Interview Only: Stephen A confronts Bill O'Reilly about No Kings Protest, Military Parade and ICE Raids.

Published Jun 18, 2025, 10:00 AM

Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown. 

In-depth political conversation between Stephen Smith and Bill O’Reilly, focusing on current U.S. and global political dynamics, Trump’s administration, and broader ideological divides in America.

Here’s a summary of the key themes and highlights from this script:


🗣️ Bill O’Reilly Interview on The Stephen Smith Show 🇺🇸 Trump Administration & Public Reaction

  • “No Kings” Protests: O’Reilly views them as predictable and largely media-driven, sparked by deep-seated opposition to Trump rather than specific policies.
  • Military Parade Controversy: Trump’s celebration of the Army’s 250th anniversary coinciding with his birthday is seen by some as tone-deaf amid national unrest.
  • Immigration & ICE Raids: O’Reilly supports enforcement but suggests a humane mechanism for evaluating non-criminal migrants caught in raids.

🌏 U.S.-China Relations

  • O’Reilly describes a private diplomatic trip to China where he met with Politburo members.
  • He proposed a “Partnership for Peace and Prosperity”:
    • U.S. and China would collaborate to stabilize global hotspots (e.g., Iran, Russia).
    • Emphasizes mutual economic benefit and global order.
    • Acknowledges China’s authoritarian regime but sees strategic cooperation as essential.

🔫 Political Violence & Rhetoric

  • Discusses the fictional assassination of politicians and the real-world implications of political extremism.
  • Criticizes Senator Mike Lee’s inflammatory tweet blaming “Marxists.”
  • Emphasizes that political violence is often the result of mental instability, not ideology.

🧠 Biden’s Leadership & Policy Decisions

  • O’Reilly argues Biden has been mentally diminished since taking office.
  • Claims Biden’s immigration and abortion stances contradict his Catholic identity.
  • Suggests Biden’s administration was heavily influenced by far-left advisors.

🧾 Trump’s Economic & Foreign Policy

  • O’Reilly defends Trump’s tariffs and economic strategy, saying it needs more time to show results.
  • On Gaza and Ukraine:
    • Trump is described as a “dove” trying to de-escalate.
    • Putin is labeled “psychotic” and unpredictable.
  • Predicts that if the economy is strong by Spring 2026, Republicans will win the midterms.

📱 Trump’s Commercial Ventures

  • Trump’s new “T1” smartphone is discussed.
  • O’Reilly doesn’t approve of monetizing the presidency but notes all presidents have done it to some extent.
  • Jokes about buying three phones—one for Stephen, one for Chris Cuomo.

🗳️ 2028 Election Outlook

  • Trump is described as a “dice roller” aiming for greatness.
  • O’Reilly believes the economy will be the deciding factor in the GOP’s success.

🧭 Tone & Style

  • The conversation is candid, often humorous, but deeply political.
  • O’Reilly maintains a critical but strategic tone, while Stephen Smith challenges him with pointed questions.

 

Joining me now.

Is a conservative political commentator, actually a registered independent. He's also a best selling author and obviously an elite television personality. He's been around a long time. He knows what the hell is going on. He is the one and only mister Bill O'Reilly. Welcome back to the Steven A.

Smith Show. Sir? How you doing? How's everything you know?

I don't know why I'm doing this, but everything else is fine.

What do you mean you don't know why you're doing this? I mean you're on with your young buddy right here. That's why you're doing this, Bill, because I had to have you on the show because I wonder what the hell is going on?

Man? I got we got parades in the nation's.

Capital while protests are going on all over the country, these no King protests that's been taking place all over the United States of America opposing what Donald Trump is doing. In your words, Bill O'Reilly, could you explain to everybody what the hell is going on with the Trump administration in America right now as I.

Can, Stephen A. And that's why you have me on for clarity of thought. Okay, So on Bill O'Reilly dot com. I write a message every day. Everybody can read it. You don't have to join up. All you have to do is want a perspective. Eighty million people voted for Donald Trump's seventy five million voted for Kamala Harris. I submit to you that about half of the Harris supporter is voted against Trump. They loathe him, and therefore the no King demonstrations. We're no surprise to any of us who understand how much fury there is on the left.

