O'REILLY They suppressed the other side, which drives me nuts. 

 

RIVERA You could go nose to nose with any of them. 

 

O'REILLY Come on, gotta live in the real world, Geraldo. 

 

RIVERA I have a silly, cockeyed optimism about life. 

 

O'REILLY So it might be the right word. When was the last time I've been wrong? Never, you know that. Hey, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Welcome to another We'll Do It Live broadcast, and this is a different one. So I think next week we have Roseanne, and then we have Stephen A. Smith coming in. And those are the usual guests, and we get as much as we can out of them to make it interesting for you. I think they're both good, Roseanne and Stephen A., and particularly Roseanne, I'm going to have to hire security for that one. But tonight, today, this week, this month, because we keep them up, we're going to do the great midterm election debate. And that's going to be between me and Geraldo Rivera. Now, you may have heard of Geraldo. He began his career under U.S. Grant right after the Civil War and has been a presence ever since. And then you wouldn't be watching me if you didn't know who the hell I was. So this should be pretty lively. The only ground rule, and I usually don't do any ground rules, but I had to do this, is that Geraldo and I are not gonna discuss immigration because we have done that and done that and done, and it's the same merry-go-round. And just for your information, Rivera and I do agree. That I should have a softer touch, but then we kind of diverge about the agency, the goal of the agency a difficulty it is to round up 15 million people or at least check them out and you're going to have mistakes made. So I don't know if that kind of a debate goes anywhere. So we're putting that aside. So here now is the very famous, perhaps more famous than I am, Geraldo Rivera. Appreciate it, I know you're busy and all of that for, especially for an old guy. You have to check in with the clinic like every day, right? 

 

RIVERA That's why I'm here, leave that clinic down the-. 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, make sure you're breathing. Still got the hair though, the hair is still there. 

 

RIVERA Yeah, yeah, good, good hair. 

 

O'REILLY This is not part of the debate, but I'm very curious. Does it bother you at all that CNN calls you for one specific reason: to bash Trump? So I have a best-selling book out now, Confronting America: What Has to Change. Thank you. And I'm the best-selling non-fiction author on earth. I can't get- 

 

RIVERA 22nd book in a row, is that it? Is that right? 22nd? 

 

O'REILLY We have 20 number one New York Times bestsellers. It's never been done; it will never be duplicated. 

 

RIVERA Well, you should be proud of yourself. 

 

O'REILLY I can't get booked on CNN, or MS, or the networks, The Today Show, GMA. I submit to you that you would not be booked on those programs unless they were fairly confident that you were going to come in and hammer Donald Trump, who you've known for more than 30 years. That's why they want you. Does that bother you? 

 

RIVERA Well, I have to contradict your premise somewhat. I am sure that they like having a captive former Fox person that they can bring to center stage and give the appearance as well as the fact of more fairness and broader kind of points of view. But do I fulfill a role for them? I'm not sure. I'm sure. I think that...

 

O'REILLY Come on. You know you do.  

 

RIVERA Well, let me just say, after 56 years in the business, I think that I am a brand that comes with a whole, for instance, I'll give you an example, Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk gets shot, and Jimmy Kimmel goes after Charlie Kirk before the body is even in the ground, when the widow is still in the midst of the most egregious grieving, terrible grieving. And I was on with Wolf Blitzer, and Wolf was looking for me because Kimmel had been kind of derailed. They said that they were talking about taking him off the air. They did take him off the air for a couple of the cool-down days. But everyone else in the mainstream business was talking about the peril to freedom of speech, that affecting Kimmel, by going up to Kimmel criticizing Kimmel,  was enabling the right wing to destroy the freedom of speech. I said, come on, Wolf, that's, you have to have some, some decency, some, dignity over the fact that this poor lady has suffered this terrible grievous loss in front of the whole wide world, and the guy's barely dead, as I said. So, you know, there are times when I contradict the...

 

O'REILLY But it's not about you. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the discomfort level. If CNN calls me today and says, you know, O'Reilly, you're right. We have banished all non-liberal voices. It's wrong. Now we got a new boss at Paramount. So we're going to change, and you're invited. I would go on. I, I would, go on CNN. MS, I don't, I don't, I don't think I would. 

 

RIVERA Why not? You're such an acute observer of the scene. You could go nose to nose with any of them. 

