Bill O’Reilly ‘Confronts the Presidents’ in a New Book

Bill O'Reilly appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" on The FOX News Channel in2015. O'Reilly was interviewed by Epoch Times reporter Steve Lance about O'Reilly's latest book. Rob Kim/Getty Images

America tends to mythologize its past presidents—Mount Rushmore being just one example. Best-selling author Bill O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard remind us in their new book “Confronting the Presidents: No Spin Assessments From Washington to Biden” that every elected president was just a regular man entrusted to handle extraordinary events.

Their latest best-selling book explores the good, the bad, and the ugly of America’s first 45 presidents, including their personal peccadilloes and moral character which shaped their time in office. As with all the books in their popular historical series, the writing is meticulously researched, objective, engaging, and entertaining reading.

O’Reilly recently sat down for an interview with Epoch Times news show host Steve Lance to discuss his new book, comparisons between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, and the media’s influence on the upcoming election.

Epoch Times correspondent Steve Lance talked with Bill O'Reilly about his latest book. The Epoch Times

“We don’t rank the presidents in the book. You, the reader, can decide, and it’s the heavy-duty stuff they did, not the little stuff, like Obama and Obamacare. Was that good or bad? That’s the kind of thing we go into, and then we tell you about them as people, which I think is the most entertaining part of confronting the presidents, because we have a tendency to mythologize all our presidents,” he said.

Facts and Anecdotes

The book provides insightful portraits with intriguing anecdotes, fascinating biographical facts and obscure personal information such as President-elect Franklin Pierce losing his young son Benny before his inauguration in a train accident, and Rutherford B. Hayes being shot at or wounded five times during the Civil War.

"Confronting the Presidents" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard.

Each profile includes commentary on a president’s perceived achievements and failures. Readers can decide for themselves based on the presented information who best served the country and who compromised America’s founding principles during their presidency. “I discovered stuff in every chapter,” O’Reilly confessed in the interview.

The authors chose not to assess President Biden or former president Trump because their stories are still unfolding, though they did include stimulating essays outlining their opinions at the end of the book.

During the interview, O’Reilly drew an interesting comparison between Presidents Reagan and Trump. “Reagan was a technician and he sold his programs because he was an actor; a very, very talented communicator, but he was an ideologue,” O’Reilly said. “Trump is a businessman. He’s transactional; he’s fluid. ... What’s the best deal I can get that will help my constituency? That’s how he does it.”

O’Reilly also shared his opinion as a registered Independent on the media’s role in the current presidential race. “The media right now is overwhelmingly favoring the Democratic party and Kamala Harris, I think about 80 percent of it does. ... It’s very hard in this day and age to find out what’s true and what isn’t true, because there’s a lot of money to be made by telling people what they want to hear.”

O’Reilly and Dugard have once again helped history come alive by presenting details on the presidents that are educational and thought-provoking.

Click here for the Capitol Report interview.

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