Harold Ford Jr.: Everyone that lied to the governor, police chief and major should be fired immediately
Fox News host Harold Ford Jr. reflects on the Texas elementary school shooting on 'The Five.'
This is a rush transcript of "The Five" on May 27, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: You've just been listening to a press conference by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas who talked about being livid at the fact that he says he was misled by the officers and about the officers' response to the Uvalde shooting. And we heard him talk about his investigation by the Texas Rangers and the FBI.
As soon as that information is gotten, they will give the information to the families about the result of that investigation. He also talked about what strategies, what best practices have to be employed, what mistakes, if any, were made here.
He was very strong in his opinion that they should have eliminated the killer and rescue the children. And in response to a question about 18- year-olds being allowed to get a long gun or a rifle, the Texas -- the governor was very clear that in Texas for the last century and a half, 18- year-olds have been able to get long guns. And it's only in the last decade or so that we been hearing about school shootings.
So, I guess that, Greg, I'll start with you. We've got a livid governor. Justifiably livid. As I think everyone at this table is tonight with the fact that we have been misled as to what the facts were.
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS CO-HOST: Well, I think the important thing he said was, and it's something that I said yesterday. We only get to the scene of the story after it happens and we should address every variable, every step that gets you to that crime. Whether it is mental illness, schools, family, red flags.
The fact that he said that this is a new thing in a decade and a half, that kind of points you in the direction of where the answers are. Why are these things happening more and more in this kind of society? Is it something that has to do with not simply the availability of guns because they have been available? Social media. It's a decline in education, it's a breakdown of the family.
But these are a lot of things that we don't want to talk about because we've avoided these problems for so long. We have avoided these problems for 50 years. I think you can say the governors livid. And you can say well, maybe the police were incompetent or they were afraid or they were adhering to a doctrine that prevented improvising.
But that is not my place. That's his place. And that is the place for the investigators to let them investigate fully to tell the story, which is necessary. You need the scrutiny. Because there is going to be a next time and the information you glean from this time will help you in the next time. That's why it's important.
And it isn't Monday morning quarterbacking for investigators, or law enforcement, or family, survivors to question these variables. That is entirely their right. However, I feel like as the media we have to be very careful because we have Monday morning quarterback five days a week.
And we assume -- and it's amazing to me how we all become experts on every -- you know, it's amazing. And I didn't go to school for any of this but somehow, I can have an opinion. So, I think be humble. Let them do the job. Let them talk about what the police did or didn't do and try to -- try to keep your -- again, let the story grow. Let the facts pile up.
PIRRO: You know, Joey, the governor was talking about and the state head of the Department of Public Safety came out and said that the school director. I think his name was McGraw, made a mistake. And that instead of dealing with this guy, Ramos, as an active shooter, they dealt with him as a barricaded shooter.
Now, you've got adherence to the chain of command. You are a military guy. You've got parents outside screaming, yelling, being handcuffed according to some. Being thrown to the ground according to others, listening to shots periodically through this. Do you always listen to chain of command in a situation where your gut is telling you that there is an active shooter? I'm hearing an active shooter in there.
JOHNNY JOEY JONES, FOX NEWS CO-HOST: Number one, I'm a military guy, not a police guy. And that's two different things.
PIRRO: Well, chain of command is chain of command.
JONES: Fair. Fair. My reason for pointing that out is not to assume any credibility I don't have on the topic.
PIRRO: Right.
JONES: So, Monday morning quarterbacking or voicing the fact that expectations were not met. Those were very different things. The governor is the chief executive in that state over their law enforcement. It's his job to say these are the protocols we have. Active shooter, as you run to the gun, you go to the gun and you take it out. All right? A hostage situation is very much different.
I texted Pete Hegseth 48 hours ago and I said, man, this looks a lot like - - they handled it like a hostage situation. That doesn't make sense.
PIRRO: It did.
JONES: But I don't know why that is. I don't know what, I was not in that room. I was not in the hallway. I was not in that school. I can't tell you why that is.
PIRRO: I think we all know that but what we know now is that children are calling.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: What we know now or what people are saying on television?
PIRRO: That shots are ringing. no, no. What we know now today.
JONES: That's still what we know.
