Bill O’Reilly opened his latest commentary sounding like he was shifting from culture-war chatter into something he framed as “more serious,” and the target was actor Robert De Niro, who O’Reilly described as “unhinged” and emotionally unable to accept that Donald Trump is president.
The segment O’Reilly fixated on came from an on-air conversation with MSNBC host Nicole Wallace, where De Niro urged people to protest and repeatedly used the phrase “we got to get rid of him,” referring to Trump. In the clip O’Reilly played, De Niro also called Trump “an idiot,” and said he’s “going to ruin the country,” while Wallace teed him up by asking why peaceful protests “drive Trump out of his mind.”
O’Reilly’s entire case hangs on that one phrase – “get rid of him” – and what, if anything, it’s supposed to mean in plain English when said in a political discussion on television.
Because that phrase can mean a lot of things in American politics, and most of them are completely legal.
What De Niro Actually Said – And What He Didn’t
O’Reilly emphasized that De Niro said “we got to get rid of him” three times, and he scolded Wallace for not stopping the interview to ask De Niro what he meant. In O’Reilly’s telling, a “real” interviewer would have demanded specifics: is he talking impeachment, elections, or something else?
That’s a fair journalistic critique on its own, because politicians and celebrities constantly use vague “we’ve got to stop him” language that can mean anything from voting, to campaigning, to protest, to legal action, to just plain venting. Pinning someone down is often the difference between heat and clarity.
But O’Reilly didn’t treat De Niro’s vagueness as sloppy rhetoric. He treated it like a flashing red alarm.
He framed the moment as something the Secret Service should see as a potential criminal threat – not as political hyperbole, not as a celebrity rant, not as angry activism, but as a possible violation of federal law.
That jump is where the argument starts wobbling.
O’Reilly’s “Charge Him” Theory
O’Reilly brought up a federal threat statute – he referred to it as “US code 871” – and argued it’s a crime to threaten the president and others in the line of succession. He then said that, if he were running the Secret Service and saw De Niro repeat “we got to get rid of him,” he’d have agents “pulling De Niro in” for an “intensive interrogation,” and that De Niro “better have a lawyer.”
He went further than that.
O’Reilly said De Niro could be charged depending on his answers, that a conviction could mean prison time, and that he’d “make an example” of De Niro – insisting it wouldn’t be vindictive or political, but simply a message that “enough’s enough” with threats.
That’s a dramatic frame, and it’s also where it helps to slow down and separate three things that get blended together way too often:
- ugly political speech
- reckless or inflammatory language
- a prosecutable “true threat”
Those are not the same.
The Legal Reality: “True Threat” Isn’t Just “Mean” Or “Angry”
Even when a law criminalizes threats against high officials, courts don’t treat every harsh political statement as a threat, because the First Amendment doesn’t allow the government to prosecute people just for saying “I hate this guy” or “we’ve got to get rid of this president.” American political speech is messy by design.
The modern legal guardrail people usually point to is the “true threat” concept – the idea that protected speech ends when a statement is reasonably understood as a serious expression of intent to commit violence, not just heated rhetoric, not just crude venting, and not just a call for lawful political action.
Legal scholarship around threat statutes repeatedly comes back to that same line: context matters, intent matters, and political hyperbole is a known category in U.S. public life.
So when O’Reilly hears “get rid of him” and leaps straight to “charge him,” he’s skipping the part where you ask: get rid of him how?
If the “how” is voting, organizing, protesting, lobbying Congress, or supporting an impeachment effort, then you’re inside normal democratic conduct, even if the speaker is obnoxious and the tone is nasty.
And even if the “how” is implied rather than stated, prosecutors typically can’t just fill in the blank with the worst possible interpretation unless the facts actually support that.
Why O’Reilly’s Read Feels Like A Stretch
You can disagree with De Niro’s attitude, his language, or his politics without pretending it was “obviously” a threat.
In normal conversation, “get rid of” a politician is often shorthand for “defeat,” “remove from office,” “vote out,” “impeach,” or “push out politically.” It’s vague and lazy, but it’s common.
O’Reilly tried to make the vagueness itself suspicious – like the ambiguity is proof of menace. But ambiguity cuts the other way too: if a phrase naturally carries lawful meanings in the political arena, then the case for criminality gets weaker, not stronger.
That doesn’t mean political figures and celebrities should talk however they want with no consequences. It means the “consequence” shouldn’t automatically be federal agents and threat charges.
It’s also worth noticing that O’Reilly contrasted this with what he called the “Gavin Newsom thing,” dismissing that as “ridiculous,” but insisting this isn’t. That tells you he’s sorting outrage into buckets – not purely legal buckets, but narrative buckets.
The Bigger Backdrop: Celebrity Politics And The Trump Era
O’Reilly also spent time attacking Nicole Wallace, calling her a non-journalist and a far-left partisan, and he framed De Niro as emotionally broken by Trump’s presidency. That framing fits a broader reality: a big chunk of Hollywood and celebrity culture is openly hostile to Trump, and the hostility often centers on immigration enforcement, mass deportations, and broader “far-right” cultural and governance priorities that many progressive public figures see as extreme.
De Niro, specifically, has been publicly anti-Trump for years, and that long-running feud has become its own mini-genre of American politics: celebrity condemnation, Trump-world pushback, and a constant cycle of outrage clips.
That context matters because it helps explain why a phrase like “get rid of him” pops out in these conversations. It’s usually not a coded threat. It’s the sort of blunt political talk you hear in protests, on cable news panels, and in online posts every single day – from the left and the right.
What Should Happen Next – If Anything
If you’re looking at this as a public safety professional instead of a TV commentator, the first question wouldn’t be “how do I make an example of this guy.” It would be:
- Is there specific language indicating violence?
- Is there specific planning?
- Is there specific intent?
- Is there any evidence beyond a vague phrase on a talk show?
O’Reilly’s segment didn’t present anything like that. It was built on inference and vibes.
And yes, the Secret Service evaluates threats constantly, and sometimes they do interview people over statements that seem ambiguous but alarming in context. But O’Reilly wasn’t arguing “check it out responsibly.” He was arguing “pull him in, lawyer up, and you can charge him.”
That’s where it stops sounding like analysis and starts sounding like a political weapon dressed up as law-and-order.
A More Grounded Take
De Niro’s comment reads like typical activist talk: protest more, show up, pressure the system, and remove a president politically – not a credible threat of physical harm. O’Reilly’s interpretation looks exaggerated, especially because he treats the most severe possible reading as the default, while ignoring the normal political meaning of the phrase in the exact setting where it was said: a TV discussion about protests.
If anything, the better critique is simpler: when public figures talk in vague “get rid of him” language, interviewers should push for clarity, because vagueness fuels mistrust and lets everyone project their fears onto it.
But “charge him” is a leap – and it’s the kind of leap that, if normalized, would turn political speech into a constant game of criminal insinuation, depending on who’s in power and who feels offended.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
