PALMINTERI Bush lied, nothing happens, Hillary lied, nothing happens. Everybody lies, nobody goes to jail. That's a lie.
O'REILLY So that keeps your Italian up.
PALMINTERI That gets my Italian up.
O'REILLY Am I allowed to say that?
PALMINTERI Yeah, you are allowed. Black and white is white. Two and two are four. Can I curse? I gotta be careful here. I gotta get fired up.
O'REILLY Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Welcome to We'll Do It Live, our long-form podcast. So a friend of mine agreed to do the program, and a lot of my friends won't do the program because they know how obnoxious I am, and so they won't do it. But Chazz Palminteri and I have been friends for about a decade, and we have a lot in common, which you wouldn't think. I mean, you get the Irish guy, get the Italian guy, got Bronx Chazz, and a Levittown O'Reilly. But we're both baby boomers. Both came up under the same kind of family situation, whereas Chazz's father was a bus driver. My father's a low-level accountant. We didn't have a lot of money. We had used cars. My parents couldn't get rid of me, go out, go play, be back when the streetlights are on. But it was the kid world, it was not the parent world. And Chazz, you're up a lot of the same way. Now, this is an amazing stat. He has had a play called A Bronx Tale. 37 years, that play has been viable. And here he is. I can't believe this play is 37 years, of course, there was a movie with you and De Niro.
PALMINTERI Yeah, it was a play first, then a movie.
O'REILLY Right, and now you're going to London to do it. Yes, and you've got what, 19 shows coming up or something?
PALMINTERI I got 19 shows coming up in the United States, and then I decided to do it at the West End. I sold out at the Leicester Square Theater on the West End. I sold out June 6th in 24 hours. Then I'll be in Portugal at the St. George Theater June 10th. And I sold it out there.
O'REILLY So it's a universal thing.
PALMINTERI It's amazing, Bill. I really mean it. I'm so humbled by it. I really am. You know, it was a big hit as a play, a big hit as a musical, a big hit as a movie, and it just rolls. The musical is still running out of town. It just rolls on.
O'REILLY And I don't really understand why somebody in Leicester Square would wanna know about the Bronx, who would wanna know about the ethnic upbringing of an American working class in the Bronx, but they want to know.
PALMINTERI It's been a brand for me, it's my brand that's been there for 37 years. And people just can't get enough of it. It is like, you don't just see it once. People see it 10, 20, 30 times. I think it just, it says something. It says something about the way America, I think, I could be romanticizing, used to be. Father, son, mother, values. It's really, really...You see, it doesn't make, where, where Goodfellas was one of the great movies of all time, that was about black and white. My play is about gray and gray. Sonny is telling the boy exactly the same things as the father.
O'REILLY And he's the mob guy.
PALMINTERI But he's a mob guy, but he's saying, stay in school, make something out of yourself. Don't be like these jerk-offs around here. You know, do something with your life. Don't do what I do. And so it's so weird, and so, it's like the essence of you have to navigate with him how do you tell what's good and what's bad? Sometimes it looks good, but it's a little, like my father was the salt of the earth. But if he thought his son was dating a black woman, he would have been upset by that. Not because he was prejudiced, because my father also was a trainer and he had black fighters. It was because he looked at me and said, I don't want this kid to go through this. In this neighborhood, where Sonny, you would think he was prejudiced, he wasn't.
O'REILLY But your father could have been a mob guy. Anybody in the Bronx could have been a mob guy.
PALMINTERI My dad was just always so sweet and humble. Me, I could have been. Absolutely. No question I could've been.
O'REILLY Okay, but your father, who came, obviously, before you, chose to be a working person and to forgo the easy money of shaking people down and doing what the mob did.
PALMINTERI More than that, Bill, he was offered $150 in 1960, $150 was a lot of money. Our rent was $38 a month. And all he had to do was pick up numbers. A guy was going to hand them a slip of paper on one bus stop. He was gonna go to the end, the last stop, and hand it to another guy. That's all he had to for $150. He would not do it.
O'REILLY Did he ever explain to you why?
PALMINTERI Well, yeah, when I got older, he explained to me, he said, because once they get their hooks in you, that's it. He says, if you're gonna say no, you have to say no from the beginning. He says the worst thing to do with wise guys is say yes, do it for a while, then say no. Can't do that.