 

O'REILLY I don't fear that, but they're smear merchants, they're gutter snipes, and I don't want to really associate with that element anymore. 

 

RIVERA I'm sorry that you have had more than your share. 

 

O'REILLY So, but CNN, I would go on, but I know why they booked you, and I know what they are looking for. Now, you don't play the game at all times, you're not pandering to them, but they're so, they're exclusionary, they suppress the other side, which drives me nuts. 

 

RIVERA I know, but they don't have 22 bestsellers, and you do, so. 

 

O'REILLY Well, okay. I mean, I'm not comparing my success to Wolf Blitzer. I, I mean, he's a U-boat captain, and I'm just a regular guy. Okay, so let's get to the politics. So I'm living in Texas, and I actually lived there for two years. I worked for Channel 8 in Dallas, and I've got a ballot. 

 

RIVERA You do, really? For real? You lived in Dallas now? 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, two years. I didn't know that. My son's in Austin. And back then it was a traditional, way more traditional than it is now. But I've got a ballot in my hand that says Paxton on the ballot. There's no way I want to vote for Paxton. There's just no way. I mean, I don't think he is the quality that I want in the Senate, okay? But then I got Talarico on the ballot, who to me is a loon. Just as utterances about Christianity are so crazy. So what do I do? I tell my audience you have to vote for the movement, not the person. So if you're a traditional American and you believe that the country is the strongest in the world because of capitalism, because of the way that we have conducted ourselves over the past 250 years. Then you can't vote for Talarico or El Sayed, all of these guys. You can't, because they want to dismantle the country. But at the same time, you've got Paxton standing in your face. So it's a very difficult choice coming up in the midterms for millions of Americans. Am I wrong? 

 

RIVERA No, I think that you're absolutely right and eerily similar to my own kind of dilemma when choosing a candidate, because Paxton is clearly a flawed individual. I mean, as a person who's been the subject of multiple indictments, he, he, he just can't seem to stay out of trouble. He's a terrible debater. I don't know how he is as an attorney general. I'm not a Texan, so I don't have to suffer. His wisdom, or lack of it, in that regard. Talarico, I think, seems, you know, I've got to listen a couple of times, but I think that he is, you know, far and away more articulate, the more wise, educated, worldly, sympathetic, compassionate, his religion doesn't freak me out, some people's religions freak me out. His is the way he applies it, seems reasonable. I think Talarico could be, you know. 

 

O'REILLY So you would vote over Paxton, you would vote for Talarico. 

 

RIVERA I would definitely vote Talarico over Paxton. 

 

O'REILLY But you have to know, by casting that ballot, that Talarico is going to vote for all the radical propositions that come his way in the Senate. Open borders, defund the police, whatever it may be that Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the rest of the leadership of that crew, he will go along. You have to know that. So you're basically, Geraldo Rivera, voting to dismantle the United States of America. 

 

RIVERA That's harsh, Bill again, I think that...

 

O'REILLY You gotta be in the real world, Geraldo. You gotta be in the real world.

 

RIVERA That is your truth, and I, you know, I give you yours, you give me mine. I think that there's a possibility that with AOC, with Bernie Sanders, with El-Sayed, with Mamdani, particularly Mamdani, the mayor of New York, there's the possibility that there is, for the first time on the far left, a movement that is woke, I think AOC calls it woke 2.0, that they're moving away from the old defund the police crap of the George Floyd era, and they're becoming more responsible citizens. At least in the way our friend, the president, has welcomed the mayor of New York, I think that clearly Trump sees something in Mamdani that a million New Yorkers also see. Yeah. I think. Be careful about the broad strokes.

 

O'REILLY I don't have to be careful because I know what Bernie Sanders wants to do, and that's imposed communism. Bernie Sanders is a communist, all right, on this country. There's no doubt about it. 

 

RIVERA I'm a capitalist. 

 

O'REILLY He's not a moderate. 

 

RIVERA And I'm a Zionist and a capitalist, you know, so I think that on the issue of... 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, but you're voting, then, for somebody, a movement, that is gonna come in and who, they don't like Jews, cross the board, all right? You're voting against your own belief, you're voting against your own belief system. That's what you're doing, and I'm going, why? Stay home, you have a right to do that as an American. Why do you wanna vote against your own belief system? 

 

RIVERA  I have a silly cockeyed optimism about life. 

 

O'REILLY Silly might be the right word. 

