Clinton backers launch new attack against Trump; Can Trump score points with women?

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Clinton backers launch new attack against Trump

Former governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm speaks out on 'The Kelly File'

This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," May 9, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, a new fight erupting between the likely presidential nominees that could affect a key voting block come November.

Welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. We are still more than two months out from the conventions and already the race for the White House is getting very personal as the two sides ramp up their attacks on each other over the issue of women. Donald Trump repeatedly bringing up former President Bill Clinton's affairs on the campaign trail and in interviews and how Hillary Clinton handled them. Here's just one example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESUMPTIVE GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He was impeached. He was impeached and then he lied about it. He said nothing happened with Monica Lewinsky and then he said, sorry folks, it actually did happen and the guy was impeached for lying.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All of that can be true. What does it have do with Hillary?

TRUMP: She can't talk about me because nobody respects women more than Donald Trump. And I will be better for women by a big factor than Hillary Clinton who frankly, I don't even think will be good to women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: Now team Hillary is hitting back hard with a new video suggesting Mr. Trump has his own problems with women. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Because nobody respects women more than Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

She came to my wedding. She ate like a pig and seriously the wedding cake was like missing in action. Does she have a good body, no? Does she have a fat (bleep)? Absolutely.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

In moments we will hear from a Trump campaign national spokesperson Katrina Pierson and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm who is working closely with the Clinton campaign.

But we begin tonight with senior national correspondent John Roberts reporting from New York City. John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Megyn, Donald Trump is facing a big problem in the general election. Everything that he has said about women over decades is out there in print or on tape primed and ready to be used against him in the general election. In fact a Super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton is readying a $90 million ad by against Mr. Trump much of which is expected to attack him on women. So, Trump is laying down the gauntlet, Clinton and her supporters. Attack me on women he is saying and I will drag out all of your dirty laundry from the 1990s.

It was back then that Bill Clinton was accused of sexually assaulting or harassing several women. Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones.  Jennifer Flowers said she had a year's long affair with Clinton while the Monica Lewinsky affair lead to articles of impeachment being filed against Clinton in Congress. Several of the women claim they suffered retribution for coming forward. And Trump is only too happy to press that point in the campaign trail.

In Spokane, Washington over the weekend, he lashed out viciously against the Clintons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He was impeached for lying about what happened with a woman.  Hillary was an enabler and she treated these women horribly. Just remember this. And some of those women were destroyed not by him, but by the way that Hillary Clinton treated them after everything went down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: In Stone Ridge, Virginia today Clinton was asked about Trump's attacks, but refused to take the bait.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm running my campaign. I'm not running against him. He's doing a fine job of doing that himself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: But the Clinton campaign and her supporters have a decision to make. If they go after Trump on what is arguably his most vulnerable point, he will use the scandals of the 1990s as a flame thrower against her.

And some of the women in question are even Trump's supporters. Paula Jones showed up at a Trump rally in Little Rock back in February, shook hands with him and even took a selfie -- Megyn.

KELLY: John, thank you.

Well, as we just showed you a few minutes ago team Clinton is out with a new ad attacking Donald Trump over his comments about women.

Again, the Trump campaign joins us in a moment, but first we go to former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm who is a senior adviser to the Clinton campaign. Here to correct the record she's the adviser of the group. And that's the group behind the video. Governor, great to see you. Thank you for being here.

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CORRECT THE RECORD SENIOR ADVISOR: Thanks, Megyn.

KELLY: What's the point you're trying to make in that video?

GRANHOLM: Well, the point is Donald Trump's own words are going to be used against him. This is true and it is a reason why 70 percent of women in the country, not just Democratic women, 70 percent of women have a negative opinion of him. And while this is all going on with Donald Trump attacking Hillary Clinton personally, what she's doing is that she was in Virginia and in Kentucky today sitting down with women talking about the policies that she is going to push for to help their lives. So while he may be attacking her, she is fighting back on policy and is going to fight for women whether it's on day care or child care, universal pre-care, et cetera.

KELLY: Right. Well, she has surrogates out there, I got it. She has got surrogates out there. Like you and your group who will make a different argument for her against him. So, she's not going to directly engage. But she has a way of fighting if you will. But I want to ask you about his attacks on her and how your group and or Hillary Clinton will respond to these accusations that she was in his words an enabler of bill's alleged abuse of women.

