyn, you ride that train, then you go to Vegas, you ride that train. Then you start to get little roles in LA, and you wind up in two of the biggest monster hits in modern television. So let's zero in on the Sopranos. Which you are still making money from.

SCHIRRIPA Oh yeah.

O'REILLY You're going out all over the world, you were just in England and they couldn't get enough of you over there.

SCHIRRIPA It was crazy. We did 14 shows in 10 cities, started in Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, I mean we went through the whole thing. Me and Michael Imperiali, we have a comic with us on stage, sold 27,000 tickets.

O'REILLY Unbelievable.

SCHIRRIPA Telling stories, funny behind-the-scenes stories, all positive.

O'REILLY We'll get to that in a minute, but Gandolfini and Tom Selleck were the two titans that these shows revolved around, both very interesting personalities. I know Sellec a little bit. I never met Gandolfini. Now, when you went on the set to play a low-level gangster, a New Jersey gangster, there's Gandolfini. Who already had established himself as one of the great actors in the country, okay? How did he behave on the show?

SCHIRRIPA ...Always, always trying to help you. My first scene is with him, Stevie Van Zandt, Vinnie Pastore, big pussy, Paulie Walnuts, Tony Cerrico. That's my first scene. I didn't know anyone. A lot of these guys knew each other. I came in the second season, the beginning of the second season. I knew no one. Said hello, did the scene. Jim is trying to help me. I'm supposed to be intimidated, scared. He's helping me. I was green. I had work, don't get me wrong. I had done a bunch of stuff, but this is a different level. Boom, I did a few movies, and he's trying to help me. He's yelling at me, screaming at me. He's trying to get me where I need to be. Once I do that, the scene's over. I'm one of the guys. He's just trying to help. At one point, he said, come on, me, him, Dominic Chianese, Uncle Junior. Come to my trailer, let's go over the lines, let's run lines. It's almost an out-of-body experience. I'm going myself, How the hell did I get here? I'm watching these guys on TV a week ago. Now I'm here with the three of them.

O'REILLY And they're all very eccentric characters.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, but good guys. Jim was always a pro. People say, did you guys have fun on the set? Yeah, we had fun. It was all business. He was working 16 hours a day, five days a week.

O'REILLY Mm-hmm.

SCHIRRIPA Listen, a great guy not without problems. I mean, that's common knowledge.

O'REILLY Right.

But not on the set never when he was working, you saw none...There was none of that.

O'REILLY Was he the leader of the gang?

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely.

O'REILLY Okay.

SCHIRRIPA In a positive way, so you can't come in, and you know, it was a good vibe. It really was like a family. We were close, very respectful. Nobody could come in and be disrespectful to one another. That wasn't flying either.

O'REILLY All right, so Gandolfini was kind of like the chief of police.

SCHIRRIPA I mean, you know, but kind of by example, you know, I mean, he was the guy, you know?

O'REILLY But it was such an intense program. Do you guys have any laughs off camera?

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, no, no. Absolutely. We went out constantly. I mean, we enjoyed every moment. I mean, those guys, Michael, Jim were in their late 30s. I was in my early 40s. We went, we were like playing for the Yankees.

O'REILLY Where do you go in Jersey?

SCHIRRIPA No, here.

O'REILLY Oh, in New York.

SCHIRRIPA We all lived in Tribeca, back end of Battery Park.

O'REILLY Ah, so you're running around.

SCHIRRIPA All over.

O'REILLY At the end of the show, the run of the show, did it wear you guys down? Were you going, oh my God, you know, how long can we keep this up? It's so intense.

SCHIRRIPA I don't think so. I think every single person would have gone on you to do that show. Jim was getting burnt out, and David and when David Chase came to us and said this is gonna be the last season, nobody said...everybody said okay. Everyone said okay, that's fine. I mean, whatever you want, you took us here. You're the boss. I mean, Jim did most of the heavy lifting.

O'REILLY Sure. He was a plotline guy, and Gandolfini died a short time later.

SCHIRRIPA Well, no, the show ended in 2007, Jim died in 2013.

O'REILLY Okay, that's not a long period of time for men that age. And he died in kind of mysterious circumstances, I think, you know?

SCHIRRIPA No, took his son to Italy, and he died of a heart attack. I mean, there was no, there was no surprise.

O'REILLY Were you surprised?

SCHIRRIPA Was I surprised? Well, I tell you what, I got a call from our attorney. We all had the same business manager attorney. And I was at Yankee Stadium with Mitch Modell and Tommy Losada, you know, before the game, and I got to call and he, he said, you by yourself? And I said, I'm at the game. And he said, Jim passed away, and I was stunned. My legs came out from under me. I said, are you sure it's not one of these hoaxes?

O'REILLY Yeah, I was surprised.

SCHIRRIPA And he said, no. And then I said I had to leave. I mean, I was shaken seriously. And I was going down the West Side Highway, my phone was blowing up, CBS, NBC, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't talking to anyone.

O'REILLY So then you segue into Blue Bloods, which is a whole different thing because it's a network show. Guy named Kevin Wade was the runner, picks you up, contrasts you to Bridget Moynihan, Beauty and the Beast, or whatever you want to call it. But it was a brilliant move. And so now you're in a tighter structure with CBS. It's not like The Sopranos. There's a big difference in production, right?

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, well, because the surprise was shot like a movie. Don't forget, it was an hour with no commercials. A network TV show.

O'REILLY 44 minutes.

SCHIRRIPA 42 maybe, you know? So it's a whole different thing. But the writing was great. What I enjoyed a lot about Blue Bloods, everyone got along wonderfully.

O'REILLY Great cast.

SCHIRRIPA Really nice people.

O'REILLY But the guy that everything centered around, like Gandolfini, was Tom Selleck.

SCHIRRIPA Well, listen, iconic TV character. I mean, he's a star, Tom, right? A star, a star is magnum. Did a lot of good movies, too.

O'REILLY Well, this is my question. So Gandolfini, when he starts The Sopranos, wasn't mega. Tom Selleck, his private jet guy. Here I am.

SCHIRRIPA On The Sopranos, you had no input. What was on that page, you'd better say. End of story.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA David Chase wrote it, you'd better be word-perfect. Word perfect. Now, I could ask a question and say, wait a minute, well, when Bobby does this, sure. But if I say, well, you know what? I don't want to say this line, and I don't want to see that line. You'd better say the line, and you're not around for the next thing.

O'REILLY You get whacked.

SCHIRRIPA 1,000%.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA For real. For real. Okay? So there was none of that. You did not have that input.

O'REILLY It's like a play, right.

SCHIRRIPA Tom had a lot of input.

O'REILLY You bet he did.

SCHIRRIPA Tom had a lot of input. Tom knows what he's doing. Guy's an actor for 50 years.

O'REILLY But, he's a traditional guy. He brought that in, and that's what catapulted this show.

SCHIRRIPA And he's a common-sense guy.

O'REILLY Right. He's not some kind of flaky.

SCHIRRIPA No, and he knows, and he'll come in, and he'll say, well, the light there, and why are we shooting that? And he'll question, and he knows what he's talking about.

O'REILLY But if he wants it, he gets it.

SCHIRRIPA Well, of course.

O'REILLY Right, he's the guy.

SCHIRRIPA He's the star of the show. Now, that was a big difference. Jim read the script, and he did it like the rest of us. He read the script...

O’REILLY But Selleck had power.

SCHIRRIPA Tom would give his opinion to the writers and...

O'REILLY And the writers would do what he pretty much wanted to do. You know, and it worked.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, of course it worked, there was a, listen, when the show ended, it was what? Six million people plus three or whatever?

O'REILLY Number one prime time CBS show.

SCHIRRIPA For years.

O'REILLY What's it like growing up with a Jewish father, a mother's half Filipino? You're a United Nations down there in the suburb of San Francisco.

SCHNEIDER Well, it was really great because we lived in a place that money didn't really matter. Everybody was, it definitely the suburbs. This is, we were the end of the baby boom, and it was a really great time in America. So you know, we're, and we were actually, you know, we had Filipinos, there were Jews, and the Filipinos are, they assimilate, and that's why the Filipinas are so successful. Most people don't know this, but the highest earners in America, Filipino Americans. They average 93,000 per cap. And so that's, and you don't hear about it because they don't want you to know. Rob, don't tell anybody, please. Let the black and white people kill each other. We're going to be okay in the suburbs. So, but they really do well because they assimilate. And when you get somebody from over the Philippines, they'll marry into the culture. They'll meet people. They'll become part of the culture, and they'll definitely know and learn the language. So that was what I really grew up with. And I also grew up as somebody who appreciated America like you wouldn't believe. I remember my mom, anyone who said anything against America, she had two words for them. Get out! You don't like America. It's the greatest country in the history of the world. We have freedom and opportunity. You have no idea what it's like. Get out!

O'REILLY I was looking for a little levity, but not stupid stuff, a little, an intelligent guy to come on once a week and put the news into some kind of perspective with an entertainment value. So, at the time, Dennis Miller was working at CNBC, and he had an hour show with a monkey. With a monkey. No one knew why the monkey was there. But Miller would talk to the monkey, and the monkey would just run around, okay? Well, the show did not work, okay, and they...

SCHNEIDER Imagine that. That would kill now.

O'REILLY They killed the show. So I run into Miller in Manhattan, where we are now, and I didn't know him, and I said, you know, I like the monkey. Lit up, because everybody hated the monkey except me, I liked the monkey. And then I said, you know, would you mind if I maybe got your agent, and no, no, you know, Miller, just blew it off. So I went to the head of Fox News, a guy named Roger Ailes, and I said look, I wanna put Miller on a weekly basis, it's going to be a workshop to give him a contract, but we'll give him three or four weeks to see. He goes, is that the guy with the monkey? Said yeah, we don't have to hire the monkey. Okay, we're not gonna hire the monkeys. We'll have a few bananas All right, so Miller will feel it home. So the rest is history.

SCHNEIDER That's fantastic.

O'REILLY I brought him on, and he and then we toured.

SCHNEIDER That's right. Those tours were great. You guys were ahead of your time.

O'REILLY It was amazing.

SCHNEIDER You got to have...you got to have, it was pre-podcast era, when you guys got to actually, people would come out, and then you would actually get to... They would get to hear people that they listened to, and it was a wonderful reaction that preceded this whole era.

O'REILLY Why do you think that the Trump administration is so vilified by the Kimmel's, the Colbert's, the network news? Why do they hate him so much?

SCHNEIDER I think it's liberal women that have lost their minds are controlling these men. And these guys have no more balls.

O'REILLY Oh, I thought you said they chained...

SCHNEIDER Kimmel has no balls. Kimmel is ball-less. He's been de-balled by his wife.

O'REILLY Really?

SCHNEIDER His wife is the head writer of the show. She used to be an assistant writer, now she's the writer. And I think that's completely ruined him. I do. I mean, I'm sorry, Jimmy, maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.

O'REILLY Thirty years at 60 Minutes, 30 years, the man survived at CBS. I survived about eight months at CBS, he's 30 years. Anyway, let's begin with older folks, Americans. And they watch CBS now. And it's not anywhere near what it was. What did Deuce happened?

KROFT Algorithms. That's my short answer. I mean, technology, the fact that everything has gotten more complicated, much more complicated. The fact that, you know, it started with cable TV, and it started eroding the audience of the three major networks. And it just got down to a point where I think the people that own the networks decided to write it off, that it was not that important to them anymore, even though it still produces a huge amount of money, but that the future was someplace else. But, you know, the budgets dwindled, and people had to do with what they got.

O'REILLY But it's also about performance. So, Mike Wallace, before he died, I became fairly good friends with him. He liked The Factor, he liked my, whatever you want to describe me as. He was the one who really liked me and kind of identified with it. But you had Hewitt, and you had Safer, and you had Wallace, and you had all of these pros, yourself. Really knew what they were doing. And now, I'm sorry, Tony Dokoupil, is that his name? He looks like a nice guy, but he wasn't at Chernobyl like you. And so it's not, it's like a sports team that once had all these superstars and now they're in eighth place.

KROFT Yeah, the one thing that all the people that you mentioned, Ed Bradley and Leslie, we all had either, we had successful careers at CBS News before we got to 60 Minutes. And we had all been either overseas or in Washington, covering the White House or one of those places. And there was a level of experience that doesn't really still exist. I mean, those positions are occupied, but everything has changed. And I can remember when I told Jeff Fager that I was going to leave or that I was going to retire. And he says, well, you know, what are we going to do? And I said, you know, go out and find somebody who knows how to write and is a good reporter. And he said, they aren't out there.

O'REILLY It's true. There's no minor leagues.

KROFT I can remember when I was tapped to go to 60 Minutes, I thought this was fantastic. And I expected a lot of people would just come up and say, that's really great. I'm really happy for you, whatever. And then you realize, after a while, that not everybody was happy that I got this job. There were other people...

O'REILLY There were more competition.

CROFT There were other people that wanted it. And so then you've all of a sudden made a bunch of enemies. And that's, it's just, you know, it is a snake pit.

O'REILLY It is.

KROFT It's a snake pit.

O'REILLY Is it any way to live? If you had to do it again, would you do it again?

KROFT I think that I, no, I probably wouldn't do it again.

O'REILLY Really?

KROFT Yeah. I hated it.

O'REILLY If you were covering President Trump, you would be skeptical of him.

KROFT Well, I'm trying to be skeptical of everybody.

O'REILLY Would you be fair to him?

KROFT You know, fairness is a strange word. I think my big problem with Trump, it feels to me, and this is 60 Minutes and CBS, I kind of feel like we're in federal receivership and that-.

O'REILLY Well, he's a populist. He's a strong man.

KROFT Yeah, exactly. And the trustees of this receivership are Trump, Ellison, and Bari Weiss, and they have said quite openly that they think that they need to adjust.

O'REILLY Yeah, they need to be fairer to him, more fair. And I agree with that because as we talked about with Pelley and I know what I'm doing, so do you, I can see when Leslie Stahl is interviewing Trump and she says to him, well, there's no evidence of Russian collusion, you know, blah, blah, blah, and I'm going, whoa, that's not how you pose that question. It's not. You interviewed Obama 17 times. 17 times!

KROFT Yeah. Something like that.

O'REILLY Why did he like you?

KROFT I think he liked me for, I'm not so sure it was personal. I think that he liked the fact that 60 Minutes could deliver almost 20 million people every time he came.

O'REILLY But he chose you. He could have had Mike.

KROFT I think because I did the first story on him. I mean, I was the one that covered him during the presidential campaign.

O'REILLY I think he trusted you, Obama.

KROFT Oh, I think he did trust me, and I think he knew that I was not gonna, I was not gonna like...

O'REILLY Cheap shot him.

KROFT Cheap shot him.

O'REILLY And you didn't cheap-shot him.

KROFT And I didn't.

O'REILLY Now, in order not to cheap-shot him, you had to be a little light on him sometimes. I remember those interviews, and sometimes I could see, I said, oh, Kroft wants to ask this, but he doesn't want to derail the whole thing. Am I wrong?

KROFT I think you're probably wrong in the sense that we did some, there was never an interview that we did with him, that we didn't ask him about all of the...criticisms.

O'REILLY But you let him answer rather than challenge.

KROFT Because he, you know, Obama was an interesting person. I'd never really seen a politician like him. In all the years that I interviewed him, he never once said, stop, I need to talk to my aides to find out the answer.

O'REILLY I interviewed him three times.

KROFT He was in command.

O'REILLY With me, I challenged him.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY Okay.

KROFT Well, I challenged him, too. You apparently haven't seen the last couple of interviews I did with him.

O'REILLY And they got tougher as you went along, okay, because he got in more trouble as you went along, to be fair.

KROFT You know, I mean, the situation was really, really a mess.

O'REILLY He had a long honeymoon, and then he was, you can keep your doctor here if you want, your doctor, and all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.

KROFT But for the first four years of that presidency, the issue was the financial situation.

O'REILLY Yeah.

KROFT You know, we had just pretty much...

O'REILLY Over the cliff with Bush.

KROFT Over the cliff with Bush, and the worst of it, some of the worst, of it was when he was running, when he was president-elect. And I think that some of those things, you know, all of the bailout of the banks and everything.

O'REILLY Unlike Trump, Obama was a realist, and he was a consensus seeker. Would I be correct there?

KROFT Yeah. I don't think nearly as liberal as people point him out to be.

O'REILLY No, I agree with that.

KROFT People always used to talk to me about 60 Minutes and say, oh, it's so liberal. You know, I never really thought of it as being liberal, in part because Don and Mike Wallace were both Republicans.

O'REILLY Right. They didn't play that game.

KROFT They didn't play that game.

O'REILLY But Rather did.

KROFT But I think, I think Dan did, Dan is also... You know, he's from Texas. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps. And I think it was more... I mean, he gave Nixon really a hard time. I thought it was the end of his career, that question at the luncheon was...

O'REILLY He did not like Nixon, and vice versa.

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O'REILLY So the word imminent is the problem here.

GRAHAM A hundred percent.

O'REILLY It's the problem. Because Americans, they want to support anti-terror measures. I think most clear thinking people understand Iran is a terror nation. If it's not around, it's better for the world. I think they understand that. They don't understand is, did we have to do this now?

GRAHAM So, there's two things I've learned. I'm 70. Vietnam has cast a great shadow over American foreign policy for a long time. Nobody wants to get in a Vietnam. Iraq and Afghanistan have cast a long shadow over Mideast policy, and I can understand that. So, everything we do, are we going down that road again?

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM And the answer is no. But we're not going to sit on the sidelines and watch Iran get a nuclear weapon, imminent. Let me tell you what the facts are, and you tell me if it was imminent. So Jared Kushner and Witkoff are charged by the president to go to the Iranians and sit down and see if you can do a deal over their nuclear program. Now, they've said for generations here, all we want is peaceful nuclear power, countries enrich that have nuclear power. Why should we be different? Why should we be second-class citizens? Why shouldn't we be allowed to enrich, like you do, for peaceful nuclear power? Well, the argument I would give back is that for about 20 years, you've been cheating. You have not tried to develop a peaceful nuclear program. Your enrichment program is well beyond what you need for peaceful purposes.

O'REILLY How do we know they've been cheating?

GRAHAM Because they said so. That comes in a minute. It's been pretty clear that IAEA, everybody has caught them having enrichment capability beyond what you need for commercial purposes. The most you need for commercial purposes is 20% uranium. There is no commercial need for 60%. What does it take to make a weapon? 90. So, 20 is the outside of commercial. 60 is threshold weapons, 90 is weapons. Trump says, go talk to the Iranians, and here's what he offered them. You can have a small enrichment program to save face. We don't want to humiliate you, but it can be designed to go beyond small, right? And we will guarantee you spent fuel supply forever.

O’REILLY And they turned it all down.

GRAHAM Why? Well, because they don't want a nuclear power program. They want the capability to make a weapon because they're religious Nazis. And if you don't believe that you're wrong. And those in the 30s who thought Hitler just was trying to get more German territory, trying to right Versailles, right wrongs, you're wrong. I don't know why people want to kill all the Jews, but Hitler did. I don't why he believed the Aryan race had to be the master race, but he did. I don't know why these nut jobs in Iran want to purify Islam, but they do. I know why they want to kill all the Jews, but they say they do, and I think they would kill us, so that's where I'm at.

O'REILLY Now, here's a provocative question. You've been in Congress for more than 30 years as a rep and a senator. I've been in journalism 50 years plus. I have seen, and I could be wrong because I don't sit there, like you do, a deterioration, generally speaking, of intellect. I'm seeing really dumb people, really dumb people. People who don't know history. They don't really understand that if you don't punish criminals, then the criminals will commit more crimes. These are just basic things that in our country were givens for hundreds of years. And these people like Ocasio-Cortez, who went to Boston U, so did I, and her district is a butt spine. She doesn't know anything. And this woman's gonna be the next, she'll beat Schumer. She'll beat him. Okay, Shumer's done. And when you listen to her, and she doesn't do interviews like this, she would never sit with me in a million years.

GRAHAM Does she write books?

O'REILLY She doesn't know anything.

GRAHAM Well...

O'REILLY Have you seen that across the board?

GRAHAM Here's what I've seen. When I first started this business, you got rewarded for problem-solving. You know, sort of knowing what you're talking about. All the energy now is too loud. Not knowledgeable, just loud.

