NewsNation presents Bill O’Reilly’s ‘Confronting Evil’

(NewsNation) — Bill O’Reilly’s new book, “Confronting Evil,” delves into the lives of history’s most evil men, examining not only the horrors they committed but also how they shaped our world today. 

“My definition of evil is if one human being hurts another human being on purpose, knows that they are delivering a destructive blow to a person, and does it, anyway — that’s evil,” O’Reilly said. 

O’Reilly sat down with NewsNation’s Leland Vittert to discuss the men in his book, starting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is the focus of the largest chapter in his book.  

“Because he’s a danger to us. He enjoys inflicting suffering on people. He’s a mass murderer who gets away with everything,” he said. 

While Putin has remained in power, O’Reilly says he’s seen President Donald Trump change his stance on the Russian leader since his first term. 

“Because Putin has disrespected Trump in Trump’s mind. Now, when they talk on the phone, Putin is exceedingly polite, even deferential,” he said. 

According to O’Reilly, there would be no Putin without his predecessor and role model, Joseph Stalin, who has his own chapter in “Confronting Evil.”

“Well, Putin and Stalin had almost the exact same upbringing. Okay? So if you want to understand what Putin does, what he does, you’ve got to know Stalin,” O’Reilly said.

Stalin brutalized his population under communism, O’Reilly said. 

“So, if you don’t understand the viciousness of the communist system, which is you have no rights, we’ll seize all your property, and if we want to kill you, we’ll kill you. That’s what communism is,” he said. 

Bill O’Reilly on the evil of Adolf Hitler

While Adolf Hitler’s atrocities are unmatched, O’Reilly chose to paint a personal portrait of the man who brought about the Holocaust. 

“I open the Hitler chapter with the Night of the Long Knives, where Hitler turns on his best friends, kills them. His best friends. The guys who got him the power through intimidation, violence, the so-called brown shirts. He’s there on the scene, Hitler. He walks into the lobby and makes sure everybody is neutralized, including his best friend, Ernst Röhm. Hitler enjoys this,” he said. 

O’Reilly said he took advantage of the treaty Germany signed after World War I, which led to a depression in the country. 

“It wasn’t hard for Hitler to amass 40% of the German people voting for him. All he said was, ‘Hey, we’re getting hosed. We’re the master race. We’re better than everybody else. You may not have anything now, but if you vote for me, we’re going to right all the wrongs, and the people persecuting you who own the banks and the buildings, the Jews, we’ll get them’,” O’Reilly said. 

Communist China’s Mao Zedong

“In my opinion, Mao Zedong was the worst human being ever to live,” O’Reilly said.

Rising from the rubble of the brutal Japanese occupation during World War II, Mao Zedong pursued his vision for a communist utopia, beginning with a totalitarian police state and his “Great Leap Forward,” an economic program that brought widespread famine and death to millions, O’Reilly explains. 

“Not only did he kill tens of millions of his own  people, he starved them to death on purpose. Because they wouldn’t conform to his insane view of how to run the economy. Starved them to death,” he said. 

O’Reilly says today China is a country that could go one of two ways. 

“It could become an existential enemy. That means that we’d have to deal with them, you know, maybe militarily. That would be the most catastrophic event in human history. Or we can come to some kind of an arrangement,” he said. 

America’s biggest evil

In his book, “Confronting Evil,” O’Reilly profiles two African slave traders: Isaac Franklin and John Armfield.

“The slave industry was the worst thing that ever happened in the United States,” O’Reilly said. 

He says slavery was not the engine that built America, as some have proclaimed, but it has harmed African Americans to this day. 

“I think we have tried now to rectify that mistake,” O’Reilly said. “My belief is we have tried to right the historical wrongs.” 

As for statues of Confederate soldiers, O’Reilly says he wants those names out there. 

“So one of the worst people who ever lived in America was Nathan Bedford Forrest. We’ve got a chapter on him, Confederate general, and he was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. As evil as they come,” he said. 

“Now, there’s no justification for having a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Robert E. Lee, a different story, okay? Not justifying what Lee did, but Lee believed that states’ rights and his Virginia shouldn’t be told what to do from the people across the river. And it wasn’t that Lee was a slave or enthusiastic, but he decided to do what he did. He was wrong.

“But that’s different. Was he evil? No, in my opinion.”

Fighting evil today

O’Reilly says the United States is essentially a noble nation and other evil nations have failed, adding, “I think the good people outnumber the bad people.” 

However, he adds, it’s easier for people to look away than to face evil. 

“But look, we could become a totalitarian society if the education system continues to decline and the selfishness of our society continues to rise. Those are the two elements you would need,” he said.