GRANHOLM: Well, it's obviously ridiculous, but what her response is going to be is exactly what she said today. She is going to fight back on policy and describe how she's going to fight on behalf of women. This is where the Republicans got it wrong when they were up against him. They attacked only way late in the game and it was personal insults. She's not going to do the personal insult thing.

KELLY: She's back against those charges. You know, he's going to come out there and he's going to say, she diminished this one and she diminished that one.

GRANHOLM: Those charges had been asked and answers and they're all ridiculous. So what she's going to do is say we're going to let him fight the low ground campaign he's going to fight, but I'm going to fight for women. Women who need health care, women who need parental leave, women who need day care for their kids, women who need reproductive freedom.  She's going to fight their case and that's where the contrast is going to be really important for people.

KELLY: Let me ask you this. Is it fair game? Do you think it's fair game to, you know, if Hillary Clinton, you know, if these women come out, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky come out and say she came after me, I mean, there's at least one woman in Bill Clinton's past Juanita Broaddrick who claims Hillary tried to silence her, she claimed at one point that she had been raped by Bill Clinton back in 1978. This has all been adjudicated years ago, but if she comes out and says, look, Hillary Clinton tried to silence me, she didn't care, does that just get ignored? I mean, the next generation coming up is going to say, what? What happened?

GRANHOLM: Yes, they are going to say what, what happened? Hasn't this been asked and answered going back to the '90s to litigate that old stuff is not what Hillary Clinton is about. She wants to argue about how she is going to fight for real people going forward. She wants a vision for the future. She doesn't want to get into the pig sty with the pig. She is going to be talking how she's going to fight with people, and she is going to stay on that ground.

KELLY: All right, Governor. Great to see you. Thanks for being here.

GRANHOLM: Great to see you, too. Thanks.

KELLY: Joining us now with response, Katrina Pierson, the national spokesperson for the Trump campaign. Katrina good to see you.

KATRINA PIERSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Hi, Megyn.

KELLY: So, can you speak to the Governor's allegation? I mean, basically what she's saying is, this is asked and answered, it's been litigated and discarded and Hillary Clinton is not going to touch it?

PIERSON: Well, I think that's what they have to say right now because they weren't really anticipating having to run against Donald Trump, someone who is going to be unafraid to bring these issues up particularly as we've all known Hillary Clinton and her campaign were going to run as a woman on women's issues and nothing else. Every policy that Granholm just mentioned were about women.

KELLY: But she was highlighting the women's issues because she was here on the show. Hillary Clinton's running on many issues other than the ones mentioned.

PIERSON: Yes. But that's the one thing she's talking about. That's the one thing that she's always --

KELLY: But that's the talk -- to talk about tonight because the candidates were arguing about it.

PIERSON: But with regard to sexism though, Megyn, this is not just a Donald Trump issue. I'll reminds you, Bernie Sanders says excuse me and her campaign blew up. All of his supporters were calling Bernie Sanders sexist. Then you have the irony of Bill Clinton coming out calling Bernie Sanders profane sexist. So, this is a common thread that we see in Hillary Clinton's campaign and Mr. Trump is simply defending himself. Many women reject this old fashioned feminism as if we need someone to validate our existence. Many women say they respects the idea that someone treats them the same. It's not just the slogan from many women anymore. And if you think that criticizing a woman particularly in response --

KELLY: I mean, you know, this goes back to the very first question I asked Mr. Trump with that August 6 debate, which was never a statement about what Megyn Kelly thinks, it was a statement about what Hillary Clinton is going to do. And sure enough, she's doing it and it was about Trump's language about women in particular and I know he says he's an entertainer, Katrina.  But as you know very well some of those terms that are specific to women has continued even this past year.

PIERSON: Well, what I say is this. Just because you criticize a woman, particularly in response to her criticism of you, does not make you a sexist and does not make you a misogynist. Mr. Trump --

KELLY: What if you refer to her looks as he did with Carly Fiorina?

(CROSSTALK)

PIERSON: He referred to men's looks as well. That's the point though.  That's the point. Mr. Trump has criticized men too who have criticized him. This criticism isn't reserved for women and I think that's the difference.

KELLY: What about the word bimbo?

PIERSON: What about the word bimbo? It's another thing. Mr. Trump has criticized women who have criticized him just as he's criticized men who have criticized him.

KELLY: So, that word is fine by you? You don't see that word as sexist at all.

PIERSON: Well, even if it is sexist or not sexist depending on how you perceive is, the points is he doesn't reserve criticism for women. That's sexism. That's misogyny. If someone criticizes him, he criticizes them.  It's equal. It's not just one sided here, I think that's the point.