PIRRO: What we now know is that 11.35 officers go in. They are being shot at. OK? At 11.35. At 12.16 there is a 911 call, Shannon. And one of the kids says eight or nine of us are alive. And at 12.21, there are three shots that are ringing out. They've got an active shooter. Why does it go from 12.21 to 12.50 for them to figure out there is an active shooter?
JONES: It's a hell of a question, I'd like that answer too.
SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes.
PIRRO: OK. Go ahead, Shannon.
BREAM: Well, and there were questions asked of these officials were the 911 calls being relayed to the commander on the scene? Did they know that? Because if you are treating this as a barricade situation where maybe there are no children alive in that room and it's just the shooter himself, you're going to handle that differently.
But when you have repeated calls, and I feel like they are going to release those 911 calls and it's going to be really hard to listen to them.
JONES: Absolutely.
BREAM: When children are begging please send the police. And they are in there for 30, 40, 50 minutes. We have no idea what it was like for those kids in there. And we are all furious and we are all heartbroken and we always want quick answers because as human beings we want to try to make sense of this and we cannot make sense of this.
But it does take time to get there. And Greg, as you touched on, we cannot pretend like our society has not broken down at the family level, at the community level, at the church level. That we have done things that have actively ripped those institutions apart and then wonder why when there is a young man who is bullied, who made fun of, his family is estranged and a complete mess that he devolves further and further into these online communities where people find toxic relationships and ideologies.
That they want a sense of self-esteem and a sense of being in all of those places they could've found it before are being ripped away. We cannot act like not examining that and passing a bunch of laws is going to make these young men better. And Charles Krauthammer had a fantastic piece in 2012 that he wrote after the Sandy Hook shooting. I wish he was still with us to make sense of this if he could.
And it talks about a culture of violence and how we have just broken things down and we cannot pretend those things don't matter.
PIRRO: OK. Let's take a listen to the Texas Department of Public Safety director and what he said earlier. I'll get back to you, Harold.
HAROLD FORD, JR., FOX NEWS CO-HOST: Perfect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN MCCRAW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: I feel a bit of hindsight, where I'm sitting now, that of course it wasn't the right decision. It was the wrong decision, period. There's no excuse for that. But again, I wasn't there, but I'm just telling you from what we know, we believe there should've been an entry of that as soon as you can.
The chief of police, (Inaudible), he was convinced that, again, I want to go back and say, you know, he was convinced at the time that there was no more threat to the children and that the subject was barricaded and they had time to organize with the proper equipment.
Texas embraces and teaches, OK, the active shooter doctrine, the active shooter doctrine as long as there's kids, as long as there is -- someone is firing, you go to the gun. You find him, you neutralize him. Period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: The active shooter doctrine, Harold.
FORD: So, first off, I want to give Governor Abbott a lot of credit. He -- we're in a different party but, I -- for him to stand for the press and answer those questions, real leadership, as accountable, and shares credit when things go right and when they go wrong, you're accountable and I give them credit for that.
Two, when he talks about the responses, I think he is talking about two responses. The response of the officers on the ground which obviously was a devastating disaster. A fatal disaster. And then two, what I think he was equally livid at, I heard in his voice, and heard in his words, that he was lied to about law enforcement afterwards.
So, I understand and we can all accept in a painful way how mistakes can be made. And I listen to Mr. McGraw there say that this officer commander foolishly, wrongly thought that this was a barricade situation.
JONES: Yes.
FORD: But once you leave there, one thing the chain of command is consistent with, if you lied your superior, if you mislead your superiors - -
JONES: Absolutely.
FORD: -- everyone that lied to the governor and the police chief and the mayor should be fired immediately. Number one. Number two, this is a public safety conversation that has to happen and we've got to -- we always try to say that we want to take politics out of things, you can't take politics out of things. We are political beings and we have to just accept that there is a modicum of that in the conversation.
So, we've got to talk about schools and what has to happen. You touched on it yesterday, Judge. There's eight school in that district, we learned, and there are four security resource officers. That needs to change. The question around minors and mental illness and whether or not -- you know, we've had mental illness in our society forever. We have had evil since the introduction of mankind.
Australia has evil but they haven't had a mass shooting since 1996. Do we look at what other countries are doing? I think we have to put all of that on the table. But I was most impressed with this press conference because the governor and the mayor, this has been two or three days here. In two days, they have talked, they let facts guide this conversation and the response on the scene, a disaster, a fatal disaster.