 

RIVERA You and I are both accidents of creation. We came from no place and, you know, geographically, within probably 15 miles of each other, had similar or different tracks, and we are self-made in every regard. We made it even though you come from more of a conservative background. Than I come from more of a liberal background. I'm more of, I see myself as someone who believes that the state can improve the life of its citizens in an active way. And I think that there is a chance that the best of the left gets that they have really to assuage the misgivings people like me have about...

 

O'REILLY Are you willing to give them a chance even though they hate Jews and you're half Jewish? 

 

RIVERA I'm not half Jewish. I'm all Jewish. I'm also...

 

O'REILLY Wasn't your mother Catholic? 

 

RIVERA But no, I was going to say both. My mother is Jewish. My father is Roman Catholic. I like to think that I love both of those. All right. 

 

O'REILLY All right. Now, let's put Geraldo aside. So I'm not taking that chance, all right, because I came up and you came up through capitalism. And capitalism means that you work hard and you develop your talents, which both of us have, undeniably. I'm handing over, okay, my autonomy to some government agency, and I'll tell you why. You think France is in good shape. They're a very liberal country, are they in good shape? 

 

RIVERA They're in terrible shape. 

 

O'REILLY Okay. How about the UK? The UK can't pay its bills. 

 

RIVERA Similarly, similarly. 

 

O'REILLY They're out of shape, right? How about Cuba? You speak Spanish. You want to move to Cuba? 

 

RIVERA I think that Marco Rubio would make an excellent president for them. 

 

O'REILLY So you don't want to go to Cuba, you don't want to go to France, you don't want to go to the UK. You want to go to Vietnam? You wanna go over there? 

 

RIVERA Vietnam's done pretty good. Not bad. Vietnam's not bad. 

 

O'REILLY Not bad? Vietnam, have you been? 

 

RIVERA It's a lot better than it was during the war. 

 

O'REILLY Okay, so you want somebody following you around all day. Is that what you want? 

 

RIVERA I don't know. I have never personally, in my best experience, I don't look over my shoulder. I understand what you're saying. I understand. 

 

O'REILLY You don't want to move to Vietnam. You'd last a week in Vietnam. 

 

RIVERA I don't wanna move to anywhere. 

 

O'REILLY  China. How about China? Big country. 

 

RIVERA Everybody in the world wants to live in the United States. 

 

O'REILLY Right. You want to move to China? 

 

RIVERA I do not. 

 

O'REILLY You want to go to Beijing? 

 

RIVERA I've been many times. 

 

O'REILLY Oh, you want to go there? I'll pick up your expenses. 

 

RIVERA You might. You might. 

 

O'REILLY You don't want to go to China. 

 

RIVERA I like my life here and I like I think that the United States has the unique ability to spread Americanism to the world. I think what you are hinting at and I think it really is a very, very important debate to have that we haven't started yet. Our old alliances are shattered. They are very unreliable now. We can't, it's very difficult for us to, as Jews, with only 15 million Jews in the world, it's difficult to feel any sense of security with the attitude. 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, but you would vote for a party who doesn't like the Jews. This is what's driving me crazy. But let's get back to geopolitics for a minute. There isn't a country on earth, nor has there ever been, that imposed communism, socialism on its people, that succeeded. Not one. Yet you, Geraldo Rivera, will give them the benefit of the doubt they may improve. 

 

RIVERA I am a pragmatic idealist. Given the strengths of this country, given the wealth of this country, given the diversity indeed of this country, I believe that we can move away from rigid rule by party. You very rarely see anybody on the Republican side or the Democratic side, you know, jumping ship, and having an idea different than leadership. 

 

O'REILLY Well, Fetterman is the only one. 

 

RIVERA When we were growing up, when Nelson Rockefeller was the governor of New York, Louis Lefkowitz was the attorney general, Jacob Javits was the senator, all three of them Republican, the mayor, the senator, the governor. All Republican, and yet they were liberals and conservatives within the group. In other words, the fact that they were all Republican didn't mean that they were all conservative. It meant that they were Republican in the traditional, their party was Republican. They would vote with the teachers sometimes, sometimes with the city. They would vote to go to war, but to stay home. It wasn't the same party divisions that we have now. 

