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Jan. 25, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
31:37
Bill O'Reilly - January 24th, Hour 2

Bill O’Reilly, author of Killing the Witches, The Horror of Salem gives us his take on the Trump win in New Hampshire, and it’s not what you would expect.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Leonard Skinner, it's Simple Man, and that can only mean one thing on this radio program, and that is all things Simple Man, self-proclaimed, and that means all things O'Reilly, Bill O'Reilly, and all things Bill O'Reilly at O'Reilly.com.
Bill O'Reilly.com.
Sir, happy post first in the nation primary aftermath day, sir.
Yeah, I'm not celebrating too much.
I like the exercise, though.
I thought it was.
By the way, it's like asking people, how are you doing?
My day sucks.
How's yours?
It's late in the Northeast, you know?
I mean, well, you'll have to move to the free state of Florida, Mr. O'Reilly, if you want better weather.
That's up to you.
That choice is yours.
That's where I am currently broadcasting from.
All right, let me get into this.
And I did see your comments, which were pretty interesting, that you believe Nikki Haley staying in this presents a problem for Donald Trump and the Republican Party and her determination to challenge the former president and her stinging critiques, you believe, will help Joe Biden.
Maybe true, but here's the risk that I think that Nikki Haley is taking.
And I'm not sure if she's going to recalculate or not.
Maybe she's just going to go for broke.
I don't think the map favors her in any way.
I don't see a path personally.
I don't tell people what to do with their lives to get in, to get out.
That's up to them.
But now she has to go to South Carolina.
Bill, the real clear politics average as of yesterday was Donald Trump plus 30.2%.
He has the sitting governor, two sitting U.S. senators, a very large contingent of South Carolina elected officials.
Donald Trump has their endorsement, not Nikki Haley.
I don't really see that number changing a whole lot, but even if Donald Trump got half that number, it would be a pretty devastating loss for her.
And I would wonder if she'd be thinking about four years from now when it's an open field.
Yeah, I don't think it does her any damage to continue at this point.
And her strategy is that she will demand a debate.
That's the big headline today that very few people are considering.
So what Nikki Haley and her campaign will do in the next three weeks will insist on a debate.
And that if Donald Trump doesn't debate, then they run with that saying, well, was he afraid of, you know, you know the game.
You and I both know that's not going to happen.
He's not going to debate her.
She has yet to win a primary.
She's come in last in every primary so far.
So she has a difficult case to make, doesn't she?
I would if I were him.
I would debate her.
And I was against the cacophony of chaos that would have been a five-person debate in Iowa.
I said that would have been foolish for Donald Trump to do, but I would debate her.
And here's why.
Trump should be running the general election now, not any more primaries.
He's the winner.
She's not going to beat him.
Now, she might be able to erode his lead a little bit some places, but he'll win Nevada fairly easily, and then he'll steam on into MAGA country in South Carolina, and he'll win comfortably.
What he should be doing, Donald Trump now, is starting to set up what his theme is going to be to replace Biden and Harris.
And there's so many deficits that they have.
Whereas Nikki Haley, I wouldn't come bogged down with her.
I would say, okay, I'll debate you one week out from the vote, show up wherever, and we'll do 90 minutes, and that's it.
Number one, that shows respect for her, which is not a bad thing to do for Donald Trump.
Number two, I can't imagine watching both of them on the campaign trail that Trump wouldn't win that debate handily with all the accomplishments that he has in the four years that he served.
I just can't even imagine.
If I was Donald Trump's campaign manager and if I was Nikki Haley's campaign manager, let me tell you the advice I'd give both.
I would tell Nikki Haley to do exactly what you're doing.
Try to get the former president to bite and agree to a debate.
If I'm the campaign advisor for Donald Trump, I'm saying don't waste your time.
I'd ignore Nikki Haley and I'd start running a general election campaign.
And that means even in the state of South Carolina.
And where I think the more he talks about Biden, the better off it's going to be for him.
And the more he compares his record to Biden's record, unless and until Nikki Haley has a major upset.
He's not going to participate in the Nevada primary.
She can't win any delegates there.
South Carolina is a winner-take-all state.
And I don't see how any candidate comes back from an average 30.2% deficit in a month to win that primary.
I just don't see it happening, Bill.
Mathematically, it seems impossible.
I'm going to convince you to come over to my side on this Hannity.
No, you're not.
Yes, I am.
You're not.
I mean, Donald Trump should run against Joe.
You're almost saying what I'm saying, except you want to throw a debate in there to muddy the waters.
