Despite effort and funding, Democrats lose Kavanaugh fight

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Despite effort and funding, Democrats lose Kavanaugh fight

Did the left's rage help unite Republicans? Reaction from David Goodfriend, former Clinton aide, David Bossie, president and chairman of Citizens United, and Ken Starr, former solicitor general and former independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," October 8, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: All right, welcome to "The Ingraham Angle." I'm Laura Ingraham on a historic night in Washington. Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in at an extraordinary event at the White House tonight where Donald Trump offered these words to now Justice Kavanaugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure. Those who stepped forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation. Not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: If I had to guess, I would bet that Donald Trump wrote those lines himself -- just my guess. It was great. But the war isn't over. As the left fires off a new round of antics in the wake of his nomination, we have every angle covered with Ken Starr, Victor Davis Hanson. We got Dave Bossie, Devin Nunes -- a great lineup tonight.

But first, the left's rage against the Trump machine, that is the focus of tonight's Angle. So far Democrats seem to have learned nothing from their futile battle against the Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. They put the country through three weeks of what basically amounted to a he said, she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, ACCUSER OF BRETT KAVANAUGH: I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, THEN-U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE NOMINEE: I have never done this to her or to anyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They used paid activist to corner senators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions, to sit in the highest court of the country.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: Shame! Shame! Shame!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They held still protest that ranged from in unhinged to downright pathetic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: We are!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About to!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALEs: About to!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: March!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: March!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: We need!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: Everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To pay!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: To pay!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Attention!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES: Attention!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I'm not paying attention. Can Linda Sarsour learn some rhymes every now and then? All right. Well, they use their pals in the press to run with the most outlandish substantiated claims possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC SHOW HOST: The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh plunges deeper into danger tonight over an allegation of sexual assault that leaves his confirmation in mortal jeopardy.

LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS HOST: A third allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh surfaced today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we know about the allegations from the third accuser and the late breaking news of a fourth accuser.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She considers his own memories credible and she felt it was important that she tell her story before others did without her consent.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: But despite all their efforts, the emotional pleas and all the big money behind their smears, on Saturday afternoon, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. So after their spectacular flameout, what do the Democrats do in response? They double down on failure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER, D-N.Y.: If he is on the Supreme Court and the Senate hadn't investigated, then the House will have to.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULUS, ABC NEWS HOST: You will investigate?

NADLER: We would have to investigate any credible allegations.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO, D-HAWAII: I'm totally focused with all the angry woman and the men who listen to women and support the credible accounts of sexual harassment and sexual assault which is a very underreported, but I'm focused like a laser beam on the elections.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: But there are signs that this angry gender politics game is just not working. A Marist poll last week found that there was virtually no vendor gap when it comes to Justice Brett Kavanaugh among either Republicans or Democrats. Eighty percent of Republican women have a favorable view of Kavanaugh with 81 percent of Republican men agreeing.

And the Democratic side, men have a greater unfavorable view of Kavanaugh, 85 percent to 75 percent of women. Well, the struggle over Kavanaugh as we noted in THE ANGLE shortly after he was nominated was always going to be political.

The Democrats were going to savage anyone Donald Trump nominated except maybe, if he re-nominated someone like Merrick Garland or something completely cuckoo like that. The perpetual rage against all things Trump also seems to intensify the more Trump accomplishes. And it's unrelated by the way to how optimistic and how confident American workers and consumers are about the economy. None of that even matters to the crazies on the left.

Consider what the president, with the help of Mitch McConnell, has accomplished just on this very important issue of judicial nominations? Of course, two Supreme Court justices, 26 federal appellate court justices, and 41 federal district court judges. And by the way, they are just getting started.

And of course, President Trump has chalked up so many other impressive wins, gets very little credit in the mainstream media for it. He successfully renegotiated NAFTA, forcing both Mexico and Canada to accept a deal that finally begins to treat American manufacturers and American workers fairly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(PEOPLE CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He has rolled back needless government regulations. By the way, for every new regulation, the Trump federal agency issued, they basically rescinded 22. The government estimates that the lifetime net cost savings of his deregulatory efforts is about $8.1 billion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(PEOPLE CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And Trump passed the largest tax cut in a generation, manufacturing jobs are back, the GDP is above 4 percent and we have the lowest unemployment in nearly 50 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(PEOPLE CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Trump is taking on China for their years of cheating and stealing from the American workers and American businesses. And finally, we have an administration that recognizes the threat that this expansive communist regime poses to our own national and economic security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(PEOPLE CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Trump is transforming both the country and the Republican Party and not a moment too soon. Even the ranks of some of the never-Trumpers have dwindled and they grudgingly admit the genius and success of Donald Trump.