And what I'm equally if not in a weird way more disturbed by, it seems like law enforcement then lied to the governor and lied to the police deputy, the Texas Department of Public Safety leader and lied to the mayor. And that is not only firable, I've got another place in mind where those people are reserved for reserved for as well.
PIRRO: Well, all right. Joey, I'm going to go back to you now. With respect to the hardening of the schools, we now know that the teacher who opened the door at 11.27. At 11.28 there is a crash and she runs into make a 911 call at 11.30. And then she doesn't go back and close the door.
And then what is crazy about it, Joey, is that he then jumps the fence with a long gun. They say an AR-15. And a bag of ammo and he shoots at the school before he even gets into the school. They call the school resource officer. He drives by and maybe he didn't see the guy but then doesn't go back to the school.
JONES: Now I think the last thing I heard and this is my biggest problem with even being on live TV talking about this is whatever we say and talk about right now, something is probably going to change tomorrow. And that's what's bothering me so much about this is why they can't get their (Inaudible) to own it. Probably a lot of people are sitting there and looking at the severity of this massacre probably with their initial instinct trying to cover their own tail.
FORD: Exactly.
PIRRO: Yes. Yes.
JONES: And probably it changes the narrative of what happened in their own mind to the point they believe it.
PIRRO: Right.
JONES: And that's part of the problem with this resource officer. And listen, when I went to high school -- and he may be a fantastic police officer now, but we called him Barney 5 because that was the presence that he had. All right. And why? Because you put him somewhere that you don't think matters because you're out there catching drug dealers and murders on the streets and the schools are a safe place.
Well, that has changed. That's not what the posture we need anymore.
PIRRO: Yes.
JONES: I don't know anything about the school resource officer there. I believe there are four officers for district of eight schools. I do know that they usually put priority on high schools rather than elementary schools. These are all things have to change but they are things that should've changed years ago.
PIRRO: Right.
JONES: And you're talking about a rural area. We had a , I believe it was a Texas state senator on Fox and Friends this morning talking about frustration. Or it might've been the mayor. I believe it was actually the mayor, talking about frustration.
If they need certain types of resources, say, guidance counselors, mental health counselors for students, they have to go to San Antonio. They have to go the places 20, 30, 50 miles away. These are all things that have to be addressed. And just back to the security of the school, from my understanding there was an awards day and that's why security was lax as far as entering and exiting.
FORD: Earlier in the morning, right.
PIRRO: Yes.
JONES: And if that's the case, common sense says you bring in more officers. You ask for more physical persons.
PIRRO: Yes. And the crazy part about it, Shannon, is that apparently, two months before, they had active shooter training in that school district. For the lower school, the elementary, the middle school and high school.
BREAM: Yes. And there was a posting on Facebook at some point that the Uvalde SWAT team had gone around to local businesses and schools and didn't want people to be afraid. So, you are going to see us in our full gear, we are coming so we can learn the layouts of these places so if something like this happens, we are ready to go.
That's the number one question I have, is why the Uvalde SWAT team was not there. By all the accounts we've heard so far in this press conferences, they were not a factor. If they were in that community, had the ballistics protection equipment and everything that they needed and they had done drills and they had checked out these school specifically for this, that's my number one question.
I hope the governor will get the answer too. Where was that SWAT team? Why did it have to be a border patrol team that showed up that ultimately, and they were even held off for a while that had to force their way in.
PIRRO: You know, I may be wrong, Shannon, but my understanding is when one of the school teachers called her husband who was in a barber shop. Wasn't he a border guy?
FORD: He was.
PIRRO: He grab --
FORD: He is.
PIRRO: -- he borrowed a rifle and wasn't his, from a barbershop and went in himself and shot.
FORD: He got his daughter -- he's got his wife and son out.
(CROSSTALK)
PIRRO: He got his -- yes, got his kids out. So, why did he get in? And yet, we've got 21 people as I think, we've got 19 cops in the hallway. From 12.03 to 12.50, Greg, 19 cops. Kids are bleeding out while that is happening.