O'REILLY No, they don't like that.
PALMINTERI They don't like that.
O'REILLY So you mentioned that it was a different era, a different country, you know, the United States coming off World War II, you're a baby boomer, so am I. And we lived according to a code. And you're Catholic.
PALMINTERI Yes, I am.
O'REILLY Okay. And the code was, you don't lie, particularly to your friends. I mean, I lied to my parents. That was big, that was huge.
PALMINTERI So did I, yeah.
O'REILLY And you're loyal.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY Almost to a criminal extent, look the other way, if your friends are in trouble. You're not a rat.
PALMINTERI You're no rat.
O'REILLY And it was a simpler way of life because there was a code, particularly here in New York.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY Where you were, and I was. And that code is gone.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY So the question then becomes, and you have to keep it, and you mentioned it, the African-American experience as well. Was it a better country post-World War II, when you and I were kids coming up, than it is now?
PALMINTERI Well, no one's ever asked me that question like you just did. Was it a better country? I think, I don't know if it was a better country because I still believe we're the greatest country in the world. Was America as a whole in a better space? You know, there was really bad racism back then. That I have to say. So, I can't say it was better. But I say it was less out in the open, the problems. I mean, the racism in the 50s and 60s was pretty bad, so I wouldn't want to have that again. But in some ways it was better, in some ways it's not.
O'REILLY I think that's a fair answer.
PALMINTERI I think so, yes.
O'REILLY That we are a country even today that's struggling to do the right thing about certain social problems that are very, very difficult, and people see things a different way. I mean, look, you and I in a million years would never have voted for Mamdani.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY In a million years.
PALMINTERI Never. No.
O'REILLY Okay, because our experience is you're self-reliant, you make it on your own.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY Okay. You go into the arena, you fight the fight, and you come out either bloodied or successful.
PALMINTERI I think that's what makes, that's what made America great, is that you had to do, you can do it, but you gotta do it, you know, the old cliche, pick up yourself by your bootstraps and do it. The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was poverty. They gave me so much love, but they didn't have money. So to me, I was like, you know, my age now, I still work as hard as ever.
O'REILLY But you don't work for money, though?
PALMINTERI No.
O'REILLY I mean, you're an artist. I saw you in the Bronx Tale. It's amazing how your delivery is flawless. I don't work for money either, but I understand what you're saying. It was, look, we're poor, so what? We'll work so we're not.
PALMINTERI Exactly.
O'REILLY And we'll have a different circumstance. The Italian thing. So you haven't come under a lot of scrutiny, I came a little bit before you with Columbo and those guys, real big-time mobsters, that objected to actors and people like you portraying Italians as gangsters.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY What do you feel about?
PALMINTERI Well, you know what, Columbo was a gangster and a very big gangster and a very tough gangster. So you know, if you're going to walk the walk, you know, talk the talk, you've got to walk to walk. Columbo used that. Look, was he a proud Italian? Yes, but he was also a gangster at the same time. So I don't want to hear Columbo tell me, we weren't gangsters. Now, but can you tell me that I can't play a gangster in a movie? People hated the Sopranos. I said, why did you hate the soprano? The Sopranos, to me, was a great, great television series. Why do you hate it? Makes Italians look bad. But if you want to talk about art, you have to have drama. Drama, at its core, is good versus evil. That's it. That's what drama is, to show the good, you have to show the evil. It's very simple. Otherwise, you know, do a documentary about the beauty of being Italian. That's fine, you could do that. But basically, nobody's going to tune into it. A lot of people won't tune into it.
O'REILLY Well, the tenors might get some people. But the truth is that in the New York area, organized crime is dominated by Italians.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY And there's a history to it. I wrote about it in Killing the Mob.
PALMINTERI No question.
O'REILLY Now, when you were making a film with Robert De Niro, a very explosive guy, brilliant actor, no doubt about it, did you guys ever come up against each other politically? Because he's so left.
PALMINTERI No, no, not at all. I never talked politics with Bob, ever. Never. No, I believe in everyone has the right to be whatever they want. You know, I'm an independent, you know, I each election I decide who I want to vote for, but never once, even till this day, never once do I ever talk politics with Bob. I respect Bob to the ultimate high heavens. He's an artist.