That Donald Trumps president.

Doesn't matter what he does, could be immigration, could be Iran, could be Medicaid, doesn't matter. So when a mass demonstration is called for, you're going to get a pretty good turnout. This was low, in my estimation across the country. The two hundred They say two thousand protests, but there were really two hundred of notes, and.

There weren't that many people.

But I wasn't surprised because the immigration is lighted a fuse that the left is just crazed about. So the no King stuff was predictable, didn't really amount too much. Now, the military thing was not well attended, but again that's predictable.

It's Washington, d C.

Three percent of voters in the district voted for Trump three percent, So yeah, they're not going to come out and wave at him on his birthday and say, yeah, we like.

All the tanks.

So most of this stuff, it's whipped up by the media in the hysteria.

But it's predictable.

And I get where you're coming from that it's predictable. But in the same breath, don't you find yourself wishing. I don't want to act like optics for everything, but it does matter. You know, You've got a situation where you have this parade going on to celebrating the two hundred and fifty anniversary of the army and what have you. It coincides with his seventy ninth birthday, and it's in the midst of these riots taking place across the United States of America. In one way, you're looking at it and you're saying, Okay, it appears to be much ado about nothing. It's just typical people who are against him and against his policies, against the administration.

They're going to protest.

On the other hand, it seems like he's feeding it as a distractionary measure because of some of the other things that aren't necessarily working. Whether it's the tariffs in some people's eyes, whether it's some of this stuff going on with Ice in Los Angeles and beyond, whether it's the war in Ukraine with Russia, Israel and Iran right now, Israel and a moque before some of the things.

That he thought would work that he swore he would resolve.

That's not necessarily what the American people are seeing right now. Bill, What do you say to that that this is basically an evasive or distraction Every tactic on behalf of the present aout.

I see it that way. It's celebratory.

Trump wants to celebrate his position, and so he uses his.

Power to do that.

The one thing that Trump has calculated that it's obvious and still vexing him is Ukraine. So he said on day one, I'll solve it, and it would have happened if I were president. Well, that's proved very, very difficult for him. But on all the other fronts, he believes the tariffs are going to heighten the economy. The initial numbers are good for Trump on that the magabase supports the deportations, although I have suggested that the homeland security opparatus have a fail safe if you will or a mechanism. That mechanism is probably better work if you examine humane situations. So if you're swept up and you're not a criminal migrant, but you're involved with a raid and they take you into custody, there should be a mechanism so that your situation would be examined by Homeland Security. Say you have three kids at home, all of whom are American citizens, but you're not. That would be under humane so they would let you out and not deport you. If Trump would do that, that would take a lot of the sting out of it. But you know, look, all I can do is suggest patterns of behavior that would be beneficial to the country, and I do. Whether he does them or not, that's up to him.

How much does he listen to you these days? Bill O'Reilly?

I mean listen when we did, you know, when we did our town hall on News Nation, Chris Cuomo, myself and you. There's no doubt that President Trump would not have called in if it were not for you. I've reported that on many many occasis. We all know how far your relationship goes back with them, spanning thirty plus years, and I know that you were just recently in China. China asked you to come and see them and talk to them, and I'd like you to elaborate and enlighten my audience as to why that was.

But clearly they feel and rightfully.

So, that you have the ability, more so than most, to impact the thought process. Dare I say even the actions of the president from Tom to Todd because of his respect and this long time relationship with you, how much do you think he listens to you or anybody else in this day and age.

Well, I think he trusts me because I'll never burn them, so if it's off the record, it's off the record. I talked to him frequently. I never call him. That's an intrusion. I'm a journalist, that's not my job. But when he gets in touch with me, I'm obviously respect as I was to Barack Obama, who did that as well.

Not as much as Trump, but he did. George W. Bush did, and I answer honestly so.