The Kavanaugh struggle was a clarifying moment for the never-Trump crowd, like a political astringent. Brett Stevens, Hugh Hewitt and Erick Erickson all lined up behind the president in midst of the Kavanaugh fight, some more than others but nevertheless it's a big change. By the way, remember, this was Erick Erickson who was head of that red state website back in August of 2015.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERICK ERICKSON, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: I wanted to give the man a lot of latitude because I know he taps into some anger that even I share with the Republican Party, and a lot of us here do. But if our standard-bearer has to resort to that, we need a new standard-bearer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And this is Erick Erickson to the Washington Examiner last week, quote, "For the first time I see myself voting for Trump in 2020. And it has a lot to do with Kavanaugh. He's not the only reason but he is definitely the straw that broke the camel's back." Is Erick calling himself a camel or is that the left? Anyway, I'm happy and I'm glad. Erick is a good guy.

Of course, establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, none of those guys wanted Trump to be the nominee. They've all really stepped up helping to push Kavanaugh over the confirmation finish line. Maybe, maybe they are closer all of them, to recognizing the time is up on the old GOP and Trump's policies are actually bearing fruit.

All the excitement is with Trump, let's face it. All the momentum is with his ideas. There is too much on the line for intraparty squabbles any longer. And the choice for voters is now really simple. Mob rule or the rule of law? Perpetual rage or real results? Demonization, or due process?

As an example, this is what the anti-Trump rage machine was up to over the weekend. Protesters in Portland blocked a major thoroughfare causing needless disruptions. When a driver dared to push through the blockade, this was the reaction of these open-minded and tolerant leftist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

(YELLING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: It's like a scene from "Homeland" or something from Benghazi. The far left, let's face it, is now running the Democratic asylum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The main base of the Democrats have shifted so far left that we will end up in Venezuela. This country will end up being Venezuela. I think a lot of Democrats are going to be voting Republican.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Tonight, I felt very privileged to be in attendance as former Justice Anthony Kennedy swore in our new justice in the Supreme Court, my friend of many, many years and one of America's finest legal minds, Brett Kavanaugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY KENNEDY, RETIRED SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: As associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT: As associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

KENNEDY: Under the constitution and laws of the United States.

KAVANAUGH: Under the constitution and laws of the United States.

KENNEDY: So help me god.

KAVANAUGH: So help me god.

(APPLAUSE)

INGRAHAM: I mean, you could feel the excitement in that room and it was -- it was one of the amazing -- most amazing political moments I've been privileged to observe. Meanwhile, the haters on the left are swearing retribution and promising more mayhem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL AVENATTI, LAWYER: So I say when they go low, we hit harder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't put a liar on the court.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is your mind made up?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't put a liar on the court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They are for women, right? Women can be anything they want to be or think whatever they want to think? Don't believe that for a second. My friends, the choice is yours. It's coming up really soon, it's Election Day. And that is THE ANGLE.

Joining me in studio here, Dave Bossie, is the president and chairman of Citizens United, Dave Goodfriend is a former Clinton aide and we are also joined by former solicitor general and former independent counsel, former federal appellate court judge, Ken Starr, author of the book, "Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation." It's great to see all of you, Judge and David and David.

David Goodfriend, let's start with you. So you heard my monologue. You got some angry people in your party. I mean, they are banging on the cars or cornering poor old Susan Collins, Jeff Flake turned into a puddle of goo in the elevator, is this a governing agenda, I don't get it?

DAVID GOODFRIEND, FORMER CLINTON AIDE: Well, Laura, it didn't surprise me that you didn't show Ken Harbaugh, the former Navy pilot who is ahead in his race for the House in Ohio and you didn't show candidates from Kansas and Kentucky that are ahead in the polls. You didn't discuss the fact that this president has the lowest approval rating in modern history. I think we have to go --

INGRAHAM: We got the same as Obama, right in the same average.