O'REILLY And he didn't start with you.
PALMINTERI Never, ever, we've never done that. We'll, yeah, never, ever. He's one of my dear friends, and I love him to death, and we'd never talk about that.
O'REILLY Now, Woody Allen, I know a little bit, and obviously, he's had a very controversial life.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY Any inkling of that when you were working with him?
PALMINTERI No, but if you, the movie I did... I don't know anything about Woody's personal life at all. As an artist, he's like, to me, like Charlie Chaplin. He will be looked at many years from now like that. His personal life, yeah, I mean, you know, probably could have made better choices. He, to me, he's, but you could see in his art, when I did Bullets Over Broadway, about each artist creates his own moral universe. If you listen to the dialogue in that, and it was almost like him speaking, you know, to me. But I never spoke with him about his personal life because that's his. And I don't know right or wrong what happened, but I know as an artist, he is truly one of the greatest that ever lived.
O'REILLY Feel sorry for him when he got into that trouble?
PALMINTERI Yeah, I did. I did because, you know, I don't know who said it, it was in the Bible, but they said, your good deeds are written in water, and your bad deeds are in stone. And it's amazing, it's like Joe Paterno, who had 50 years at Penn State. And then, because of a misjudgment of not telling his friend that he should, informing the authorities on his friend. All the good deeds he did, gone. Bill Cosby, all the good deeds, gone. Temple University, taking down his statues. All these people that did so much in their whole life, their legacy, gone. That breaks my heart. It really does. I see that, and I go, my God, 50 years. Bill Cosby was America's dad. He was loved by the world. That's fascinating to me, Bill. It really is.
O'REILLY It's the kind of culture, judgmental place America is. I mean, you form these judgments a lot of times without due process, a lot of times on false information.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY Not in the case that we're talking about, but as a human being, you go, whoa, their whole life evaporates right before their eyes.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY I know. And it's something and nobody is spared from it if you get involved with this kind of stuff. Now, if you had to do it over again, because I know your kids are enacting now, right?
PALMINTERI Yes.
Okay. See, showbiz is kind of, to me, and I'm just on the periphery of it, I'm not sure I want to put my kids through it. The rejection level is unbelievable.
PALMINTERI Unbelievable, it really is. And I said to them, because they grew up in the business, and my wife had them performing when they were very young, and she said, well, let's see if they like it. They both loved it, they both kept it up. They went to great schools. I said, look, if you want to do this, you gotta get into a great college, and you gotta study and work hard and graduate. Otherwise, don't even talk to me about this. And they both did. My daughter went to the University of Michigan, my son went to the Berkeley School of Music and Art in Boston. They both graduated, and they're both working hard. And they're struggling, absolutely. But they see, I said to them, no is always the answer you're gonna get. But think of it this way. If I told you right now that you're going to get 100 nos, but the 101st is gonna be a yes, how would you feel? And then you just got a no. They would go, well, I would feel, all right, 99 more nos. That's how you gotta look at it. That's how you've gotta look at it.
O'REILLY One of the advantages that you've had in your career is that you work with an amazing amount of talent.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY And even on a show like Blue Bloods, you know, the segment with you and Selleck, okay, where you're his buddy from the neighborhood.
PALMINTERI Right.
O'REILLY Interesting, they ripped that off from you.
PALMINTERI Whatever, yeah.
O’REILLY And he's the police commissioner. But there's something about those scenes, you know? Now, when the audience is paying attention to them, they go, this is a little bit elevated here. These two guys, they know what they're doing.
PALMINTERI Yeah, well, he's a great, but you know, Selleck is a real pro, a great actor, you know? And I like being with someone like that. It's great to play. You know, I love playing. I would like to play basketball with Michael Jordan, you know, because people just elevate you. Not that I could ever be even the same...
O'REILLY No, I know, you just wanna be around.
PALMINTERI I wanna be around greatness. I wanna play, I have a very, you know, I have a lot of confidence, probably too much for my own good, as my son would say. But I wanna be with the greatest actors. I'm not worried about me. I know I can hold my own, and that's how I feel.
O'REILLY So you're not intimidated at all? You walk into these people... And Gandolfini and he was an intimidating guy.