O'REILLY Right. Partisan.

GRAHAM Fetterman. He's doing what people used to do without even being noticed. So I tried to help Biden deal with Saudi, you know, Israel. I was in the gang of eight for immigration. I've done some things that our base doesn't like because somebody's got to solve these problems. Fetterman is trying to solve problems. Question: Will he make it or not? If you're running in a primary right now, your goal is to get as many eyeballs as you can. And how do you get eyeballs in this world? Be provocative. Provocative has replaced intellect. Provocative has replaced problem-solving. And what I want to do is to say, no, you don't have to be provocative to win. You actually can go to the Mideast enough. My knock is, why are you over there? We need you here. Why aren't you supporting them over there when we're paying more gas prices here? And I say, the reason I go over there is I don't want another 9-11. The last time we took our eye off the ball over there, they killed 3,000 Americans. Then I end every conversation with this thought. Do you think if the Ayatollah had a nuclear weapon, he'd use it? Most people say yes. Well, let's make sure he doesn't do it. And how do you do that sitting over here? I make an argument for smart intervention.

O'REILLY Well, you're a guy who, you're a conservative Republican, but you're at least open to hearing the other point of view, and you have a frame of reference.

GRAHAM Well, I have a frame of reference, which is history, and it goes back to what you just said. Why did people, it's almost as if World War II never happened.

O'REILLY Sure, they don't know.

GRAHAM If you stop people out on the streets, and you ask them, name the Axis powers? They have no idea what you're talking about. In a country who lets that happen, you'll wake up one day and wonder, what happened? Schooling. All I can say is the deterioration of curiosity, willingness to ask questions, and try to solve them. The ability to solve a problem is getting harder because the reward is less.

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O'REILLY Mandel makes me laugh. I'm not exactly a historical 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, okay? 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 Howie 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, then you...

MANDEL I had Does Stuff. I didn't have Howie Mandel secured.

O'REILLY Okay, so his daughter is on the 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 that she used.

O'REILLY 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 of, 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 is a microcosm of humanity. People who are in showbusiness 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 at the bank, you aren't. I find it really funny that people in, that not the 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 going to work. I'm going to lose jobs. And people will scorn me. I won't get invitations to the Hollywood Hills cocktail parties, so I'm not 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 becomes... It's rhetoric. It's not positive or negative. It's, you know, you're an idiot, 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 wanna spend time with you. So I don't know that you're gonna 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.

MANDEL Okay. Lively lass, would you agree?

MANDEL Lively lass.

O'REILLY Yeah.

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.

MANDEL Lively lass.

O'REILLY So anyway, I'm sitting there...

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 Melrose Avenue, 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 L.A.' So I said, All right, check please! We'll leave immediately. But there was an edge there that, oh boy, and that's what I was talking about.

MANDEL So 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 if it affected her for one brief moment.

O'REILLY I think she just wanted to give me a hard time.

MANDEL I have a hard time with my mental health. I have a really good life, 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 stand-up. 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 roller coasters 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 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 he was 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, you know, dreamers just who were, you know, 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, a monologist. And part of Letterman's top 10 list, sometimes I was mentioned as the joke. They go, and we'll make them go to a Howie Mandel. You know? That hurt me because you want your fellow...

O'REILLY Yeah, you want that prestige from the guys.

MANDEL I went and did, Kelly and Mark, in New York. 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 that I'm really sensitive about my age. I didn't snap, and I wasn't sensible 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 was very kind of you to do it. If we can ever return to favor, you just let us know.

MANDEL Right back at you, buddy. If you ever need anything, I'm here.

O'REILLY Thank you.

We'll Do It Live! - Howie Mandel

2026-04-09T16:00:00Z

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.

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.

We'll Do It Live - Steve Kroft

2026-04-02T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to another We'll Do It Live extended interview. And I am very pleased to have a contemporary of mine with us. His name is Steve Kroft. You know him. Thirty years at 60 Minutes. Thirty years. The man survived at CBS. I survived about eight months at CBS, he's 30 years. Anyway. Well, let's begin with older folks, Americans, and they watch CBS now, and it's not anywhere near what it was. What the deuce happened?

KROFT Algorithms. That's my short answer. I mean technology. The fact that everything has gotten much more complicated. The fact it started with cable TV, and it started eroding the audience of the three major networks. And it just got down to a point where I think the people that own the networks decided to write it off, that it was not that important to them anymore, even though it still produces a huge amount of money, but that the future was someplace else. But, you know, the budgets dwindled, and people had to do with what they got.

O'REILLY But it's also about performance. So, Mike Wallace, before he died, I became fairly good friends with him. He liked The Factor, he liked my, whatever you want to describe me as. He was one who really liked me and kind of identified with it. But you had Hewitt, and you had Safer, and you have Wallace, and you had all of these pros, yourself. Really knew what they were doing. And now, I'm sorry, Tony Dokoupil, is that his name? He looks like a nice guy, but he wasn't at Chernobyl like you. And so it's not, it's like a sports team that once had all these superstars and now they're in eighth place.

KROFT Yeah, it's, the one thing that all the people that you mentioned, Ed Bradley and Leslie, we all had either, we had successful careers at CBS News before we got to 60 Minutes. And we had all been either overseas or in Washington, covering the White House or one of those places. And there was a level of experience that doesn't really still exist. I mean, those positions are occupied, but everything has changed. And I can remember, when when I told Jeff Fenger that I was gonna leave or that I was gonna retire. And he says, well, you know, what are we gonna do? And I said, Well, you go out and find somebody who knows how to write and is a good reporter. And he said, They aren't out there.

O'REILLY It's true, there's no minor leagues. I mean, we...

KROFT The local stations used to be great.

O'REILLY Both of us came up the hard way.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY What fascinated me about, because I know the personnel at 60 Minutes, the tough boys over there, Hewitt and those guys, I'd say they were savages, mini-savages.

KROFT Savages. I have to tell you a story. When I first looked like I might go to 60 Minutes, this is when I actually went to West 57th, and Dan Rather called me in because I had been working for Dan's show for like a long time, and he said, I think you're going to end up at 60 Minutes, and let me tell you, there's some big cats over. Take one swat with a ball game...

O'REILLY But he was one of the biggest cats. It's my theory.

KROFT And you're going to be limping for six months.

O'REILLY And it's true. I mean, there was no civility at 60 Minutes. It was like, you're an idiot.

KROFT If there were civility, you'd better check your wall.

O'REILLY Right. It was hand-to-hand combat to get your stuff on the air without it being edited. I think that Rather turned CBS to the left, not in a way that was immediately noticeable because Cronkite played it down the middle. Pretty much. Would you agree with that?

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY Okay. But rather tilted it to the left. I can back it up, but this is about you more than me. And then since that time, because CBS was the leader, all right, the news leader on television, they've all gone fairly left. Would I be wrong?

KROFT I don't think you're probably wrong in terms of perception. In terms of reality, I don't know. Some of it has to do, I've always thought, with geography and the fact that so many people in the media were from and the people running the news organizations were mostly East Coast people.

O'REILLY Manhattan people, D.C. People.

KROFT Yeah, Ivy League people, and that there was a built-in bias, as opposed to a political bias. You know, people always used to talk to me about 60 Minutes and say, oh, it's so liberal. I never really thought of it as being liberal, in part because Don and Mike Wallace were both Republicans.

O'REILLY Right. They didn't play that game.

KROFT They didn't play that game.

O'REILLY But Rather did.

KROFT But I think Dan did. Dan is also, you know, he's from Texas. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and I think was more, I mean, he gave Nixon really a hard time. I thought it was gonna end his career, that question at the luncheon was...

O'REILLY He did not like Nixon, and vice versa.

KROFT Yeah. And I think some of that stuck. But I used to tell people, look, there's no operation in broadcasting that has done more stories that should have pleased the conservatives than 60 Minutes, because we reported on fraud. The waste in Washington, and all of that stuff, when not everybody was doing that, and that's a conservative issue, not a liberal issue.

O'REILLY When you watch 60 Minutes today, surely you know it wasn't, it isn't what it used to be. You have to know that.

KROFT Yeah, I don't know what is.

O'REILLY Well, that's true to a certain extent, but let's take Scott Pelley, for example. Excellent reporter, I would say.

KROFT Excellent.

O'REILLY Hates Trump. Dripping. Blood dripping. Okay, as Trump once said. Okay, dripping. Hates him. Leslie Stahl, appalled by him. Isn't it our obligation to pull that back?

KROFT I think some of it, Bill, is perception.

O'REILLY Oh, come on.

KROFT I do. I do, I think, some of is perception, I think that Leslie can be tough on anybody, and I think that Scott, the same way. Here's my theory about conservatives. What I just mentioned with all the stuff about fraud and like scandals and crooks and all of that stuff. I think the conservatives tend to look at it like, well, there's a small occasion of the truth when, in fact, it is playing it more down the middle. But I don't think the Conservatives necessarily like the middle, I think they want people to be on their side.

O'REILLY Both sides do, though. Listen, that's why cable news succeeds, because they preach to the choir. I mean, they just tell people what they want to hear. You know that, everybody knows that. And that's absolutely hurt the repertorial business. We'll talk a little bit about you. I did not know this, and I should have known it. You were in Vietnam.

KROFT Yeah.

So you're over in Vietnam, and you win a bronze star. You're awarded a bronze.

KROFT Two, but not for combat. One was from service.

O'REILLY It doesn't matter what it was.

KROFT Well, you don't get a bronze star unless you're involved in combat theater. One for service and one for meritorious achievement.

O'REILLY Tell me about Vietnam.

KROFT Took up five years of my life. You know, I'm counting the two and a half years I was in the service and the two years before when I was worried about what I was gonna do. Because that was in 1968. I got drafted, and I got drafted.

O'REILLY And you went.

KROFT And I went. It's an interesting story because I didn't think I really had any choice. My parents would never have tolerated me going to Canada, and they would never have tolerated my going to jail. So the only thing I had to do, my only choice, was enlist or be drafted.

O'REILLY Okay, but I mean, you came from a traditional family. Was Vietnam worth it in any way?

KROFT For me?

O'REILLY Just in general. I mean, you were a reporter there. You were writing for Stars and Stripes or whatever it may be. You were observing what was happening. Is there anything worthy about that?

KROFT Only the learning experience.

O'REILLY The actual war itself, the way it was conducted, the draft, and all of that was a negative for America?

KROFT It was a negative for America, but I do think that it was instructive because I think that McNamara...

O'REILLY Defense Secretary.

KROFT Yeah, certainly realized, and LBJ certainly realized that you can't just send American boys off to die without having the country behind you. And I think we're revisiting some of that stuff right now in Iran.

O'REILLY But it's a little bit different because of the urgency on the nuke front, whether you believe it or not. I happen to believe it. I have a fairly good pipeline into what's happening. But I know millions of Americans don't want to believe it. They hate Trump, and they think Trump's evil, and he's going to do evil things. Once you get to that point, then rationality disappears. And the reason I asked you about Vietnam was I went over after the war. But I never knew whether we were noble over there or not, we, being the United States. Were we noble, trying to save these people from communism?

KROFT I think we were noble, only, and I use as proof because I've been back and they have much more respect for the Americans than they ever had for the French.

O'REILLY Yeah, it's money, though now.

KROFT I think it was a little bit more. I think that the French were, you know, they were the colonial power and that had been going on for really a long time, but I think that particularly the Japanese or the Vietnamese military people, Jap and those guys had a tremendous amount of respect for the Americans.

O'REILLY What we fought for.

KROFT Yes.

O'REILLY Sure, sure.

KROFT We were the enemies.

O'REILLY But it goes down into history as a deficit on America's sheet. There's no doubt about it. Tore society apart. And I think that we are divided now in this country as we were divided in Vietnam. I don't see a lot of difference there.

KROFT No. I don't either.

O'REILLY It was about 50-50.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY And, you know, we're in turbulent times here.

KROFT Yeah. I would say that, you know, what you said about, I think that Trump's problems are deeper than Iran and the war. And I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that he thinks he can do anything he wants.

O'REILLY So if you were covering President Trump, you would be skeptical of him.

KROFT Well, I would be, I try to be skeptical of everybody.

O'REILLY Would you be fair to him?

KROFT You know, fairness is a strange word. I think my big problem with Trump, it feels to me, and this is 60 Minutes and CBS, I kind of feel like we're in federal receivership and that...

O'REILLY Well, he's a populist. He's a strong man.

KROFT Yeah, and exactly. And the trustees of this receivership are Trump, Ellison, and Bari Weiss, and they have said quite openly that they think that they need to adjust.

O'REILLY Yeah, they need to be fairer to him. More fair.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY And I agree with that, because as we talked about with Pelley, and I know what I'm doing, so do you. I can see when Leslie Stahl is interviewing Trump, and she says to him, well, there's no evidence of Russian collusion, you know, blah, blah. And I'm going, whoa, that's not how you pose that question.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY It's not. And you know better than anybody, because you interviewed Obama 17 times.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY 17 times.

KROFT Yeah, something like that.

O'REILLY Why did he like you?

KROFT I think he liked me for, I'm not so sure it was personal. I think that he liked the fact that 60 Minutes could deliver to almost 20 million people every time he came.

O'REILLY But he chose you. He could have had Mike.

KROFT I think because I did the first story on him. I mean, I was the one that covered him during the presidential campaign.

O'REILLY I think he trusted you.

KROFT Oh, he does, I think he did trust me, and I think he knew that I was not gonna, I was not gonna like...

O'REILLY Cheap shot him.

KROFT Cheap shot him.

O'REILLY Okay, and you didn't cheap-shot him.

KROFT And I didn't.

O'REILLY Now, in order not to cheap shot him, you have to be a little light on him sometimes. I remember those interviews and sometimes I could see, I said, oh, Kroft wants to ask this, but he doesn't want to derail the whole thing. Am I wrong?

KROFT I think you're probably wrong in the sense that we did some, there was never an interview that we did with him, that we did not ask him about all of the, all of the...

O'REILLY But you couldn't answer, rather than challenge.

O'REILLY I interviewed him three times.

KROFT He was in command.

O'REILLY But with me, I challenged him.

KROFT Yeah.

KROFT Okay. And, well, I challenge him too. You apparently haven't seen the last couple of interviews I did with him.

O'REILLY And they got tougher as you went along, okay, because he got more trouble as you went along, to be fair.

KROFT The situation was really, really a mess.

O'REILLY And then he was, you can keep your doctor here if you want your doctor, and all of a sudden, all hell broke loose.

KROFT But for the first four years of that presidency, the issue was the financial situation.

O'REILLY Yeah.

KROFT You know, we had just pretty much—

O'REILLY Over the cliff with Bush.

KROFT Over the cliff with Bush, and the worst of it, some of the worst of it was when he was running, when he was president-elect. And I think that some of those things, you know, all of the bailout of the banks and everything.

O'REILLY Unlike Trump, Obama was a realist, and he was a consensus seeker. Would I be correct there?

KROFT Yeah. I don't think nearly as liberal as people point him out to be.

O'REILLY No, I agree with that, I agree with that, but he was stubborn.

KROFT Yes.

O'REILLY Very stubborn. And when I would interview him, I'd say to Mr. President, two of them were live. Super Bowl interview is live. And the presidential interview is the hardest interview you're ever going to do, I think. Do you agree?

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY Because you have to respect the office, even if you don't like the guy.

KROFT That was actually my take on doing the job. I remember the Brokaw interviews and the Cronkite interviews of presidents. They were very respectful. Someplace along the line in the last five or six or ten years, probably, it began like, you know, it was sort of get the guest.

O'REILLY Well, it began with Iraq. That's where it began. Okay. When Iraq went south, then the hounds of hell and the media were unleashed. Cheney's this, he's a Halliburton blood, that's where it really began modern time. I'll tell you an interesting story about Obama. When I had to do the interview live, I had 17 minutes. Because the Fox Sports people didn't want any of this. They want to interview some guy that was thanking the Lord that he scored five touchdowns. That's all Fox wanted, okay? They didn't want any discourse that was gonna veer away from my teammates are the best and I love them. That's what they wanted. They hated me anyway. So I go to Mr. President, look, we've got 17 minutes. I got a lot of questions for you here. You can do 17 minutes on my socks. Okay, 17 minutes. He can look at my socks and speak for 17 minutes about them.

KROFT Yes. I said, when I raise my finger, my crooked finger from playing ice hockey, like this, that means I want to get in. I have a question, all right? You have two decisions to make. You can keep going, and then I'm going to interrupt you. Okay, you know me. Or you can wrap it. Okay? And he was totally cooperative. He wrapped it. And then I got in the questions that I wanted. I think I amused him. You, he took seriously. Me, it was like this cat in a little ball that he was whacking around.

KROFT I can't let this pass. I mean, you've been talking about Dan Rather in the liberal slant of, democratic liberal slants of CBS. What about Fox? You think Fox is maybe a little conservative?

O'REILLY It's interesting when you ask about Fox, you're asking me who wasn't really a part of that machine. My numbers were so staggering, I made so much money for them. They didn't say a word to me. Unlike you, I had to fight hand-to-hand with Hewitt and all these other pinheads. They didn't say one blanking word to me. It was, hey Bill, how you doing? Like some lunch? Okay, that was it. So I never, ever got involved with any of that. And then when I left, that one constraint, because remember I was at eight prime time, all right, disappeared. And it all fell into line, because the profit margin was in speaking to one segment of the American people. And it remains to this day on all of the networks now. I mean, look at The View, look, ABC News runs The View. Okay, and it makes its money. By talking to liberal women. That's where it makes its money. So that's what they do. But with me, it was a totally unique experience because of the economic power that I brought in. Very fascinating. It's a good question you're asking. You're still on your game, Kroft. You know, you're still in.

KROFT You know, I think that, you know, I think Ailes was a genius.

O'REILLY No doubt.

KROFT Ailes figured out that you could be dominant with a rating of five.

O'REILLY Well, he knew.

KROFT And that there was no conservative voices at all.

O'REILLY He was similar to Hewitt, okay? He knew what was good on television. He knew who was good. Now these people have no blanking idea. I don't know who the anchor is for CBS. Who is now... Tiffany Who? What? They don't know who's good, who's bad. Now you did one of the most fascinating interviews I've ever seen, had to be chilling, the Clintons after the infidelity stuff. Tell me about that.

KROFT Okay, it was during sort of the height of that, of the, well, there was a, something big happened. A network, NBC, picked up a story that was in the National Enquirer or the Star or one of them about Jennifer Flowers. And it was the first time that a tabloid story had ever crossed over to the networks. I think it freaked out the Democrats, and I was not, you know, I was... Taking kind of a week off because we didn't have a game, you know. We didn't have a show because of the Super Bowl. We had the Super Bowl that year. So I went out and had lunch or a drink with Anne Reingold, who was an old friend from CBS who had been working for Ron Brown at the Democratic Party. And she says, well, why don't you interview Clinton? And I said, this Sunday. And I say, well, first thing is we don't have a show. Second of all. He's, you know, my understanding is he's going to go and do Nightline, you know, this week. And so I didn't pay too much attention to it. And then the nightline thing for one reason or another, I believe it was because, if it's dragging on too long, tell me, I think that somebody was going to be executed. And I think, that night, and I think that, that Clinton was, in Arkansas was nervous doing it. So it slid. So I get a call on Thursday or Friday from Anne Reingold and said, you sure you don't want to do this? And I said, we don't have a show. And she said, well, now I started thinking, I said, let me call, you know, I sort of was sure you can get him. And I had a conversation with some people on the campaign, one of whom was Stephanopoulos. And I called up Hewitt, he's in LA. And I said, can we, you know, we can get Clinton, you know. And he says, well, what are you going to talk about? I said there's only one thing to talk about with Clinton. And that's Jennifer Flowers. And he said, Okay, let me see what I could do. They were running a 48 hours after the Super Bowl and he had called up and got them to carve out like 10 minutes for us out of the out of the 48 hour piece. And so that was it. I can remember the call with Stephanopoulos and...

O'REILLY He was working for Clinton at the time.

Yeah, he was a press guy. And I didn't know George at the time at all. And he said, well, here's the deal. We can do 10 minutes, but it's going to be after the game, not in the regular 60 Minutes time slot. So he said what game?

O'REILLY Oh, he's at the top of his game?

KROFT Right, so I said, the Super Bowl. He says, wait a minute, this is going to air after the Super Bowl? We're in.