GOODFRIEND: It's actually quite low. And you didn't mention Laura, this is the most interesting point I want to focus on. Republican Bruce Mehlman, Ken's brother, Ken Melhman who ran the Republican Party. He came out with some data that everybody in Washington is talking about. It shows that for the first time ever, women in the United States now favor Democrats by a 25-point margin. So these are things that you didn't talk about in your stand up and I think it's important that you --

INGRAHAM: The independent women are a place where Republicans really got to work on, you are right on that. But I want to keep the conversation focused on just the moment we are in now. And Judge, I want to go to you before we go to Bossie. This is wild to see the federal courthouse or the Supreme Court descended upon -- protest is great, people get signs and they chant, that's fine.

But to bang -- it's kind of funny to watch them like hopelessly clawing at the door, I mean, I don't know what they think they were doing. But there's something about cornering a woman in an elevator. If a conservative or series of conservative activists did this to a liberal senator, they would be having candlelight vigils for, you know, women against violence and intimidation. But this is now just accepted on the left.

KEN STARR, PRESIDENT, STARR STRATEGIES: I hope not. Laura, I will say this, and watching this unfold, I thought the Bob Bork nomination was bad, and it was, the confirmation process? I thought the Clarence Thomas nomination process -- you clerked for the Justice. You know him to be a very good person.

I thought that was really bad. But here's the good news. The Supreme Court is above all this. While we continue to fight it out as citizens, the Supreme Court is going to show I think beginning tomorrow morning an enormous amount of unity.

Brett puts -- excuse me, Justice Kavanaugh puts it very well, we are a team. They may disagree with another. Remember Nino Scalia and Ruth Ginsburg, they would disagree but they would do so in a very disagreeable freeway, right. They talk to one another and they liked one another, and that's going to be a great --

INGRAHAM: Yes. That doesn't cut through in what we are saying with the claims the court will be illegitimate. I want to get to that in a moment. I want to play for you what -- and you were at the event with -- we sat next to each other, what am I talking about. We were sitting next to each other -- when Brett Kavanaugh got up and spoke. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAVANAUGH: The Senate confirmation process was contentious and emotional. That process is over. My focus now is to be the best justice I can be. I take this office with gratitude and no bitterness. Every American can be assured that I will be an independent and impartial justice, devoted to equal justice under law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I mean, he is a Bush guy. He's a Bush guy. I mean, I've known Brett for a long time. He's just one of the smartest people, one of the kindest people and I thought that statement was so lovely after everything that we've been through, as a country over the last three weeks.

Yet the Eric Holder, tweet that came out, Bossie and I'll read it for you, "With the confirmation of Kavanaugh, the process which lead to it, the legitimacy of the Supreme Court can justifiably be questioned," the former attorney general of the United States.

DAVE BOSSIE, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS UNITED: It's disgraceful. The entire process was disgraceful. What Justice Kavanaugh did tonight was exactly what someone in his position, anyone of any party should be doing, and that is, separating the politics from it and saying I am now a member of a team of nine and I am going to bring equal justice to all Americans based on the constitution. And that is something that I hope the left hears and they are trying to damage and delegitimize this court.

INGRAHAM: David, I want to play for you something that Alan Dershowitz said on Fox today. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR EMERITUS: I am particularly outraged at my colleagues and students at Harvard Law School. Those of them who have made it impossible for Kavanaugh to continue to teach there. It's rampant McCarthyism at its worse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: David, he is a phenomenal professor. He is now a sitting Supreme Court justice. I shook hands with Elena Kagan today. I'm so impressed with her. I mean, I probably don't agree with a lot of her jurisprudence but she's a woman who has ascended to the highest court in the land with a lot of Republicans voting for Sotomayor and Kagan. What is this? What's happening?

GOODFRIEND: Well, I worked with Elena Kagan, Justice Kagan in the White House and I agree, she's a phenomenal person. And she was the dean of the Harvard Law School when now Justice Kavanaugh was hired.

INGRAHAM: He can't go there now.

GOODFRIEND: I think that anytime --

INGRAHAM: He can't got to a university and speak. He cannot teach as a, you know, two or three classes at a law school today. You realize that, right?

GOODFRIEND: Pepperdine might take him.

STARR: Oh, gladly.

GOODFRIEND: Pepperdine will probably take him.

STARR: Absolutely.