On the China situation, I was invited over there because they watch the Politburo watches me on YouTube exactly what we're doing now. The Chinese people can't see you too, but they knock it out for but they watch and as you rightly assess, they know that I speak with Donald Trump a lot, so they wanted to know about him. And it was an off the record conversation. But I did tell the polit Burero there were thirteen of them in the Q and A in Beijing, I'm going to have to debrief the president when I get back, so I'm always up front, I like you.

I mean, I'm up front.

And they said, okay, you know, I said, I can't come over there and do a Q and A with you for now hour and forty five minutes and not till the President states what it was about. You know, come on, I'll be deported myself. They'll deport me back to Ireland. So I got to tell him and I did, and then three days later there was a phone call with she.

So I could take credit for that, but I'm not going to.

But I think that my conversation with the Chinese communists was beneficial. So I calmed them down in certain areas and I illuminated the President's thinking process and others. So after the hour forty five minutes, they had a much better understanding of where Donald Trump is coming from. The second thing is We had dinner afterward, my son, myself, the man who put this together in Beijing, the richest man in China, and his assistant who was only supposed to be four, but we were joined by the second most powerful man in the country for dinner, which was experience. I'll tell you why my son's sitting there. He is twenty one years old, and he's listening to the highest level of diplomacy there could possibly be in the biggest story in the world. China USA relations is the biggest story in the world by far, because if that doesn't work out, there's gonna be best trouble. If it does work out, if they follow my guidelines to a partnership for peace and prosperity, that's why I went over there to tell them what that was about. Then the world will calm down and everyone will be better off. So there's my son, twenty one political science major, listening to his.

Father at thirteen of the poly member. You can imagine that it's like being in a Nick.

Locker room and halftime, I guess. But anyway, look, I love my country. I try to do it's best as far as I see it, and I will. I was stunned by this whole thing. I didn't solicit this. It came to me.

Absolutely, and I know you're telling the truth about that.

I consider you an honest broker, regardless of how people try to attack you or whatever.

You've always been a trade shoot with me.

I've seen you talking to politicians on both sides of the right in front of my face, getting on both of them like hell and fury for crowd out loud. So I've had an eyewitness account to that. But let me get back to you before I get back to the States. You said that when you were in China, you talked about your guidelines to peace and prosperity between themselves and the United States of America. Would you mind sharing with this audience what those guidelines were, some of those guidelines.

That you go down to them.

So the past six months have been working on a policy call the Partnership for Peace and Prosperity between the United States of America and China. And essentially what it says is that the two greatest powers in the world are going to ally together to down chaos and misbehavior all over the world.

So you're going to ally.

Now, we're never going to agree with them about communism, and it's a police state. It's the most polic sophisticated police state in the history of mankind. It makes the Nazi regime look like benevolent people. That's how tight the Chinese communists are on their one point five billion people. Americans have no idea. You got to carry an ID card every second of your life in China. If you don't, you're in prison if somebody stops you, and there are cops on every corner. And as for your idea, you're a Chinese citizen and you don't have it gone, it is really unbelievable. So anyway, the Peace and Partnership Prosperity thing says that we're going to work it out. As far as trade will help China feed their one point five billion, they'll help us in our economy, and then we will hamp down crazy stuff like the Malas in Iran. So if China and the United States ally against the Maulas, they can't do anything.

Same thing with Putin. If China were to.

Say, hey, lad get out of there, or we're going to start.

To fund the Ukrainian government as well, a lot of that to get out of there.

Now, it's a matter of self interest, I understand, but I laid out a pretty solid case, and I said, if that partnership comes, you're going to get a lot of benefit.

The Chinese government will get a.

Lot of economic benefit from it. So I'm hoping they consider it.

You know, I'm going to get back to the States because even though I know China and US relations is a huge, huge deal, no question about that, some of the immediate issues going on in this country obviously can't be ignored at this particular moment in time. You saw, and you've saw that, You've been all over the news about the political shooting that took place this weekend. Fance Bolter was arrested as the suspected shooter of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband. He also critically wounded Senator John Hoffman and his wife, both out of Minnesota. Of course, he was captured late Sunday following a two day man hunt. Following the killing, Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee tweeted, quote, this is what happens when Marxists don't get.

Their way end quote. So Bill O.