O'REILLY So he wanted it.

KROFT He wanted it.

O'REILLY And it was Hillary, too.

KROFT And they called back and said, what do you, what we'd like to have Hillary on. And I, first of all, Hillary had never been on television really, but everybody knew that she was incredibly smart and was considered to be a real asset for his campaign. And so we said, sure, you know, bring her along. I mean, one of the biggest mistakes Gary Hart made when he got into the monkey business, was that he didn't bring his wife on the show. I think she went a long way towards inoculating the damage.

O'REILLY Now, was that a tough interview for you to do because of the tawdry nature of the accusations?

KROFT No, it was pretty straightforward, you know it wasn't...

O'REILLY And he denied everything.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY And what did she do?

KROFT You know, she stood up for him, and she was...

O'REILLY Stand by your man?

She was really great. I mean, I would say great. I mean, great in what her task was, was to save his... ass.

O'REILLY So they just... They just moved it all over, right?

KROFT They didn't really smooth it all over because they didn't really know where we were going to go with this. And they were under the impression that we were going to ask them some questions about his campaign.

O'REILLY Are you kidding? They thought that? But you, as a journalist, knew he had to rep in Arkansas.

KROFT Of course.

O'REILLY You knew that.

KROFT Yes.

O'REILLY Did you bring that up? Say, hey, you're rep is a little...

KROFT I didn't have to go to the reputation and the gossip. We had, you know, the Jennifer Flowers. She was out there saying this.

O'REILLY After you did the interview, what was their reaction, the Clinton's?

KROFT Hillary did not like it, and Hillary went on the air and said that Steve Kroft was so nice when he was asking the questions, and then apparently he came back and asked all these questions, these mean questions, and...

O'REILLY Attacking you.

KROFT Attacking me and attacking 60 Minutes, and Don really went after her, and she shut up pretty quickly because it wasn't true. But it was a weird interview, you know?

O'REILLY Yeah.

KROFT It was a wierd interview. I think that, you know, I kept trying to think, what's the first question I'm going to ask you?

O'REILLY I have a bunch of wise guy answers, but I'm not going to do it.

KROFT I said, so, tell me, who is Jennifer Flowers, and how do you know her?

O'REILLY That was smart.

KROFT Yeah, because he was completely...

O'REILLY Yeah. And you weren't being, you weren't being accusatory. Now it's all about accusation. Now it's like, you're a pinhead, you did this, well, you know, that kind of thing. When you completed the interview, did you have a better assessment of the two of them or a worse assessment?

KROFT I didn't quite know what to think. You know, this occurred at a time when he had been on the cover of Newsweek the week before this interview, and they had declared him the frontrunner for the nomination. But nobody really knew very much about him. And, you know, I know Clinton now, much better than I did. I didn't know him at all when I did that interview. He's an impressive person.

O'REILLY Very smart.

KROFT Very smart, and very likable.

I sat between him and Henry Kissinger at Yankee Stadium one time was unbelievable, but he's not a truthful man.

KROFT Uh, no.

O'REILLY He's not.

KROFT Well, he's not truthful about certain things.

O'REILLY Most presidents are like that. I think Obama might be an exception to it, even though Obama made some pretty big mistakes with his rhetoric. They're gonna say whatever puts them in a favorable light. You know that.

KROFT You know, and with the Jennifer Flowers thing, he had to...he was going to be in this, he had to lie, and he...

O'REILLY But it was the arrogance because after that he goes to Lewinsky. He doesn't even learn his lesson.

KROFT Well, actually, I can't remember exactly...

O'REILLY The timeline.

KROFT The timeline, whether it was Lewinsky or the other woman from Arkansas.

O'REILLY Okay, but be that as it may.

KROFT That was the one, that was where he got in trouble.

O'REILLY Paula Jones.

KROFT Yeah, he admitted that he had lied.

O'REILLY If you're caught doing that and your whole career wobbles, maybe you don't do it again. Not him. See, I know you're not a psychiatrist, but I-.

KROFT No, but I would point out the fact that, I remember Izzy Stone once said, the first thing you need to know when you go to Washington is that all politicians lie.

O'REILLY And I don't think that, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's a pretty honest guy. Washington, he'd lie to Martha, but he didn't do a lot of public policy.

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O'REILLY You also show up in Chernobyl. Fascinating.

KROFT That was a good peace.

O'REILLY Yeah, and people have forgotten about that, and that brings us back to Iran and the nukes. Chernobyl wipes out this whole area, still to this day contaminated, and you had to then broach the Russian bureaucracy. They didn't want you reporting over there, did they?

KROFT Well, it was the Soviet Union, and Chernobyl was in Ukraine, so I was dealing with the Soviet apparatchiks.

O'REILLY Okay. Why would they let you even do that?

KROFT They let a couple of print reporters in, and that's when I saw the opening, and then we pushed for it. I think that they thought that it would be a sense that they were being open as they could about it, because they made some really big screw-ups at the beginning. And I think that they wanted to demonstrate that they were doing everything they could to try and clear out the mess.

O'REILLY So this was a PR campaign?

KROFT I never considered it part of a PR Campaign because I thought that there was too much stuff that they would never gonna be able to like turn to their advantage. And there wasn't.

O'REILLY Getting back to CBS, 30 years, did you make any friends over there? I mean, real friends.

KROFT Few.

But it's not easy to make friends in the television news industry.

KROFT No, it's not, and I'm being honest, and it goes back to what I said earlier, if people seem really friendly, you need to check your wallet, and the worst one was your buddy Mike.

O'REILLY What is it that drives this kind of deviousness? Now I've been doing this for 50 years, I think I know the answer, but I think the audience wants to hear from you. It's rough. This and Hollywood are the roughest.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY Why?

KROFT Because everybody is so paranoid, I think. Because everybody knows the environment, and they think that somebody is behind them, you know, going to put a shiv in their back.

O'REILLY Why just for fun, or for competitive reasons?

KROFT For competitive reasons.

O'REILLY They want the story, or they want the status...

KROFT Jealousy or whatever, you know, I think that that's part of it. You know, there's a lot of...look, you must know this. I can remember when I was tapped to go to 60 Minutes I thought this was fantastic, and I expected that a lot of people would just come up, and say that's really great, I'm really happy for you, whatever. And then, you realize after a while that not everybody was happy that I got this job.

O'REILLY Right.

KROFT There were other people that wanted it. And so then you've all of a sudden made a bunch of enemies. And that's, it's just, you know, it is a snake pit.

O'REILLY It is.

KROFT It's a snake pit.

O'REILLY Is it any way to live? If you had to do it again, would you do it again?

KROFT I think that I, no, I probably wouldn't do it again.

O'REILLY Really?

KROFT Yeah. I hated it. I mean, I was, look, the best job I ever had at CBS when I was a correspondent at the London Bureau and got to see the world, that was the job I always wanted. 60 Minutes was really appealing, and I thought I wasn't really sure I was ever going to get there. I didn't really seriously think about it. When I did, there's so many things that, first of all, the job is just 24 hours a day. I mean, you may get a couple of hours of bad sleep.

O'REILLY Beepers going off, they had beepers.

KROFT Beeper's going off. Getting on jets, going here and there, the whole thing, then coming back and spending three or four days writing the script, and then going to the screenings, and then getting on, starting it all over again. And it was exhilarating in the sense that the reason I loved the job was because of the stories that I could do, and the fact that they liked good stories. The level, you can't go into that job and not do... I was kind of at a disadvantage. I was the first person on that show that had not been an anchorman. It wasn't really well-known. I'd been, you know, a lot on the evening news and was obviously, and I had been at West 57th. But I didn't have, I had to keep doing it, you know? I had to keep doing what I had been doing. I couldn't just go in there and allow a couple of producers....

O'REILLY Were you addicted to it? Did you get addicted to it like a drug? You had to do it.

KROFT Yeah, probably.

O'REILLY Yeah. And you're willing....

KROFT Because you get excited about the fact that you're still alive.

O'REILLY But you do a good story, and people, you know, that people, millions of people see it.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY But at the same time, you're dodging the shivs every time you go into things. Somebody wants to kill you. And the only reason I survived at ABC and I prospered there, was because Peter Jennings protected me. He protected me. They would've cut my throat in 45 seconds. Local hotshot. Oh, look at the local hotshot because I worked at Channel 2 here in New York as a local hot shot. Okay, as Bernie Goldberg once said, and Goldberg wrote a book, Bias.

KROFT Yeah.

O'REILLY You read it?

KROFT Uh, no, I know Bernie really well, so I didn't have to. No, I read parts of it.

O'REILLY Did you subscribe to what he was saying, that the CBS apparatus had moved so far left that it wasn't really covering the news the way it should? Did you subscribe to that?

KROFT I don't think I did. I think I, Bernie is a pretty complicated person. And you know, people create a sort of a brand. And I think that Bernie's brand had always been a little bit on the conservative side. And I think that he liked the fact that he could be outspoken about it to offset pressure, you know, saying that it was all liberal. And I think that...

O'REILLY And he's a contrarian, Bernie.

KROFT He is. And he took it a little bit too far, going after Eric Enberg on a story that Enberg had did, I can't remember what it was. And they got him fired. Bernie was also pretty arrogant.

O'REILLY Well, we all are, aren't we?

KROFT I have to tell you a story. Bernie, I think, really wanted to be at 60 Minutes and thought he would be. And... And I really like Bernie, I admire him, I think he's one of the most talented people I've ever been around. Great journalist. But he had, they did 48 Hours on Crack Street. And there was some guy, there was a some guy wielding a baseball bat, who was like the hero of the show. And the story goes that Don Hewitt ran into Bernie in the lunchroom and said, I want to ask you a question. How do you know that guy was who he says he was? And Bernie blew him off and said, of course he was. Well, it turns out that he wasn't. And I think it certainly damaged him with Hewitt.

O'REILLY Right.

KROFT And but, you know, we had people that you talk about, I mean, Andrew Hayward, and they were really good friends, and Andrew Hayward protected Bernie. But Bernie was, you know...

O'REILLY He was different.

KROFT He was different and he was so good.

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O'REILLY One quick story. First day I was hired at CBS, 57th Street. You're familiar with it?

KROFT Yes.

O'REILLY I'm in the elevator. I'm 6'4. Guy walks in, he's 5'5. Okay. He looks up to me. He goes, you'll never make it, kid. Andy Rooney.

KROFT Oh yeah?

O'REILLY Didn't know him. Never spoke to him, his first words to me were you'll never make it, kid.

KROFT Did he give you a reason?

No, no reason, and he just kind of chortled, and I was going to be a wise guy, but I figured he's on 60 Minutes. Maybe I've already alienated half the building, maybe I don't want to.

KROFT Well, there's a lot. I tell you, Bernie and Andy have some things in common.

O'REILLY Right. It was a jungle over there, and the same thing with ABC. Last question for you, and then we're going to take a little break and for our Premium and Concierge Members. When you look back, you've done, I think, I mean, you gotta be in the top 10 TV journalists of all time.

KROFT I don't rank them.

O'REILLY No, but you don't have to reply. My opinion.

KROFT Thank you.

O'REILLY And you know, I'm always right. I know you are. I'm right. Does that mean anything to you?

KROFT Yeah, I mean, it's satisfaction. You know, you only have one life to live, and you have only one, you know, I got into this business, and I got to the, you know, pretty much to the top ranks. And I was very proud of all the work that I did there. And...

O'REILLY But you say you wouldn't have done it again if you had to go around?

KROFT Well, I'm saved by the fact that it doesn't really exist anymore, that job.

O'REILLY Yin and Yang.

KROFT Yin and Yang. But I thought they were great. I got to go all over the world. I got to see... Meet all these people. That's what I loved about the London Bureau. I could go. That was also a killer job, but that's what I wanted. You know, when I decided I wanted to be a reporter, it came in Vietnam when I saw some guys straggle in from one of the networks, I think it was CBS, it might have been ABC, and you know they had long hair and they were wearing, you know, camouflage fatigues and they looked really cool and they weren't in the army. And this is when I was with the 25th Infantry Division, and one of my jobs was to escort some of these people, which I did a few times, and I said that's what I want to do. I wanted to be a foreign correspondent from that point on.

O'REILLY Well, you certainly accomplished it. And we really appreciate you spending some time with us today.

KROFT Okay. I'm sorry, I don't have time to tell you my first day at CBS. My elevator story.

We'll Do It Live! - Steve Schirripa

2026-03-26T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY All right, O'Reilly here with another edition of We'll Do It Live, which I hate because when I was 12 years old, I said it on Inside Edition, and it was some F-bombs, and my staff turned on me. They betrayed me and they forced me to do this show called We'll Do It Live so people could mock me. This is my own staff that I'm paying. Anyway, we've got one of the best guests who I've known for years tonight, Steve Schirripa, you know him. Sopranos, you know, Blue Bloods, he's been in a lot of other programs, a fine actor, and we're going to go all over the place, so you're not going to be bored. Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, boy.

SCHIRRIPA Yes, sir.

O'REILLY Okay, so this is what I don't understand. So your mother is Jewish and your father is Italian.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah.

O'REILLY That must have been quite a house.

SCHIRRIPA Well, you know, the thing is my mother was raised kind of like by Italians, so she was, she fit right in. You know what I mean? She was...cursed in Italian, cooked Italian. So she was like kind of more Italian than she was Jewish, you know, but I had a whole Jewish side of the family. I had, uh, Aunt Ida and Aunt Sylvia, and we would go and visit and, and my grandmother, my grandmother's maiden name, my grandmother's name is Sally Moskowitz. My mother's maiden name, Lorraine Bernstein. So I knew that whole part of the world.

O'REILLY Cross-cultural.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, it was great. And I'm very proud to say I'm half Jewish, very proud.

O'REILLY And working class, right? Bensonhurst?

SCHIRRIPA My father was below working class. He was a small-time wannabe gangster. And did not, he was a bad father. And we had five kids who grew up on welfare. My mother held us together, and he was a bad guy, he didn't want to work. He was one of these guys, he would love what's going on now, free stuff. You know, he sat on the couch literally for 30 years.

O'REILLY The welfare guy. Now, did your mother know he was a bad guy?

SCHIRRIPA Yeah. But I guess she was kind of trapped in...

O'REILLY Well, she got five kids.

She's got five kids, did the best she can, you know. I'm the middle kid. Everybody turned out okay, and she held it together, you know.

O'REILLY Did you forgive your father in the end?

SCHIRRIPA No.

O'REILLY You held it against him.

SCHIRRIPA I still hold it against him. He's been dead for 20-something years.

O'REILLY That's the Italian.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely. So yeah, yeah, no. And you know what? This is the thing, Bill. You're a dad, right? I'm a dad. The more that I got into being a father, I'm saying, how could you allow this to happen? How could you get the lights shut off? What could the power bill have been in 1965? $17? I mean, how can you allow that? I had two daughters. I have a responsibility. I've got to take care of these two. This is what I signed up for, even if something happened with me and her mom, which she's the greatest mom on earth and a wonderful wife to me for 37 years, but these kids I've gotta take care of.

O'REILLY But the leap that you make from unstable home, lower working class, lights coming out, into stardom celebrity status. That's a pretty big leap.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, you know, look, my, my mother, you know, badgered that we're going to college, right? So she had that...

O'REILLY Drilled it into you.

SCHIRRIPA She put that into me, we were going to college. So my one sister went to college and I went to college. I went to John Jay. I played basketball. Went to John Jay College my freshman year, 1975. Played there and then transferred to Brooklyn. Took the train from Bensonhurst all hours of the night to John J. I mean, I'm stunned that I did it then. 1975, the city was a disaster. I'm taking the train at one o'clock in the morning, you know, from 59th Street, where it was, you know. Went to Brooklyn, graduated, actually tried out for a team in Israel. They wanted me to work on a kibbutz. I didn't want to do that. A friend of mine that I grew up with, he moved to Vegas. He said, I can get you a job. I went out to Vegas,

O'REILLY As a greeter, as one of the...

SCHIRRIPA At first, I started to deliver a pizza.

O'REILLY Yeah.

SCHIRRIPA I was delivering a pizza and then I became a bouncer at Paul Ica's club.

O'REILLY But did you have in the back of your mind that you wanted to be a performer?

SCHIRRIPA No, never, never, ever.

It never dawned on you?

Not in the least bit. I didn't know. I never knew what I wanted to do. I just knew to look people in the eye, be honest, shake their hand. That is my father, my father didn't instill it in me. I always knew a lot of people, like playing basketball. I played in the guard in my senior year. I always was around a lot of people and a lot of friends, always, you know. Played basketball all over the city, the worst neighborhoods, the best neighborhoods. That was my thing. That's what I was passionate about,.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA You know, when you try... This is my opinion, you know, like when you're trying, they go, Yeah, I want you to meet this guy. He could help you that guy, that's that's not my bag ever I've never met someone for that reason or went to lunch with them or maybe this guy could advance me.

O'REILLY Yeah.

SCHIRRIPA Never. If I liked you, I liked you. If I didn't... There was a guy, he was from Israel. He used to come into the club, I was a bouncer at, and he was lonely. He moved there, he was working at the Riviera Hotel, and I'd buy him a drink. His family was there, he was there by himself. He worked the front desk in the hotel. Long story short, six months later, the guy becomes vice president.

O'REILLY Of the hotel.

SCHIRRIPA Of the hotel, he calls me up, he said we're opening up this comedy club, he said I want you to have the job. So I go in, I interview for everybody. I get the job.

O'REILLY So, you managed the comedy club.

SCHIRRIPA Managed the Comedy Club, that's where I started, it was an improv. Then I took over, there was a topless show, and then there was female impersonator show, so I was running it, making a lot of money, a lot of tips, those are the days you could still, you know, I wore a tuxedo, you still had to pay, you had to get a good seat. And that's when I started acting. Of course, I was working with a lot of comics. Bill Maher, Richard Belzer.

Were you the MC?

No, no, I just was seating people in the back of the room, they would say, Hey, you know what? I'm doing this little short film, you know, why don't you come and do this? Kevin Pollock, he said come on do an HBO special, I played a bouncer in his thing and it was just fun to me, it was fun, I had no, I never read a script, never did anything, I flew myself to LA, I have a ball. Literally a cliché, I got literally high from doing it.

O'REILLY So it was meant to be. You didn't seek it, it wasn't on your mind, you're a basketball player from Brooklyn, you ride that train, then you go to Vegas, you write that train, then you start to get little roles in LA, and you wind up in two of the biggest monster hits in modern television. So let's zero in on the Sopranos, which you are still making money from.

SCHIRRIPA Oh yeah.

O'REILLY You're going out all over the world. You were just in England, and they couldn't get enough of you over there.

SCHIRRIPA It was crazy, we did 14 cities, 14 shows in 10 cities, started in Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh, I mean, we went through the whole thing, me and Michael Imperioli, we have a comic with us on stage, sold 27,000 tickets.

O'REILLY Unbelievable.

SCHIRRIPA Telling stories, funny behind-the-scenes stories, all the positive...

O'REILLY We'll get to that in a minute, but Gandolfini and Tom Selleck were the two titans that these shows revolved around, okay? Both very interesting personalities. I know Selleck a little bit. I never met Gandolfine. Now when you went on the set to play a low-level gangster, New Jersey gangster, alright, there's Gandolfini, who already had established himself as one of the great actors in the country, okay? How did he behave on the show?

SCHIRRIPA Complete Pearl, always, always trying to help you. My first scene is with him, Stevie Van Zant, Vinnie Pastore, Big Pussy, Paulie Walness, Tony Sirico. That's my first scene, I didn't know anyone. A lot of these guys knew each other.

O'REILLY Yeah, sure.

SCHIRRIPA I came in the second season, the beginning of the second. I knew no one. Said hello, did the scene, Jim's trying to helped me. I'm supposed to be intimidated, scared. He's helping me. I was green. I had work, don't get me wrong, and I had done a bunch of stuff, but this is a different level. Boom, I did a few movies, and he's trying to help me. He's yelling at me, screaming at me. He's trying to get me where I need to be. Once I do that, the scene's over. I'm one of the guys. He's just trying to help. At one point, he said, Come on, me, him, Dominic Keonese, Uncle Junior. Come to my trailer, let's go over the lines, let's run lines. It's almost an out-of-body experience. I'm going myself, How the hell did I get here? I'm watching these guys on TV a week ago. Now I'm here with the three of them.