GOODFRIEND: I think the level of discourse in this country has gotten so acrimonious that it is hard for -- look, we are all sitting here having a civil conversation. It's getting harder to do that and that's a shame. I do think however that thou shall reap what thou does so. And I think that when you have a president who thrives on division, this is what he does best. He is a divider.

INGRAHAM: Obama never divided --

GOODFRIEND: No, not at all.

INGRAHAM: I thought it was more divided after eight years of Obama.

GOODFRIEND: I think the popular vote speaks for itself in both instances and I think the rhetoric of both men speaks for itself. So look, you can throw barbs, I can throw barbs, we can talk about what started it. We can't deny where we are. And I do think that one of the ways we can come out of this is by focusing on problems that --

INGRAHAM: Why do you condemn (ph) --

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: Condemn what they did to Susan Collins because if a Republican journalist or conservative had done that to Mazie Hirono, they would never work again, literally would never work again. You know it.

GOODFRIEND: Laura, I don't remember you saying that when people put racial epitaphs (ph) at African-American lawmakers who are casting a vote on the ACA standing right behind you at that Capitol. I don't remember you on Fox News presenting that at all. I don't remember you saying anything.

INGRAHAM: First of all, we did talk about some of that I know was re- examined on whether it actually happened.

(CROSSTALK)

GOODFREIND: -- with those people --

INGRAHAM: No.

GOODFRIEND: -- right now will condemn those people.

INGRAHAM: Of course. And no one should ever scream --

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: Hold, I want to play something for the judge. This is Senator Cardin today speaking about whether this justice, Brett Kavanaugh, is inside the judicial mainstream judge. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN CARDIN, D-MD.: I don't believe that Justice Kavanaugh is in the mainstream of judicial thought. Take a look at his decisions. There is a trend. Everyone of those decisions where he was in the minority or he was the deciding vote. It was on behalf of special interest, and behalf of the powerful against the individual. Consumer cases, environmental cases, labor cases, one after another. And then his response to Dr. Ford where he showed that he was not --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STARR: Political rhetoric. Judge Kavanaugh, now Justice Kavanaugh had an exemplary record. The fact that Justice Kagan recruited him to teach at the Harvard Law School tells us about all we need to know. Coupled with his record for 12 years, exemplary, frequently affirmed by the Supreme Court, his views vindicated, his views respected.

I think what we have here is the senators have simply returned to the age of Bob Bork and the kinds of comments remain against Bob Bork who are terribly unfair and ill-founded. So, the good news again, Laura, the Supreme Court is going to rise above this.

INGRAHAM: And they were all there tonight at the court. It was really nice to see --

STARR: That's very powerful.

BOSSIE: It was an amazing night. President Trump's speech was remarkable. What he did for Justice Kavanaugh's children, and talking to them about their father being a kind and courageous man. It meant the world to Justice Kavanaugh I imagine but it meant a lot to --

INGRAHAM: Got to go. We got a hard break guys, fantastic panel. David Goodfriend we will get more of you next time. What we saw over the past few weeks offers a very clear lesson for the left. Resist the resistance, or lose. Mark Penn has the polls to show us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shut it down!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shut it down!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shut it down!

(CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That was the so-called resistance reacting to Kavanaugh's confirmation vote this past week and that was after it occurred. No one told them they lost. Now, if the Kavanaugh battle made anything clear, is that you have to stand up to the mob. Imagine if Brett Kavanaugh just walked through that crowd, what they would have done? I think they would have ripped him from limb to limb.

If you don't stand up to the mob they will walk all over you. My next guest says that if the left continues with these tactics, what you saw in the video, they may not get their big blue wave they are hoping for come November and worst.

Joining me now with reaction, former Clinton advisor and Democratic pollster Mark Penn along with Monica Crowley from the London Center for Policy Research. Great to see both of you tonight. Now Mark, I want to start with you. We have actually seen some on the left claim that the party didn't really work hard enough to defeat Kavanaugh and, you know, is there any hope here for some calmer heads to prevail before the midterms?

MARK PENN, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: I hope so. I mean, any postmortem of this will say did the resistance worked? No. The (inaudible) like Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham, they became antagonized and sided with Trump. If Democrats are going to win, they need to pull over the moderates. It's a moderate country and those are the people who decide Supreme Court nominations and elections.