KELLY: The point they're trying to make is that there's a particular tone and a particular choice when he's going after women versus the men. That's what they're going to be saying.

PIERSON: That's what they're going to say, but history is going to show that's simply not the case. Mr. Trump was one of the first to bring women into executive positions back in the '80s with his organization. He has been very much accommodating to women in corporate America. He has more female executives than male executives. He has two sons but yet his daughter is going to inheriting the company.

KELLY: Oh!

PIERSON: So, just so many other things that goes to show.

KELLY: I didn't know that. I did not know that.

PIERSON: Oh, he's already mentioned that. They'll have shared responsibilities, but he's already said Ivanka is going to take over if he wins in November. And so, this is the types of things that tend to go overlook and get lost in the media chaos.

KELLY: Uh-hm. Great to see you, Kat. Thanks for being here.

PIERSON: Great to be here. Thank you.

KELLY: Well, we also have new developments tonight in the fight between Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan and what it means for the nominating process.

And then there's also new fallout from a bombshell New York Times report suggesting the Obama administration knowingly lied about key parts of the Iran deal.

James Rosen and Steve Hayes are here with the fact check. Stay tune for this segment.

Plus, West Point cadets just weeks away from graduation poise for this photo and create an uproar so fierce the military academy is now taking action.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Breaking tonight. New drama in the ugly fallout between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan as the man expected to be the Republican nominee for President goes after one of the country's top Republicans. Remember, it was less than a week ago that the RNC Chair Reince Priebus was rallying Republicans to support Donald Trump, but in the last 72 hours the country has instead been focused on a big fight at the highest levels of the party.  We have two guests with us tonight on opposite sides of this.

Radio host Charlie Sykes and Governor Mike Huckabee. But first, we go to Trace Gallagher with some new developments tonight. Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, Paul Ryan says he's only met Donald Trump one time, doesn't really know him and isn't ready to support him yet. Ryan also left the door wide open saying he never says never and that his goal is to work toward real unity in the Republican Party, not fake unity and that the party needs to be at full strength to defeat Hillary Clinton. The House Speaker won't detail his concerns about Donald Trump to the media preferring instead to do that with Trump in person when they meet this Thursday. But we do know Paul Ryan is worried about whether Trump will campaign firmly on conservative ideas and whether he plans to moderate his tone to appeal to a more diverse array of voters.  Donald Trump first said, he wasn't blindsided by the House Speaker's comments but later admitting he was caught a little off guard. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I have a nice relationship with him. Don't know him well, met him one time but have a nice relationship and then all of a sudden he gets on and he does this number. So, I'm not exactly sure what he has in mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: As for whether he plans to ask Paul Ryan to step down as co- chairman of the GOP convention Trump said he would address that later.  Former VP nominee Sarah Palin wants Ryan voted out of Congress altogether accusing him of having his eye on the White House in 2020. Ryan dismissed that comment saying House Speaker is not exactly a good stepping stone for president. And when he was asked about reports that Mitt Romney is being courted by conservatives to reconsider and run as an Independent, Paul Ryan says he vehemently opposes that saying it would be a disaster -- Megyn.

KELLY: Trace, thank you.

Well, my next got national attention when he took on Donald Trump in a fiery radio interview just ahead of the Wisconsin primary. Joining me now, Charlie Sykes.

Charlie, good to see you. And Trump went on to lose the state of Wisconsin, but win the GOP primary and nonetheless, you say you remain Never Trump. Before I ask you about Paul Ryan, why? Because you know the argument against that is that's a vote for Hillary Clinton.

CHARLIE SYKES, HOST, 620 WTMJ: Yes. Well, you know, Donald Trump is a serial liar, a con man who maxed the disable and women, he's a narcissism of bully, a man with no fixed principals who has the vocabulary of an emotionally insecure nine-year-olds. So, no, I don't want to give him control of the IRS, the FBI and the nuclear codes. That's just me.

KELLY: Tell us how you really feel.

(LAUGHTER)

It doesn't sound like there's a whole lot of wiggle room there, Charlie.

SYKES: Well, yes, I mean, I do see, you know, the raft swimming towards the sinking ship. But if at some point, if you understand, this is not just ideological, it's not just the fact that he's abandoned one position after another or that he has the penchant for internet hoax, conspiracy theories. I mean, a week ago tonight, remember? He was pedaling the notion that Ted Cruz's dad had something do with the JFK assassination.  So, there are some people who say that just because of party loyalty we're supposed to forget all of that, I just don't buy that.