And I'm going to, no muddy, no waters.
They'll both be on plan.
Trump uses the debate, and it would be very widely watched, okay, to accomplish what he wants to accomplish against Biden.
So it's like Nikki Haley will be there, but let Nikki Haley flail around.
He goes in, he says, look, here's why I should be president.
And maybe four years from now, Nikki Haley will run, and maybe she should be president four years from now.
But now, here's why I should be president.
This is what I did and what I can duplicate and how I can advance the ball.
And it looks good for him standing up against her.
Now, it would take discipline for him to do that.
He can't, and this would be a huge mistake if he starts to attack Nikki Healy.
He didn't do it that much last night.
A little, but not much.
And she was attacking him all over the place.
So I like Trump's response last night.
I thought he was disappointed.
He didn't get down.
I'm like, don't do that.
All right.
Just say, look, you know, we're for democracy here.
We want voices to be heard.
But if he would do that debate, I'm telling you, Hannity, he would get a lot of independent looks, a lot of look-ins, because people are fed up with Joe Biden.
That's number one.
That's where you start.
He is so terrible, so awful in every way, that they're looking for a reason to vote for Trump.
Give them a reason.
is where maybe we're giving him the same advice and I'm very look I think Donald Trump has to remain who he is You can't be a phony, a fake.
People see right through it.
If you want to know why some people don't succeed in radio, Bill, it's because it's a heart medium and people can sense of whether you are really genuine about your beliefs or if it's fake and phony and contrived.
Right.
And I think that Donald Trump, as you know, we know the person, Donald Trump, putting aside the former president, Donald Trump, or the candidate Trump.
And that person is funny as hell.
He's gregarious.
He's gracious.
He's generous.
And just a fun person to be around and a smart guy to be around as well.
I think to get that side of his personality out there as often as possible, I think, is a good thing.
I think it tends to come out more in town hall settings where he's allowed to talk, not where the moderator feels it's their job to debate with him.
They're not running for office.
But a town hall where he gets to really expand on his thoughts and address people directly and say, thank you for your question.
I just think that's a better environment for him to campaign in rather than a rally where it's a lot of raw meat and a revved up crowd.
Yeah, well, I don't disagree with that, but you can do all of that.
So in a debate situation, the Trump campaign would have veto power over who was going to moderate the debate.
That's reasonable.
He's the front runner.
He's the guy that's got the delegates, and he, his people should have, okay.
So you get a fair moderator in there.
I'd vote for Hannity.
I think I should do it.
I think I'd be the perfect one.
I have all the experience in the world to do that.
I would back Hannity debating, moderating the hate.
Because I think you'd be fair to Haley.
I don't think you'd go in there.
I would be fair.
Listen, let them.
Here's my take on it.
I think you're shooting down a little bit.
If I could be critical of just one thing, I remember when you were fighting, what was his name?
The crazy guy, Keith Oberman.
Remember him?
No.
No.
I remember sometimes you'd respond to him.
I'm like, Bill, this guy doesn't get one-tenth of your ratings.
Why are you even mentioning him?
That was a mistake.
But I learned from my mistakes.
But I think you're asking Trump to not learn from your mistake.
No, no.
I think in the sense that she hasn't won anything, she really hasn't earned that debate yet, in my view.
Well, okay, but I disagree with that.
She's running for president.
She is an operation.
I think you respect people who run for president.
You don't have a litmus test about what kind of a bar they have to reach.
Plus.
Well, would that mean he should debate Dean Phillips?
Does that mean he should debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
Ambassador Haley, who worked for him, has a status the others lack.
Look, I don't see any upside for him, but go ahead.
Hannity, I'm telling you, in a debate situation, he could come off so well, and there's no way she beats him.
The problem with that is it's an environment in which Donald Trump is going to default, in all likelihood, to when he's under fire, and he will be under fire in that debate situation, his default mechanism will be to hit back as hard as he can.
And I'm not sure that that fulfills the opportunity that you're describing here, that he can show another side of himself in this debate and appeal to independents.
I don't think that side comes out during this debate.
If he wants to be president of the United States, he's got to show a different look.
All right?
He got 72 million votes.
Most of those votes are gettable again.
Biden's not going to get anywhere near 72 million this time around.
All right.
But the hate Trump vote is still out there.
He needs to diminish that.
There you and I agree.
But what are the other options he has to diminish it?
Look, you treat Nikki Haley with respect on the debate stage, and you wax her on the issues, which he can do because he's already done it.