INGRAHAM: Mark, you've been around this town for a long time. I keep playing the video of them clawing at the door, because partly it's really funny. Second of all, it's kind of shocking. I clerked at the court, but there was always a sense of decorum. There were protest, it's fine (inaudible). But to actually be at the door of the court like with these frenzied reactions, I've never seen anything like that, never.

PENN: Well, I'd like to see more Democrats upholding our institution at this critical period. Look, our country is all we have and the most important thing is to bring a sense of national unity when things are decided and I think more Democrats would do better taking that tactic after this vote than the opposite, both for the moral reason that it's the right thing to do and for the tactical reason it will get more votes.

INGRAHAM: Monica, your favorite, Senator Mazie Hirono. I think it's great you are going to be her press secretary. She actually was out on the "State of the Union" on Sunday and was asked about this tactic of going to people's homes and protesting them there. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: To run senators out of restaurants, go to their homes, is not going too far?

HIRON: I think that it just means that there are lots of people who are very, very much motivated, by what is going on. This is what happens, you know, because when you look at white supremacists and all of that, this is what is coming forth in our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So Monica, basically she was saying, it's fine, read between the lines. She wasn't saying that scary stuff. She was essentially giving it a green light implicitly.

MONICA CROWLEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Right. And with the exception of Mark Penn and a handful of other responsible moderate centrists Democrats - -

INGRAHAM: Joe Manchin.

CROWLEY: -- the few that are left, there are no real responsible grown-ups in the Democratic Party to condemn this kind of thing. They are almost afraid to even if they want to because the party has been wholesale taken over by the left. The left is at war, Laura, and that is why they are constantly and immediately reaching for the most extreme, the most radical, the most violent in some cases because that's the only way that they can win this war.

It's a war against the constitution, against free market economics, against individual liberty, against all the things for which Justice Kavanaugh is going to fight on the Supreme Court, therefore they had to destroy him. And when you would layer that on top of their absolute hatred for Donald Trump, this is why the left now and the Democratic Party and many in the media have been taken over and consumed and actually they're cannibalizing each other.

INGRAHAM: Oh no. It's unlike anything I've ever seen.

CROWLEY: Unlike anything we've ever seen including 1968, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

INGRAHAM: Yes. Mark, you are a poll guy. I want to show this new poll out from CNN. This was a few days back. Approve or disapprove of how the Senate Dems are handling the confirmation vote, independents, 58 percent disapprove, 30 percent approve. Democrats, 67 percent approved, 26, and Republicans 87 disapprove. Tell me about what that might mean. That was last week.

PENN: Well, look, I think it sys independents have reacted quite negatively to what they see as this food fight. Remember, Democrats were cruising here into a pretty safe victory. And now, the conservatives have really been energized in a way that really wasn't the case a week or two ago.

Look, in the Harvard Harris poll 69 percent called these hearings a national disgrace. So you got to understand the public knows that there is something wrong and rotten here when they see these kinds of actions. Some people probably thought they were leftist.

INGRAHAM: Well some people probably though or what left is and they thought it was a disgrace that Brett Kavanaugh is on the court.

PENN: Look, there were people on both sides of this with really sincere views. But whenit gets distorted and when they see that the speeches are fake and when they see that in fact people aren't really sincere in reason the way Susan Collins was, we needed a Democratic Susan Collins. That's what would have won the day.

INGRAHAM: Monica, when you think about people like that writer for Colbert who said, well, we might have lost -- I'm paraphrasing. I don't even know his name. But we might have lost, but at least we ruined Kavanaugh's life.  Really? First of all, I thought you were supposed to be funny. You're not funny. You are tedious, and you character, or your boss lived a derivative lifestyle on TV for how long? That's the only reason he first go noticed.  But what is that? That's really what you wake up and you're interested in doing, that is what the Democratic Party is today?

CROWLEY: Actually, she gave up the game with that tweet. That was pretty well honest of what their whole objective was, it was to defeat him, and if they couldn't defeat him to ruin the man and try to ruin his reputation and derail.

Look, the left is incapable of or unwilling to learn from history. Every time they go full radical like this they lose at the ballot box. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bush 43, and now Donald Trump have all been beneficiaries of the leftist mob, their tactics, and their intent to destroy everything that has made this country great, our very foundational principles. They refuse to learn, and they can't learn because they are at war, Laura, period. It's all about power and control.