Because, you know, I've cautioned, you know my fellow conservatives, you embrace Donald Trump, you embrace it all. You embrace every slur, every outrage, every falsehood, you're going to spend the next six months rationalizing, evading all that. And afterwards, you come back to women, the minorities, the young people and say, you know, that wasn't us, that's not what we're about. The reality is, if you support him to be president of the United States, that is who you are and you own it.

KELLY: How do you see this shaking out then in November?

SYKES: Well, I think that it's likely to be a blowout for the Democrats, so you asked me about whether or not being Never Trump is a vote for Hillary. I can't control the outcome of that campaign. I've been trying for the last six months to avoid this moment because you're talking about two really detestable people running for office. You think that a country like this could do better than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But all you can control is your own conscience and where you stand and I think that what I hope is that conservatives manage to come out of this with our integrity and their dignity and their principals intact.

KELLY: What do you make of Paul Ryan and the dust up with Trump?

SYKES: Well, he's not Never Trump. I want to make this very clear. What I think is interesting is that Paul Ryan is the polar opposite of Donald Trump. He's a decent human being. He is deeply intellectually serious and deeply engaged in policy, none of which Donald Trump is. And I think what's somewhat unreasonable to expect as some folks do that conservatives should simply surrender, should simply roll over as opposed to doing what Paul Ryan is doing which is asking for a conversation. A conversation.  What do we stand for?

What do we believe in? And that's a conversation that we need to have even though, look, Donald Trump has won the nomination, that doesn't mean that he immediately gets to win all of the battle of ideas or he gets the soul of the Republican Party and I think the Paul Ryan just kind of wants to know who, which Donald Trump is going to be. What does Donald Trump for?  What does Donald Trump think about taxes, the government, the constitution, all of those things that we once thought that we believed in. And again, this is a debate and a conversation that we very much need to have.

KELLY: Charlie, great to see you.

SYKES: Thank you.

KELLY: Joining us now with more, former presidential candidate who run against Mr. Trump, Governor Mike Huckabee who feels differently about the subject. Governor Huckabee, what do you make about Charlie Sykes? There are others like him. He's not alone in those feelings in the Republican Party?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: Well, he's not alone and he expresses some very strong views and I respect that, but I also want to say that we have two choices come November. We have got Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Some people say we don't know what Donald Trump's going to do. Well, maybe we don't. I think we have a pretty good idea and I think he would be frankly a good president. But we know what Hillary Clinton will do.

She will appoint people to the Supreme Court that will take it so far to the Left that we will lose Second Amendment Rights, the rights of the unborn are going to be trampled upon, we know what's going to happen. And I don't understand why Paul Ryan thought that it made sense to publicly express some of these misgivings. He had a meeting with Donald Trump coming this Thursday. That's where it should have been handled.

KELLY: Let me ask you about that.

HUCKABEE: That should have been handled --

KELLY: Let me ask you about that.

HUCKABEE: -- not on "Meet the Press."

KELLY: What they're saying is, he did that and they're asking Trump to sort of allow that so that some House members can run distancing themselves from Trump if they're in a district that isn't all that pro-Trump and that way the Republicans can keep the House and the Republicans hope win the White House, but they're hoping even if they don't win the White House, at least it will keep this House seats and control of that body.

HUCKABEE: Megyn, let me remind your viewers of something. Donald Trump already and we're not even finished with the primaries has already received more votes in the Republican process than John McCain or Mitt Romney when they had completed the entire process.

KELLY: Uh-hm.

HUCKABEE: So when these people are wringing their hands and sweating bullets about well, Donald Trump, well, they need to remember that he got a lot of votes, a lot more than any of the nominees have in the past several cycles. If they really wanted a nice guy, I was available, but they didn't want a nice guy. They wanted Donald Trump. They want someone to go out there and tell it like they're feeling it and they're going to have Donald Trump as the nominee. I'm going to support Donald Trump because I know what Hillary Clinton would do to this country. And Donald Trump will win over Hillary Clinton and I believe he will be an excellent president.

I really believe that. If I didn't believe it, I wouldn't say it. But look, this thing about Paul Ryan saying, if he asked me to step down, if Paul Ryan can't support the nominee that the voters have chosen, he should not make Donald Trump ask him, he should do the right thing and step aside on his own.