 

O'REILLY And the reason we have it is that the powerful people in the House and the Senate can tell their constituency, you either vote our way, and Nancy Pelosi was an expert at this, or we'll cut you off, and you won't get any money for re-election. And then on the Republican side, you have such a strong presence running that show, Donald Trump, that if you go against Trump, he's gonna try to get somebody else in there. And that's why Paxton, instead of Cornyn, is running against Talarico. So it's gone, it's never coming back, this moderation of, let's consider who has the strongest argument. We're doing that here, you and I are doing that. 

 

RIVERA I hope you're wrong about moderation. 

 

O'REILLY I'm not wrong. When was the last time I've been wrong? Never. You know that. 

 

RIVERA Don't you think that AOC, that Mamdani, that El Sayed, that they sound more moderate than you are used to them sounding? 

 

O'REILLY They are all people who want the big government to run the country. They don't want individualism, they don't tradition, they want to destroy it. And I don't care what you put on their face, they can make their face up. That's who they are. Now, let's get into some issues, because what I think you're doing is, and you admitted it, you're kind of an idealistic guy in your old age, and you're hoping I don't hope. All right. I analyze. 

 

RIVERA Not too much time for hope left for us, buddy. 

 

O'REILLY I don't hope. So I see both parties, but the Democrats in particular, going affordability is the big issue, affordability, okay? And then I said, okay, how are you going to impose affordability on the United States? They don't have an answer to that. There's not one program because we don't do that here. We have a free marketplace. The marketplace dictates, not the government. That's what AOC and Bernie Sanders want to change. They want the free marketplace, they want to call the shots. So the shots are that Rivera and O'Reilly have too much money. So we're taking it from them, and then we're gonna give it to somebody who doesn't have a lot of money. Okay, that's their whole platform. And if you can cite me one, just one example of Democrats coming forth and saying, this is how you're going to get prices down. It's not there. 

 

RIVERA I have to think. 

 

O'REILLY You don't have to think, it isn't there. 

 

RIVERA I think that, here's what I think. I think under Biden, in the post-COVID era, we had the need of the central government to go way out of its usual bounds and rescue the American economy. If it were left to the free market people, there's a good chance or a chance. 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, but that's like a war, that's a disaster. 

 

RIVERA Would have sunk us...

 

O'REILLY We all understand emergency measures. 

 

RIVERA And the same thing with the '08 collapse of the savings and loans. If it wasn't for the government moving in in a socialistic way and bailing out the United States, that we would have lost the cherish... 

 

O'REILLY Bush the Younger did that. Okay? 

 

RIVERA Yes. 

 

O'REILLY And sometimes you have to, that's why we have a government in Washington, sometimes that there are things out of control...But I'm talking about day-to-day. You know what I'm talking about, and you can't give me one affordability thing. So when these Democrats say to me, oh, it's all about the economy and lowering gas prices and lowering food prices and insurance prices, and I said, well how are you gonna do that? They don't know. And then I follow up with, been in California lately? All right, Democrats control the whole state, top to bottom. Is there anything affordable in California? Lettuce? Grapes? Anything? Nothing! 

 

RIVERA In terms of cost of living, you're right. That's why the Democrats have made it an issue. The cost of living is out of control. 

 

O'REILLY But they can't do anything about it! 

 

RIVERA You and I have to, we are self-made men in every regard. Our parents are very, came from very, my dad, one of 17 children. I mean, it was a big leap for you and for me to get into the middle class. And then, because of the weird timing where our media companies were awash with cash, they threw a lot of it our way. And we could re-educate ourselves or post-educate ourselves. We need to have a system where me and you are not the oddball outs, where we are, where there is a, every generation has a whole bunch of self-made men and women who take chances. Like look at the way the tech revolution has happened. It's happened. In an organic way that is deeply impressive. And I love the, although I am worried about the excesses of it, I love the exuberance of this time. And it's a good time to be an American. And I think if we celebrate that rather than the divisions, even to Talarico and Paxton. Talarico and Paxton, whoever wins in Texas, the world's not gonna end. Texas is not gonna change very much. One way or the other. 

 

O'REILLY Texas will change because it's already changed dramatically. All right, let's move on to the Democratic Party, which is now favored... 

 

RIVERA I'm a Republican. 

 

O'REILLY ...the midterms. I know. But earlier you were saying that you're going to... 

 

RIVERA Progressive. 