PALMINTERI Yeah, yeah, he was, but no, no. I mean, look, my first movie was, to me, the greatest act of my generation, and that was Robert De Niro. And I wasn't intimidated at all. And I think Bob appreciated that because if I was intimidated, then, well, he wouldn't want to work with me. That wouldn't have been good, you know? I just felt like I belong here at this moment in time. And I didn't feel, did I feel intimidated? I remember the first time I read with him. I was over at the apartment, and he said to me, he goes, why don't we just read the dialogue, you and I? And I went, sure. And we read the dialogue, and he says, ah, that's great. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. And then I left, and I got in the elevator, and then it hit me when I was in the elevator, as I was going down, I went, I just acted with Robert De Niro. And I went damn. I went, wow.
O'REILLY It's impressive, sure.
PALMINTERI Yeah, I remember I said that, yeah. I mean, he's... He's one of the greats, you know.
O'REILLY Is there ever any one-upsmanship? When you get great athletes together, they try to, you know, outdo the other, things like that. I mean, I certainly am guilty about that. I want to be the best in the world. And if I see somebody, you know, I want to go up against them, see what you've got. Is there any one-upsmanship when you're doing scenes with these legendary people?
PALMINTERI Well, I was doing a play with Al Pacino in New York, and it was out, and in this one scene, the play was The Resistible Rise of Arturo Uy. It's a Brecht play, and Al was the main character. I was his partner, Roman, and then there was John Cusack and Steve Buscemi, me and Al, the four of us on stage, and Steve Buscemi had this monologue. He does a monologue, we all do a monologue, and he did a monologue, and you could tell, the audience, I mean the audience had Paul McCarthy in it, I mean it was like Harrison Ford, and he's just ripping it up. And then John Goodman, another incredible actor, he takes it to another level, and I was like, oh damn, I'm next. You could just feel it, that this night was different. But I had an advantage, because I was allowed to where they had to stay in place. So then I go, and I am going back and forth. I'm ripping it up. I'm doing, we all improved a little bit as far as doing things. And I ripped it up even at the next level. And in my mind, I'm going, where's Al gonna go with this one? And Al just starts, and Al's tearing it up, and he stands up on the throne, and he does the last half standing up on a throne. And I just looked at him, and I'll never forget, I went, son of a bitch. Look at that, in my mind, watching him do that. And he was, you know, for people who don't know Al Pacino, they know him on film, but to see Al on stage is something else, man.
O'REILLY He commands the audience. And that brings me to the Godfather, which is now in the culture as the defining look at from the outside.
PALMINTERI Right
O'REILLY Of course, organized crime.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY Now, what do you think about that whole project?
PALMINTERI About The Godfather?
O'REILLY Yeah.
PALMINTERI Oh, to me, it's probably one of the greatest movies, my top five greatest movies ever made. I mean, Godfather I and II, which is very rare to get a sequel as good as the first, and maybe even better, maybe. It was brilliant, yeah.
O'REILLY Do you know Coppola?
PALMINTERI I met him a bunch of times. I met him like two or three times. I don't know him. I can't say I know him, but I met him, and he's always very cordial to me.
O'REILLY Because all of these characters were perfectly cast, that's what made the film.
PALMINTERI Yeah!
O'REILLY I mean, every one of them from Fredo on to, you know, Tom Hagen, Robert DuVal. I mean, it was perfect after perfect, after perfect.
PALMINTERI Yeah, they wanted Robert Redford, you know, for the part of Michael, and then they wanted Ryan O'Neill, because he just came off Love Story, and Coppola refused. He said no.
O'REILLY No, that would not have made it.
PALMINTERI You know, I always wonder, I wonder what it would, because it's such a great movie, what would it have been like if they did it? I don't know.
O'REILLY Too waspy.
PALMINTERI Too waspy!
O'REILLY Yeah, you can't have the wasps in there.
PALMINTERI Yeah, Al told me he was getting fired, right from Al's mouth. He said, until I did the scene in the restaurant where I kill Salazzo and the cop, when they saw that, they went, Okay, he can stay.
O'REILLY Now, after the Godfather, that's when a lot of the anti-Italian stuff rushes, right? Were you involved with any of that?
PALMINTERI No, I was not, no.
O'REILLY Stayed out of it?