KELLY: That's fascinating. And I do hear that it was in the end, it was right down to you and Carson for number nicest in the GOP, and it was Christie and Trump on the other. But you had my vote.

HUCKABEE: Thank you.

KELLY: Good to see you, Governor.

I think he might have been the nicest person to run. It's tough to say because Carson is nice too.

Coming up, an image so controversial, West Point Academy has launched an investigation into the possible motivation behind it.

And some damage control for top Obama Advisor Ben Rhodes after he is accused of knowingly lying about the Iran nuclear deal and then bragging about it in a new report. Steve Hayes and James Rosen are next. Don't miss this report. This is an important one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Developing tonight, the White House advisor behind the bogus Benghazi talking points, remember that? Finds himself at the center of a new explosive controversy and he finds himself on defense. Ben Rhodes is the man who has helped to co-write every single one of the President's major foreign policy speeches and he was on the hot seat this weekend after admitting to the New York Times magazine that the narrative sold to the American public on the Iranian nuclear deal was done with the help of so- called experts who simply echoed White House talking points. And the Iran deal was not his first offense.

James Rosen our chief Washington correspondent is with us now. So, James, what exactly and Ben Rhodes is speaking out about this now, but what exactly is it that he did that's gotten him in trouble?

JAMES ROSEN, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Okay. So this past weekend "The New York Times" magazine run a 10,000 word profile of Ben Rhodes, the deputy, a White House National Security advisor for strategic communications written by a respected reporter, this profile, David Samuels. And in it, Ben Rhodes is quoted throughout expressing pretty fairly discernable contempt for the White House press core, for the foreign policy establishment which he calls the blob and in which he includes Hillary Clinton and Bob Gates and so forth.

And the article makes the following accusation that Rhodes and the Obama administration pointed to the election of a new president in Iran Hassan Rouhani in 2013 as the reason why we have to do a nuclear deal with Iran because now we have got a moderate government in there. And the article shows very clearly that in fact the Obama administration had begun its secret talks with Iran well before that election in Iran back in 2012.

Ben Rhodes as you noticed defending himself today in a very short piece on Medium.com in essence saying, "We believed everything we said, it may have been spin, but it wasn't lies." But I have to tell you having read all of this very closely even Ben Rhodes' defense of himself contained some untruth statements -- Megyn.

KELLY: So there -- I mean, in the article in "The New York Times" magazine, he basically admits that they lied to the public. That he thinks they did it for a good reason and that the ends justify the means and that they used what he clearly views as a stupid compliant, lazy Press Corps to get the job done.

ROSEN: Well, he says that most of the reporters that they don't -- with their own average, 27 year olds and knew, as he put it, literally nothing about world affairs and to some extent there is some legitimacy in Ben Rhodes' indictment of the Washington press corps.

I and certain other reporters of course in the Washington Press Corps, all along had been questioning some of the untruths told by the Obama administration both about the original sets of negotiations with Iran and when they began, but also some of the lies that were told about the actual substance of the deal.

Ben Rhodes was on CNN last April -- April of 2015 saying that this deal means that there will be anytime, anywhere, 24/7 access of Iran's nuclear sites and that turned out not to be true, but this is that kind of thing.

KELLY: Well, didn't you also ask him James -- didn't you also ask them about these channels of communication that had been established with Iran long before the moderate was elected there. I mean you were pressing them on the BS that was, "Oh, we just have to do it now because we have a friend running Iran."

ROSEN: Well, look, they lied flatly to me from the State Department podium. I showed up in the press briefing because I had gotten a tip that there was some kind of secret bilateral talks going on between United States and Iran -- that was February of 2013.

The State Department briefer at that time, Victoria Nuland said, "Government to government contacts of the kind you're talking about, no." That they had been going on for eight months at that time.

KELLY: So, is that permissible? I mean, you know, sometimes you lie to protect national security. They don't want it leaking to the press at that point.

ROSEN: Well, I'll report and we'll let the viewers decide if that's permissible.

KELLY: All right, stand because I want to bring in Steve Hayes, he's senior editor for "The Weekly Standard" and Fox News contributor. Steve, so Ben Rhodes finds himself on defense and it was an extraordinary piece in "The New York Times" magazine because part of -- John Podhoretz of the "The New York Post" wrote what was so devastating about it was that the writer didn't cut out Ben Rhodes' knees. He didn't seem to hate Ben Rhodes.