GUTFELD: Well, you know, I admit when I hear about a terrible tragedy. Like for me, for the longest time it was flight 93. And you always run through your head. You don't have to do this, Joey, because you're in the military you've been in these situations. But like, in my head asking me, like, what would I do? What would I do at the Bataclan? Or the Pulse nightclub if I was there?
You would think that you would react one way but you don't know. I'd like to -- I'd like to think I would do amazing things, and I would charge in there and kill the killer and rescue people but you don't know what happens to your brain, even if you're being trained for this.
So, I mean, we are coming down pretty hard on law enforcement and maybe they deserve it but then again, we're in the -- we are not the experts here. So I would just urge people. Like we don't even know what -- what's the difference. How do you know the difference between an active shooter situation and barricading situation, as we are criticizing that?
(CROSSTALK)
BREAM: Well, you're still --
PIRRO: I'm --
BREAM: And you're still getting the 911 calls --
PIRRO: The bullets are still going.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BREAM: And the 911 calls are still coming in, of people that you know are alive.
FORD: Greg, I hear you and I don't like the Monday morning -- Monday morning quarterbacking. This is what these guys is trained to do.
GUTFELD: Right. Of course.
FORD: I mean, no one shows up on the Gutfeld show and says I want to host the show. I think I can do it. There are three guys in the city who try to do it as well as you in the west coast. And they don't because you do it well.
You expect police officers. Now we had a -- we talked about a case where a guy got out of the jail because he escaped with apparently with a prison guard --
PIRRO: Yes.
FORD: -- and he checked out because they didn't make him sign a note that morning about where they were going.
PIRRO: Right.
FORD: You have one failure and you have a cascading of things. We said, Greg, I agree with you. But I got to tell you. If it's my kids, I know we all can talk big. The only guy who's here that active big is Joey here but if I saw something or saw someone on a subway I got to think if I saw a woman being raped like it was in Philadelphia.
BREAM: Me too.
FORD: I'd throw myself in front of them. I do know this. If my kids are put in harm or put in danger, you can put a bullet in my head.
PIRRO: That's right.
FORD: A bullet -- two guns, three guns, and AR-15.
PIRRO: I'm going in.
FORD: I don't care what it is. I'm going in.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: On this topic specifically though, just --
(CROSSTALK)
PIRRO: I'm going in.
FORD: I hear you, Greg. I hear you. But I think in that regard, that's --
(CROSSTALK)
PIRRO: Cops are trained to go in.
GUTFELD: I understand that. I am not trained as an expert --
PIRRO: Good. OK.
GUTFELD: -- to rip their -- rip them alive on the news. So just respect that.
PIRRO: We are not ripping them alive. We are talking.
(CROSSTALK)
FORD: But I'm just saying just them. These guys here.
PIRRO: Go ahead, Joey.
JONES: Multiple types of law enforcement agencies were involved in this. All right? It is absolutely true you have to identify the on-scene commander and let them have that authority. Otherwise, you have people shoot --
(CROSSTALK)
PIRRO: Yes, but command and center, exactly.
JONES: Exactly. So that much of it I understand. I don't know what made them believe that it was safer for the kids in the room to stay outside the door. But I 100 percent believe they acted on that notion.
PIRRO: OK. What about --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: Then that's the answer I want to know.
PIRRO: What about when the cop said if you need help, yell help. One of the kids said, when that kid yelled help, that kid got shot.
(CROSSTALK)
BREAM: I have a question about -- I have a question about that.
JONES: That doesn't fit any training.
BREAM: And I wondered if it was the killer himself pretending to be the cop. There is so much that we don't know. And unfortunately, these babies - -
FORD: Yes.
BREAM: -- who survived this are the ones who are having to provide that information.
PIRRO: Do we know how many kids got out, Shannon?
BREAM: I don't think we do.
FORD: And that is --
(CROSSTALK)
BREAM: Listen, the school had more than 600 kids. So, they were breaking out windows and taking kids out from other parts of the school although with those officers.
FORD: Yes.
BREAM: And I'm with you, Greg. I, listen, my late father was a law enforcement officer. So, the last thing I want to do is cast any aspersions. I'm just asking questions. That's it for now. And my father would've asked the same questions.