Raley, I ask you concerned at all that civility in America is going You've been around a long time, you would know they answer to that question your thoughts.

Yeah, you keep saying I've been around a long time. It only goes back to us. Grant there, Steven A. So, come on, foolish comment by Senator Lee, who's not a He's not a dumbin, and he never should have made that comment. I've had political assassinations in this country forever, and so is every other country.

And these are mentally unstable people that do it, all of them. You can trace.

Every one of them back, and they're all loans and that's what happened here. So to assign a Marxism to it or a fascism to it, it's irresponsible. I don't traffic in that. I traffic in history. Never going to stop it. It's impossible in a free society. Even in China, as crazy as they control those people, you couldn't stop it. If somebody wanted to kill you and was stalking you, the odds are they'd be able to get to you if you weren't putin or she would have unbelievable security. So there's nothing other than lamenting the situation. There's no solution to the situation. You're always going to have mentally unstable people who are violent, and that's that. And you know, if I had a solution, I would put it forth, but I don't.

Does it the rhetoric amongst politicians going back and forth, Although you're right, history has shown us these kind of things happen. There's always folks on the fringes, there's always extremism that takes place within every nation. This is not going to be any different, doesn't some of the rhetoric on a part of politicians or both sides of the isle. One could easily argue that contributes to some of this Bill.

I don't know.

John James Garfield was assassinated, and he was he's a bomb thrower, you know, McKinley assassinated. In our polarized society with an irresponsible media, grossly irresponsible media, it's easier to incite, but I don't think it's easier to incite to murder, right homicide. And with this, I wrote a book and it'll be out September ninth, called Confronting Evil Homicide.

Have been with it since Cain and Abel in the Bible.

I mean, it's just their part of mankind.

So I don't attribute.

I don't say, look, if we're all nicer to each other, or do we have less violence? I don't believe that to be true.

So with that being said, I mean, I guess I'm looking at it and I'm seeing these No King protests. Do you think that that's legitimate? Is it much ado about nothing? Are the folks on the left just using this as an opportunity to play soil loser because they lost the election to Trump and that's what this is about. Or do you think the arguments on a part of the left with the no Kings protest and beyond, do you think there's some legitimacy to that based on what we've seen from the Trump administration since he's been back in North January twenty.

First, I think the protests are legitimate, and I applaud honest Americans who want to protest things they don't like. I think descent is a very important part of our success in America. But I always go to this, all right, So you don't like the ice rays because that's what this was really all about.

There's no Kings thing, So what's Plan B? You down with the buy and open border? You support that? So what do you have.

What's your plan to supervise fourteen million foreign nationals, ten percent of whom are violent? Because ten percent of every group is violent, So what's your plan to supervise these people?

Then you get you know, it's okay.

To protest, but you've got to have something to fill the vacuum if you want to be taken seriously.

Right, But aren't you concerned when he talks about immigrants or migrants and you hear murderers, rapists and stuff like that, as if giving the impression that that's who he's targeting. When news came out just the other day that he pulled he pulled he put a pause on raids involving the agriculture, UH, hotels, restaurants, et cetera, because obviously it was affecting those businesses. Don't you get concerned about him or the administration putting out that kind of rhetoric, sort of castigating folks in that fashion.

Well, look, you can, you can overdo the rhetoric, but he got elected on it.

So you know, people were.

Tired of seeing innocent UH Americans murdered by venezue Ellans and El Salvadorans and whatever. So Trump said, I'm going to clean it up, and that's why I won. That's exactly why he won. So now he's trying to clean it up. But as I said, he should have a you know, an apparatus to exactly people who aren't in that category, who get swept up in it.

So, look, I want social order in this country, and I assure you do too.

You can't have, yes, I do.

You can't have fourteen million foreign nationals run around unsupervised. And that's exactly what the Democrats supported, Exactly. We don't want to stop anybody. We don't want to supervise them. Anybody asked for asylum. Oh yeah, five years. We'll see you down the road. Maybe you show up, maybe you don't, but we don't really care whether you do or not. Hey, that's the height of irresponsibility. We're paying for that for the next twenty years. And I mean that Biden open border was the worst policy decision in history by a sitting president, the worst because it caused so much damage.