O'REILLY And they're all very eccentric.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, but good guys. Jim was always a pro. That, you know, people say, did you guys have fun on the set? Yeah, we had fun. It was all business. He was working 16 hours a day, five days a week.

O'REILLY Mm-hmm.

SCHIRRIPA Listen, a great guy not without problems. I mean, that's common knowledge, right? But not on the set, never when he was working. You saw none, there was none of that

O'REILLY Was he the leader of the gang?

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, in a positive way. So you can't come in and, you know, it was a good vibe. It really was like a family. We were close, very respectful. Nobody could come in and be disrespectful to one another. That wasn't flying either.

O'REILLY All right, so Gandolfini was kind of like the chief of police.

Yeah.

I don't want to use a bad...

SCHIRRIPA I mean, you know, but but but kind of by example, you know, I mean, he was the guy, you know.

O'REILLY But it was such an intense program. Did you guys have any laughs off camera?

SCHIRRIPA No, no, absolutely. We went out constantly. I mean, we enjoyed every moment. I mean, those guys, Michael, Jim were in their late 30s. I was my early 40s. We went out. We were like playing for the Yankees.

O'REILLY Where do you go in Jersey?

SCHIRRIPA No, here.

O'REILLY Oh, in New York?

SCHIRRIPA We all lived here. We all live in Tribeca, back in the battery farm.

O'REILLY So, you're running around.

SCHIRRIPA All over.

O'REILLY But you guys are big stars then, because that show took off fast.

SCHIRRIPA Sometimes you walk into a restaurant, they'd give you a standing ovation.

O'REILLY Yeah, even to this day. People don't know, but I know Shirripa from the Knicks, because we were both sports fans, and you're one of the nicest guys.

SCHIRRIPA Thank you.

O'REILLY All the fans, always treat them respectfully, you know, smile on your face, eye contact. And some of those celebrities, they're not, you know what I'm talking about here.

SCHIRRIPA But why, but why?

O'REILLY Because they can't be bothered with the little people.

SCHIRRIPA But this is the thing, my good fortune, right? I mean, why should I... I'm a nicer guy now than I was probably when I was younger. I mean, I've been very lucky, I mean, don't, let's not kid ourselves, there's luck involved, right time, right place, you know that. I mean, with your success, right time, right place. Somebody gives you a break, you take advantage of it, et cetera, et cetera. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of hard work. But why should I... 99% of the fans are nice. Why should I be?

O'REILLY Because you're not screwed up like a lot of these other people are.

SCHIRRIPA I guess so.

O'REILLY You know them.

SCHIRRIPA I know them!

O'REILLY You know how crazy they can be.

SCHIRRIPA Listen, I hang out with very few, I know a lot of actors, a lot of celebrities, a lot of sports guys. I don't, I hang out with my wife, my kids, people I grew up with. Those are my friends.

O'REILLY Right. It's like your father, they're self-absorbed, these people, and then, you know, fans are an annoyance to them. Whereas you appreciate the fans because they...

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely.

O'REILLY Because they made you who you are.

SCHIRRIPA I mean, I walked on the block. I say hello to everybody. I mean, I walk all over...

O'REILLY And everybody in New York knows you.

SCHIRRIPA Sure.

O'REILLY When Shirripa and I are together, it's hysterical in the garden, you've got people who are screaming. They like you, they don't like me, but...

SCHIRRIPA Well, you're the quiet taste.

O'REILLY Yeah I know I am. And it takes a long time.

SCHIRRIPA Half the crowd likes you.

O'REILLY That's true. The show The Sopranos is so intense. The plot lines, what Chase was trying to do, getting across what the mentality of this crew is, this criminal crew, is what the show is all about. Did you gonna show you Carmela and the different people and the skill level of the acting, they're all perfect. Couldn't have been better cast.

SCHIRRIPA It could not have been a better cast.

O'REILLY So at the end of the show, the run of the show, did it wear you guys down? Were you going, oh my God, you know, how long can we keep this up? It's so intense.

SCHIRRIPA I don't think so. I think every single person would have continued to do that show. Jim was getting burnt out, and David and when David Chase came to us and said this is going to be the last season, nobody... Everyone said okay, everyone said, everyone said okay, that's fine, I mean, whatever you want. You took us here, you're the boss. I mean, Jim did most of the heavy lifting.

O'REILLY He was a plot-line guy, and Gandolfini died a short time later.

SCHIRRIPA Ah, well, no, the show ended in 2007, Jim died in 2013.

O'REILLY Okay, that's not a long period of time for a man that age, and he died in kind of mysterious circumstances.

SCHIRRIPA He went took his son to Italy, and he died of a heart attack. I mean, there was no, there was nothing like that.

O'REILLY Were you surprised?

SCHIRRIPA Was I surprised? Well, I tell you what, I got a call from our attorney, we all had the same business manager, attorney, and I was at Yankee Stadium with Mitch Modell and Tommy Lasorda, you know, before the game. And I got the call, and he said, You're by yourself? And I said, I'm at the game. And he said, Jim passed away, and I was stunned. My legs came out from under me. I said, are you sure it's not one of these hoaxes?

O'REILLY Yeah, I was surprised

SCHIRRIPA And he said, no. And then I said I had to leave. I mean, I was shaken, seriously. And I was going down to the West Side Highway. My phone was blowing up. CBS, NBC, blah, blah blah blah. I wasn't talking to anyone. Michael called me, and Michael Pirioli, some of the producers of the show. But it wasn't mysterious. I mean, he was there with his son. It was, you know, when Jim, when the show ended in 2007, him and David Chase did not speak for two or three years. They respected each other but...

O'REILLY Personality?

SCHIRRIPA Towards the end, started butting heads.

O'REILLY What was the main problem there?

SCHIRRIPA I think Jim, a little bit, thought they were taking some of the storylines from his personal life a little bit. And I think he was just burnt out as far as 16 hours a day.

O'REILLY Yeah.

SCHIRRIPA Yes, he made a lot of money, but you really have no life because, you know, you're going to work on a Monday at six in the morning and then you finish up Friday night at three a.m. And you really have no life.

O'REILLY Gandolfini was a guy like you, who didn't chase fame.

SCHIRRIPA No!

O'REILLY He didn't chase it.

SCHIRRIPA I mean, he was like a Birkenstock-wearing guy, you know.

O'REILLY He was just very talented.

SCHIRRIPA Big music guy, Green Day guy, started late acting, also, in his 30s. A family guy, a Jersey guy, he wasn't a mobby; he didn't grow up like in Bensonhurst like I did. He grew up, you know...

O'REILLY But he knew, he knew the rhythm.

SCHIRRIPA He knew, and you know, sometimes he would say, hey, before the season, he would call and say let's go down to Italy. Let's have dinner. I've got to start getting back into that world.

O'REILLY So then you segue into Blue Bloods, which is a whole different thing because it's a network show. A guy named Kevin Wade was the runner, picks you up, contrasts you to Bridget Moynihan, Beauty and the Beast, or whatever you want to call it. But it was a brilliant move. And so now you're in a tighter structure with CBS. It's not like The Sopranos. There's a big difference in production, right?

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, well, because The Sopranos was shot like a movie. Don't forget it was an hour with no commercials. A network TV show.

O'REILLY 44 minutes.

SCHIRRIPA 42 maybe. Yeah. You know? So it's a whole different thing. But the writing was great. What I enjoyed a lot about Blue Bloods, everyone got along wonderfully.

O'REILLY Great cast.

SCHIRRIPA Really nice people.

O'REILLY But the guy that everything centered around, like Gandolfini, was Tom Selleck.

SCHIRRIPA Listen, iconic TV character. I mean, he's a star, Tom, right? Right, a star, a star, a star as Magnum. Did a lot of good movies, too.

O'REILLY But this is my question. So Gandolfini, when he starts The Sopranos, wasn't mega. Tom Selleck, his private jet guy. Here I am. That's who he is. I know him a little bit. He almost punched me one time. Yeah, I was giving him jazz about guns. You didn't want to talk about it. But you know me. So anyway, so now there's this huge star comes in, and everybody revolves around him, just like the Sopranos. That is the linkage between the two shows.

SCHIRRIPA This is the difference, somewhat. Now, I came on in season six, so they already had shot, right? I did 146 episodes. I came in for one, maybe two, and then I stuck around, right? Tom, at the beginning, I don't know if there was private planes and all that at the beginning. He, this is the difference. On The Sopranos, you had no input. What was on that page, you better say. End of story. David Chase wrote it; you'd better be word-perfect. Word perfect. Now, I could ask a question and say, wait a minute, when Bobby does this, sure. But if I say, well, you know what? I don't want to say this line, and I don't want to see that line. You'd better say the line, or you're not around for the next thing.

O'REILLY You'd get whacked.

SCHIRRIPA One thousand percent.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA For real.

O'REILLY Right, right.

SCHIRRIPA Okay, so there was none of that. You did not have that input. Tom had a lot of input

O'REILLY You bet he did.

SCHIRRIPA Tom had a lot of input. Tom knows what he's doing. Guy's an actor for 50 years.

O'REILLY But he's a traditional guy. He brought that in, and that's what catapulted his show.

SCHIRRIPA And he's a common-sense guy.

O'REILLY Right. He's not some kind of flaky...

SCHIRRIPA No, and he knows, and he'll come in, and he'll say, why iswas the light there, and why are we shooting that? And he'll question, and he knows what he's talking about.

O'REILLY But if he wants it, he gets it.

SCHIRRIPA Well, of course, he's a star of the show.

O'REILLY Right, he's the guy.

SCHIRRIPA He's the star of the show. Now, that was a big difference. Jim read the script, and he did it like the rest of us. I said he read the script...

O'REILLY But Selleck had power.

SCHIRRIPA Tom would give his opinion to the writers and...

O'REILLY Writers would do it, what he pretty much wanted to do, and it worked.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, of course it worked. There was a...listen, when the show ended, it was what six million people plus three or whatever?

O'REILLY Number one prime-time CBS show.

SCHIRRIPA For years.

O'REILLY And they whacked it, to use a Sopranos word, because they didn't want to pay you guys.

SCHIRRIPA Well, I guess it was the pay, and I guess it was, I think they were going in a different direction. It's very diverse.

O'REILLY They were too woke. They didn't like the tradition that, you guys were...

SCHIRRIPA I know, I know, there was questions at times about the prayer, you know, a lot of people didn't like them saying the prayer.

O'REILLY I know Wade. I know him, I know what he went through!

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, I know, I know.

O'REILLY The bosses at CBS are all left-wingers, or were, and now Skydance is in there. And then what they turned it into, Boston Blue, is as woke as you can get. You couldn't get more woke than that.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, I've never seen it, you know. Listen, I wish Donnie the best because I happen to like Donnie Wahlberg.

O'REILLY It's a hit show.

SCHIRRIPA People loved the dinner scene. That was a big deal. I remember, I went once to the dinner scene I was invited. I was very proud of that moment, honestly. I mean, I got to sit next to Tom.

O'REILLY You're one of the cool kids.

SCHIRRIPA Right? Now, they didn't like the prayer. Why didn't they like the pray? That's what people liked about it. They liked the prayer, they liked the family coming over at dinner. They liked them arguing, they liked them sticking up for each other, they liked all that. So why are you trying to change all that? This is what people liked. So you're shoving something down their throat.

O'REILLY But they couldn't change because Selleck wouldn't change it.

SCHIRRIPA That's right.

O'REILLY That's what they ran into, but it was money that made the final decision. But I always think...

SCHIRRIPA You know that more than me because I don't know. Because I know it wasn't the quality of the show.

O'REILLY Oh no!

SCHIRRIPA By any means.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA The writing was wonderful. Siobhan...

O'REILLY But can you imagine today if Blue Bloods was still on the air and you got a communist mayor in New York City, Mamdani, slashing up against Selleck.

SCHIRRIPA But then again, I know it's a communist, but we got through De Blasio, who was so far the worst mayor in the history of the city. David Dinkins thinks he's a bad mayor. You know, Mamdani, we're yet to find that out, which I'm sure that's the way that's going. But De Blasio was terrible for the city.

O'REILLY And you wrote it into storylines.

SCHIRRIPA Terrible for the city.

O'REILLY Not Chase, Wade made sure that the writers got that tension in between the liberal mayor and Selleck.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely.

O'REILLY And those things worked like crazy.

You know, I don't understand the thing with, I don't want to talk politics because I don't know that much about it, but I just...The thing with De Blasio, he did it almost immediately. He destroyed the city. It was like him, and his wife were just waiting in the wings. He wins, Bloomberg's out, and things go to shit, right? Almost immediately.

O'REILLY Because they don't see it that way.

SCHIRRIPA But what do they see?

O'REILLY They say they're enlightened, and they're empowering people who are getting screwed. That's the don't enforce the law philosophy.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, but that's what I'm trying to say. I mean, do they want it dangerous out there? For me, the biggest thing, Bill, anywhere is the safety of the citizens, that you can go out because it all trickles down.

O'REILLY Right, and your family.

SCHIRRIPA That's right.

O'REILLY I worry about my daughter.

SCHIRRIPA My two daughters live here in the city.

O'REILLY Yeah.

SCHIRRIPA Okay, but my point is, everything works. If it's safe, people go to restaurants, people go to concerts, people do this, people do that. A lot of people don't wanna go out after a certain time because they're afraid.

O'REILLY Look, traditional New Yorkers...

SCHIRRIPA So, what? They want people to get hit over the head?

O'REILLY Traditional New Yorkers like you and me, born, raised, know the rhythms of the city because we know it. We know Yankees, we know Mets, we know Knicks, we know restaurants, we know everything, okay? The traditions that made this city strong are considered racist by the far-left progressives. So De Blasio comes in and goes, No, all of the traditions that we had, holding people accountable, if you get smacked in the face, you go to jail, somebody does. No, that's racist, okay? That's the way they think. And then if they get power, then you have anarchy, and that's what we're looking at.

SCHIRRIPA I don't know. I'm a common-sense guy. You do something wrong, you get in trouble for it.

O'REILLY And Blue Bloods was a common-sense show.

SCHIRRIPA It was a great show. Listen, there's nothing better than shooting on the streets of New York City.

O'REILLY Now you wrote a book about raising girls, so I didn't know that. I'm going to now read the book, of course.

SCHIRRIPA Big Daddy's Rules. Raising daughters is tougher than it looks.

O'REILLY What was the big thing that you learned raising the girls?

SCHIRRIPA Common sense, gotta stay close to them, gotta know what they're doing.

O'REILLY But they're emotional all the time.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, but then you know what? I'm gonna tell you something. Not with mine. Not with my daughters. We never had that big problem, me and my wife. You know, we never had that problem where the daughter disappears, and they go, you know, people say, oh, they'll be back when they're 18 and all that. We never have that. My daughters, to this day, want to go on vacation with us, and they're both married now. So now I got, you know, we've got the whole group, right? But honestly, we stayed close. We knew who their friends were. They played sports, big sports, softball, soccer, and gymnastics, and you know, we had them try, you know, all the things, some things stick. No pressure on them if they were good. We just wanted them to be good people. Good people and happy, just be a good person, and I felt everything and my wife felt everything will fall into place.

O'REILLY How did they handle your celebrity?

SCHIRRIPA They couldn't care less. They're very proud of me. They're very proud of me. They could care less, and I'm very happy about that. They're not affected by any of that stuff. I take them to the Knick games. They love going to the games because they like to go to the games. Honestly, not affected by that, they don't... Never bugged me, you know, can I do this, or do that, and none of that.

O'REILLY Did you take them to the sets? Did they?

SCHIRRIPA You know what? I took them to the Secret Life set because they were teenagers at the time.

O'REILLY Right, Shailene, sure.

SCHIRRIPA You know, a couple of times. Soprano sets, a couple times, though, they knew we were close, so we socialized a lot. Look, you're together 10 years, divorces, married, kids, you know, stuff like that. So they knew Jim and everybody. They came to... I think Blue Bloods maybe once. My wife's not that person to hang around, like some wives, you know, hang around the set and all. My wife, my wife is, she ran 13, she's gonna be 63 in a couple of weeks, my wife Laura, she's just finished her 13th New York Marathon.

O'REILLY And 37 years you've been married, you said?

SCHIRRIPA 37 years.

O'REILLY Geez.

SCHIRRIPA We're together 40 years.

O'REILLY She a Brooklyn girl?

SCHIRRIPA No, Las Vegas I met her.

O'REILLY She's a Vegas girl? Wow!

Las Vegas, UNLV. You know, so no, they're not affected by that. I think, you know, because we didn't allow that either, but they're affected by, you know, as a matter of fact, my daughter is working, she didn't want anyone to know who her father was.

O'REILLY Mine don't have any choice.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, but you know what I mean.

O'REILLY Yeah, oh, I know. And, uh, but I.

SCHIRRIPA Right, so it wasn't that like, you know, like spoiled like that. It wasn't at all. You know, they grew up in Battery Park City. That's where we lived. They went to Poly Prep in Brooklyn, you know.

O'REILLY Normal. Kept it as normal as you could keep it.

SCHIRRIPA Very normal. Now they've both got the jobs on their own. I had nothing to do with anything.

O'REILLY Now, when people yell out your character name when they see you, because everybody recognizes you...

SCHIRRIPA Don't bother me.

O'REILLY Doesn't bother you?

SCHIRRIPA It doesn't bother me, no, because I tell you what, if they say Steve, I question that. Who's that? Do I know that guy? No, listen, they call me Anthony from Blue Bloods.

O'REILLY They can't pronounce the last name of the detective.

SCHIRRIPA No, they say Anthony or Bobby, especially the younger kids. Bobby, it really doesn't bother me.

O'REILLY Right.

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O'REILLY Now, people don't know this, but you're a very generous guy, do a lot of charity work, and you've got something coming up that I want to mention, at Radio City, April 13th. Garden of Laughs charity. And it helps younger people who get into circumstances beyond their control. Is that correct? Do I have it?

SCHIRRIPA No, some of it, no, some are just, you know, some of them are disabled, some are just learning disabled, some are just come from poor families. And it's the Garden of Dreams Foundation, Madison Square Garden. Let me tell you about Jim Dolan, who I'm sure you know Jim. Jim does a lot of good stuff, and a lot of people give him heat, and it's wrong. He spends so much money, puts up so much money. We've raised over the years, just as Gardner Laughs, $8.5 million, Garden of Laughs. We've done it, this is our fifth time, I believe. I've hosted it every time. It's the first time at Radio City. We did it in the theater before. Comics, no one gets paid a dime. It's all volunteer. Jim puts up a lot of money, and obviously donates Radio City and the venue, and does a lot of great stuff. It's a wonderful night. We've got six or seven great comics on the bill, and every dime goes where it's supposed to go. I'm very proud of this. You know, I'm very proud that they asked me to do it. I come out, I do a few minutes, we have these great comics. We have a lot of celebrities presenting, you know, introducing the comics. Athletes, hockey guys, ranger guys, Knick guys. You know C.C. Sebastian did it one year. All kinds of people. So it's a...

O'REILLY The money goes though, how does the money go?

SCHIRRIPA The money goes in the tri-state area, right? And so it goes to kids that, kind of like a, not make a wish, but on that order. Some of the kids' dreams come true. They also do a talent show. It's, you know, it's not troubled kids. It's kids that are having a tough time growing up, like I would have. This would have been great for a kid like me.

O'REILLY And how do the kids connect with the charity?

SCHIRRIPA Two different organizations, feeding organizations, and they decide who gets the money, you know. Garden of Dreams board, and you know.

O'REILLY Right, because it's hard being a kid these days with the electronics and all that, you can lose your way.

SCHIRRIPA It's terrible, but I'll tell you what. They have a prom for these kids, you know, some of these kids can't afford prom dresses and can't afford to go to the prom. They have the whole thing. They pick their dress out. It really is wonderful. The Radio City, we started out, I remember I went to the first few years, Bill, 200 people, 100 people, they fill up Radio City now.

O'REILLY Now you've got 5,000 in there.

SCHIRRIPA It's incredible. And so many celebrities have, you know, donated their time, you know, time and time again, you know, and I've been involved for years. And then, we... just Garden of Laughs is like an offset of that. Last year, I think we raised two and a half million dollars, 2024 was the last time we did this.