PALMINTERI No, I mean, I wasn't famous then. I was still a young actor in New York. No, I wasn't t involved in that at all. You know, I just, you know, don't get me wrong. Do we get known as the mafia a lot? Yes. But you know what? I'm proud of my heritage. I'm proud of what the Italian Americans did. And I always fight against it. You know, they told me not to do the documentary for Columbus. And they asked me to be the voice of the narration. And I did it, because I'm proud of the Italians. And I thought we should do it, you know? That was my opinion.
O'REILLY And you got really angry about Mother Cabrini.
PALMINTERI Well, Mother Cabrini, I hit the ceiling. I hit the ceiling on Mother Cabrini.
O'REILLY Yeah, I got to set it up. It was that Bill de Blasio, probably the worst mayor, we have to give Mamdani a little time on that, but she objected to New York City honoring Mother Cabrini.
PALMINTERI Yeah, but they came up with the rules, she did. She said, let's have a vote for all the women. She said it, his wife, let us have a vote for the women, and we're gonna put seven statutes up for all of the women, and let's see who comes in first. Mother Cabrini comes in 1st, triple more than anyone, anyone. She goes, well, we'll put Mother Cabrini on the next round, which means it ain't happening. I know that. So, they asked me my opinion. And I thought it was wrong. I said, if anything, it was biased. I mean, I'm sorry, that's wrong, you can't do that. She won the vote. Sure, does Billie Holiday deserve it? Rosa Parks, absolutely. Great American women. Billie, yes, but Mother Cabrini won. She can't go in, is that a problem here? So she refused to do it. I hit the ceiling, so I started speaking out. Bill de Blasio said, you called my wife, he said, Chazz Palmiteri called my wife a racist, so he was on the radio once. It was front page news, front page daily news. Front page. And I called up, and he said did you, and they put me through, I couldn't believe it. Because he was in the air with people, the mayor. And he said yeah, put him through. He goes, Chazz Palmatieri, did you call my wife a racist? I went, yes, I did. Silence on the phone. Then I thought, everybody's hearing this. I said yes, I said at least it was explicit bias. I said she won, mayor. She won, why wouldn't you put up a statue for her? She's going to be on the next round. I go, why? Why? She...triple the vote.
O'REILLY Oh, it was skin color, I mean, you know.
PALMINTERI Of course it was!
O'REILLY Everybody knew it.
PALMINTERI And that's not fair.
O'REILLY That's true.
PALMINTERI That's not fair.
O'REILLY Do you believe, though, that African Americans are owed a debt by this country?
PALMINTERI You mean reparations?
O'REILLY Yeah, that and preferential treatment, like Billie Holiday over Mother Cabrini.
PALMINTERI That I don't like, no. Do I... Look, I mean, if we've got to be honest, we've got to be. On I try to do everything I can for civil rights. I really do. I write all my movies. That's why I wrote the story in the Bronx. That's me. I would date black girls in the '68. That's true. And I love when people go, that would never happen. I go, well, I'm closure. That's my name. It did happen. So I wanted to put that in to show how racism affected me and affected that time, how people were racist. That was important to me, because I wasn't. My father had black fighters that he trained, and they would come up the house in my building on 187th Street, and people would go, hey, Lorenzo, what are you doing? What's going on with this guy? My father said he's one of my fighters. Leave him alone. So my father was always like, you know, and I grew up, hey, my father would get off out of his seat, a black woman in a bus, pick her bags up. He would do that white or black. So I never grew up racist. So to me, anything I can do would help. But getting back to your question, I didn't dodge it. I want you to know that, you know, a lot of people go, hey, you know, it's like, it's really, you know, the black people and Hispanic and Chinese are getting a really, a leg up on even white people. And my two kids are in the business, and they lost parts to a different color. And I say to them, it's okay. I said, it okay, you just keep hanging in there. And it's okay. And I look at it this way, you know, we had a leg on them for a long time. So it's okay that they have a little advantage on us now. I'm all right with that. I really am. I'm okay with that, but I just want the best person to get the part.
O'REILLY Well, you said something a moment ago that it's not fair. The DEI stuff isn't fair.
PALMINTERI I don't think it's fair. No.
O'REILLY It isn't fair.
PALMINTERI It isn't fair.
O'REILLY Because you're choosing someone on the basis of their skin color. Martin Luther King didn't want you to do that.