INGRAHAM: Again, there actually is a really interesting debate to be had, if people want to have it, on what to do about China. Like, what is our role vis-a-vis China? What are we going to do with NATO down the road?  What about this $20 trillion of debt we have? Are we ever going to build the wall? What about immigration, millions and millions of people coming into the country over the last x number of years, how is that changing the country? Is it good, is it bad, do we want more? That's actually really interesting stuff. I love that kind of debate. This kind of stuff is just like eighth grade stuff.

Anyway, guys, great segment, thank you so much, Monica, Mark. And in the wake of the Kavanaugh nomination, Democrats, as I said, are in full freak out mode from wanting to abolish the Electoral College to talk of court packing. The latest leftist madness, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: The anti-Trump Kavanaugh resistance looks a lot to me like a progressively debilitating mental disorder. I'm calling it PKCS, post Kavanaugh confirmation syndrome. And let's walk through the stages starting from the beginning. First, Linda Sarsour disrupted the first confirmation hearing. Then Brett Kavanaugh was accused of rape, then of flashing his private parts. Then accused basically of gang rape. Then Soros paid radicals cornered Jeff Flake in an elevator. And after a second hearing, Kavanaugh was then basically being accused of being an alcoholic and of having anger issues. And when all that failed, a mob of crazy-eyed protesters smashed and clawed at the Supreme Court doors and waved filthy signs.

Once Kavanaugh was confirmed Democrats of course promised impeachment and to abandon the Electoral College, and, finally, to pack the court to offset the five conservatives on the bench.

Joining us now with reaction to this tragic disorder, Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of the book "The Case for Trump." Victor, you've been covering this, you've heard of inflammatory bowel disease. This is an inflammatory anti-Kavanaugh Trump madness, OK.  And have Democrats in your mind in recent years, have they ever been this far left or this much unhinged?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION: I don't think so. I think you can trace it from that period from 2009 to 16 when Obama promised them that a new demography, immigration, identity politics, the system was geared for that. He got elected twice. And then suddenly they woke up and said he's kind of a narcissist. We lost the state legislatures, governorships, House, Senate, now the presidency and Supreme Court. And out of that frustration they think big money. It's the party of the rich now, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, the Steyer brothers, maybe they will like that spectacle and they'll poor money in and we can win.

And then some days they say we've got to import the tactics of the campus, so we have these upper middle class kids, identify politics, get in their face, mob them, dox them, shout them down, get rid of due process.

And then sometimes they are frustrated in the system that used to be great between 2009 at 16, suddenly is antidemocratic. We need 10 senators from California, none from Wyoming, there are too few people there. Let's get rid of the Electoral College, or let's go back to 1869 before which we had different numbers of Supreme Court judges. So it's kind of frustrated, but it's kind of Nietzschean desire for power again, and they're frustrated because a lot of their dilemmas were self-inflicted. They were the ones who were turned off the middle class, independents, the white working class in swing states. They didn't have to do that.

INGRAHAM: But what are they banking on? Victor, what are they banking on?

HANSON: They got nothing and learned nothing.

INGRAHAM: Yes, but what are they banking on? Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is the new -- she's on the cover of all these magazines.  She's a young woman, attractive woman. She was asked on MSNBC, what are you going to do basically once you get elected? This is the gibberish she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXANDRA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y., CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: And what it is, it's really about organizing and really thinking about that word, organizing, segmenting people, being strategic in their actions in really bringing together a cohesive strategy of putting pressure on the chamber instead of only focusing on the pressures inside the chamber.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a really interesting thought.

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INGRAHAM: My favorite, Victor, is that's a really interesting thought. I don't know what she's talking about.

HANSON: I don't know. These are people who criticized Donald Trump and say he has the vocabulary of 1,500 words, but he's sophisticated and articulate compared to that. This is Boston University, what, fourth in her class. The point is when you go down the identity politics route and you start judging people by their ethnic background or their gender or their ideology rather than their talent or their wisdom or their character, that's what you get it. And it's kind of sad that the Democrats are going down this.

These septuagenarians and octogenarians, Feinstein, Biden, Pelosi, they are so desperate to be hip and get back their party, so Joe Biden says he's going to beat Trump up outside of the locker room, or Feinstein has this Byzantine plot to undermine Kavanaugh with the Ford testimony. It's very pathetic that somebody hijacked their party and they are kind of deer in headlights. They don't know whether to be hip and go hard left or just suffer the irrelevance of being old and in the way.