 

O'REILLY Right. You're going to broach some progressive loon. Anyway, the Democratic Party is the party of taxation. So this is again, when you go to affordability, you're looking at these people, though. Now I pay close to 60% of my income to various governments, 60. My fault, I could be living in Florida and cut that tax bill in half. And Florida has better services than here in New York. Okay? How does that happen? It happens because there's so much corruption in New York that it's very, very hard to get anything done, and there's a lot of money that's outright stolen and there is nobody watching that. That's how it comes. But the Democratic Party itself is, the oligarchs, where is the tax on the rich? I'm in that territory. Just call me Vladimir. I'm an oligarch. And they want to come in and take more than 60, 6-0 percent. Of my earnings. You think that's okay? 

 

RIVERA I think that when you compare it to other free enterprise nations, even ours is a mix of socialism and free enterprise capitalism, neither is a perfect model, and neither is a perfect comparison. The problem with, let's take New York, the city where I was born and where we both came to fame. New York has a lot of poor people. Just really, really poor people. The system has, it's not even right to say the system failed them. The system was not built with them in mind. They have no way, I mean, there's no way out. 

 

RIVERA Well, let me stop you there. It's free education from the time you're two years old to the time you graduate from college in New York City. Free. And you're saying they have no way out? 

 

RIVERA I'm saying they have a very hard road to hone. 

 

O'REILLY The road is to go to school. 

 

RIVERA The job is to get to the garment center or dishwashers or apple pickers, babysitters. 

 

O'REILLY You know, and this is a socialist tenant. If you are giving an American... 

 

RIVERA It's a compassionate tenant.  

 

O'REILLY Or a foreign national, because there are plenty of them. 40% of the workforce in New York City is born overseas. If you are giving them the opportunity to get a free education, plus lunches, plus daycare, whatever it may be, from age two to post-grad high school, you're telling me that the system doesn't work? Anybody can become educated. Can develop their skills and then they'll be able to compete in the marketplace. 

 

RIVERA But everybody doesn't have ambition, though, Bill. 

 

O'REILLY Well, what are you supposed to do? 

 

RIVERA I grew up like you, Ayn Rand was our Bible. Self-reliance. 

 

O'REILLY Not me, she was never my Bible. I'm an independent thinker, but wait, let's stay on your thread. So a lot of people don't have ambition, okay? That's true. They're lazy, they're drug addicted, they are alcohol addicted, whatever it may be. I'm supposed to pay for them? 

 

RIVERA They also have family needs that prohibit them from being all they're capable of being. They have, you know, an infirm, younger sibling. The parents are... 

 

O'REILLY There's always that, and you and I raise a lot of money to help those people. Okay, and we Americans are the most generous people on earth giving to charity, but you're telling me I should support people who don't have ambition, are too lazy to compete in the capitalistic system? Go move to Cuba, then you don't have to compete. 

 

RIVERA How do you sort them out, Bill? You can't, you can't be so harsh and judgmental. 

 

O'REILLY Sure I can. They're taking my money, and they want to take my house. If Mamdani could take my house, and I don't have a second place in New York, and he's gonna run into trouble with the courts with that, but they wanna take my stuff in addition to my taxes so they can give it to some layabout. And yeah, that's wrong.  

 

RIVERA Crime is at historic lows, so we're all happy about that. 

 

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RIVERA Now, perhaps with crimes suppressed to the extent that it is, maybe now... 

 

O'REILLY Do you know why it's suppressed? 

 

RIVERA You'll have more success stories. Maybe now you'll have, you know, more happy endings. 

 

O'REILLY Maybe, maybe, maybe. Do you know why crime is suppressed in the major urban centers? Do you why? 

 

RIVERA I have an idea of why. I'm sure it's a lot of reasons, but I think the economy is stronger than we think. I think that... 

 

O'REILLY There is one major reason the stats are down, and that is the very liberal DAs, like Alvin Bragg, don't bring the cases. They don't prosecute the cases. 

 

RIVERA I disagree with that. I disagree. 

 

O'REILLY The stats say it. The stats say it. 60%, I think the number is, in New York City, of people who are arrested and booked don't ever get prosecuted. People can walk down the street, and this happened to Rick Moranis, the actor, walked down a street, punch him in the face, where he had to get reconstructive surgery, broken nose, all of that. The guy who did it, nothing happened to him. Okay? 