O'REILLY Almost everybody I know, and I know a lot of people in show business, likes you.

SCHIRRIPA Oh, thank you.

O'REILLY I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. They like you. That's not real universal.

SCHIRRIPA No, listen, what you see is what you get.

O'REILLY But is it important to you that other people like you?

SCHIRRIPA It just depends. I don't care if some people don't like me. I mean, I am who I am. I mean, if you don't like what I do, and there's a lot of jealousy. You know that.

O'REILLY Oh yeah.

SCHIRRIPA Every day I come on TV, and they say, oh, that guy sucks. I could do better than him. I've been an actor for 50 years, and I got three roles or blah, blah, why did he get it and I didn't?

O'REILLY Very tough business.

SCHIRRIPA You know that, right? And I understand that. Like I said, I am a believer. I've worked extremely hard, but I came to New York for a wedding. I was working as the entertainment director. I was an executive. I worked my way up at the Riviera. I was an Executive. I came here for a wedding. I had been dabbling in the acting, and an agent friend of mine... I said, could you get me to audition for that show, The Sopranos? I had seen an episode or two. I read for the role of an FBI agent. He got me to the audition. I went, it was George Ann Walken, Christopher Walken's wife. She said, I don't see you as an FBI Agent. Read this, we have someone in mind. I read it. She said if I get you in front of David, would you come back? And I'm saying to myself, who the hell is David? I have no idea what you're even talking about. I just figured I'd grab a couple lines, it would be fun.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA You know, no, I, no thought of, I can make a living, I could get on this show, I could do this, I'm gonna move back to New York. I had a big house on an acre of land, big job.

O'REILLY You're doing well in Vegas.

SCHIRRIPA I'm fine, I know everybody and their mother in Vegas, I get anything I want at any time.

O'REILLY Free buffet.

SCHIRRIPA Anything. Caesar's Palace, Sinatra.

O'REILLY But it was meant to be.

SCHIRRIPA Right, so I come here, and I work hard, I move my family back, it was very hard, I paid my own way the first year. Cost me 24 grand, I made 22 grand. The agent had told me not to take the job. Had to get rid of that guy, right? So that's my point is, if you don't like what I do, I'm not a purist, I'm no, you know.

O'REILLY You're not needy.

SCHIRRIPA Listen, I've very confident in myself. I've come this far, I am 68 years old. You know, I only do things now that I like. You know, knock on wood, I've done fine, I'm okay.

O'REILLY The important thing is you've got nice kids and a nice wife.

SCHIRRIPA I got nice kids, they married two nice guys, my wife is wonderful.

O'REILLY You're a 10 percenter in Hollywood. 90 percent don't have that.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah. Well, I just was talking to a friend of mine on the way here, a character actor. You know him if you've seen him.

O'REILLY Well, tell me who he is.

SCHIRRIPA No, no. Good guy. Good guy, and he's been in a million things. He's unhappy, he hasn't been working. The last years have been, you know, he's 75, six. And then he got a job, he was like a recurring character. And I said, you put too much, I said you put too much into your life as happy or not happy by getting a role. I said, you've got money, you're fine. What, you've been depressed for two years because things have slowed down? Which are just natural, not everybody stays here. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. I said everything, your mood, everything revolves around if you're working. I mean, you know, it shouldn't be that way.

O'REILLY Did you convince him or?

SCHIRRIPA No, of course not.

O'REILLY Because he wants to be that way.

SCHIRRIPA Of course.

O'REILLY Wants to be morose.

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O'REILLY Now I'm gonna tell you a story that coincides with you. So you're a bouncer in 1975, okay, in Vegas.

SCHIRRIPA No, 1980.

O'REILLY 1980. Okay. So in 1972, I'm a bouncer at the Rec Bar in Miami. The Castaways Hotel, mobbed-up place. Okay? Hottest place to steal a line from Barry Manilow, north of Havana. Okay, this is crazy. Now, the reason they wanted me, I know why they wanted you to be a bouncer but I don't look like a bouncer, even though I was a college football player, I was about 15 pounds heavier than, they wanted guys to stand on the floor, who, yeah, wear a jacket and a tie, they wanted to class it up.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, yeah.

O'REILLY But I was a teacher, a high school teacher, but I wasn't making enough money to have food. And food is important.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, I would say, I would say.

O'REILLY Right, so I had to work on Saturday and Friday nights at this rec bar as a bouncer, but I told the guy, Bernie, I said, look, if somebody gets out of control in here. Don't expect me to mess up this face. I'm not doing it. Okay, so you have to have other guys that I can like the bullpen. Send in the right-hand guy with the Glock to take care of this guy. You'll see me because I'm tall.

SCHIRRIPA That's funny.

Okay, so my job at the end of the evening, and all the bars closed in Miami back at that time, was to walk the go-go girls to their car. Remember the go-go girls?

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, yeah.

O'REILLY White boots, and they had the cage.

SCHIRRIPA They had them in the cage?

O'REILLY The whole thing.

SCHIRRIPA That's great.

O'REILLY Okay, which I did.

SCHIRRIPA Sounds wonderful to me, Bill.

O'REILLY But I was very polite. Because I felt that most of them had kids and they, you know. They had rough lives. So about four years ago, a colleague of mine, Bernie Goldberg, you may know him, TV guy, he calls me up, and he says, do you know Penelope somebody? Now this happens to me all the time, sure it happens to you.

SCHIRRIPA If I see them.

SCHIRRIPA Right, I'd know the face.

O'REILLY But I'm never rude about it.

O'REILLY No, no, you're always respectful.

SCHIRRIPA Yeah, I probably know them.

O'REILLY So I said, Bernie, the name doesn't really conjure up anything. He goes, well, she knows you. And I go, oh. And he said, she was a go-go dancer at the rec bar. And she said, you were the nicest bouncer they have ever had there. People remember. I bet you, if you went to Vegas now, they'd all forget about the Sopranos and Blue Bloods, they'd remember you!

SCHIRRIPA Oh yeah, they're still around out there, they're still...Listen, Vegas at the time that was just a wonderful time.

O'REILLY The Rat Pack.

SCHIRRIPA And I got to see Sinatra about 20 some times.

O'REILLY Right, Elvis.

SCHIRRIPA You know, yeah, that was before my time, but I would have loved to see it... Before my time, I would've loved to see Elvis. But Sinatra, I met numerous times.

O'REILLY And he was respectful to you, right?

SCHIRRIPA Oh, he was great, great to me, I got a great picture. That's the one person. I had to have a picture. I have a great picture. My wife took it, and she was young, and she took the pic. We weren't even married yet. She took the picture. We went, we were invited to a party. It's Jerry Vale was there. Right. Jerry Vale, Corbett Monica, some other guys.

O'REILLY Blast from the past.

SCHIRRIPA It was Jilly Rizzo, who was a friend of mine and his son, I lived with his son for a while there, and they invited us. It was about 25 people. Started at 2 in the morning. I called my wife, Laura. She was in bed. I said, Sinatra's coming. Come on, get dressed. Got out of bed, comes down. We're there until 4.30 in the morning. He's drunk, and he's wearing a members-only jacket, and it says Frank.

O'REILLY Right.

SCHIRRIPA Like, you know, right?

O'REILLY We know.

You know, we know, yeah.

O'REILLY Yeah, we know.

SCHIRRIPA And he's, I gotta tell you, he's yelling, Don Rickles is there, he is yelling at Rickles. Rickles was up there, and he's going, and it's like a little like, wow. At the end, I said, I got to get this picture.

O'REILLY Sure.

SCHIRRIPA The end, take the picture, and they were like, oh, how dare you ask. And it's Jilly, his son, Willie, Frank, and me. And then my wife, who was 21 at the time, she said, hold on, Frank. I want to get one, just like that. And he went, come here, sweetheart, we got the greatest picture.

O'REILLY And it's on the wall, I bet, huh?

SCHIRRIPA On the wall.

O'REILLY In the fall of fame. Right with all the Knicks.

SCHIRRIPA Absolutely. Absolutely.

O'REILLY Okay, just hang tough for a minute. So that was a very entertaining chat, and I wanna thank you very much. You're a good guy. I know Schirripa off camera a little bit from the Knicks and the Yankees and all that, and he's a genuine guy. Now, we're gonna have more for you Premium and Concierge Members in the Killing Time segment. All right, so that begins now.

We'll Do It Live! - Sen. Lindsey Graham

2026-03-19T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to We'll Do It Live. Of course, we're not doing it live. We're taping it. But I say we're doing it live because that is the name of the long form program that we're giving you tonight. Okay, you can sue me. I know, I’d lose. I would lose.

GRAHAM I love this show already.

O'REILLY Unbelievable guest because of Iran. And that is Senator Lindsey Graham has been in Congress on the Hill for more than 30 years. A lot of people don't know this, but the Senator was a JAG for the Air Force. And he knows more about Iran than anyone. And I'm saying that as someone who knows a lot about it myself. So this is not gonna be a boring conversation between two pinheads. We're gonna learn something here. And it's very important that the world know what's really going on. So Senator, thanks for taking the time.

GRAHAM Hey, thanks a bunch. I hear I'm your first politician?

O'REILLY Yeah, we do back and forth with the showbiz people.

GRAHAM If you crash and burn, I’m sorry.

O'REILLY Yeah, but this is extremely important. So, the word imminent is the problem here.

GRAHAM 100%.

O'REILLY It's the problem because Americans, they want to support anti-terror measures. I think most clear-thinking people understand Iran is a terror nation. If it's not around, it's better for the world to understand that. What they don't understand is did we have to do this now?

GRAHAM So, there's two things I've learned. I'm 70. Vietnam has cast a great shadow over American foreign policy for a long time. Nobody wants to get in a Vietnam. Iraq and Afghanistan have cast a long shadow over Mideast policy. And I can understand that. So, everything we do, are we going down that road again?

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM And the answer is no, but we're not going to sit on the sidelines and watch Iran get a nuclear weapon. Imminent. Let me tell you what the facts are, and you tell me if it was imminent. So Jared Kushner and Witkoff are charged by the president to go to the Iranians and sit down and see if you can do a deal over their nuclear program. Now, they've said for generations here, all we want is peaceful nuclear power. Countries enrich that have nuclear power, why should we be different? Why should we be second-class citizens? Why shouldn't we be allowed to enrich, like you do, for peaceful nuclear power? Well, the argument I would give back is that for about 20 years, you've been cheating. You have not tried to develop a peaceful nuclear program. Your enrichment program is well beyond what you need for peaceful purposes.

O'REILLY How do we know they've been cheating?

GRAHAM Because they said so, that comes in a minute. It's been pretty clear that IAEA, everybody has caught them having enrichment capability beyond what you need for commercial purposes. The most you need commercial purposes is 20% uranium. There is no commercial need for 60%. What does it take to make a weapon? 90. So 20 is the outside of commercial, 60 is threshold weapons, 90 is weapons. Now, the IAE, not me, has accused them.

O'REILLY This is the UN.

GRAHAM Yeah. The UN dudes, not Lindsey Graham, have found them cheating on three different occasions where they had secret enrichment facilities designed to go well beyond 20. So they've been called three times. And here's the question. Do you believe that if they had a nuclear weapon, they would use it? What do you say?

O'REILLY They'd do it, but they'd hand it off to somebody.

GRAHAM Okay, they would use it through a proxy.

O'REILLY Yep.

GRAHAM Why?

O'REILLY Because they don't wanna be obliterated.

GRAHAM No, but I would say, do you believe Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews?

O'REILLY Yes.

GRAHAM Well, most people didn't until it was too late. So the first thing you’ve gotta do in my business, who are you dealing with? I'm sitting across from you, I know what I'm dealing with. Do you believe the guy on the other side actually wants peaceful nuclear power? Or does he actually want a bomb, and if he wants one...

O'REILLY Well, I'm on record as saying the president did the right thing by launching this military action. And he did the thing last June by taking out their big nuke facility.

GRAHAM Why?

O'REILLY However, there is a legitimate debate going around, and you know it because of this guy who resigned.

GRAHAM Yeah, Joe Kent. We'll be glad to talk about that.

O'REILLY Right, who said it's not imminent.

GRAHAM Well, let's look at the facts, so let's get back to where we were. Trump says, go talk to the Iranians, and here's what he offered them. You can have a small enrichment program to save face, we don't want to humiliate you, but it can be designed to go beyond small, and we will guarantee you spent fuel supply forever for food.

O'REILLY And they turned it all down.

GRAHAM Why? Well, because they don't a nuclear power program, they want the capability to make a weapon because they're religious Nazis, and if you don't believe that, you're wrong. And those in the 30s who thought Hitler just was trying to get more German territory, trying to right Versailles, right wrongs, you're wrong. I don't know why people want to kill all the Jews, but Hitler did. I don't know why he believed the Aryan race had to be the master race, but he did. I don't know why these nut jobs in Iran want to purify Islam, but they do. I don't know why they want to kill all the Jews, but they say they do, and I think they would kill us. So that's where I'm at. Imminent.

O'REILLY So you don't know that they would have a nuclear weapon in three months. You say whenever they got...

GRAHAM They would use it.

O'REILLY They would use it.

But I'll say two weeks. Now, what makes it imminent? So let me tell you why Joe Kent doesn't know what he's talking about. So during the conversation about, will you take this once-in-a-lifetime deal to have all the peaceful nuclear power you want on very generous terms, they said no. And during the course of the conversation, they made a fatal mistake. They told Kushner and Witkoff, oh, by the way, we have 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Now, why would they say that? There is no commercial purpose for 60%.

O'REILLY So why would they say it?

GRAHAM I'll tell you in a minute. The difference between 60 and 90 is two weeks, not three months. You can blend 60 to 90 literally in two weeks. I think they were trying to blackmail and intimidate Trump. They thought it was Obama and Biden. We're gonna give you a big secret here. We're this close to a nuclear weapon. What are you gonna do about it?

O'REILLY Why would they do that when he took out their big nukes?

GRAHAM I can't answer that question, but I can tell you what they did. I think this is what they do. They told us that we're this close to a nuclear weapon. If you don't negotiate on our terms, we're going to break out. And they said something even more disturbing. We're not going to give you diplomatically what you can't take militarily. So they went back to Trump. And I'll tell you what Obama and Biden would have done. Please don't go there.

O'REILLY No, we know. We'll get to them. But this is in the last Geneva meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, the Iranians, and they're on a record, so there's no two sides to the story, saying, look, we're not gonna give up our-

GRAHAM What you can't take.

O'REILLY Right. We're not going to give it up. They had to know, though, they being the mullahs in charge, that President Trump is not a weak man.

GRAHAM Well, they clearly didn't.

O'REILLY I don't know about that.

GRAHAM Well, I can tell you this, when they told us we're at 60, we can go to 90, what Trump did was midnight hammer. He blew the crap out of their enrichment capabilities so they couldn't go to 90. That's imminent. So to Joe Kent and anybody else watching, when the Iranians told us out of our own mouth, they had enough 60% uranium to make 10 bombs that they could get-.

O'REILLY Within two months.

GRAHAM Within two weeks, not two months.

O'REILLY Okay.

GRAHAM Say, 460 kilograms at 90 is 10 nuclear bombs.

O'REILLY So that's imminent?

GRAHAM To me, it's imminent.

O'REILLY Well, the head of counter-terrorism says it wasn't imminent, and he's got the same info you have.

GRAHAM No, he doesn't. He's lying.

O'REILLY Why? Why would he lie?

GRAHAM Well, why did he say the Jews drug us into it?

O'REILLY Because he doesn't like Israel having influence.

GRAHAM Yeah, well, no, he's saying, you know, if the Jews weren't around, we'd all be safe. This letter of resignation was full of misinformation and anti-Semitism.

O'REILLY So you think it's him, not liking the state of Israel or Jews themselves?

GRAHAM No, I can't explain why people say things like that. You need to talk to him. But when it comes to the eminent part, he was dead wrong. The truth of the matter is, they did have 460 kilograms at 60. They could go to 90 in literally two weeks, enough material to make 10 bombs. If that's not imminent, what would be? And number one, anybody out there, prove I'm wrong. Prove that I'm wrong. Prove that what I just said is not true.

O'REILLY Well, you have information that the folks don't have, but this guy, Kent, he was sidelined even before.

GRAHAM Yes. Because he opposed the operation.

O'REILLY And it looks like... Yeah, and it looks like a personal thing.

GRAHAM Sour grapes. He was one of the three people, maybe four, opposed going in.

O'REILLY JD Vance.

GRAHAM I don't know what JD did. I like JD, but I can say this. He's been consistent about Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. You know, everybody says...

O'REILLY But he doesn't want...Come on, you know that he was a dissenting voice. You know that.

GRAHAM I don't know it, I wasn't there, but I could tell you this. His actions about the regime were different than mine. He didn't see it at the same threat level, I do, but I think he's been loyal to the president.

O'REILLY Don't doubt it, he's loyal.

GRAHAM And he's a good man, but I will say this. The threat that Iran possesses is just not a nuclear capability. They've been funding terrorism at an industrial scale.

O'REILLY 40 years, I wrote a book on it.

GRAHAM Okay, you wrote a book, you need to buy it. There are 221 Marines killed in Beirut by Hezbollah. There is no Hezbollah without Iran. Hamas couldn't exist one day. There's no October 7th without Iran, the Houthis, all funded by Iran. The third thing they do is they're trying to get a nuclear weapon, they fund terrorism, and they've just been basically the worst people on the planet, trying to disrupt the region for religious purposes.

O'REILLY Isn't it a good thing that you have a dissenter like the vice president in an administration?

GRAHAM Sure, sure.

O'REILLY I mean, I don't...but there is a wing in the Republican party, don't want any of this. They don't want any intervention overseas. You know the wing.

GRAHAM Yeah, it's called Chamberlain. The 1930s are being repeated. It's like World War II didn't exist.

O'REILLY Well, why is that wing in the Republican Party? Why do they have currency? Why does Rand Paul...

GRAHAM They've always been there. They've always been a part of the fabric of the Republican party.

O'REILLY Do you talk to Rand Paul?

GRAHAM Not lately, but at least he's consistent. Would you say he's honest?

O'REILLY Who? Rand Paul? I'd say he believes what he says.

GRAHAM He believes every word of what he says, and I think he's just wrong, not he's a bad person.

O'REILLY Yeah, okay, but he's not lying.

GRAHAM No, God no, he is the most truthful. There's two people on Capitol Hill that are the most truthful people I know. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul.

O'REILLY They believe what they say.

GRAHAM Well, I believe what I say.

O'REILLY What about Vance, though? Because this is important. So you got President Trump, who's on your wavelength, who sees what you have just described to us, and I can't challenge that. And you did explain the imminent thing pretty well. I have to give you some credit there, Senator.

GRAHAM These are the facts.

O'REILLY All right. So now I know why it's, you know, two weeks is imminent.

GRAHAM Yes.

O'REILLY Now, you stand behind that 100 percent, you're not-.

GRAHAM 1,000 percent.

O'REILLY Okay, there's no such thing as 1,000. You know that, but we get the point. But Vance comes in, and he urges caution to President Trump because of the unintended consequences.

GRAHAM Before this information.

O'REILLY Before.

GRAHAM Yeah. Now, see, Trump-.

O'REILLY So you think Vance changed?

GRAHAM I think this changed everything. Now, Trump had already hit them before. It's not like-.

O'REILLY And Vance didn't say anything, but that was one shot.

GRAHAM But what I want you to get out of this interview, if anything, put yourself in the seat of the president. You say one thing when you campaign, then you get to be president, and they hand you a file. Hmm. What do you do? Can you imagine if President Trump did not act? They would have broken out. And if they had a nuclear...

O'REILLY And you're a thousand percent, they would have broken out.

GRAHAM Because they told us they would.

O'REILLY Okay, but there are unintended consequences of this action in the world.

GRAHAM Yes, there are.

O'REILLY So, South Carolina is not a wealthy state, it's regular folks, all right? Okay? They're paying a buck more a gallon.

GRAHAM The cost of the war is real.

O'REILLY Right. Do they understand?

GRAHAM You know what? I think I'm doing a pretty good job of telling them he had no choice. See, Israel has no choice, when somebody says I'd like to kill all the Jews, that brings up bad memories.

And on October 7th, there was a test run. Right, here's what we're going to do.

1,200 Jews, slaughtered in the most vicious way.

O'REILLY I wrote the book.

