Bill O’Reilly admits he never should have used ‘bad language’ during his altercation with a JetBlue employee earlier this week after his flight was delayed 5 hours: ‘Whenever you do that, you lose.’ But he tells Glenn that his overall anger in response to the situation was still justified and ‘righteous.’ Why? Because it wasn’t just O’Reilly’s flight that had such difficulties taking off. Rather, he says, JetBlue cancelled or delayed 76 PERCENT of all flights that day thanks to pilot and staff shortages. Several other airlines are having similar difficulties, O'Reilly says, and Biden’s Department of Transportation isn’t doing ANYTHING to fix the issue. Even worse? The ‘corrupt corporate media,’ O’Reilly says, won’t cover the story either. In this clip, he explains why…
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Okay. Well. All right. That one even makes sense. In some strange way. So, Bill, let's talk about the mask mandates going away.
BILL: Okay. That's not the biggest story of the week.
GLENN: Okay. Well, I want to start there.
BILL: Yeah. So you can go wherever you want, it's your show. You're a successful guy. All right. Mask mandates. So this is -- this is my question.
And I am an inquisitive, simple man. So Joe Biden comes out. The president -- and he's asked. What do you think about the mask? People wear a mask. And he said, it should be up to them, remember that. It should be up to them.
And then, 24 hours later, the Justice Department, under his orders, appeals, spending millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, the federal judge's ruling, knocking out the mask mandates on public transportation. So I'm saying. A simple man. Wait a minute. If Biden just said, it should be up to the person, that is optional, why is he spending tens of millions of dollars, appealing this ruling?
Any of you guys have an answer to that?
GLENN: No. But it leads me to another question on this. And that is, is that what you were mad about, when you were at the airport?
BILL: I knew you were just trying to get there, Beck. I just knew.
It's a facade.
GLENN: Yeah. Okay.
BILL: Okay. Get a pen and a pad. Here it is: 7:00 a.m. flight. JFK Turks and Caicos. Airtime, three hours, 15 minutes. Supposed to arrive at around 10:20 in the islands.
GLENN: Hang on just a second. You had -- I think you had the sympathy of the American people. Turks and Caicos. Yes, you did.
BILL: Okay. I was just trying to go on a little vacation. A little break. All I want. Paid my money. All right. You have to get to the airport, two hours ahead, for international flights. But you have to be there at 5:00.
GLENN: Yeah.
BILL: Okay. I arrived a little bit late, but not too much. All right. I'm trying to be a good guy. Good consumer.
I walk through the security. Try to get in. You know, they put me against the wall. You know, all that. But I finally arrive at the gate. And it says, on time
JetBlue on time.
Yes. Yes. Five hours later, no! No!
And so I'm sitting there, about 100 people, and they -- they know me. And they have people coming up with kids. What's going on? Can you find out what's going on?
Because the JetBlue gate people. Wouldn't tell anybody. They kept moving the flight back and back and back and back. All right. Finally after three hours and 20 minutes, I get up.
All right? And I walk over, to inquire. I said, can I speak to the supervisor. The supervisor comes out. Said, look, these three hours and 20 minutes. We have to know, are you going to take off, or not?
Meanwhile, Delta, flying the same route, takes off on time. Okay?
So JetBlue is under the weather. I said, no, no, no, no. There's no weather. It's nice here. It's nice in the Turks and Caicos. And your competition took off at 11 o'clock. All right? It flew the route. So, anyway, the guy gets -- in my humble opinion, he gives me an attitude. And then it degenerated from there. I say, I was wrong, using bad language, and I used a little bad language. Not a lot. But a little. But whenever you do that, you lose. Even if your anger is righteous, as mine was. Righteous anger. Everybody else there. I thought there was going to be a riot at one point. Now, I had immediately my staff research JetBlue for that day. April 3rd. Okay?
76 percent of their flights were either canceled or delayed.
76 percent.
So I did a little bit more investigating. You know why the plane didn't take off? They didn't have a pilot. So word got back to them, that there was -- O'Reilly is a little teed off. They call a pilot at home, in New York, he gets in the car, it's his day off. He drives in. He shows up, five hours, 15 minutes late, and he tells the people, they dragged me in on my day off. That's what he said.
Okay? Now, most of the -- it's now seven hours. Five-hour 15 minute delay, and you're there two hours ahead of time. Finally, the thing takes off. I do even more research. I find out, that on their whole system, they can't -- they don't have enough pilots or flight crews to put the planes in the air. Yet they still schedule the flights, Beck.
And I think everybody in the country, and this isn't just happening at JetBlue. It's happening at Alaska airways and others. And the Boston Globe, the only one doing an exposé, because there's a big hub there, at Boston, at Logan.
And Tuesday of this week, more than 50 percent of this week, even after all of this. More than 50 percent of JetBlue flights were either canceled or delayed. Do you get the feeling that this is out of control?
Let's take it a step further. Who is in charge of JetBlue? The department of transportation. Who is the Secretary of Transportation?
Might that be Pete Buttigieg? Is he still on maternity leave? I don't know.
Okay. I don't know. There's not an airport near South Bend of any note. The department of transportation today, could fine JetBlue amazing amount of money.
But Buttigieg doesn't do jack. And this has been going on for months. And do you hear, I'm a little righteous angry now. I'm getting a little --
GLENN: I know. I know. I brought that poor guy out. I'll bring him out in a minute.
BILL: Yeah. Okay. Sure. This is not about me. This is about broadly inducement. Millions and millions of Americans are paying their money to these airlines, with the expectation, they're going to get to where they want to go.
College kids. Families on spring break. Easter breaks. Stranded for sometimes days.
And nobody in the Biden administration is doing anything about it. Nobody.
I have contacted the Easter bunny, to tell the president, you got to solve this thing. That's what happened.
GLENN: You know, when -- you sucked all the fun out of my questioning. You really did.
BILL: I knew it. I had legitimate righteous anger. So does everybody else.
GLENN: Thanks for wrecking it for me. All right. Back with Bill O'Reilly in just a second.