Why do you think Boben made that decision? And the reason I asked that question, Bill O. Raley, It might be a rhetorical question, might be a bit old. I'm thinking about how President Obama was called the deporter in chief because he had deported at the time even more people than Trump had deported. Biden was his vice president. How do you ultimately become the president four years after Obama has left office and you implement a policy that was the complete, completely antithetical to anything that Obama stood for.

That made no sense to me. Do you have an answer to that question.

I do.

I don't think Biden was in control of his faculties ever in his four years. I think he was diminished when he walked in he took the inaugural oath. I think his far left cadre who surrounded him in the White House, led by Ron Klaine, put a bunch of paper in front of him and he signed it and didn't know what he was doing or the unintended consequences that would stem from it. Look, I'll give you a really vivid example of Joe Biden. This man, for his entire career used his Catholicism as a campaign item. You remember that, right, Yes, Joe goes to mask, Joe receives communion. Joe's a good Catholic, Irish Catholic from Scranton, Okay.

While his president, he comes out.

To support abortion without any limits what so ever? No limits the Hillary Clinton position, okay, the most extreme position on abortion you could take. Joe Biden takes it and promotes it. A good Catholic is excommunicated by doing that. However, there wasn't one on Catholic bishop or the pope okay, who suggested the excommunication route for Biden because they were afraid to do it. One bishop in Virginia denied him communion.

Okay.

Now, how can a man who professes to be an Irish Catholic promote unlimited abortion?

Do you have an answer to that question?

I have no answer to That question is inexcusable because it goes against that.

Everytholic I know would say.

That that's the key to analyzing Biden right there. No one can answer the question because there's no logic, okay, because he wasn't able mentally to make those kinds of calculations, in my opinion, and you will see coming forth proof of how.

Diminish that man was from day one.

See that's the argument that folks on the right would say as well.

And I get that part.

And then when we look at the left protesting Trump, in this day and age to the right, it will fall on death is because everybody's quick to look at the body and administration, the policies they put forth, how it was supported, whether directly or through one silence on the left, and.

As a result, they tried to.

Basically finego their way through the administration, you know, through his tenure and ultimately assist Kamala Harrison taking office. And so when I see these no Kings protests and everybody complaining about Trump, that's one way that it's going to be dismissed from the right, but where it will be embraced by centrists and folks on the left. Bill Rally, in my opinion, is that I'm thinking about Iran. With Israel, you have people thinking about that, Yeah, we can end their new program and as a result, they won't be a nuclear threat and we don't have to worry about the Holocaust down the line at least on that end. Okay, that's what that's Plus they're talking about the terroriffs. They're saying, you got pledges, but where's the real production. What has really really happened with that regard? You talked about the war with Ukraine and Russia, that hasn't been resolved. There's still hostages with a mass and folks are alluding to genocide taking place in a Godza stripped because of net and Yahoo and some of the actions that he has taken to just completely obliterate a mosque has beligned everybody else in between. In the end, what it comes down to to me, Bill, is this, there's so much stuff going on with the Trump administration that's up in the air. The one finite thing you can point to is his position on immigration and the effect it has had. And to me, that seems to be his calling card. Let everybody lean towards that because that's a winnable argument in his eyes, where almost nothing else is to that kind of speculation or skepticism. You say, what as it pertains to the Trump administration.

My thing that announces is a bit harsh. So number one, the tariffs and the economy. You've got to give it a little more time. So next week will be six months that Trump's been in office. It seems like six years, I know, but it's only six months. And to turn the entire industrial economy around in his country kind of take a year or so.

But it's trending in the right direction.

Particularly if Trump and she can come to an economic deal, then all the other deals will follow, and Donald Trump knows that.

Okay.

On the guaz afront, Trump has been a dove on that. He has done everything he can to try to get Hamas to release the hostages and take the pressure off so the Israeli army doesn't go in and continue to pound the place. But the Hamas people will not do it, so you can't blame Trump for that. On Ukraine, he has given Putin every opportunity to be a human being. Unfortunately, Putin is psychotic. Putin is on the cover of my upcoming book, Confronting the Confronting Evil. Okay, he is not a person that you can deal with rationally. Trump thought he was because he had four years of Putin not really misbehaving in his first term. But now, for whatever reason, Putin's out of control.