GRAHAM I've got to buy these books, buy the guy's books.

O'REILLY I just gave it to you, free.

GRAHAM Okay, good.

O'REILLY Put it on eBay and make some money from it.

GRAHAM I will, so I'm going to pay in case I have an ethics violation.

O'REILLY All right, we're. In South Carolina, we got the folks...

O'REILLY I'm talking to the people. They're world-weary. The gas prices are going up. If you're making, say, $15 an hour, you and your wife, couple, making $15, $20 an hour, and you got three kids, every dollar that goes into the gas tank is a dollar away from other things. I'm the first person in my family to ever go to college. Neither one of my parents finished high school. When I was 21, my mom died. When I was 22, my dad died. We owned a liquor store, a bar, and a pool room, and we grew up in the back. We were a happy family, but by no means wealthy. I know what it's like to be needing all the money you can because the bills keep coming in, no matter what. So when my mom died, she was 17 years younger than my dad. I thought, well, that shouldn't happen, but it did. Okay, my dad's 60-something, and I've got a 13-year-old sister. 15 months later, he's dead. And I got a 13-year-old sister. My life turned upside down. So how do you pay the bills? How's she going to college? What are you gonna do? I understand that. I understand the world can change, and it can be pulled out from you under a rug. Why am I asking people to be patient and to pay a price now so they don't have to pay later? Because I believe it. It's not that I'm indifferent to what 20 cents a gallon means.

O'REILLY So, you think you're gonna be successful with what you do?

GRAHAM Yes.

O'REILLY Okay, but part B of the question is...

GRAHAM If we're not, blame me, because I deserve blame. If we are not successful, you can blame me because nobody has advocated to take on this Iranian regime more forcefully than me.

O'REILLY Okay. You have a corporate media, which has lined up against Trump, okay, and it's personal.

GRAHAM They're more afraid of him being successful than the Ayatollah having another regime.

O'REILLY That's right.

GRAHAM I believe that.

O'REILLY So, you, Lindsey Graham, say, look, this is the reality of the situation. All Americans have to accept a little economic pain for the security that a destroyed Iran will bring. But then they turn on 80 percent of the media is telling them, no, this is B.S. It never should have happened.

GRAHAM It's really hard, Bill.

O'REILLY And there's no...there's no endgame. This and this. Every night, they hear the same thing.

GRAHAM And you have Joe Kent. But 80% of Republicans are sticking with Trump, I think, because they just trust him. Everything he's saying true. Every day gas prices go up, people are war-weary. They just remember the Mideast is just a bad place to be. I've got my work cut out for me, and I am not giving an inch. I'm trying to stick with President Trump. And here's what I believe. In about three or four weeks, no longer, we will have degraded the regime's capability to build missiles to hit us, to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and to go back in the nuclear weapons business for a very, very long time. What is the outcome I'm looking for? And this will surprise everybody. It's not who takes over Iran next. I'm trying to defang Iran, so there's no more October 7ths, to go and finish what I tried to start with Biden. Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel is the biggest-.

O'REILLY The Abraham Accords.

GRAHAM Plus, Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel is well beyond the Abraham Accords. The center of Islam is Saudi Arabia, the Holy Mosque in Mecca and Medina. It is the center of Islam. If the center of Islam would recognize the one and only Jewish state, Israel, it would effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict that's been raging for a thousand plus years. During Biden's administration, Joe Biden, I went to Saudi and Israel eight times with Tony Blinken, Brett McGurk, Jake Sullivan, to try to build on the Abraham Accords to get Saudi to come into the Abraham Accords and recognize Israel. October 7th was designed by Iran to stop that.

O'REILLY Stop it, very good.

GRAHAM Their worst nightmare is for the Arabs and the Jews to make peace, leaving them behind.

O'REILLY Now, Netanyahu, though, he's not an easy guy to deal with.

GRAHAM Tell me about it. So let's play it out. So I'll tell you what I'm up to. I'm trying to get Iran weakened so we can get back to the peace table and finish the biggest deal on the planet, Saudi-Israel. Now, what does Saudi want, Bill, to recognize Israel? I've been there more times than I can count now. Three things. A defense agreement with the United States, like we have with Japan and Australia. How many of you out there are ready to go to war with Saudi Arabia to have a defense agreement?

O'REILLY No one.

GRAHAM Well, it's a tough sell, and I'm going to try to sell you why it's in your interest. If Trump says, I'm for it, most Republicans would be for the treaty. And Saudi Arabia's changed. It's real. Now, how do you get Democrats to vote for a defense agreement to go to war with Saudi Arabia that benefits MBS, Trump, and Bibi? There's only one way you do that. The second thing that MBS wants, Saudi, is a pathway to a Palestinian state, irreversible with a capital in East Jerusalem. I don't know if that's possible after October the 7th, but he wants a dignified life and solution to the Palestinian problem.

O'REILLY Well, the investment in Gaza would be a start to that.

GRAHAM This is, I'm hopeful, but why does the MBS insist on that? The Arab world is on fire. They may not watch your show, but Al Jazeera is...

O'REILLY No, they do. They know.

GRAHAM They know, right? So for him to recognize Israel after October 7th, he literally could get killed.

O'REILLY He's got to get something he can show his people in the Wahhabists. The Wahhabists are...

GRAHAM Yeah, but just the average person, some very highly intelligent young woman is not really sold on Israel after this war. I've been to Saudi enough to know that the elite there have turned. So what does he have to do? He's got to prove to the Arab world that for recognizing Israel, I got something, everybody-

O'REILLY I've got something. Right.

GRAHAM The Palestinians. Everybody's been pleading for the Palestinian cause on the left. Well, you may have a chance to get it. So what will I say? I will go to Bibi and say, listen, if we pull this off, you destroy Iran with our help. You wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. Hezbollah has no money because Iran has changed. They're weakened. I would ask you to entertain helping MBS on the Palestinian solution. Push your own base. Find a solution so we can close this deal. That'd be hard for him, but it's going to be hard for MBS. Now, what role do I play? I'm going to support this treaty. I'm gonna try to get Republicans to support it. But I'll go to the Democrats and say, listen, I tried to help Biden. I'm asking no more of you than I ask of myself. I was willing to do this big deal on Biden's watch, and October 7th stopped it. You don't know this, but I'm about to tell you. At the end of October 2023, we were going to announce a framework. That's how close we were. October 7th came in the nick of time. There'll come a time where Iran is defanged. Not completely solved.

O'REILLY Well, you say it's going to be in about six weeks.

GRAHAM Three to four weeks.

O'REILLY Three to 4 weeks. Okay.

GRAHAM And what am I looking for? When Saudi Arabia feels that Iran is weakened, that they can go back to the negotiating table, that's what this war is about for me.

O'REILLY Let's pivot to Europe. So you would think, after all of the terror incidents that France has had...

GRAHAM If you're watching this show, you've learned more than 99% of the people about what we're up to.

O'REILLY Well, that's what I do.

GRAHAM What we're up to.

O'REILLY With the exception of Italy, all of the other big NATO countries are basically saying, look, you do it. It's not that they're opposed to downgrading Iran, they're not. They want us to do everything.

GRAHAM Well, it's a little deeper now. It's not that, you know, be our guest. We hope you're successful. Call us and let us know how...

O'REILLY No, it's not our war. Well, Starmer said today, once you get it under control, then we'll put some ships in.

GRAHAM Yeah.

O'REILLY Well, thanks, Kier.

GRAHAM So, look, you're dead right. They don't want their fingerprints on it because a lot of them have very diverse populations...

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM That are not into anything called Israel.

O'REILLY So they're cowards.

GRAHAM I think they're just politicians running scared.

O'REILLY That's cowards.

GRAHAM I would think so. So, let me just say this. If you're helping Trump or Bibi in Europe, you're probably not gonna...

O'REILLY But the folks don't know that. They're not doing that.

GRAHAM Well, but I'm saying that animosity on the streets of Europe toward Israel and the United States is pretty high right now. So what happened that really has made things worse? Trump is asking for some help to keep the straits flowing. We get 1% of our oil from the Strait of Hormuz. Europe gets most of it. Right now, every European politician has not only said no, they've publicly said no. France said today, we'll never get involved in this Iranian war. This was not our war. An Ayatollah with a nuclear weapon that would terrorize the region and the world, and use it, is your problem.

O'REILLY Of course.

GRAHAM Hitler became everybody's problem.

O'REILLY So why did Macron say it?

GRAHAM Because he's popular, and I don't know other than that, that he's mad that we didn't tell him. If we told the Europeans we're going to attack Iran, it'd have leaked out in five seconds. They can be upset. I get that. But what they can't do is publicly undercut the president because Iran looks at this rift, and they may try to hang on. And here's what's odd. Helping keep the straits open helps them, Europe, more than it helps us. And here's how it's going to play out. If they keep screwing around with Trump, watch out for Ukraine. Because he doesn't think that's our war. And I think it's important that we stop Putin.

O'REILLY Well, Putin's the big winner in all of this, you know that. But I don't want to get to him until a minute.

GRAHAM Okay, Europe.

O'REILLY Yeah.

GRAHAM Europe is an unreliable ally.

O'REILLY So you're, you're gonna. I'm going to morph you into Donald Trump right now. Watch this. The mist comes here and now. It's not Senator Graham, it's President Trump.

GRAHAM I'll have more hair.

O'REILLY Here is the question. Was it smart to say you were going to invade Greenland, that NATO and the EU are a bunch of wusses? Okay, was it smart to go over there and poke the European bear, because they don't like you now?

GRAHAM That might have been a bridge too far. You know, I'm a pretty forward-leaning guy, but Greenland? But you know, Trump is Trump. And let me tell you the benefit of being Trump. People are afraid of him. Was anybody afraid of Obama and Biden? No.

O'REILLY I was afraid of Obama.

GRAHAM For a different reason. If you're a foreign power, you wouldn't. You know, if Trump could send a rowboat and everybody said, what can we do to help you? You know, Biden can send an aircraft carrier, and everybody yawns. Part of being president is being in people's heads. Trump's in everybody's head, including mine.

O'REILLY I know, but it worked against him here.

GRAHAM Sometimes it does. But the greater good is better. Venezuela, we're better off without Maduro.

O'REILLY 100%. And they're still dancing for the baseball game.

GRAHAM You want to make some news? I would love Venezuela to be a state.

O'REILLY No, you don't want Venezuela to be a state.

GRAHAM Well, that's your opinion.

O'REILLY No.

GRAHAM I would. So anyway, Trump said it, they signed with me. The point is, Venezuela used to be the center of narco-terrorism. It's no longer. Maduro's in jail. The Venezuelan people are free, and they're playing baseball.

O'REILLY It worked.

GRAHAM But you know, he got like five seconds of credit. If a Democrat had done that, they'd stop the entire world and celebrate it. If a Democrat acted the way Trump did, they would tell the story about the 460 kilograms morning, noon, and night. You can't find this story in the mainstream media because they don't want you to know it. So, Venezuela was a ballsy thing to do, and it worked.

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM Okay. If you've got family in Cuba, they're going to be liberated soon. That's a great thing. And we're doing it without any troops on the ground.

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM We had a snatch operation, but no occupation, no invasion. Donald Trump, in his own way, is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. In his own way. He can do things nobody else will do. And he's gotten these countries sort of in a spot. Well, Venezuela is liberated, Cuba's about to be liberated without an invasion. Now, Iran, can we collapse this regime enough to lead to Saudi Israel? If we can, it'd be the biggest change in 2,000 years.

O'REILLY But you think we can?

GRAHAM Yes, I'm highly confident we can, but we've got to stick with it. Back to Europe. I'm a NATO guy. Now, John McCain was one of my dearest friends. I believe in alliances, but I was stunned at how brazen they were, sticking it to Trump on the Hormuz, not thinking it through on Ukraine. My phone lit up all day today from European leaders because of my tweet yesterday. I said, you know, I've been pretty strong for alliances, but maybe I miscalculated. Maybe we don't have reliable friends. If you're not willing to help now to help yourself, should we be spending all this money? And coming from me is different than coming from Trump. So, I'm Trump. What I would tell my European allies, our European allies, that you're more unreliable than I thought, I'm having to do things without you because you won't help me, and you know what? I'm getting comfortable doing it.

O'REILLY So, you leave them hanging on Ukraine, but that helps Putin, one of the big villains in the world.

GRAHAM I think so, but the truth of the matter is, Ukraine war needs to end honorably and justly. We don't need to reward Putin's invasion, but we've got to realize we're not going to get every Russian out. I don't like Putin, you don't like Putin. I think he's killed a lot of people to stay in power. It doesn't matter what I think about Putin. How do you end this war? How do you prevent a third invasion? I believe with all my heart and soul that if we had real security guarantees from the West to Ukraine, he wouldn't invade it. The Budapest Memorandum...

O'REILLY No, he tested.

GRAHAM He tested.

O'REILLY He absolutely tested.

GRAHAM And we had no infrastructure to require people to come to aid.

O'REILLY Absolutely tested.

GRAHAM And he'll do it again. So the Budapest Memorandum was an agreement to help Ukraine, but it wasn't binding. Obama, Biden, Clinton, nobody has ever given security guarantees to Ukraine like we have to NATO. So here's what I'm asking President Trump to entertain. Let Putin know that if you do this again, you're going to be running into a bigger crowd, not just Ukraine, that the Europeans will have small ground troops as tripwires. And we will have a guarantee to Ukraine, if there's another invasion, we'll be a backstop. We'll provide air support and command and control to defend you if there is a third invasion. I think that's enough to deter that invasion. I don't mind if he does business with Putin, because that's a security guarantee of its own. If you do business with somebody, you're less likely to go to war. The other thing I want to see happen is a ten-year commitment to the Ukrainian military from us, that we will sell them our high-end weapons through Europe, and they will be strong. And that's another form of deterrence.

O'REILLY Trump's been resistant to that.

GRAHAM He hasn't been resistant to selling weapons. He's been resistant to a long-term commitment.

O'REILLY The big weapons, though. He doesn't want to sell them.

GRAHAM Well, yeah, we've given them the F-16s.

O'REILLY Well, we're doing the circuit thing. We're selling them to Poland, and then Poland's selling them.

GRAHAM Yeah, but they're getting there. But I guess, how do you end the war? The Donbas is going to have to, there's going to be a trade there. There's just no way to evict all the Russians. What does Zelensky need to sell his people on giving up territory? That I've got a deal we've never had as a country. We're going to be standing as an independent sovereign Ukraine. I want China to look at it and say, you know, maybe it wasn't worth it for Putin after all, because I worry about Taiwan. If you sell out Ukraine, there goes Taiwan.

O'REILLY Sure.

GRAHAM This is how the world's connected. So I'm going to, I've been very supportive. I got a bill with 85 co-sponsors that will allow Trump to put tariffs on any country that buys Russian oil that doesn't help Ukraine. That's what he did to India. India, now, is buying less Russian oil.

O'REILLY They folded.

GRAHAM So, I got to bill to do that. But I am realistic. I'm trying to find a solution to end this war so we won't have a third invasion.

O'REILLY Well, Ukraine's going to have to give up some territory, but Putin's not going to do anything until the Iranian thing is cleared up.

GRAHAM A hundred percent.

O'REILLY Right. He's not gonna do a thing.

GRAHAM Why would he?

O'REILLY Now, pivot to China.

GRAHAM And let's say we get Iran bad, we'll never get a good deal in Ukraine. If we hit it right...

O'REILLY But it's getting worse for the Chinese. The Chinese will be more bellicose. I was in Beijing in May, privately invited. I addressed the Politburo there. You didn't know that.

GRAHAM I didn't. I haven't been invited.

O'REILLY Right. I'm one of the few.

GRAHAM Well, good for you.

O'REILLY Only journalist in history...

GRAHAM Good for you. I am glad you went.

O'REILLY The only journalist in the history who has received that invitation because they watch me on YouTube, where they're watching you right now.

GRAHAM They watch everything we say.

O'REILLY That's right. The Taiwan thing can be worked out, and it's a wording situation. But what China is doing is what Putin is doing. They're just watching to see. That's why Germany drives me crazy, and Luxembourg drives me nuts because they're all watching to see the weakness. Where is the weakness? And the weakness is in Europe. That's where it is. Not Trump. You're right. They fear Trump. Okay, but Trump was caught by surprise that NATO wouldn't help. Look, if Tony Blair was the PM, you would have had 18 ships in there.

GRAHAM Yeah, he literally said that.

O'REILLY Right, and that would have happened.

GRAHAM That shows you how Europe is strained.

O'REILLY But with these guys they have now, and you can't control that.

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GRAHAM Can I tell you what I think China's watching, and this is why everything does matter. China was impressed by Venezuela. China buys cheap oil from Venezuela.

O'REILLY Yeah, and now they don't.

GRAHAM Iran, right? Now, they don't. 31% of the known oil reserves are in Venezuela and Iran. They buy Iranian oil at cheap discounts. They buy Venezuela at cheap discounts.

O'REILLY Right.

GRAHAM That's off the table in Venezuela. If we can get a new Iran working with us instead of against us, then that's a big blow to China.

O'REILLY Well, President Trump is... Gonna make China an oil deal.

GRAHAM Well, you know.

O'REILLY You wait and see.

GRAHAM The thing that people are a little surprised, I'm okay for you going to Beijing.

O'REILLY Oh, yeah.

GRAHAM I'm okay.

O'REILLY You have to.

GRAHAM I'm okay to do business with Russia, Putin's Russia, if it advances our interests.

O'REILLY Yeah, but he's a psychopath now.

GRAHAM Yeah, but...

O'REILLY He's Hitler, like Stalin. It's who he is.

GRAHAM Nobody can accuse me of being light on Putin. But we did deal with Joe Stalin to beat the Germans. So the point is, how do you get Russia out of the invading business? Security guarantees that make it not worth their time. Ukrainian military.

O'REILLY He likes it.

GRAHAM Well, let me tell you.

O'REILLY He's got a million casualties.

GRAHAM Let's just say this, my friend, that a third invasion would be a hard sell to the Russian people. He's one bullet away. Nobody loses an election in Russia, but every family's got somebody who's died. Eventually, those numbers add up. And all I can say is that we've got a chance, if we get Iran right, to get a better deal in Russia. If we get Iran right, we'll have more influence over China because they will respect us.

O'REILLY No doubt about it.

GRAHAM Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, all were signals.

O'REILLY Right. Now, the opposing party, the Democratic Party, hasn't really come out against the Iran action.

GRAHAM No, they haven't.

O'REILLY No, they're just kind of floating. But in my opinion, and you correct me if I'm wrong, because you have much more access than I did to the Biden administration. Joe Biden hurt this country enormously by sitting it out. What he did was he just sat it out, and he allowed all the bad situations to get worse. Okay, so when he had the intel coming in every morning. Number one, I don't even believe he read it, okay? Maybe Jill did, I think he did, all right? And number two-.

GRAHAM If he read, he sure didn't understand it.

O'REILLY Right, all the countries in the world go, the United States is just gonna sit there. And this was after Afghanistan, which was so-

GRAHAM That's what started it all.

O'REILLY That's right.

GRAHAM Now, there would be no invasion, there would be no October 7th, there'd be no invasions of Russia by Ukraine again, I think, without Afghanistan.

O'REILLY Because the weakness then, was exposed. Now, you would think that the Democratic Party, whatever that is now, I don't even know who the leader, who's the leader of the Democratic Party? Who?

GRAHAM You know, I don't know if it's Newsom, AOC. I don't know who's going to be the nominee, but here's what Newsom said, and I've known Gavin. He said that Israel was an apartheid state. That tells you how desperate you have to be and how anti-Israel you have to be to be the nominee for the Democratic Party. He accused Israel of being an apartheid nation like South Africa.

O'REILLY Well, that whole platform is controlled by the radical left because that's where the money is.

GRAHAM But he bought into it. Well, he had to say it, he thought. I don't know if he means it or not, but when he said it, it surprised me.

O'REILLY I don't know, he's got trouble with senators. Oh, he can't be doing Israel. He can't clean up San Francisco.

GRAHAM Well, our party can't get that way, my party. I, we can't let it get to be so bad in a way that you have to embrace things that are just inherently wrong. There's an element of our party that, my party, that doesn't want any involvement, no matter how common sense. I mean, if Trump hadn't acted, they'd had 10 nuclear weapons, and that's just, to me, a fact. So these people who are ideologically driven, that they ignore facts or dangers, that's true whether you're right or left. If you get so extreme in your thinking, facts can't change your mind. You're in the wrong business.