Nikki Haley flails around the border.
She doesn't have a border solution.
Have you heard one from her?
Yeah, I have.
She echoes Donald Trump's plan for the border, which was kind of funny because almost every Republican sounded like Trump in terms of policy.
I haven't heard any specifics from Nikki Haley about how to control the border.
Trump did it with the Remain in Mexico policy.
He already did it.
And by building the wall.
He did both those things.
And he got 28,000 troops out of Mexico.
And he got a better trade deal with Mexico.
You're already making my points.
His record overwhelms her rhetoric.
And if she starts to snipe and say you're old or all like that, you do it with Ronald Reagan.
You look at her and go, you know, I'm not going to hold your youth and inexperience against you.
Remember that line from Reggie Hill?
Remember it?
Well, I know where it came from, too.
And you do as well.
All right, quick break more with Simple Man Bill O'Reilly.
AllthingsO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
Then we're getting your calls up 800-941-Sean if you want to be a part of the program as we continue.
We continue with Bill O'Reilly, allthings BillO'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
The only thing I disagree with is I'm persuading you, Andy.
I can hear it in your voice.
You're not persuading me because you're putting him into an environment where the side that the public seems to only know, what independents are looking at, that side will be reinforced in that situation because you're naturally creating conflict.
You're telling him to go in there with, you know, okay, I'm going to tell you all about my record, and I'm not going to care that you call me every name in the book.
I wouldn't be milquetoast in there.
You know me.
If she does something inappropriate, I would look at her and go, that's ridiculous.
You want to stay on the issues, madam, or do you want to get in the mud?
Listen, you and I could debate Nikki Haley and with all due respect.
All right?
I wouldn't need to prep.
Wipe her out in three minutes.
And you're telling me Donald Trump can't do that?
I agree with what your goal is.
I don't think that's the environment where that will shine.
I don't believe it.
You're expecting him to go in there and being fired at, and she's going to drop everything she's got on him as hard as she's going to throw the hardest punches she can because she's got nothing to lose.
Look, it's the final round of a UFC fight.
You're in the fifth round, and I'm just telling you, you're going to throw haymakers, and that's where you're going to get hurt.
Donald Trump has to get some people who don't like him to vote for him.
This is a good way to do it.
Those people are not going to watch the MAGA rallies.
They may or may not watch town halls.
They're kind of cliched by this point.
I agree with the first part of what you are advising.
It's the situation that you're proposing where I have some slight disagreement.
But, you know, Mr. O'Reilly, I always love talking to you.
Anyway, Bill O'Reilly, all things Simple Man, all things Bill O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
Bill, we love having you.
Have a great rest of the week and a great weekend.
Thanks for having me in, Sean.
Bye.
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All right.
You know, it's kind of funny because Joe, just listen to, if you can call us with the answer in the course of this program today and tell us what exactly Joe Biden is saying here, I'd really appreciate it because we have spent quite an enormous amount of time trying to decipher what it is that he was saying yesterday.
We'll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson.
Don't mess with them in an American unless you want to get the benefit.
I bet it would have been American don't mess with what?
All right, let's listen again.
See if you can decipher what it is that your cognitively compromised president is trying to communicate to you.
We'll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson.
Don't mess with the Minneapolis unless you wanted to get the benefit.
Okay, don't mess with the.
I don't know if you can figure it out.
I mean, you know, just for kicks and giggles for all the media that, you know, Nikki Haley was doing a speech like she won the New Hampshire primary.
That made Donald Trump mad, as I told you earlier.
But the media, you know, just goes after Trump because he mixed up Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley.
This guy can talk for hours and hours and hours unscripted at end with great with a great level of detail and intelligence and engagement.
And yet you would think from the media, oh, he's a cognitive mess like Joe.
I'm like, no, he's not.
You know, anybody that speaks publicly, I promise you, you got to mess things up from time to time.
Yes, yours truly is guilty as charged.
But anyway, nothing can top this.
This is our favorite Joe Biden.
The political coverage of the looks on some of the political players and some of the let me ask a rhetorical question.
Okay, I got it.
But if you listen to the mob and the media, the very people that have ignored Joe's clear, obvious, transparent cognitive decline from the get-go and don't cover it.
They're all over Donald Trump, who can speak for hours, articulate for hours ideas on any topic imaginable.
And okay, he mixed up Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley.
Oh my gosh, think of the crime of this.
Listen.
Donald Trump this weekend, he confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi during a campaign event, repeatedly saying Nikki Haley when he clearly was trying to talk about Nancy Pelosi circumstance.