 

RIVERA I don't know the facts of that case, but if they were true... 

 

O'REILLY I do, I know Moranis! 

 

RIVERA If it is true that the only reason crime is down is because prosecutors are lazy or look the other way, then crime would be back up. So I disagree with you. Something fundamental has happened. 

 

O'REILLY Why? If it doesn't go on the books as a crime, the only way to accurately assess the safety level in any place is to talk to the victim, is to compile information about the victim. 

 

RIVERA I believe, I believe in, you know, I look back on the passing of our friend, Gloria Steinem, a wonderful, creative person, and the whole notion of no child left behind. Those, you know, women have equal rights to men. Those are wonderful liberal kind of goals that have accomplished huge benefits for society, you know, to just be, you know, Scrooge and just say, this is all mine, you and I, don't do that. You and I share the wealth. You know...

 

O'REILLY But I don't want to be forced by Bernie Sanders or somebody in Minnesota to take my money and to waste it. 

 

RIVERA How do you, how would you, let me just turn this around one second. How, how do you explain Mamdani beating Andrew Cuomo, former governor, as mayor of New York? 

 

O'REILLY Mamdani came in... 

 

RIVERA How do you explain a million votes to the... 

 

O'REILLY He captured the young liberal vote in New York City, which is substantial. And he captured the minority vote with free stuff promises. And he's very articulate. He's like Sayed in Michigan. He's very articulated, much better campaigner than Cuomo and Curtis. And he got in and said, I'm going to make your life easier. In the end, he's not going to make anybody's life easier. The city is going to fall apart, you mark my words. We'll have this on tape forever, okay, because he doesn't have any discipline. Mamdani is a communist, he wants to control the means of production, he's already said that. I want to control everything that happens in this city. 

 

RIVERA I think you're way too pessimistic. 

 

O'REILLY Instead of letting the marketplace dictate. But you're right in the sense that the marketplace can be cruel. You are absolutely 100% right. But the reward is so much bigger than the downside in that system and all the other systems don't work. 

 

RIVERA Cruelty cannot be policy. Cruelty cannot be your lead punch. 

 

O'REILLY Look, I have no problem with that. The government is not to be cruel. That's why the words cruel and unusual punishment are in the Constitution. I agree. What you want is efficiency. You want to give people a chance to prosper, which is why 20 million foreign nationals have come in here. They don't want to stay in Honduras or Venezuela. They want to come here because the opportunity still exists. 

 

RIVERA Wouldn't you want to? Wouldn't you? I think that, here's where we differ. And I'm not going to get into immigration, but I just will point out this one thing. They closed the border. Trump has done a successful, indeed, magnificent job in closing the border. Why? Because sometimes cruelty works better than compassion. Biden was come on, come on down. Trump was stay away or you're toast. Plus that, plus enhancing the Department of Homeland Security. He stopped them coming in. Now's the time. Now's the time for those who have been here for decades and decades. These are exactly the people that you and I love, that we style ourselves after. 

 

O'REILLY So let me ask you this. 

 

RIVERA The rugged individuals. And then their broad shoulders carry the weight of capitalism. 

 

O'REILLY Broad shoulders carrying weight sounds like a rock tune. Let me ask you this. Why hasn't Congress passed a humane immigration law? Had a chance with Clinton? No. Had a chance with Bush the Younger? No, Obama, eight years, nothing. Why hasn't Congress done it? Trump can't do that. Okay, that's out of his purview. He can enforce, but he can't legislate. And Congress has said that. 

 

RIVERA I don't know why you say that for the last two years. He's had the whole government. He said it all because the whole 

 

O'REILLY The security department is under his authority, so he can give orders to it. But if Congress passes a humane law, if Congress passed a humane law, which they should, which they should. 

 

RIVERA He could recommend something other than, you know, some of these bizarre tariff laws. 

 

O'REILLY All right, but my question to you is why has Congress not done it? 

 

RIVERA Because Congress is dysfunctional and ideological. They stay in their ruts. They don't reach out. It's very, the old days of John McCain are gone. 

 

O'REILLY So they're all mean guys? The Democrats are mean guys, too? I haven't seen any...

 

RIVERA I would say they are both in it for themselves. 

 

O'REILLY And I'm not going to argue with that. Now, the Democratic Party... 

 

RIVERA A lot of hate that goes on in Washington is disgusting. 