O'REILLY But we have a country that lives now in an age of social media, where people go in there, and a lot of them believe what they are reading or hearing.

GRAHAM I don't know if you could have done World War II in today's environment because by the time I get home, by the time I leave here, there'd be 20 stories on the internet, Lindsey Graham wants 82nd Airborne to go in. It's just constant. And I just try to shut it out and focus on the facts as I know it and get an outcome I believe in. But social media, one thing I want to do politically beyond foreign policy is if your daughter is, you know, goaded into suicide or weight loss or your kids are being preyed on by sexual predators and websites, you can't bring a legal action. Section 230 under our law prevents you from bringing a lawsuit against a website or social media company for the damage they may have done to your family. That was to make sure the internet would get started. Well, that's started. I want to eliminate Section 230 protection so that you can go after social media companies that are terrorizing your family.

O'REILLY They're not going to do that?

GRAHAM No, we've got to fight. We'll come back and do the show about my bill to sunset. In two years, I want Section 230 to be replaced by some vehicle to give people a save...

O'REILLY I can't see one Democrat supporting that.

GRAHAM I've got Durbin. He's on board.

O'REILLY He's going to be gone.

GRAHAM Well, but I've other Democrats because they have grandchildren too. This is the one issue, above all issues, that sort of unites people. If you're a parent out there raising kids, yeah, so...

O'REILLY Let's see it.

GRAHAM I want to give you some hope there's some issues that we can work out. But the bottom line here is, this is a time of testing. Afghanistan unleashed the bad guys in a way we hadn't seen in a long time. Trump is reversing that trend. But this can all fall apart and go the other way if we don't get Iran right. If Iran doesn't turn out the way I think it can, we can actually go backwards.

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O'REILLY Now, here's a provocative question. You've been in Congress for more than 30 years as a rep and a senator. I've been in journalism 50 years plus. I have seen, and I could be wrong because I don't sit there like you do, a deterioration, generally speaking, of intellect. I'm seeing really dumb people, really dumb people, people who don't know history. They don't really understand that if you don't punish criminals, then the criminals will commit more crimes. These are just basic things that in our country were givens for hundreds of years. And these people like Ocasio-Cortez, who went to Boston U, so did I. And her district is a... She doesn't know anything. And this woman is gonna be the next, she'll beat Schumer. She'll beat him. Okay, Schumer's done. And when you listen to her, and she doesn't do interviews like this, she would never sit with me in a million years.

GRAHAM Does she write books?

O'REILLY She doesn't know anything!

GRAHAM Well...

O'REILLY Have you seen that across the board?

O'REILLY Right. Partisan.

GRAHAM Fetterman. He's doing what people used to do without even being noticed.

O'REILLY He's the only one.

GRAHAM So I tried to help Biden deal with Saudi, you know, Israel. I was in the gang of eight for immigration. I've done some things that our base doesn't like because somebody's got to solve these problems. Fetterman is trying to solve problems. Question, will he make it or not? If you're running in a primary right now, your goal is to get as many eyeballs as you can. And how do you get eyeballs in this world? Be provocative. Provocative has replaced intellect. Proactive has replaced problem-solving. And what I want to do is to say, no, you don't have to be provocative to win. You actually can go to the Mideast enough. My knock is, why are you over there? We need you here. Why aren't you supporting them over there when we're paying more gas prices here? And I say, the reason I go over there is I don't want another 9-11. The last time we took our eye off the ball over there, they killed 3,000 Americans. And I end every conversation with this thought. Do you think if the Ayatollah had a nuclear weapon, he'd use it? Most people say yes. Well, let's make sure he doesn't do it. And how do you do that sitting over here? I make an argument for smart intervention.

O'REILLY Well, you're a guy who, you're a conservative Republican, but you're at least open to hearing the other point of view, and you have a frame of reference.

GRAHAM Well, I have a frame of reference, which is history. And it goes back to what you just said. Why did people...It's almost as if World War II never happened.

O'REILLY Sure.

GRAHAM If you stop people out on the streets...

O'REILLY They don't know.

GRAHAM And you ask them, name the Axis powers, they have no idea what you're talking about. In a country who lets that happen, you'll wake up one day and wonder, what happened? Schooling. All I can say is the deterioration of curiosity, willingness to ask questions, and try to solve them. The ability to solve a problem is getting harder because the reward is less.

O'REILLY Okay, we're gonna break away from the senator for a moment. Now, you Premium Members and Concierge Members are gonna get another six minutes with Senator Graham. Only you see this. This is gonna be very secret stuff, all right? And that will-

GRAHAM It's the plan to win the war.

O'REILLY That will start momentarily.

We'll Do It Live! - Rob Schneider

2026-03-12T16:00:00Z

O'REILLY Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. We're doing something new, and it's not a podcast. See, I walk around the country, people, oh, I love your podcast. We do a broadcast, fact-based. Podcasts got guys who are inebriated, they're smoking pot, they're taking crack, and they're sitting around their garage. No, no, no. I'm not going to waste your time. But we're kicking it off, and we're kind of trying to develop it a little bit differently than the other 95,000 podcasts that you're subjected to. So I cast around, I said to my crew, look, I need an initial guest here. We have labeled this, We'll Do It Live, because of my ridiculously immature tantrum that I threw on Inside Edition when I was cursing and saying, we'll do it live. You remember that. If you don't remember it, just Google Bill O'Reilly Do It live, and it'll come up. Okay, that's when I was 12 years old. A little older now, but this is named We'll do It Live. And I wanted a guy who was uninhibited. He's just going to tell me the truth, no BS, he's not in it to deceive or... And the guy that I said, this will be interesting because you're not expecting this, is a comedian, but more of a social commentator, and his name is Rob Schneider. You've seen him on Saturday Night Live; you know him. He's been in hit movies with Adam Sandler. In fact, we just got off the phone with Sandler; somebody had to sober him up, but he did get on the phone. And but I want to Schneider because he's got a very interesting life that you may not know about. So here he is.

SCHNEIDER "Thank you, Bill."

O'REILLY I appreciate that.

SCHNEIDER "Honored to be here."

O'REILLY Where can I get a velvet suit like that? I don't think they sell them in New York. It's a West Coast thing, right?

SCHNEIDER "No, no, this is Urbana, this is a guy from Australia. He says, I got a nice suit for you. I'll send it to you. You're gonna love it!"

O'REILLY Very spiffy. A few months ago, I went to Madison Square Garden to see you and Sandler and a bunch of other comics. And I was struck by the rapport that you and him have. You guys go way, way back.

SCHNEIDER "Well, the thing about a performance, particularly whether it's live sketch or movies, it's, you know, comedies are, it really is sink or swim. And if it's going well or not going well, you've got to have somebody in the camp there who's going to do something to make it work. And I just remember I was talking to my friend, John Cleese, who's a wonderful, he's on the other side. The other, yeah, from Monty Python. He said, could you tell me about your friend, Adam Sandler? What's he doing? And I said, he's making movies now, they're not, he's doing more dramas. And I paused, and I said, because, and I was about to say, because he wants to work with interesting directors. And I said because, and Cleese cut me off, he said because it's easier. He said, the word you're looking for is easier. And it is, I mean, the dramas are, because people don't complain about a drama. How'd you like a drama? Well, it would seem pretty dramatic, whatever. But if you go see a comedy and you don't laugh, that is a disaster. That's when you really look bad. So comedies are definitely more of a risk. And so you want to be out there with somebody who, when you pass them the ball."

O'REILLY Yeah.

SCHNEIDER "You know he's gonna..."

O'REILLY But it's also a support group that you have. You got Spade, and Miller, and Carvey, all the SNL alums. And you guys still hang together. You still talk to each other all the time, right?

SCHNEIDER "To me, the guy who was the most talented when I grew up, as a young comedian, was seeing Dana Carvey. Dana Carvey, he wasn't even famous nationally, but in San Francisco, you could not get in to see him at a club. The room would explode with laughter. And you know, we were pretty good at the time. We'd go, we're good, but we can't do that. So he had guys like that. And then Dennis Miller came in, and he was a Pittsburgh comic. He was the guy from Pittsburgh, you've got to see this guy. And, um... He really was... He would take an idea and really find the logic in it. And a particular joke that was, to me, it was great. He said, you know, they got, hey, Cha Cha, they got this guy, Jack Ruby. How did he get in the parking garage? What kind of security do they have there? It's like, hey, sheriff, the guy owns a local titty bar. He wants to come in. Yeah, yeah, let him in. He's got a gun, let them in. So, I just, you know, that kind of idea, which..."

O'REILLY Well, all of you guys are not normal. I'm sorry, I don't want to offend you, but you're not normal!

SCHNEIDER "Yeah, I think, though, that you're right, there was a certain..."

O'REILLY There's that edge there, that floating around in your mind that just comes out in a way that engages people.

SCHNEIDER "Well, it's kind of... I think it's a problem with, I think it's the original attention deficit disorder, where you can't concentrate, so you focus on something really funny, but just for like a minute of it or 30 seconds of it or maybe even less. And you take that, and then you'd find a joke there. Like I remember my brother, because I grew up in San Francisco, right below San Francisco. When that used to be, before it was the, you know, the... I call San Francisco, it's either a homeless disaster or a gigantic camping success story. But before that, when it was still a beautiful city with 10,000 restaurants before COVID, my brother called me, and he said, Rob, you gotta come down, man, the waves, you know, you got to come, because we used to surf. You know, they're fantastic. And I said, I just woke up, I'm a comedian, I just literally."

O'REILLY It's 2 in the afternoon!

SCHNEIDER "And he said, no, dude, dude. Dude, you gotta do it. And I said, I can't. I just woke up, he said, dude. And I went like, and then he said. And he, dude? And I just said, did he just say the word dude with three different meanings intact? And so the joke that just came to me, you know, the word, dude is like the Polynesian word, aloha. It has more than just one meaning. You can use it to say hello to people. Dude! It's also used to mean listen or come here. Dude, dude, dude. But it's most important meaning is you blew it, Dude."

O'REILLY Right?

SCHNEIDER "And the punch line is, it could also mean are you in the closet with a knife, Dude?"

O'REILLY What was it like growing up in a family...

SCHNEIDER "I got nothing by that, you saw me, I got nothing on the punchline there. What'd you say? I'm sorry."

SCHNEIDER I'm almost Larry King-ing here, thinking about my own, my next question. What's it like growing up with a Jewish father, a mother's half Filipino. Right? You're a United Nations down there in the suburb of San Francisco.

SCHNEIDER "Well, it was really great because we lived in a place that money didn't really matter. Everybody was... It was definitely the suburbs. This is the, we were the end of the baby boom, and it was a really great time in America. So, you know, and we were actually, you know, we had Filipinos, there were Jews, and the Filipinos are... They assimilate, and that's why the Filipinos are so successful. Most people don't know this, bu the highest earners in America, Filipino Americans. They average 93,000 per cap. And so that's, and you don't hear about it because they don't want you to know. Rob, don't tell anybody, please. Let the black and white people kill each other. We're gonna be okay in the suburbs. So, but they really do well because they assimilate, and when you get somebody from over the Philippines, they'll marry into the culture. They'll meet people, they'll become part of the culture, and they'll definitely know and learn the language, so that was what I really grew up with, and I also grew up as somebody who appreciated America like you wouldn't believe. I remember my mom, anyone who said anything against America, she had two words for them. Get out! You don't like America? It's the greatest country in history of the world. We have freedom and opportunity. You have no idea what it's like. Get out!"

O'REILLY Yeah, because she was in the Marcos era over in the Philippines. Came off the Japanese, then you go into the Marcos people, and it was rough.

SCHNEIDER "Well, you have people that are, I don't know if people understand how incredibly rare it is to not have a cased system, a cased system where you're born into a particular strata in the society, and you're not able to get out. The English have the best phrase that I know. The man does not know his place. So it's place. So you're there, and you're gonna stay there. And I remember my mom telling me, she said, even the maids in the Philippines have maids. Poverty, just it's an ever-descending level of poverty there, with no bottom. And in America, very uniquely, you can have a comedian like me who's Filipino, who's Jewish, and can work his way up and get to a place from your talent and from being successful. This society allows that opportunity. But it also allows that opportunity for people like from Somalia to come over here, go to maybe the most naive state, Minnesota. And completely take advantage of these people. And that is a potential problem of our society that I think is new, and we have to wake up to. Interesting, like the Jews side of the family had really good jokes. It was really cool because Uncle Norm, Norm Applebaum, who changed his name to Appel, you know, hiding, I guess, a little bit. But my dad never liked that, that he changed his name. But he never told them to his face. But so, you know, be proud that you're Jewish. So they would go around, and everyone would have to tell a joke, stand up, and tell a joke. And you knew that going in. So you also, you wanted to tell the joke, you'd have to have a joke and also get a laugh. And so that was big, and my dad was a big, laughing person, had comedy albums. And Jewish humor was really, Yiddish humor specifically, was really important."

O'REILLY And it's a tough crowd. You'd better have a good joke.

SCHNEIDER "You'd better have a good joke and then the Filipinos on that side, no jokes, just good food."

O'REILLY That's right.

SCHNEIDER "And nice people. Robert! They never talk about themselves, the Filipinos, Robert, tell me about...how was your day, Robert? What are you up to? So they were very sweet, so it was nice to have both."

O'REILLY When I saw you in the Madison Square Garden show with Sandler, you did a riff where you used an Asian voice, hysterical, and I'm going, he's going to get nailed for this. The political correct cadre are going to come after you. The crowd didn't. The crowd was into it. It was a different crowd, a younger crowd. But you were violating every tenet of political correctness by using this voice.

SCHNEIDER "The idea of it is to push the audience so that you can challenge them. Those are always the best comedians. George Carlin would come out and really attack the audience in a sense, but to do it from a place of calm and also from a place of logic and a place to show the absurdity. You know, like, you think you have rights, you don't have rights. You think you have rights. And I really enjoyed that. But the key to remember is always to get laughs. But if I'm not challenging the audience or pushing mores, you know, and challenging them, then I'm not doing my job. But the thing is, you could offend them, I swear. When I did some, I mean, probably the most offensive thing that Adam Sandler had me do was...

O'REILLY Forced you to do it.

SCHNEIDER "And he forced me to, I didn't wanna do it, I swear. No, it was in Chuck and Larry where I played an Asian minister. And it really was, the makeup was out of Breakfast at Tiffany's. I mean, if I, I wouldn't do it again today, honestly. The guy who did the makeup was a Japanese guy named Kazu, and Kazu was a great artist, and he worked with this guy named Rick Baker, who's the guy who's the most incredible Academy Award-winning artist for makeup. He's the guy who did, you know, the American Werewolf in London. So this Rick Baker is a genius. So this is the guy who, it was his best worker he ever had. This guy's an artist. So Kazu, the Japanese guy, he made the makeup, and I said, well, if he likes it, it should be fine. But I almost got censored by the Asian American community. But luckily, because I'm Asian enough."

O'REILLY You got in. You're in the club a little bit.

SCHNEIDER "But the idea is to make fun of everybody."

O'REILLY But my larger point is that it's harder today to do the edgy stuff because you've got all these people offended every two seconds about everything.

SCHNEIDER "I think so, but I think there's a really interesting thing that this comedian Judd Apatow uses, and other other left wing or liberals called punching down, which I really, I find that I'm offended by that because the preposition is that somehow there are people beneath you. I said, what? There are people beneath you? There's nobody beneath you; they may have less money than you, they may not live next to the beach like you do, but they're not beneath you. So, the idea somehow that these people need to be defended because they're so feeble, and they're so weak, that you, as the higher up in society, need to defend these people, I'm offended, that I find offensive."

O'REILLY Yeah, it's called patronizing them.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah."

O'REILLY But even Saturday Night Live, you remember in the beginning, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin. Jane, you ignorant slut.

SCHNEIDER "Written by Jim Downey."

O'REILLY You could not say that now.

SCHNEIDER "Written by Jim Downey. Well, the thing about that was I don't think people... People weren't looking to be offended, then I think they were looking for laughs, and also it's late at night, it's 11:30, and maybe it's midnight by the time that got on, and you were just looking for something that was funny. And being offensive was... I mean, that's not the goal. The goal was to be funny, but how you be funny by potentially offending somebody, and I would just look at things like, you have to attempt to. I mean, just having this conversation, we are, as Jordan Peterson would say, if you're trying to have a point or be confident about a point, you're risking offense. But to not do that, I think, is to take our culture and diminish it."

O'REILLY Right. But it is diminished because the money boys don't want that anymore.

SCHNEIDER "They don't, like for instance, I probably, my latest comedy special probably would not get on Netflix now, the stuff that I'm doing. And that's okay, because the whole landscape is shifting dramatically. Whereas, you know, I haven't been on late-night TV because if you're a conservative, it's like, they are, they say we need equity and equality and diversity, but they don't want diversity of thought."

O'REILLY That's right.

SCHNEIDER "They want diversity of look."

O'REILLY And it's a shame.

SCHNEIDER "It is a shame, because it's diminishing. Because it, you know. You need to have your certainties questioned. Your foundational thinking needs to be challenged. So make it better and to be open. And the fact that they don't have me on the late-night TV is sad for them. But it also, it affects their ratings because I can do a tweet now, and I can have millions of people see that, or put out something on X or put it on Instagram, and millions of people will see that, and maybe 150,000 people watch the late-night."

O'REILLY Well, I get the same thing. I used to be on, well, I was on Letterman a dozen times and Kimmel and everything, and now Trump changed it all. So if you give Trump a fair shake, you don't have to kiss his butt. If you even give him a fair shake, you don't loathe him, they don't want you, and they shut you down. They shut you out. And we did a documentation... The other thing I was curious about, growing up with you, and you were an adult when this happened, you converted to Catholicism.

SCHNEIDER "Yes."

O'REILLY From nothing? Or were you Unitarian, or what were you?

SCHNEIDER "Well, you know, Bill Maher's joke applies to me My father was Jewish. My mother was Catholic. So when I went to confession, I bring my attorney. This is Mr. Cohen. He'll be answering all the questions. I found it curious because I was interested in... Well, Judaism, of course, because I grew up with my father. And I think that's the basis of all Western civilization. And then Christianity, which sprung from Judaism and the very, very observant Jew, Jesus Christ. So, and I was also interested in the reformation of Buddhism, which was China. That's why China is, and hope they can come out of this, the communist hell hole that they're in now. And as a matter of fact, my friend Jan Jekielek has a book about kill to order, about the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong that are being taken. You know, their body parts, murdered on demand, killed on demand."

O'REILLY Sure.

SCHNEIDER "So, for me, I really had an awakening, really during COVID, when I saw society giving into a tyranny that very quickly, and you see a rise in evil, and this is something you can't ignore. And there's not, you'll never see a dark without light. You can't have day without night. You don't have front without back. And that's. Very much Alan Watts' philosophy of his Eastern mysticism."

O'REILLY But what was it about Catholicism itself that penetrated your consciousness and said this is going to lead to more justice? What was it that about that?

SCHNEIDER "Christ's sacrifice for all of us is that God would give his own son for the world."

O'REILLY Okay, so you bought into the Messiah coming, because I wrote a book, Killing Jesus, you know, about exactly what happened and why it happened. So then you started to think about this independently, or did you have somebody that was kind of guiding you into it?

SCHNEIDER "When you feel something that's happening around you and to the world that affects, and you have young children, and you want to protect them as best as you can, and you think that there is, we don't come from nothing. I mean, all of Western civilization is an offshoot. It comes, it springs from Christianity. I mean, everything has to do with it. And so even those, the atheists who believe that they don't believe in God. There's still laws. They just took, they said, the laws of nature, they just took the law giver away, but there's still the laws. What is your basis for society? What is your basis? What is your foundational belief system?"

O'REILLY Now, along with your conversion, you hightailed it out of California to Arizona.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah."

O'REILLY Was it the same reason you had had enough of the society out there?

SCHNEIDER "Well, I had, you know, if you have little kids, that's like I say in my stand-up act, California is dangerous, you know? 'Cause you got little kids. You know, in the morning you go to school, you drop off a girl in the afternoon, you pick up a boy, you know. So you want to, you want to... So I did want to get out. I felt like California was going to become a pincer trap depending on how deep this tyranny was going to go. And I knew that they were going to close businesses. I saw that happening, and I knew that it wasn't going to be two weeks, just 15 days. And I don't think people saw it, that it was going to become this draconian measures."