PALMINTERI That was the essence of what he said.
O'REILLY Right, right.
PALMINTERI Martin Luther King.
O'REILLY And this is how things get out of control in this country.
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O'REILLY Now, do you follow the news? I mean, I know you watched my program when I was on Fox, but do you follow the day-to-day comings and goings?
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY You do?
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY You said you're an independent.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY When you are following the news, are you satisfied that the media is being honest with you?
PALMINTERI I don't, you know what? I don't know anymore, Bill. I have to be honest with you. I don't know anymore. I see, you know, and I always watch, I watch Fox, I watch CNN. Or I always watch other channels. I'm saying, I wanna see what everybody says. So I like to watch as much as I could. I go on, I watch podcasts, your podcasts, you know, the No Spin Zone. And I watch other people's too. And I watched Tucker Carlson. I watch, I look at a lot of different people. Way to the left, way to the right. Because I said, is somebody, who is lying here? Who is lying? And I just, but then I look around, and I say, okay, I gotta understand this for myself. But I don't know, I'm confused a lot sometimes. I have to be honest with you.
O'REILLY Everybody's confused. That's why I've been in the business 50 years to un-confuse them as best I can. But when you're watching, because you are a patriot, you love your country, and you are an independent, do you think that you're getting the information you need?
PALMINTERI I don't think so. I think there's some stuff they just hide from us for some reason.
O'REILLY Well, they don't like Trump, so Trump is going to play negative in most of the media outlets. But I think people know that now, and it can work for you, and certainly he's used that to set up, look, these people are never going to tell the truth about me. But I get upset when there's basically people being paid to lie.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY In your neighborhood in the Bronx, if you were a liar and everybody knew who the liars were.
PALMINTERI Right, right.
O'REILLY Everybody knew.
PALMINTERI Right, no.
O'REILLY They were like ostracized.
PALMINTERI No, no question, no question, Bill. Absolutely. I could...I don't like when something is so obvious, so obvious, that's when I get upset. When you say and again, this is how I felt when I can I have to go to when I go to work. I couldn't go to work unless I got a COVID shot, my family had to get COVID shots. I cannot go on the set. I had a movie, I just got a movie, and they would not hire me unless I got a COVID shot. Then on the, then the same day, 10,000 people over the border, who are strangers, that we have no idea who they are, not vetted, they don't need no COVID shot, that's a lie. I go, black and white is white, two and two are four. That's, can I curse? I mean, I don't know. That's a lie. Period, that's a lie.
O'REILLY So that gets your Italian up.
PALMINTERI That gets my Italian up.
O'REILLY Are you allowed to say that?
PALMINTERI Yeah, you are allowed to say that. You know, when Dr. Fauci says certain things, I don't want to get into him because he's an Italian-American, but when you stop us from doing certain things that, you know, Bill... I mean, I've got to be careful here, I get fired up. When I get fired up...
O'REILLY I want you to get fired up. Come on.
PALMINTERI No, when I got when I first time I got COVID, I didn't even know. My wife got it, and my wife almost died, and I think about it because my best friend died, they were in the hospital at the same time. He died, and do you know what? She almost died. But thank God to Jesus Christ that she didn't die. She could have gotten certain things, but they wouldn't give it to her. They wouldn't give it to her. Then finally, she got some of it, and I'm not good at remembering the names, and it pulled her out of it. Thank God, she's okay, but if they would have been able to give it to my friend that, who had it before, he would have lived. I'm only saying this to cut to, the second time I got COVID, I got real sick. And being who, you know, who I am as a celebrity, I know all the doctors in the big hospitals. And they said, we can't give him that. The government took it away from us. And I said, I want what Trump had, that, because I knew what he got. I said I want that. They said, We can't do it. So I called another one of my very high-profile friends, and he said to me, don't worry about it. I'll have the doctor there in three or four hours. Don't worry. He'll give it to you himself. I was like, great. Because it was a lot, whatever, I think it was $9,000. I said, not a problem, get him here. The guy comes, I'm sick as a dog, temperature, I am sick. Trouble breathing, I mean, I'm getting ready to go to the hospital. He walks over to me, he goes, how long have you had this? I said this is the third day. He goes, okay, you'll be fine. He gives me the intravenous pill, right? After the intravenous, he gives me another thing called a vitamin thing. And he goes, just rest now, you'll be better tomorrow. I'm like, better? I'm looking at it, better tomorrow? I'm a wreck, right? I swear on my mother and father, Bill, I woke up at four in the morning, gone. It was gone. It was like it never happened. I had my bathrobe on, I was sweating, I went, what the hell? I slept downstairs on the big recliner. I didn't want to go near my wife. It was gone. And I said, well, why didn't they do this for all these people that were sick? Why didn't they? So they gave us a shot, a shot that they knew didn't work, that they knew could get people sick. That is wrong, that's wrong.