FORD: But look, but Governor Abbott, the police union building in my congressional district is named after my father. I'm a huge supporter of police officers across the country. The second part of this, Judge, to your point is, I understand you can have the wrong reaction with the right intentions at any given situation. But once the situation is over and you lie about it.
JONES: You're 100 percent right.
BREAM: That's --
FORD: That -- that to me --
JONES: I agree 100 percent.
FORD: -- that to me is what makes some of this unforgivable.
PIRRO: Agree,
JONES: A mistake does not negate integrity.
FORD: That's the problem.
PIRRO: Exactly. All right. Texas official Steven McGraw getting emotional during the press conference earlier. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCGRAW: Yes, thanks a lot. Forget how I'm doing. What about the parents of those children? Forget about me. (Inaudible) our officer doing like that, we take an oath to uphold the law and protect people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: You know, I used to prosecute child-abuse homicides and I never saw cops get more emotional or more emotional than they would with these child- abuse homicides. One of the things that this governor talked about. He was asked about the difference between background checks and mental health.
And one of the things about mental health, and Greg and I, we agree on this. It's just this amorphous blob. We don't know what it means. You can lie on an application. You can say, you know, I don't have any mental health issues. I'm not on any other psychotropic drugs. And under HIPAA, the courts, and I used to sign pistol permits, don't have a right to do a check on your mental health issues. Will we ever stop people who are mentally ill from getting guns?
BREAM: Well, that's something Charles Krauthammer talks about in this 2012 piece, too, when he was practicing psychiatry. He said it was much easier than if you felt somebody really was a danger to themselves or to other people, to get them into a facility and to do it very quickly without a full-fledged adjudication. And some of these facilities across the country have been close. They're just not available. He said it was much different in the '70s than it was at the time at the time he was writing this in 2012.
The mayor also this morning talked about the fact that they desperately wanted mental health facilities there in Uvalde. They don't have them like Joey was saying.
PIRRO: Yes.
BREAM: That they have to go cities away. He said they had donated 7.5 acres for a facility to -- for a facility to be constructed there. They were excited. The community was supporting it. And then they were told they had to raise $26 million. And he says our poor little community didn't have it so they had to abandon the plans for the mental health facility.
PIRRO: Yes, tough stuff. We are hearing that, Joey, there was a digital footprint more than we thought. That he was buying guns. He was in chat rooms. He had indicated in 10 more days something was going to happen. That along with some of the other crumbs that we heard about. He was self- injuring himself.
He had violent rhetoric at the job that he had. That he was bullied because he had a lisp and he wore eyeliner. I mean, all of these little crumbs but nothing that really amounts to a point where police can actually intervene.
JONES: Well, the biggest problem, this is ATF form 4473.
PIRRO: It's my --
JONES: Multiple pages. This is what you have to fill out. This is the background checks that certain people want to be universal. All right. You can fill that out and they get sent off to a government agency. It's only as good as the vetting of the government agency --
PIRRO: Exactly.
JONES: -- which is only as good as the reporting of the local agency whether that be school resource, school police officers, whether it be County Sheriff's or city police. That form and that process is only as good as the judge that decides we're going to dismiss this because you're a minor, or the DA that says we're not going to prosecute this because this is going to ruin your life, we think you deserve a second chance.
All of those things have to be on board before any other regulation on how we check people's background is effective. So, we can broaden the gun transactions, we add background checks too, but we still need to fix the background check which goes all the way to the -- what we've talked about for months, which is should we prosecute criminals, should we worry about their record if they've done a violent crime.
Go study the Navy Yard, four violent incidents, two of them involving a gun, none of them made it to the point that they went on a record. So, he went not only did one of these and got a gun, but got a top-secret security clearance.
PIRRO: Amazing. Yes, five pages. Before going to break, quickly.
FORD JR.: This is why we need a longer wait period and we might need to put more people in charge of this to investigate these things and put -- give judges like you the authority that you did not have years ago.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: If you tell me I'm going to wait --
PIRRO: Oh, I had authority. It would just take time to explain.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: (INAUDIBLE) I'll be on board with that.
FORD JR.: Well, you were -- if everyone looked at it like you, we might not have differences.