This isn't the first time that Trump has kind of seemed confused on the campaign trail and had a gaff like this.
He said something before recently about him running against Obama, and obviously that never happened.
And so this is not unique.
At a rally to confuse Nikki Haley with the former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, President Biden's campaign drew attention to Trump's mistake, writing on X Twitter.
I don't agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much.
She is not Nancy Pelosi.
I bet he couldn't pass the quiz on a Denny's placemat.
Over the weekend, Trump quite obviously confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
He's made a speech accusing Nikki Haley of mishandling January 6th.
He confuses Barack Obama.
He thinks he's running against Barack Obama, Elise, and you know it.
And if you say anything otherwise, you're lying through your teeth.
He confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi on January the 6th.
And if you say anything else, you're lying through your teeth.
Well, let me just say I'm not going to spend too much time on Donald Trump's cognitive disorders.
But what I am going to say, and I want to, in friendship, say to Chris, he tried to say that Nikki Haley did not allow the National Guard to come, but it was Nancy Pelosi.
It wasn't nobody.
It was Joe.
It was Donald Trump.
He knows, and you know, that Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, and I begged for hours for the National Guard to come.
I like to see evidence of that.
Of course, they never got to the bottom of it.
All right, let's hit our busy phones.
A lot of people want to talk about last night and moving forward.
Rick is in the free state of Florida.
Rick, it's great to be back home.
New Hampshire was a little colder than our home here in Florida.
What's going on?
Hey, Sean, it's warming up here in Florida.
We had a couple days of cold weather, nothing like what the Northeast is having.
I agree with everything Bill Riley said.
As a former teacher of high school students, I'm not allowed to talk politics a lot, but I do with a lot of my friends.
My question is, I agree with what Bill Riley says.
Good to hear his voice, good to hear his platform.
He basically said everything that I believe in.
Ditto is like, Donald Trump needs to take a little bit of an agenda adjustment.
I call it an agenda adjustment or look at it because I tell the kids in school, you don't need to put other people down.
You don't need to make fun of other people.
Everybody knows that Joe Biden is incompetent.
I mean, that's a given.
Even the Democrats know that.
Everybody knows that, you know, Nikki Healy gave a speech like she was, you know, accepting the nomination.
But we don't need to put her down or anything.
Just play the card, what I tell the kids in school, of like killing them with kindness.
Okay, say some positive things.
Most people that are intelligent, well-read, Sean, and you know this to be true, I've been listening to you for 30 years, is that you get it.
You're the eye in the sky when it comes to politics.
But when you start demeaning and you start putting down certain people, and Donald Trump, bless his heart, you know, we love him dearly.
I was yelling at the TV last night saying, Don, stop it.
Quit being so negative on that and show the positive aspects of not only what you're going to do, what the party's going to do.
And you've got all the support out there, not just from Sean Hannity, but from, you know, as Bill Riley said, or you said, 72 million people.
So there's probably another 20 million or 30 million people that are independents that are thinking, you know, I have a little challenge with Donald Trump because he kind of puts Nikki down.
He puts everybody down.
He makes fun of Joe Biden.
Well, stop it.
Okay.
I don't disagree that it's better for Donald Trump to show a side of him that I'm just telling you exists that I don't think he shows often enough.
I didn't disagree with what Bill was saying.
I just disagree on the way to do it.
I don't think the way to do it is to put him in an environment that you know is going to be hostile, where he's going to be under fire and he's going to feel compelled to defend himself.
And that's going to only reinforce the things that you're saying that you would like to see less of.
That environment just lends itself to it.
It's an environment where you are there to bludgeon the other person, basically.
And politics is not for the faint-hearted.
It's a blood sport.
And in that environment, he's going to come out swinging and he's going to punch hard.
And that's not going to achieve the goal that both you and Bill seem to want, you know, achieved here.
That's all I'm saying.
I'm not disagreeing with what your proposal is and what outcome you want, but I just don't think that's the environment to do it.
And I also think that Nikki has to win a primary before she earns the right to debate him.
That's my personal view.
If I was his campaign manager, that's what I'd tell him.
If I was hers, I would say, yeah, demand debates, demand the debates from morning, noon, and night.
But that's not going to really impact people.
The people of South Carolina know both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump well.
Right now, Donald Trump, real clear politics average up 30.2%.
That's going to be a, you know, that is a formidable task to take that down.
Anyway, appreciate it.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break right back to our phones.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program as we continue, more of your calls straight ahead.