O'REILLY They're looking at it now, interestingly enough, it hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but Fauci's top guy is now being investigated by the Department of Justice for doing just what you've described, not being upfront about the medicinal potential of certain drugs. But the government, I don't trust the government.
PALMINTERI No, no, I know.
O'REILLY I'd rather trust your guys in the Bronx.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY At least if they say something, I know they're gonna do it, even if it's bad.
PALMINTERI Bill, you can answer me this question. Why is it when both Democrats and Republicans do something wrong, nobody ever goes to jail? They go, yep, we caught them, red-handed, but nobody goes to jail.
O'REILLY Yeah, it's hard to get the convictions because of the lawyers, and you know.
PALMINTERI Nobody. Bush lied, nothing happens. Hillary lied, nothing happens, everybody lies. Nobody goes to jail. I mean, so what is this? Sometimes I think they're in the game together. I think the Republicans, they're behind closed doors, they're going, all right, I'll blame you, you blame me.
O'REILLY But there's gotta be a reason to deny you medicine that would cure you that fast. There's gotta be a reason for that.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY And we don't know what the reason is, because...
PALMINTERI The reason was they wanted everybody to get the shot. The money.
O'REILLY Could be, but Bush, Trump I should say, he did a good job. I was in some of that with that Operation Warp Speed.
PALMINTERI Right.
O'REILLY He got it out there, and he made deals with these pharmaceutical companies who made a bloody fortune.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY But the deals didn't go far enough. And I don't know if the president knew what the potential was or not. I guess he had it. I don't know. You know, you would like to know what he had. I would too.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY So.
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O'REILLY When you go on a set, now you're an icon, and what an icon is is somebody who's established themselves to the point where you may not like them, but you gotta respect them.
PALMINTERI Yes.
O'REILLY Okay, it's like Babe Ruth. All right, he's this fat guy who has a plate in there that goes 450 feet. You know, you say that's the Babe.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY We don't really, you know, he's doing crazy stuff post midnight, it doesn't matter. You're one of those icon guys, and has that seeped in?
PALMINTERI No, no, and it's good that it doesn't because I learned something, because I was in therapy, I still am once in a while, I go back. And what I learned from that is that I take my work very seriously, but I don't take my fame seriously. I don't.
O'REILLY No, the fame doesn't mean that much?
PALMINTERI No.
O'REILLY You act, you've got your own restaurant.
PALMINTERI No question, Bill. But I don't take it seriously to the point of I don't know who I am. I know who I am.
O'REILLY You're the same guy you watch.
PALMINTERI Same, my friends who grew up with me in the street.
O'REILLY Yeah, me too.
PALMINTERI Say, you're the same guy, Chazz.
O'REILLY Well, my friends go a step further. How come you're not in a penitentiary? That's what they say to me. I mean, really, these guys that I've known since I'm six years old.
PALMINTERI That's funny, yeah.
O'REILLY They go, You should be in jail. What are you doing?
PALMINTERI Yeah, no, my friends say you're the same crazy guy you've always been. Because I am. Because fame, I know fame will go away. And you know, it will go away. You know, and it does. And I...
O'REILLY Well, the fame, but the accomplishment won't.
PALMINTERI Like, my work will last forever. That's what I'm saying.
O’REILLY Right. The Bronx Tale's not going away.
PALMINTERI There's only two things you can leave behind after you're gone, in my opinion. Your art and your children. And I want to leave good, great kids, and I want to leave my art. That's all.
O'REILLY Do you have any struggles with the kids?
PALMINTERI Oh God, thank you, no.
O'REILLY No, they were good kids to raise?
PALMINTERI They were good kids.
O'REILLY They bought in?