PIRRO: All right, we are following the breaking news out of Texas. Governor Greg Abbott says he is furious about police response to the school shooting. He's calling for a full investigation. Stay right here. More of THE FIVE is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When it comes to the gas prices, were going through incredible transition that is taking place. And God willing, when it's over, we'll be stronger in the world and we will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: President Biden's incredible transition comment on surging gas prices may not be sitting well with the nearly 40 million Americans traveling for the Memorial Day weekend. The national average price of gas sitting at $4.59 a gallon. And a new poll finds 95 percent of Americans say inflation is a concern.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm telling Americans the president is on top of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, U.S ENERGY SECRETARY: He's obsessed with the fact that gas prices are so high and people are hurting. And this is a global issue, so what can he do? So, you can exhort the oil and gas industry to increase supply which they would do it faster so that you can bring those prices down. And it tells us that that's why you have to, at the same time, accelerate our movement to clean energy. You can walk and chew gum. You can do both.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: OK, so let's start there. Judge, you're a little bit fired up today. So, let's channel some of that energy.
PIRRO: I am.
BREAM: The secretary says oil and gas, they got to start producing more. They all say we would like to. You guys have so regulated us that we can't do it. I don't know where the truth is.
PIRRO: Wait a minute. She's the same one who said, but that I had a magic wand. Remember that one?
BREAM: I do.
PIRRO: OK, here's the bottom line. They're celebrating the fact that gas is so high, they think everybody is going to buy an electric car, they don't realize that we can't afford electric cars. Senior citizens will never be able to afford an electric car. So, they're crushing the middle class. And as far as they're concerned, it's not -- it's nothing for them to worry about because they've got the deals that, you know, China is not going to make the batteries, they got the lithium from Afghanistan, and we're going to get crushed. That's all I have to say.
BREAM: Well, I don't know where they think electricity comes from because - -
PIRRO: Good point.
BREAM: I mean, you got to think about that. Greg, way back in 2008, before President Obama became President Obama --
GUTFELD: In my early 20s.
BREAM: Exactly. Which maybe a haze, so maybe you don't remember this. It may be a little fuzzy for you there. But he said as a candidate that he said, yes, you can build a coal-fired power plant if you want to, but my policies are going to make you go bankrupt. And remember, he also said electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket under my plans. So, we should not be surprised. This is nothing new.
GUTFELD: Yes. This is let them eat cake, repositioned as some kind of altruistic sacrifice. You know, sure, you're going to lose your savings and your you're not going to be able to go on vacations, but in this great transition, think of your contribution to this great leap forward. Of course, none of them participate in the sacrifice because they don't have to.
And I love how Joe minimizes our gas pain. You know, what if we did that to him? And at his age, he has a lot of gas pain.
PIRRO: I was waiting for that.
GUTFELD: And how stupid -- how stupid you have to be to believe you could cut a population off from a primary energy source without having a viable consistent energy source. You can't say that about solar. You can't say that about windmills because they aren't consistent. None of us -- by the way, I don't think any of us are against alternative energy, especially when it's nuclear. But this is nuts.
BREAM: They're not down with that.
GUTFELD: What?
BREAM: They're not down with that.
GUTFELD: Oh, no. The Democrats -- they're starting -- they realize that nuclear is the only alternative energy that's going to work. And it took them 40 years of demeaning this industry and trying to close down, you know, all these facilities. I think now they're reopening the one in California. Gavin Newsom is reopening one. I mean, that's a -- that's a sea change, big deal. I credit Michael Shellenberger on that. He's the guy that's been pushing this.
BREAM: He has. OK, so Greg says let them eat cake. Well, that's --
GUTFELD: No, I said, they said that.
BREAM: They're saying that but --
GUTFELD: Are you even listening to me, Shannon?
BREAM: I hang on your every syllable, Greg. Every day it is my life. But I'm not sure people can afford cake. That's the problem because OK, here's a look at what it's going to be for your picnic this year or your cookout if you're having one this holiday weekend. Beef up 14.7 percent, hotdog is up seven percent, pie -- it doesn't say cake but pie is up more than 13 percent, beer is up. five percent. Joey, it's going to be an expensive cookout this year.
JONES: It is going to be an expensive cookout. Number one, if I have cake, I will eat it too. So, I don't want to hear anything about that.
GUTFELD: What's the point of having cake?
BREAM: No. There is no other reason to have it.
