tax bill, and that would even explode the deficit and the debt much more than in the numbers that came out today. so they are not doing anything except complaining about spending, because that s the whole goal here. they re going to use this debt to say, well, we can t spend money on the food stamps that you just mentioned. we re going have to squeeze medicare and social security because we re going to have to be paying for servicing the debt. and anyone up there who has had credit card debt, this behaves like credit card debt. it s the most expensive kind of debt you can encounter. as this debt goes up, the interest on the debt goes up dramatically. and, ron, that interest on the debt eats up in the budget every year. no one mentions it, but it is one of the largest piece of the budget, getting bigger and bigger every year. and it s on track to become the largest spending item in the budget, dwarfing all of the discretionary spending in the budget. and what that means is it wipes
of business. let me also switch gears for a second. i just had matt and ty on talking about midterm election issues. and we talked about the state of texas and ted cruz who announced his re-election bid. beto o rourke, the congressman from el paso. he is a different type of campaigner. really trying to do grass roots. raised $6.7 million in the first quarter. that obviously is a ton of money. but republicans came out in droves to vote for ted cruz in the primary dwarfing the democratic vote. i m just curious what you think from a political standpoint. is it smart for democrats to put all this money into o rourke when there are lots of other races that they could win that will be closer than this one will be? well, i think that s a good point. and remember, beto, he s named robert francis o rourke, but he s adopted the name beto. he had a heavily hispanic district in el paso. he was trying to appeal to that vote by coming up with an nifty
hailed this decision in terms of california, a major step forward towards criminal justice reform. how do you see that? it s a huge milestone. both for people who want to use marijuana recreationally and haven t been able to, but also for justice. because so many people have been arrested for simple marijuana possession and use in california and across the u.s. it s the single most drug possession arrest defense in the united states. dwarfing arrests for all violent crimes combined. so the huge amount of resources that the u.s. pours into enforcing the drug use is enormous, especially marijuana. on top of that, we have seen hun racial disparities in the way the laws are enforced. overwhelmingly, those arrested for drug use are black and brown, even though white people use drugs at the same rates. in california, the great thing about prop 64 is not only did it legalize marijuana, but it has provided for racial justice in
prudential. bring your challenges. next tonight, bill o reilly s response. the audio from the new york times after the newspaper reported he agreed to pay a former female colleague $32 million to settle a sexual harassment complaint. here s abc s linzie janis tonight. you are about to enter the no spin zone. reporter: tonight, former fox news anchor bill o ri lo reilly, firing back after reports of a massive $32 million sexual harassment settlement. this is [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. reporter: the new york times releasing this explosive interview, after the paper reported o reilly personally struck the settlement with former fox news legal analyst lis wiehl in january, after she accused him of repeated sexual harassment. the $32 million, dwarfing the five other known o reilly settlements. it s on you, if you want to destroy my children, all right, because it s all crap.
getting a better picture of the turnout there. it seems to be pretty lopsided. reporter: kelly, some remarkable numbers just released by the police department here, as many as 40,000 protesters out on the street today, dwarfing expectations. it appeared at least 39,900 were on the side of those counter-demonstrators. fewer than 100 on side of the far-right, free speech demonstrators. it was a largely mixed crowd out on the streets today. they marched about two and a half miles from roxbury to the boston common. it was a mixed crowd of men, women, old and young, a lot of people with their families as well. i can tell you the mood, there was a lot of chanting, some swearing but also a lot of celebratory chants as well. as far as property damage goes, it was minimal. there were, according to police, some troublemakers in the group, some urine bottles were thrown at police. 33 arrests made overall, most of that for disorderly conduct,