So, the stuff about his admissions was just devastating because it didn't look like the writer had an agenda. You saw the Ben Rhodes name back when you were investigating -- we're at the forefront of the investigation on the Benghazi talking points, which the White House had told us over and over and over and over again they never touched -- that they never touched before Susan Rice went out on five Sunday show and said, you know, no this is about a video. And it turns out they did touch it and why don't you tell the audience who was the one who authored those infamous talking points.

STEPHEN HAYES, THE WEEKLY STANDARD SENIOR WRITER: Well, yeah, I mean there were basically two sets of White House talking points and Ben Rhodes offered one of the key sets of White House talking points that blamed the attacks on a video. I mean, it was basically made up from beginning to end. Ben Rhodes played a key part in those talking points.

He played a key role in the original set of talking points that originated from the State Department and the CIA from the intelligence community and were massaged by the State Department by other parts of the administration that he has also played a key role.

KELLY: It's another instance again directly misleading us. I mean, they're on camera saying that they had nothing to do with those talking points, meanwhile Ben Rhodes wrote the memo, and here they are directly telling James and other intrepid reporters who actually pushed past the talking points, no, it's not happening and now we know that's not true. So Steve, I ask you what do you make of it.

HAYES: Yeah, I remember distinctly watching one White House press briefing in particular where Jay Carney was asked the question about the fact that these Benghazi attacks took place on the anniversary of 9/11 and Carney said you're conflating two things that are unrelated. And if you're sitting outside of the press room and you hear that you just think what are you talking about, of course it matters, that this was the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

I think we're seeing exactly the same thing on the question of the Iran deal. I remember at the time we were asking these questions. I remember the briefing that James just described. We're asking these questions, some of us in the briefing rooms and some of us outside the briefing room saying well, that doesn't add up and that doesn't make sense. And one after another we were told basically you don't know what you're talking about.

They belittled people who were skeptics and they enabled people who were amplifiers of their messages, many of whom as James points out, were in fact these 27-year-old reporters who had never reported on national security and foreign policy before.

KELLY: We get paid to be cynical -- cynical mofos and we do it with a badge of honor. That's what we're supposed to do. You're not supposed to accept the spoon fed spin. And that's why these two guys are great because they are cynical mofos. Can we say that on TV. I just did

HAYES: You said it. I didn't say -- you said it.

KELLY: Oh, I didn't say no.

ROSEN: My business cards -- my business say cynical mofo, that what they said.

KELLY: Good to see you both.

ROSEN: Thank you.

KELLY: It's a dirty job, but somebody's got do it. Well, ever since this photo started making the rounds, there have been growing questions about what these West Point cadets were trying to say and why. We'll look for answers, coming up.

Plus breaking news tonight, the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal as the State Department drops a bombshell about a key Clinton staffer and how they suddenly cannot find any of his e-mails. Judge Andrew Napolitano is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Breaking tonight, a new bomb shell in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal. The State Department now says they can't find any of the e-mails from the Clinton staffer responsible for setting up the infamous private server. None of them. Joining me now, Fox News senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano. All right, so I don't know if this is this a bomb shell. Is this a bomb shell.

ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: It's something that causes closer and closer to a perfect storm for Mrs. Clinton. There's a lot of moving parts. Last week her five closest aides were interviewed by the Department of Justice and the FBI. One of them reportedly said, I don't remember, I don't remember, I don't remember. Red flag to the FBI.

Next week Mrs. Clinton will be interviewed by the FBI even though she told all kinds of reporters over the weekend I've never heard from them. Of course she never heard from them. Her lawyer has heard from them. Next week her closest aides will be giving a deposition and an examination under oath outside of the courtroom on the whereabouts of the e-mails. Now we find out tonight that the most significant of her staffers, the guy she paid $5,000 to commit a felony to migrate her secret e-mails from a government server to a non-secure personal server. Her IT specialist, they can't find his e-mails.

And at the same time, we learned there's a debate going on in the Kremlin between the Foreign Ministry and the intelligence services about whether or not they should release the 20,000 of Mrs. Clinton's e-mails that they have hacked into and received and stored. All of this is happening at once.

KELLY: Oh boy, but wait, let me walk you back to the use of the "F" word and I'm not talking about mofo, talking about felony.

NAPLITANO: Right.

KELLY: Because that remains to be seen. In the leaks that we got over the past couple of days were that they're not finding any intentional conduct by Mrs. Clinton in connection with this server that would be needed to justify these charges.