PALMINTERI They were brought in, and they were great kids.
O'REILLY Did you ever have to tone the kids down because they were the sires of a famous actor?
PALMINTERI I toned them down, no, no, I mean.
O'REILLY Yeah, a little strut around and stuff.
PALMINTERI No, they weren't like that.
O'REILLY No.
PALMINTERI No, in fact, they don't talk about me. In fact, when my son had his first play date when he was seven, eight, I'll never forget it, when all the parents came over to the house, I opened the door, and each one would go, I'm sorry, you're Chazz Palminteri? I said yes. Dante's your son? I said, yes. They went, Oh my God. Never said a word.
O'REILLY No, they never did.
PALMINTERI They never knew.
O'REILLY No.
PALMINTERI They never knew.
O'REILLY See, my kids think I'm so obnoxious, they don't wanna talk about me.
PALMINTERI My kids probably, too. They don't want to, you know what, the only time they really started digging it, I'll tell you when, when they started getting just old enough where we walked into a really good restaurant and my son would walk in, and he'd say, we like a... And they'd say I'm sorry. And then he would wait until I walked in. And I'd walk in right behind him, and they would go, oh, Mr. Palminteri, how are you? Just give us a minute. And he would go...
O'REILLY You know what it is for my kids? First class air. They get first-class air.
PALMINTERI First class.
O'REILLY Right. That's all.
PALMINTERI That's all they want.
O'REILLY That's it.
PALMINTERI That's It.
O'REILLY They don't care about, you know, We'll Do It Live, No Spin Zone, the O'Reilly Factor. They go, Dad, flying first class?
PALMINTERI Are we flying his class? My kids used to say that, and they used to say this other thing, when we got to the hotel, Dad, is it a single door or double doors? Because they knew if it was double doors, it was a huge suite. If it was single doors, it was nice.
O'REILLY I see. So they were looking at the hotel accommodations.
PALMINTERI They were looking at the double doors.
O'REILLY Right.
PALMINTERI But, look, were they a little spoiled? Yes. But they had to work. They always did something. They had to go to school, they had to work hard.
O'REILLY Final question for you on this first round, we're gonna hold Chazz over for our Premium Members just for about 10 minutes. Some of the guys you grew up with didn't make it.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY Drugs, all that. Levittown, it was big, it came in after the Vietnam War and narcotics. When you watch that happen, because you have emotion invested in all the neighborhood people, right?
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY Is there any kind of thing that you could have done that you didn't do?
PALMINTERI I don't think so. Not at that age, no. Some of them, see, back then, it was different, Bill. Good guys and bad guys would all hang out together because we were all from the buildings, and we would hang out on the corner. And when the bad guys did something, they would slide off. When the good guys did, they would slide off. But we were all together all the time. It was always like tempting, tempting, you know, but there was really, I see, I never really, did I get high? Yes. Did I use a pot? Did I get cocaine? Yes. Back then, I was in a band when I was 19 years old, in the 60s, so that's, you know. But I never was, I always was an artist, like music, art, poetry, writing. I just, I just was blessed, my mother and father wrote the saddest thing in life is a waste of talent. Put it in my room, my two sisters' rooms. My two sisters were very successful. And then I was the last, and it was really my parents who just, my father, don't waste your life. Don't let the streets, don't waste your life here. Do something with your life. He instilled that, he made me.
O'REILLY But if you didn't have a dad, it would have been tough.
PALMINTERI It might've been, yeah.
O'REILLY You know, and that's what you're dealing with a lot of kids today. Fathers split.
PALMINTERI Yeah.
O'REILLY They got nobody over them, and they go the wrong way.
PALMINTERI Yeah, and I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong having, and I say this about people that, you know, don't be proud that you have four or five illegitimate kids. You know, I don't care, even if you're rich and you pay, you're not giving the five love. I don't care.
O'REILLY You've gotta be there.
PALMINTERI You've gotta be there.
O'REILLY You've gotta show up.
PALMINTERI You've gotta show up, but writing a check is easy. Yeah, yeah, all right. Right. Be there, be at his games, talk to him. That's different.
O'REILLY All right, so we're going to break away from Chazz, and we very much appreciate his time, of course, and we'll have a 10-minute overtime with our Premium and Concierge Members starting right now.