Can you get him back under control?

Maybe, particularly if China would help, But right now that's a miscalculation. So I think that people who hate Trump, who say he's failing on every front aren't being fair, need to let this unfold for a few more months. In March of twenty six, if the economy is wobbling, and there's unrestled over the world. The Republicans are done in the midterms.

They will lose.

Trump knows that last couple of questions.

I'll let you get on out of here, and thank you so much for your time, real quick. Over the course of his presidency, President Trump released cryptocurrency gold sneakers and watchers, and now he's reportedly releasing the T one Trump smartphone with an unlimited plan price at forty seven dollars and forty five cents per month via AT and T Verizon, a T mobile in August that's being built in the United States. First of all, Bill O'Reilly? I mean, what do you think about this? And secondly, are you getting one of these phones? I mean, or do you have a problem with the president monetizing the office?

Yeah, I'm getting three of these phones, giving one to you for Christmas, one to Cuomo for Christmas.

And look, do I approve of this?

No?

Do I understand what's going on? Yes?

So Jump doesn't have anything to do with the Trump organizations run by his two sons, Don Junior and Eric. They are exploiting the hell of their father's success for monetary gain. Now, all presidents do it to a certain extent. The Biden family did it with subterfuge. Remember that we didn't know what was going on, and farign countries are involved. This is basically, hey, we're famous, my father's powerful, so you buy our phone.

Now.

Trumpet doesn't have anything to do with that because he had to sign off for all his holdings to his son. I'm sure when he gets out of office he'll be back. But there's a private club in DC and it goes on.

And on and on.

But every single president, with the exception of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, wasn't too much because when Reagan left office he was in their throes of dementia. But every single other president capitalized monetarily on their position. Yeah, might Barack Obama gets for a speech, do you know how much? No, three hundred and fifty thousand, three five. He gets more than you get for a speech, David Ay. I mean, I'd be outrageo if I were you. But he gets more than you get. So that doesn't bother me in the sense that And I'm not a bad behavior point to other bad behavior kind of guy.

But this is our system.

We're capitalists here and the Trump people are exploiting their game.

Last question.

You know, Donald Trump is unapologetic about playing to his base.

People will be quick to say he's doing what he promised he would do, et cetera.

Do you think that's gonna be enough for the GOP to win the midterms? And do you think that's enough for the GOP to win the election in twenty twenty eight if he continues on the path that he is going on or does there need to be some alterations in.

As far as you can see.

Well, if you base it on history, which I always do, the economy will tell who's gonna win the midterms. So, as I said, the economy is rolling along next spring, Republicans will do very well because that it's everything to the American people. They are nervous, Lots of them don't have any money. They need the economy to be robust and will that far and away. You know, I say China USA is the biggest story in the world than it is.

But for our electoral.

Situation, the economy dominates. So Trump is a dice roller, doesn't play it safe. He's going he wants to be one of the greatest presidents he wants to be on Mount Rushmore.

He can't be on Mount Rushmore.

To buy his own mountain and put his face up there. But he wants to be one of the greatest. And he always because I wrote Confronting the Presidents, he's always there.

Where am I now? Where am I now?

I go?

It's still incomplete, mister president. You had a good first term, and he did, but now a lot of turbulence. He goes, Guy, it's gonna work out, and he believes it will work out pervently.

He believes it. There's no insecurity on his part.

Okay, whether it will or not, of course, no one knows, but God.

The one and only Bill O'Reilly appreciates you, my man, as always.

Thank you so much for your time.

Bill O'Reilly dot com best selling author of political commentator extraordinary. I always appreciate the education, my man.

Thank you so much. Man, I talked to you sooner.

Right, all right, good question, stephen A. Thanks for having me in well.

You know, the fact that you said it's good questions makes me feel good inside.

It really really does. Bill. I know I'm gonna write track.

Thanks a lot, buddy, I appreciate you.

You soon all right,