And at the top of the hour, we'll check in with Eric Trump as we continue.
And now, a word from the 46th president of the United States.
We choose unity over division.
We choose science over fiction.
We choose truth over facts.
Sean Hennedy is on right now.
All right, let's get back to our busy phones.
800-941-Sean is on number as we continue.
Jane is in Texas, the free state of Texas.
What's up, Jane?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Thank you, Sean.
I will say I agree with the last caller.
Trump's snarkiness is just something I wish he wouldn't do.
But the reason I called was about Nikki Haley.
And it wasn't today, but it was very recently in the last day or so where she stood up after losing the primary and said America does not want Trump.
Well, it really, I've just been fuming over it because she doesn't speak for me.
I'm an American.
I do want Trump.
And I don't appreciate her acting as if she's one.
I want her to get behind Donald Trump.
I want the Republican Party to get over themselves and start working together.
Well, look, eventually it's going to get to that.
Just like eventually in every primary, things get ugly and go south.
And I think we're, you know, I thought it happened earlier with President Trump and Governor DeSantis.
I wish it didn't happen.
But at some point in every primary, it's going to get ugly because they know All of a sudden, that one state becomes that important that the winner of that state will pick up all the momentum in most cases leading into Super Tuesday.
I'll give you one example: Bush v.
McCain.
That race, you know, after John McCain won New Hampshire and Bush won Iowa, that was a must-win situation for both of them.
And it was one of the ugliest primary campaigns I'd ever seen in my life.
It was pretty bad.
But that's the nature of the business.
And it's, again, it's not for the faint-hearted, and that's just a reality everybody has to face.
Anyway, but I can, yeah, go ahead.
My last thing I want to say, and it's a question: I don't trust Nikki Haley.
Will she back Donald Trump when she loses the primary?
She has reiterated time and again that she would.
I'll just take her at her word, and I have no reason to disbelieve her.
I mean, what's the option?
Is she going to go with Joe Biden?
I don't think so.
Would Nikki Haley ever go third party?
I doubt it.
I don't think she's ever willing to do that.
That would be viewed as such a big betrayal.
But when people have political ambition, they're capable of things that maybe they never thought they were capable of.
Who knows?
We'll wait.
We'll see.
Anyway, Jane, appreciate it.
Let's say hi to Tom in Minnesota.
Tom, glad you called.
And thanks for checking in.
Sean, it's an honor to speak with you today.
My point is that I think Nikki Haley should drop out.
I think she's being very unpatriotic and is blind to what.
Well, I wouldn't call her unpatriotic.
I'm not questioning her patriotism.
I think she really believes somehow deep in her heart, and she has a lot of the donor class giving her a lot of money.
There was a report she spent $31 million in New Hampshire, so she has the money to keep at it.
If I was her, I'd be thinking four years down the road if I was Nikki Haley today.
That would be my campaign manager advice to her if she ever asked it.
Yeah, I guess unpatriotic was the wrong term to use there.
But she has said she doesn't want her children to grow up in a country like this, and she thinks that it'll be worse with Donald Trump.
I think she's losing sight on the real end goal, and that is to get Joe Biden out of office.
That is what has to be done at all costs.
Say that again.
You think she lost sight of the end goal?
The end goal is what?
Is to get Joe Biden out of office.
Well, look, at the end of the day, the sooner the Republicans unite, the better.
I mean, I think one of the reasons you had Democrats wanting to vote in the New Hampshire primary, remember, you know, if you look at just extrapolate out the numbers, there's a very interesting story that emerged here.
And that is that 70% of Nikki Haley voters were not registered Republicans according to the CNN exit poll.
And, you know, and that Donald Trump got, what, around 75% of Republican voters in a Republican primary?
I don't like the idea of independents or people that are Democrats that make the switch to either Independent or Republican just to kind of wreak havoc in a primary and bring undue influence.
I think Republicans should pick Republican candidates and Democrats should pick Democratic candidates and independents should not be able to vote in either primary because some people would be registering independent so they can do the very thing I'm describing.
And I also agree with you that I don't think that Donald Trump should debate Nikki Haley because that would just sow more animosity and divide the Republican Party.
I mean, we're eating our own here.
You know, we all need to unite and get together.
That I agree with.
Let me tell you, just remember what I always say: Democrats, they circle the wagons.
Republicans, they create circular firing squads.
Big difference.
Anyway, good call.
Appreciate it.
Tom, Minnesota, 800-941.
Sean, our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
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