 

O'REILLY Your party wants an open border. They want to go back to the Biden stuff. They had no objection to the Biden stuff. You heard Kamala Harris and Sayed the other day in Michigan going, oh no, we don't need this. We don't want Homeland Security. We do not need border protection. No, let them all in. 

 

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RIVERA What is fascinating in Michigan, since you bring it up, is whether or not Black people will buy into El-Sayed. 

 

O'REILLY That's the key. 

 

RIVERA That is a big, if the Democrats can rebuild what was their coalition, then I think they will run the table this time. I think it's... 

 

O'REILLY Well, I'm not making any predictions because things are going to happen. So if the Iranian situation is finally resolved, those prices are going to go down fast, and that'll be an advantage to the Republicans. 

 

RIVERA I agree. 

 

O'REILLY So it's a big if, and I was in the White House on Wednesday, and that's what the president and I and Marco Rubio were talking about, how to speed up that process. If nothing happens, then the odds shift heavily to the Democratic Party. But I'll submit to you that half, at least half of the voters, probably more, don't know what the deuce is going on. They're on this, they're at sports betting, they're running around doing what they wanna do. They don't own macroeconomics from Bugs Bunny. I'll admit to you, that is a truism. You disagree? 

 

RIVERA I tell you what I hate, I hate that where you look where the big wealth is being generated now, data centers, artificial intelligence data centers, crypto, and gambling. These are all lowbrow, uninspiring. 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, but it's a free society, it's not illegal. 

 

RIVERA That preys on the weakest, the most people-minded, the least able to protect themselves. 

 

O'REILLY Those people aren't voting anyway, Geraldo, they're not taking the time to vote. They got to get their heroin that day. The regular folks, okay, and that is what I have made my living on for analyzing news for 30 years plus. Many of them, particularly younger don't know anything. They don't know how Theodore Roosevelt went up against the big titans like Morgan, Carnegie, and beat them. They do not know that. So it is possible to do it because those same laws are in play. But nobody wants to do that in Congress because money drives their power base. And that should be cleaned up. I think you and I both agree on that. 

 

RIVERA Where does the left get the energy against these institutions? Part of the way they get it is to look at what is happening and how does someone of modest means who gets elected to high office, Congress or even to the Senate, how do they become so enormously wealthy in office? 

 

O'REILLY Because they inside trade. 

 

RIVERA Because they do all those things that, if it were you and I, would be illegal, and I think that that's what we have to understand... 

 

O'REILLY Congress is responsible for those laws. 

 

RIVERA But the Republicans have controlled Congress for the last two years. They've done nothing. 

 

O'REILLY What did they do under Obama for eight years? 

 

RIVERA Not, not enough, nothing. 

 

O'REILLY Not anything! So they're all in that same... 

 

RIVERA But this is, but this, this is my point. This is where the energy for the left comes from. This is where AOC gets her... 

 

O'REILLY Yeah, but they're selling you a false premise. 

 

RIVERA Righteous indignation. She gets it from watching people become billionaires when they're in office.

 

O'REILLY Well, wait, wait. Number one, the people have a right to become billionaires. So if you have a mind that invents AI, SI, whatever I it is this week, okay? It's like every other industry that started after the Civil War. If you invent electricity, if you find oil in Texas, you're gonna become fabulously wealthy. That's part of capitalism. That is not a corruptive force unless you do it illegally. And there are some people blessed with the mind to make these machines, to make this technology that everybody wants. And when that happens, they become fabulously wealthy. So what do the Democrats want? They want to punish those people. That's absurd. All right. Geraldo Rivera, the great American midterm debate. 

 

RIVERA American whatever, whatever. 

 

O'REILLY So I hope you guys enjoyed it, spread the word. It's free on BillOReilly.com, and my book ties right into this, Confronting America: What Has to Change, because all the problems that Geraldo and I just discussed are fixable, they're all fixable. And Americans are not, we'll never be a socialist country. This is a trend, a powerful trend, a lot of foreign money coming in to boost it, as my reporting on Neville Roy Singham out of Shanghai, China, proves. You had him with Soros and a Swiss guy, Wyss, unbelievable, but we don't hear about that in the media because they suppress those stories. But Geraldo and I never suppress anything, which is why we both should be in a penitentiary. So thanks for taking the time. It's always good to have you, Geraldo. I'm glad you're doing well.