O'REILLY Now let's go back to your younger days. Saturday Night Live's a tough gig. I know Michaels. I actually did a skit for him. What up with that? And it was very successful. He wanted me to host a show, but Fox wouldn't let me because it was a...

SCHNEIDER "You would have been great on there."

O'REILLY See, I don't know about that, but they were very respectful, let's put it that way. I had no problem at all. I went over, I did the skit, it worked. But I know a lot of people, including Dennis Miller, who work with a lot on The Factor, and that's a rough gig that, you get into that Saturday Night Live thing, you're competing against each other for airtime, right?

SCHNEIDER "It is sink or swim, for sure."

O'REILLY And then you were a writer in the beginning, and then you elevated up, and you had the great character about the nicknames.

SCHNEIDER "Copy machine guy. Yeah, right. That was a... There were so many cast members as there is now. I think there was 17. I remember like, it seemed like, you know, they do the montage of all the cast, Al Franken, and the Venice Miller and Laura McDonald and Adam Sandler. That, I mean, that went on longer than the actual show at one point, I think, just the, just the cast reading. Yeah, it's sink or swim."

O'REILLY Everybody handles that kind of competition differently.

SCHNEIDER Yeah, it is, but it does, you know, I remember it does It does make it tense. I mean, you do realize, because you see what happens when somebody gets on, they get a movie, or they get something. And I remember when I got a character on, the copy machine guy, I just remember Dennis Miller saying, hey, he's saying to the other younger cast member, this guy's got on already, you guys better get to it. He's already hit it. You guys got, what do you guys got? And I'm like, they were burning. They were burning with it. And so it does hit, and what I liked about Saturday Night Live then, and when it can be its best, is it wasn't trying to be too broad or do something intellectually that they thought out too much. It's at its best trying to make their friends laugh, and themselves laugh. And so if we can make ourselves laugh, then you have the best chance. And I think that, you know, I think it's pretty obvious, though, that like any institution, it could get lost. And I think it got lost in this..."

O'REILLY Uh, the politically correct stuff.

SCHNEIDER "The liberal intelligentsia, it did. Well, because it took away the opportunity for laughs. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was the greatest opportunity in the last 25 years for humor."

O'REILLY And I'm surprised Michaels didn't jump on that.

SCHNEIDER "And they did. Well, to his credit, he lets the cast and those guys come up with their stuff."

O'REILLY But he makes the final call.

SCHNEIDER "He does make the final call, but I do think he lets them lead. And that's, he's been there for half a century, so he does get that. But I think it was a miss. I think it was a lost opportunity. And I think they are funny guys there now, and hopefully it'll come back, but any institution is not immune to the cultural pressure."

O'REILLY But what was interesting is that you came out of there with some of your best friends. Sandler, I guess, is the ringleader, right? He's the guy that swirls, and then he's casting you guys in the movies. And they're all successful. People love them. But a lot of them didn't like each other. They were undermining and everything like that. But you guys managed to have that core.

SCHNEIDER "We always rooted for each other, I rooted for him."

O'REILLY And that was, that was different.

SCHNEIDER "It was different. You know, I remember like, one of the guys, this explains Adam Sandler probably better than anything else I know of. David Spade and I had falling out of sorts, and it was just a simple thing about like this because we didn't talk for a while, and it got rough there towards the end when I was there, and we didn't speak, but we used to be best friends. I mean, it was him and me, and Sandler. We were like best friends in LA, and then we got on Saturday Night Live, and then the pressure, you know, gets to you. And I remember Adam saying, you know, there's a movie that you're gonna do and then, you know, you're going to work with David. And he made a movie, literally wrote it. And he had some other guys that worked on the last couple of drafts of it, but it was his movie idea. And he literally made the movie so that David and I, David Spade and I, would have to work together, so we'd have to it out. And we've been friends, we've been tight ever since."

O'REILLY Right.

SCHNEIDER "That's Adam. I mean, who else would do that? Who else would do that? And I really feel like he is just continually... I'd describe him as that Willy Wonka gum that just never loses its flavor."

O'REILLY But he's a very creative guy.

SCHNEIDER "He loves and loves to keep challenging himself. I can't tell you the last time I've called him in the last 20 years, when he wasn't working on not just one script, three. He's finishing a movie editing that, and then literally the movie is in the can. He's finishing the editing of the actual film. He's editing the finishing of the next movie, and then he's working on a couple other things. He just he's a worker. The only time I see him take it easy is when he works on somebody else's picture. But the thing about.. that's when I know, I'm kind of, I feel good because then I know he could at least relax when he's not shooting because he's not thinking about it at night, like going over the next thing and then the writing of it. He's just, it's almost like when your heart only rests between beats. So when I, I know he's working on another movie, I can go, okay, he's actually almost taking a vacation."

O'REILLY He obviously loves what he does, and that's the key to a happy life. Two guys I got to know were Miller and Norm McDonald. So Norm liked me because of me, and there was some common ground because Norm didn't give a fig.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah, yeah."

O'REILLY He didn't care.

SCHNEIDER "He's a guy who invented fake news."

O'REILLY Right?

SCHNEIDER "And now the fake news!"

O'REILLY But they were all over him for O.J. Simpson and for all of this other stuff. And Norm just looked at him and go, okay, and then he'd do exactly what he wanted to do.

SCHNEIDER "I know Norm was a very special talent, and I miss him."

O'REILLY Yeah, so do I.

SCHNEIDER "I put him in everything that I could do, everything I ever did, and I'm very honored that I knew him and that he would make, that he could make fun of me publicly. I thought that that was such a..."

O'REILLY But he had this quality whereby you couldn't intimidate him.

SCHNEIDER "No, he was, no, and he really was comedy first, no matter what, even if it cost him. And like Jim Downey was the real, you know, the real genius of Saturday Night Live, they say, you know, respectfully, was the head writer of all those years. The guy who did Jane, You Ignorant Slut, the guy who wrote the jokes for Norm was Jim Downey. And this was on Weekend Update. And I think that that was a spectacularly, wonderful, volatile time. When you're watching that, you don't know what Norm is gonna do. It was really... A wonderful experience because it's one of those things where he could burn the house down. And he did. He did get fired."

O'REILLY There's one qualifier here. If you knew what Norm was told not to do, then you knew what he would do, which was exactly the opposite. Okay, so, and now I'll tell you a Miller story. So Miller, I didn't know very much, but I was looking for a little levity, but not stupid stuff. A little, an intelligent guy to come on once a week and put the news into some kind of perspective. With an entertainment value. So at the time, Dennis Miller was working at CNBC.

SCHNEIDER "Wow."

O'REILLY And he had an hour show with a monkey. With a monkey, no one knew why the monkey was there. But Miller would talk to the monkey, and the monkey would just run around, okay? Well, the show did not work, okay, and they-.

SCHNEIDER "Imagine that, that would kill now."

O'REILLY They killed the show. So I run into Miller in Manhattan, where we are now, and I didn't know him, and I said, you know, I like the monkey. And he lit up, because everybody hated the monkey except me, I like the monkey.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah."

O'REILLY And then I said, you know, would you mind if I maybe got your agent, and no, no, you know Miller. He just blew it off. So I went to the head of Fox News, a guy named Roger Ailes, and I said look, I wanna put Miller on on a weekly basis. It's going to be a workshop to give him a contract, but we'll give him three or four weeks to see. He goes, is that the guy with the monkey? I said, yeah, we don't have to hire the monkey. Okay, we're not going to hire a monkey. We'll have a few bananas, all right? So Miller will feel at home. So the rest is history.

SCHNEIDER "That's fantastic."

O'REILLY I brought him on, and then we toured.

SCHNEIDER "That's right. Those tours were great. You guys were ahead of your time."

O'REILLY It was amazing.

SCHNEIDER "You got to have, it was pre-podcast era."

O'REILLY Right.

SCHNEIDER "You guys got to actually, people would come out, and then you would actually get to, they would get to hear people that they listened to, and it was a wonderful reaction that preceded this whole era."

O'REILLY Well, we sold Caesar's Palace out five times. Now you can imagine, I'm a journalist, I'm not a stand-up guy, I am not an entertainer. But I have a sense of humor, and I'm an observer of life. And so I would say to Miller, I said, okay, this is what we're gonna do. Okay, tonight, we're going to have these questions, and then we'll just go wild with the questions. None of it was rehearsed, none of it. And it just worked great. And then I got on him for Bordello of Blood. Did you see Bordello of Blood?

SCHNEIDER "No."

O'REILLY Dennis Miller.

SCHNEIDER "Oh, no, no. That movie he did, yeah."

O'REILLY You gotta watch it.

SCHNEIDER "Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. That's his one movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah."

O'REILLY The Crypt Keeper. Oh yes. And he's got a flamethrower with the vampires.

SCHNEIDER "I forgot about that."

O'REILLY I would bring it up every show. I go, how you didn't get an Academy Award for Bordello of Blood? It was one of the greatest things. Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Bordello of Blood!

SCHNEIDER "I remember Dennis, because you have to know what you're good at. You have to also know what you're not good at, and I remember him saying, I'm going to do this audition, and there's Eddie and Teddy. And I did Eddie, and I told the casting agent, Okay, I'm gonna do Teddy, and it's going to sound a lot like Eddie."

O'REILLY He was, to this day, a very, very witty guy.

SCHNEIDER "The stand-up is unbelievable. He's one of the great monologists ever, and also, as I was saying, he loves to laugh and really gets it. I just got to see him and his lovely wife, Ali, in Santa Barbara last month, and it was just nice to see them, and he's doing great. But just a great laugh and a generous laugh, and also a guy who appreciated comedy. He is the guy who singled Adam Sandler, David Spade, and me to, not only to Lorne Michaels but to David Letterman, so, because that was the big one for us getting on there. And then the HBO Young Comedians special. So Dennis Miller is an incredible gift and also a real generous person to lift other people just because he thinks they're funny. And I'm grateful to him. I mean, if it wasn't for Dennis, I don't know if we would have made it."

O'REILLY He didn't go back to the reunion in 35, and I kept pounding him. I said, come on, you're part of that SNL thing, no way.

SCHNEIDER "I get it, I mean, it was tough for me to go back, to be honest, the 50th. I don't know, I just, they're so liberal, and I knew that there are people gonna be there that really, really hate Trump, and I just didn't want to deal with it. I've been very vocal in my approval, because what do we have? And I talk about, now I've talking about this, you know, empathy that women have, white women voting for Kamala Harris. And I said this, you know, replacing Joe Biden with Kamala Harris is like changing your shirt because you shit your pants, you know, and, you know, a simple joke. But what it really is, it's like, they're saying we're going to defend democracy, you have to defend democracy by voting for Kamala, she wasn't even put in democratically. They were just replaced. So it's just the house of cards collapsed for the democratic party, and we saw it. And I just like, these guys, I know, they just, they don't wanna go to that place where they could make fun of their own. And you know, as Lorne Michaels has said publicly, the, you know, the liberals, they don't have as much of a sense of humor to laugh at themselves."

O'REILLY Right.

SCHNEIDER "So anyway, I was thinking, should I go? And I ended up going for the 50th, and I saw Robert De Niro there, and I know he hates Trump, and I've been very vocal that I support Trump. You know, I mean."

O'REILLY But De Niro didn't confront you, right?

SCHNEIDER "We did, we had a confrontation...Well, it was interesting. You know, I mean, I know him, not well, but I know him, and he helped put a movie in his Tribeca film festival many years ago called Vaxxed, which was the opening of this, the idea that this, hey, any drug is gonna potentially have a side effect. Any drug, no matter what it is, no, there's never been a drug that's 100% safe 100% of the time for 100% the people. He was kind enough and open-minded enough to put this movie Vaxxed in this Tribeca Film Festival. But it was such a radioactive topic that he pulled it out. But in the pulling out of the film festival, it became a cause célèbre and became a news event. And so I've been grateful to them. But I know that..."

O'REILLY Did he confront you about the Trump thing?

SCHNEIDER "Well, when I saw him at SNL, he was two rows in front of me. And I just said to myself, you know. I'm not going to, I don't want to ruin his night. You know, I know he hates Trump, violently, you know, virally, and then I don't want him to ruin my night. I'm just going to avoid. So at the end of the, at the end of night, they do this very nice thing where they, you know, they invite everybody onto the stage at the very end, you know, whoever, whoever cast member, whoever hosts the show, they invite us all onto the stage for one final bow. We're never going to be there. You know, people pass away, whatever. We're never going to be there probably ever again in this group. So we all get up, the problem is the show, Bill has been on the air for 50 years, so everybody in the audience was a cast member or was a host of the show. So we all get up, start moving our way to the stage, and then I'm right behind De Niro. I mean, literally, I don't know, like, nobody push him, you know, somebody's pushing. Finally, somebody pushed me right into him and you know, De Niro turns around, and he's like, how can you support Trump?"

O'REILLY He did, he said that right off the bat.

SCHNEIDER "He's just a schmuck, how could you? And I remember he was just about to kind of go, and I really grabbed him and said, hey, I love you."

O'REILLY That was good.

SCHNEIDER "I love you. I really, and I said, no, no no, he looked at me and said no, I really love you, and I do, and you know, I tell people we're not gonna win the cancel culture. They're better at it than us. We're gonna have to do it some other way, and it's gonna have to be through love and understanding."

O'REILLY Be respectful. I ran into Whoopi Goldberg the other night she was the one that walked off The View stage when I said, You know, might not be a good idea to build a mosque at the site of 9-11, and she and Behar walked off the show. It's a famous thing.

SCHNEIDER "Unbelievable."

O'REILLY Right, and over the years I've been respectful, but I saw her at the Knick game and I went up, and I said, you know, hey Whoopi, how you feeling? You know, she's lost a lot of weight. She's on one of those...whatever they are, I don't know, they suck the living bile out of you, and then you shrink and something like that. That's how you market that.

SCHNEIDER "No, they say we're going to take away all your muscle."

O'REILLY Right.

SCHNEIDER "No problem."

SCHNEIDER You're just going to be like, Gumby. Gumby.

SCHNEIDER "And you'll never get your muscle back."

O'REILLY Anyway, and I just said to her, I just looked at it, and I said, you know, you look good, nice to see you, everything okay? Is there anybody you want me to take care of? That's my old line for almost everybody.

SCHNEIDER "And she was nice. Was she nice?"

O'REILLY I like Whoopi Goldberg, not Behar.

SCHNEIDER "One-on-one, she was okay when you saw Whoopi?"

O'REILLY Yeah, oh, she was respectful.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah, I mean..."

O'REILLY I'm six four two hundred pounds. Okay, I don't... Although De Niro pulled something on me.

SCHNEIDER "He did?"

O'REILLY So I'm at the Kennedy Benefit, all right. The Kennedy family had a foundation, and I supported it because I'm a big fan of Robert Kennedy Senior. Gutsy guy.

SCHNEIDER "Oh yeah."

O'REILLY If you read Killing Kennedy, you see how gutsy he was.

SCHNEIDER "No, unbelievable. He's the guy who made a whole change from Joe McCarthy up until seeing poverty in America that he had never imagined."

O'REILLY So I'm sitting there and talking to Ethel Kennedy, talk about name-dropping, that's pretty good, right?

SCHNEIDER "Yeah, you're in."

O'REILLY And I see Ethel's eyes come off mine, look over my shoulder, so I know somebody's approaching. And I turn around, it's De Niro. So Ethel goes, oh, Bobby, do you know Bill O'Reilly? And he, I can't do the impression you do, but he goes...I unwind from my chair, all six foot four of me, get right up close to him, and go, problem? Vanished! She, Ethel Kennedy, laughed. She goes, I've never seen Bobby move that fast.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah."

O'REILLY But I don't understand. Okay, you don't like Trump. I understand it. I've known him for 35 years, Okay? But so what?

SCHNEIDER "So what? I know."

O'REILLY Right. This is America.

SCHNEIDER "This is America. And I've got to tell you, this administration he put together is the best administration of my lifetime."

O'REILLY And you are entitled to that opinion without being derided.

SCHNEIDER "Without being derided and also without being deprived of work. The idea I..."

O'REILLY Oh, I hate that. It's so bad.

SCHNEIDER "Yeah, it's awful, I mean, like, look, I realize that, that they... It's so funny because you know people you know, they accused people who are conservative, like your right-wing grifting. Grifting is the left, if you just shut up, and if you do go along with this insanity, and this liberal and yes men, you know, can be women if they say they are, if they put up enough makeup on, and if they, you know, they tuck, whatever. It's like no, at a certain point you have to, there's either reality, there is logic, and you have a culture that you care for, either defend women, and the idea of this misogynistic crap that this culture has been going through, if you don't speak up against that, then I think you, you know you're not a man, and we have people and I'm not going to not stand up for women. I'm not gonna not stand up for my culture, and this amazing country that has provided the most remarkable opportunity for anybody who comes here and works their ass off. But you gotta come in with good intentions. And that's the problem. You have to come in with good intentions."

O'REILLY And that comes from your mom.

SCHNEIDER "That comes from my mom, absolutely."

O'REILLY So your mom drilled that into you.

SCHNEIDER "Yes."

O'REILLY And you still have it, and that's admirable.

SCHNEIDER "Well, this is a culture worth fighting for. I mean, I remember, you know, if you really think about this, like the murder of Charlie Kirk, who I knew, and we went to university together, he was such an incredibly brilliant person who put his microphone down and said, if you disagree with me, you come to the front of the line. And one of the last few times we talked together, you know, one of the things we said was, there will be no Marines landing on our beaches to save our ass. There will be no financial institution or some other country to financially bank, you know, to give us a loan like the Marshall Plan, like we did for Germany, Japan, and Europe. And we're it, we are the Marines. We are the financial Marshall Plan. So this is it, this is our last line. And it's not just the last line for this country, but for Western civilization."

O'REILLY For the world. Well, you see it now.

SCHNEIDER "We see it now. You see a real attack on Western civilization. You see the struggle that's happening in Texas right now. You really see the attack because the difference is when our founding fathers says enemies foreign and domestic because they knew that... They saw at that point, that there was a potential to come in and use the freedoms that are given here to use them to usurp the constitutional rights of others. And that's something we have to be really careful about, and that's what this Sharia, you know, this... Anti-Sharia laws need to be enacted in every, in every state."

O'REILLY It's ironic the ACLU was set up to protect those rights.

SCHNEIDER "The ACLU..."

O'REILLY And now it's starting, not starting, but it's in the middle of denying those rights.

SCHNEIDER "I want to find out who's funding the ACLU right now because they're not the same organization that fought for the rights of..."

O'REILLY Look at Singham over in China.

SCHNEIDER "I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have soft money coming over here, Bill. Whether it's coming from Qatar into the universities. A trillion dollars. You have, and it's affecting these universities and their programs which are this overly flirtatious combination of for communism and for Islamism, and the problem is that combination is very deadly. And that was one of the last things Charlie Kirk spoke about two days before he died, was that combination of that red-green alliance, which is this communist under the, you know, the new name woke, which is just communism dressed up as manners, as Thomas Sowell talks about the fallacy of social justice. It's a fallacy, but teaming up with Islam, that's the real threat to America right now. That is the biggest threat to this country. And thankfully, we have an administration that is onto it. When I went there, when I was in DC two months ago, that's all we talked about."

O'REILLY Why do you think that the Trump administration is so vilified by the Kimmels, the Colberts, the network news? Why do they hate him so much?

SCHNEIDER "I think it's liberal women that have lost their minds are controlling these men, and these guys have no more balls."

O'REILLY Oh, I thought you said they changed.

SCHNEIDER "Kimmel has no balls. Kimmel is ball-less. He's been de-balled by his wife. His wife is the head writer of the show. She used to be an assistant writer. Now she's the writer. And I think that's completely ruined him. I do. I mean, I'm sorry, Jimmy, maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm right."

O'REILLY Hey, we've got more with Rob Schneider. If you are a Premium or Concierge Member on BillOReilly.com, all you need to do is go to the website, BillOReilly.com, and punch up Killing Time, Killing Time. It's supposed to be clever off the Killing books, Killing Time, and then that's just for you, exclusively, so we hope you do that.