INGRAHAM: Victor, tonight at the White House, it was great to be there. A lot of old friends. Of course all the justices were there. There is a possibility, probably a pretty decent one that Donald Trump, obviously if he is reelected in 2020 he will have another Supreme Court opening.

If Brett Kavanaugh who is a Bush appointee, Bush staff secretary, very mainstream person and judge, if he is subjected to this, can you imagine if Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat suddenly is open, or she retired -- she says she won't -- but what will they do then? Bill Maher is saying that the president doesn't have a right to appoint anyone else, basically.

HANSON: I think it was a very brilliant and underappreciated move by Trump, but by nominating Kavanaugh first he demonstrated that if you are a Bush-ite, you went to the right schools and you could be caricatured as a preppy, a mainstream blue stocking Republican, and they destroy you, think what they will do to the next appointee that is in further to the right?  And then when she is nominated, they're going to say, he can just say look, it's not her, it's not anybody. It's just us. And we're either going to hang separates or hang together. So he's really destroyed the never-Trump movement because 90 percent of that small rubric of about 10 percent now say, you know what, I don't have any choice. It's either scratching on the Supreme Court door or Donald Trump, and I will take Donald Trump and the Republican.

INGRAHAM: Victor, I will never get tired -- I'm never going to get tired of watching that video, I'm sorry. But there is something that's so poetic about that. And it's said, and it's infuriated. I'm sorry, I'm just going to take the humor out of this whole thing.

Victor, thank you so much, great segment, as always.

After meeting with Rod Rosenstein at Air Force One this morning, President Trump indicated he has no plans to fire him. Devin Nunes well react to that. Can't wait to hear what he has to say.

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TRUMP: Thank you as well to our Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for being here. Flew down together.  The press wants to know, what did you talk about?

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: We had a very good talk, I will say. That became a very big story actually, folks. We had a good talk.

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INGRAHAM: Boy, did that keep people guessing today. That was President Trump surprising a lot of folks with his new found support for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the man overseeing the Robert Mueller probe.

Joining us now to react is California Congressman and House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes. Congressman, thanks for being here tonight. What do you make of the president's comments on the deputy attorney general today?  That was kind of interesting.

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF., HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Look, I don't think any of us think that Rosenstein should be dismissed before the election. I think he does have to come in this week and answer whether or not he was willing to wear a wire or not, and whether or not he was looking at invoking the 25th Amendment. Those are key questions that he is going to answer before the Russia taskforce this week, supposedly on Thursday.

INGRAHAM: Devin, the issue of this redacted series of documents regarding the Russia probe, people watching across the country are like, OK, you guys are always talking about this. Documents that are going to declassified and then they are not or they're partially declassified. And we talked about this a few weeks ago, and I'm still not following what happened. The deputy attorney general with a few others from the intel community convinced the president, correct me if I'm wrong, not to declassify documents about the FISA warrant against Carter Page and other renewals of that warrant and kicked it over to the inspector general, correct? What else do we know about this?

NUNES: That's correct. And that's really my biggest problem with the Department of Justice and the FBI is every time we try to get something out of the public, they cry wolf, and they claim there's going to be national security implications.

So the president was very clear and said that these documents needed to be immediately declassified without reductions. Then what happened is that a meeting occurred which you just referred to, and then suddenly the I.G. was brought in.

Now my challenge with the I.G., I don't have anything against the I.G., the I.G. is probably a great guy. But we are Congress. We believe people have a right to know this information. It needs to be made public. It's not very much information. But we want the president to declassify it and the president has mentioned that he would. So this has now been I think two and a half or three weeks, so it doesn't take that long, Laura. You are only talking about 20 pages of a FISA and I think about a dozen FBI reports from none other than Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie Ohr, was working for the Clinton campaign, effectively, in helping to feed the information into the FBI.

So, I just don't know what they are thinking here. The president I think, he's a smart guy, but he needs to be careful about who he listens to, I think, sometimes.

INGRAHAM: Adam Schiff is all over this, as you might imagine. Let's watch.

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF., RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: The single act of using a never before House rule to selectively release classified information in the now infamous Nunes memorandum was a violation of everything that the committee has stood for. It was a naked politicization of intelligence, and a fraudulent one at that.

