Bill O’Reilly may have surprised some viewers Monday night by criticizing suspicious activity being called out by President Trump as election-fraud while simultaneously hammering the media for acting as if every question has already been answered.
🚨Bill O’Reilly torched ABC and CNN for instantly labeling Trump’s concerns about the LA election “baseless” without conducting their own investigation.
“How would they know? They didn’t investigate it!”
O’Reilly said he has no evidence of fraud but argued the late surge in…
— Stephen Gardner (@StephenGardnerX) June 9, 2026
The veteran broadcaster locked horns with NewsNation host Leland Vittert during a heated debate over California’s never-ending vote-counting saga, turning what started as a discussion about Los Angeles politics into a broader indictment of media credibility, government competence and the condition of California’s biggest cities.
The exchange highlighted a growing frustration among many conservatives who believe major media outlets frequently move from reporting the news to declaring verdicts before investigations are complete.
Vittert pushed back, asking whether O’Reilly would demand proof if a Democrat claimed fraud after losing a race to Trump.
O’Reilly didn’t hesitate.
“Of course I would say, ‘Where’s the evidence?’ — but not four days after the vote. How could there possibly be an assemblage of evidence? How could you do it? You couldn’t do it.”
The debate soon expanded beyond ballots and into California itself.
O’Reilly painted a bleak picture of the Golden State’s major cities, arguing that residents have become numb to disorder, crime and political dysfunction. He scoffed at claims that San Francisco has been dramatically cleaned up and insisted many of the city’s chronic problems remain firmly in place.
“If you go down to the Tenderloin District, you see the same stuff that I saw on Super Bowl Sunday,” O’Reilly said. “They can say they cleaned it up. There isn’t a person in the world that wants to live in those SRO hotels. Nobody. Because you go in there, they beat the hell out of you. They steal your dope and money. And that hasn’t changed one bit.”
He continued: “The Honduran gangs that sell the narcotics — they have not been arrested. They have not been taken down. ICE is not involved. Don’t tell me San Francisco’s changed. It has not. That is blatant propaganda. And as I said, L.A. is worse.”
The point, according to O’Reilly, is that Americans should be skeptical of glowing narratives coming from politicians and media figures who have spent years insisting everything is under control while voters witness visible decline in major urban centers.
The most contentious moment arrived when Vittert noted that Republican Steve Hilton had also advanced in the same election, suggesting that fraud theories become difficult to square with results benefiting candidates from both parties.
O’Reilly remained unconvinced. “Correct,” he replied. “That’s the analysis that’s correct — that Hilton, I don’t know whether he got a fair count or not, but because the state is so massive, 55 million people, it’s a lot harder to do fraud than it would be in Los Angeles, where the city controls the dogs who vote.
“Just go there,” O’Reilly told Vittert. “Just go there and with your own eyes look at the deterioration of that city. It’s shocking.”