NAPOLITANO: I am sorry that those leaks are coming out because they are absolutely wrong and they're being leaked by people ignorant of the law because this statute, espionage, the failure to keep secure state secrets that have been entrusted to you, does not require that the government prove intent.

KELLY: It doesn't. It's not an intent law.

NAPOLITAO: Correct. It is the rare federal crime that the government can prove by gross negligence. So, your listeners can tell us if 22,000 e-mails containing state secrets sent to receive via a non-secure server is enough for gross negligence.

KELLY: But they may not find that. I get your point, but that just because the number itself does not mean she was grossly negligent. It does depend on the content of what was in there.

NAPOLITAN: They can prove intent if they want to because there's an e-mail from Mrs. Clinton to one of the five of her aides saying "that document you have that says secret on it, white out the word secret. I want to read it tonight. Fax it from your home fax machine to my home fax machine." Now, if that's not an intention to move a state secret from a secure place to a non-secure place you tell me what it is.

KELLY: Well, it depends on who originated the top secret designation right? If it came from the State Department, wouldn't it be within her purview to say it's not top secret, I've declared it thus.

NAPOLITANO: No, because on her first day in office, she signed an oath and that oath says a document is secret because of the contents on the document, not because it is declared or stamped secret. And she promised that as the Secretary of State, she understood her obligation to recognize secrets when she sees them whether they're marked secret or not.

KELLY: Look at him go. You can just tell he had a career in the courtroom banging on a table.

NAPOLITANO: Well, I'm disappointed that her people are spreading false information, but it does tell you this politically they are worried.

KELLY: Wow, it's always a little, I mean all the staff gets interviewed and then you know they're coming for you and its very scary (ph). It's never happened to me, but I imagine it would be scary and I never want it to happen to me. That's why I know the judge and I have him on every week. I think our relationship is intact.

NAPOLITANO: A relationship is a great one. This is all happening to her at once.

KELLY: Great to see you judge.

NAPOLITANO: Pleasure.

KELLY: Also, (inaudible), you know I really can't stand him, but he would be good to have in your corner in case of an emergency. Just kidding, I love him like a brother.

Coming up, the growing questions over a picture of a group -- of a group of West Point cadets and the message they were trying to send here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the world headquarters of Fox News, it's the Kelly File with Megyn Kelly.

KELLY: A group of cadets at West Point Military Academy have created an uproar by posing for a photo with their fists raised in the air. Trace Gallagher in our West Coast newsroom with more, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGEHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, there's a long West Point tradition where graduating seniors don their ceremonial high-colored uniforms and mimic photos of cadets from centuries past. These 16 African- American female cadets took several photos that were circulated mostly among students, but the one featuring raised fists gained national attention when it was sent to military blogger, John Burke, who called it unprofessional saying, the women were identified with Black Lives Matters activist "known for inflicting violent protest throughout various parts of the United States, calling for the deaths of police officers, and even going so far as to call for the deaths of white Americans."

But Brenda Sue Fulton who chairs the U.S. Military Academy's Board of Visitors, says she knows these young women and they love the military. Fulton posted a different photo on Twitter saying she knew the raised fist was simply their expression of pride and unity but that it would be misinterpreted by white observers saying."

Unfortunately, in their youth and exuberance, it appears they didn't stop to think that it might have any political context, or any meaning other than their own feeling of triumph. Academy rules restrict political expression while in uniform, Megyn.

KELLY: Trace, thank you. Joining me now Kevin Jackson, Fox News contributor and conservative radio host. Kevin, good to see you. So, do you have a problem with these women with the fists?

KEVIN JACKSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: In the scheme of things, Megyn, the answer would be no. We unfortunately, we live in a time where things like that do create kind of an incendiary response and I think that when you think about it in perspective, if you had seen a group of white kids with their hand raised in a Hitler salute for example, we would probably be talking about that a lot more seriously.

KELLY: Is that the same though with the fist?

JASCKSON: Pardon me.

KELLY: Is that the same as a fist? I mean, what this woman you heard quoted in the piece, Brenda Sue Fulton, what she says is they were trying to show triumph. The stats are, there are 18 female Africa-American ready to graduate later this month out of a class of more than 900. So, maybe they're feeling triumphant.

JACKSON: Well, you could -- a lot of people can feel that way, but our hearts goes back to 1968 with the Olympic gold medalist and the silver medalist raising their fist to show solidarity.

KELLY: They may not even know about that.