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INGRAHAM: He's obviously not talking about a particular issue, but just making a personal, basically, about you. I know you are used to this and you're running for reelection, and the Democrats are going to make you out be to be the boogeyman here, but at this point it seems to me that Americans have the right to know what the heck happened and why an American citizen was spied upon using documents that we are created at the funding of the president's opponent during the campaign.

NUNES: So remember, the entire Democratic Party, OK, and the media, their friends in the media, which is pretty much all of them, except for 10 percent, and all the bad people from the Clinton administration were funneling this stuff in the FBI. You've got a dozen people now at the FBI and DOJ who are gone. So everything that we did on our committee we had to do. We had to make sure the American public knew that this information about what somebody was doing to basically set up a campaign and accuse them of colluding with Russians was really wrong. And we have now proven that the only collision that happened was collision with the Democrats and the Clinton campaign and the Russians.

And I will tell you, I still want to know why nobody is investigating what Russians were, the Democrats and the Clinton campaign, talking to through Fusion GPS, and feeding that information into the FBI. And now we know that broke last week, and you kind of alluded to it earlier, Laura, that the top lawyer --

INGRAHAM: James Baker.

NUNES: For the FBI, Comey's lawyer, James Baker, was meeting with a top lawyer from the DNC. And, I'm sorry, that just doesn't smell good to me.

INGRAHAM: Yes. As a lawyer for the FBI, you can't be having political -- or meetings that even have the appearance of being political in the middle of this type of investigation. Devin Nunes, thanks for taking some time tonight. We really appreciate it, and I know we will check back with you soon.

And coming up, Amazon, the head and owner, of course, of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, has endorsed some puzzling charities, believe it or not, with ties to Islamic extremism. We're going to reveal the startling discovery coming up next.

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INGRAHAM: Jeff Bezos has led his company to support some pretty controversial charities lately. At least two of the charities listed by Amazon as eligible for donations were backed by Haitham al-Haddad, a controversial British imam. His teachers include beliefs such as men should not be questions for beating their wives, nice, and that punishment for adultery should be stoning. Raheem Kassam is the author and former chief advisor of U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage. Raheem, what the heck is going on here?

RAHEEM KASSAM, FORMER CHIEF ADVISOR TO NIGEL FARAGE: So Haitham al-Haddad has been on the radical Islamist scene in the United Kingdom for many years now, at least 10 years worth of these controversial statements, calling some Jews apes and pigs, saying that men don't need to explain about why they beat their wives, supporting female genital mutilation, so on and so forth. And what Amazon has done is it has decided to do the charitable thing where you can top up for charity whatever you purchase on Amazon, a percentage will go to these charities, but they relied on the government's charity regulator in the U.K. to pass muster for these things. So you have big corporate and big government, and they can't get things right. Where have we heard that before?

INGRAHAM: So wait, so they support -- so this Haitham al-Haddad, how is he on the government's list? Just because it's the way the government is?

KASSAM: I don't know if you've been over to London.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I have. Of course.

KASSAM: The British government isn't exactly hot on tackling radical Islam unfortunately. And here's what I want to know. Given what he said about female genital mutilation, given what he said about women being beaten, so and so forth, why aren't the types of women who are banging on the doors of the Supreme Court today banging on Amazon's doors saying why are you supporting this guy, why are you giving money to a radical Islamist cleric who wants women's clitorises mutilated? It's extraordinary. It's disgusting.

INGRAHAM: Amazon's statement today, the organizations in question are approved by the Charity Commission, as Raheem said, however, due to the serious nature of these concerns, we've referred these allegations to the commission and will be conducting a full review to ensure that they do not violate our policies.

KASSAM: Right, right.

INGRAHAM: What else is on the list of OK charities to donate to?

KASSAM: How much money they have, they can't do this in-house, they can't vet these charities? It's extraordinary. They paid $15 million of tax on a $17 billion income last year and they can't afford to do this.

INGRAHAM: Raheem, thanks for this report.

We have the last bite coming up. We'll be right back.

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INGRAHAM: It's time for the last bite. It's time for the last bite. A beautiful line from President Trump tonight.

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TRUMP: It is up to us to renew the bonds of love, loyalty, and affection that link us all together as one great American family. Let us pray we are successful in this task, and let us pray that all of America's children will grow up in a country that is fair and just.

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