JACKSON: Well, I doubt -- I don't know, it's tough for us to say, but the point is, I would even go a step further and say what if it was a group of white cadets that had raised their fists I triumph all men and all females. I think we'd still be talking about it and we'd be talking about it in a different way. Look, at the end of the day, we are in a racially charged America mainly because of the way that in my opinion liberals have created the country.

We've conditioned ourselves to become politically correct. In the scheme of things this probably shouldn't be considered a big deal. It might have been -- they could have done the Charlie Angels pose right after that and nobody would have thought anything of it. But unfortunately, if you're serving in the military and you don't know if the person beside you really does care about your life as does your life matter more than a so-called Black Lives Matter Movement, I think that that's something that could create a stir.

Even back in the '60s when soldiers were dealing with this in the Vietnam war and they had a lot of issues and legitimate, what I would call race issues that blacks were concerned about, these guys fought side by side and shoulder to shoulder, but in today's environment where we've created a Black Lives Matter movement over a fake thing and we've seen the level of incendiary discussion and virulence against white in America...

KELLY: Well, obviously, I mean Kevin to say everything Black Lives Matter does is for a fake thing is -- obviously they've made some questionable choices, but there also have been murders. There have been murders of young African-American men by white police officers. We've seen that too so, we don't want to dismiss the entire thing. I do want to say congrats to those young women because it's not easy to graduate from West Point and hopefully this won't mire (ph) that accomplishment in too much controversy. Kevin, great to see you.

JACKSON: You too.

KELLY: So, when we come back, the first look at my interview with Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: You seem to stay angry for months, was that real or was that strategy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Well, after nine-plus months, the wait is over. Tonight, a preview of my much-anticipated sit-down with presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. It's been a long year. A lot has happened and for the very first time, Donald Trump and I sit down together and discuss it all. That interview will air next week on my new Fox broadcast special, "Megyn Kelly Presents." watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: You seem to stay angry for months. Was that real? Or was that strategy?

TRUMP: Well, I'm a real person. I don't say, oh, gee, I'm angry tonight but tomorrow you're my best friend. See, I do -- I do have a theory that, you know, when somebody does -- this could happen again with us. I mean, it could be even doing this particular interview. I have great respect for you that you were able to call me and say, let's get together and let's talk.

To me, I would not have done that. I don't say that as a positive. I think it's a negative for me. And you walked into Trump Tower and we didn't have like on a neutral side or over at Fox or something, it would be a whole different thing and I wouldn't have done it.

KELLY: I hope your doorman is still recovering.

TRUMP: I think the whole building is recovering, people are going, this can't be possible, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: You can see the interview on my big Fox special. It's Tuesday, May 17th at 8:00 on your local Fox station. This morning by the way I swung by "Live with Kelly and Michael" to talk about the special and Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY RIPA, "LIVE WITH KELLY AND MICHAEL" CO-HOST: You seem truly, to me, unflappable. Is there ever anything that happens to you where you go home at night and just, you know, become emotionally overwhelmed or --

KELLY: Yes, I mean, I'm a normal person. I, you know, gave a speech recently talking about the whole dustup with Trump and saying -- the people had started to say that I am fearless and that is not true and i don't think it's true of anybody.

You know, I cry, I have fear and, you know, my husband will attest that of course it's been a difficult year and thank God I have him and thank God I have my three loveys who get me through everything and will ground me in everything in life. But that -- that shouldn't be the goal for anybody. I think that we set the goal too high for ourselves as women and as men even to say we have to be fearless.

The best -- these Navy SEALs, you know, they'll talk about how you have to walk through the fear. That's what -- just walk through. Just do it. You just have to, like, show yourself up. I tell the gals on my team, head down, shoulders back, forge forward. And if you can just push through the moment, then it pass and then you feel a little bit more courageous and you feel a little bit stronger and then the next time it's easier and the next time it's easier.

MICHAEL STRAHAN,"LIVE WITH KELLY AND MICHAEL" CO-HOST: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: Had a great time over there. Thanks again for having me, Kelly and Michael. We will also have exclusives with O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro speaking out for the first time in 20 years. Laverne Cox will join us as well and Michael Douglas on those reports that he is dying. We'll get an answer to that once and for all.

"Megyn Kelly Presents" airs next Tuesday, May 17th 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Now, it's not on Fox News channel. It's on big Fox, "American Idol" Fox, "Empire" Fox. Find me there. See you tomorrow at 9:00.

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