JONES: That is -- that is the worst expression -- not to just completely derail this, but I felt like after the last segment, we might need some derailing. Listen, one thing I hate about, this is not about how you get to the movie theater or even how you get to work for millions of Americans, this is how you work. For people that drive a truck for a living, for people that own a lawn maintenance, right? Gas goes into everything on that trailer they're going to use on your lawn and make $20.00 today.
This is not just about convenience, it is about livelihood. And when you sit there and say, well, I really wish they would --- they would produce more, you ran on a -- on a campaign of bankrupting oil and gas, taking investment away from them, and now you've pretend that's not a factor in this.
I don't care how many leases they have. A lease is only as good as the oil underneath the ground. And when this administration took office, there was a run on land leases because for small oil companies, that's the only collateral you have to get investments. So, you go out and lease 1000 leases. If 10 of them produce all your good, it's those leases that are your collateral to get Joe Billionaire to invest in you.
And guess what Joe Billionaire is not going to invest in you if there's not an atmosphere of return on investment, so that's a problem. But even beyond all that, you can go back to nuclear, the cleanest energy that exists -- Three Mile Island was long time ago. As a matter of fact that technology is not what we do anymore. We have micro reactors, we have residential reactors. We have plants or reactors to power a neighborhood.
And you know who finally got the United States government to open up its material and facilities for people who have designed these? The Republicans did, which I appreciate that. I'm not blaming Democrats, I'm just saying, I know the person that helped write that piece of legislation and get it passed. That's what we need to speed up. That's what we need to make happen.
One of the big actors hears defense industry. Defense industry lobbies every day for nuclear technologies to the civilian sector for security reasons. So, you got to hit all the players that make this worse. Nuclear is the way to go. I fully support nuclear myself.
PIRRO: Well, it need to --
GUTFELD: Well, you are nuclear.
JONES: I am. I am.
BREAM: In a very good way. In all the good ways.
JONES: I hoping to radiate my legs back. If I could have just enough time ago to have some more -- in (INAUDIBLE), they grow back and I'm going to feel something.
BREAM: We're cheering for you in that respect. OK, so in the meantime, while we wait for all these things, Harold, to come to fruition, JP Morgan is among those saying, brace yourself for $6.00 a gallon national average, not just California. We're talking about Paducah, Kentucky and everywhere else in between, by the end of summer, by August.
And we've got 56 percent of people in Harvard Harris poll this month say their financial status situation is getting steady -- steadily worse. And that's the highest number that poll has ever measured.
FORD JR.: Look, I don't disagree with any of the remedies that have been outlined at the table. I think Democrats and Republicans alike, Joey, probably share a lot of blame. When I was in Congress, Republicans were as afraid of Three Mile Island as Democrats were. There probably was resistance to the storage of nuclear now.
I happen to think we have to build nuclear. We have to build batteries. We have to innovate. We have to drill. We have to frack. What the war has shown us is the vulnerability and how we are how we are squeezed by a person whose country we thought was largely irrelevant in a global economic conversation.
They approve and now to insert themselves into conversation in a way that forces us all to reset how we think not only about the moment but the future. I think in terms of the moment, it was reported last week, and we talked on the show that Chevron was in conversation with Venezuela, and there are Democrats and Republicans who were upset about that, who said how could you dare do that.
Now, if we are serious about trying to alleviate consumers and lower those prices from $6.00 to $5.00, to $4.00, to $35.0 to $2.50, then we're going to have to make some uncomfortable choices. If everyone wants to be holier than thou, then prices will go up to $6.00 --
BREAM: So, what's ---
FORD JR.: -- in the immediate frame. Now, I'm not one -- my orientation to politics is not the blame, because we can do that. There are people that do it, and that's a fine job. I want to figure out how we get going at the moment and how we prepare, how we ensure that five years from now or even two years from now, we don't face this challenge. It was littered with mistakes from the past.
I make mistakes. My colleagues make mistakes. But what do we do going forward? Nuclear, fracking, drilling, batteries and innovating, how to make cleaner products including plastics are part of that. But in the short term, we got to get our prices low and we got to import from places we may not like.
BREAM: Yes, hopefully five years from now, it does not involve going to crazy dictators to get gas from them.
PIRRO: Can I say one thing?
BREAM: Well, you can but they're going to scream at my ear. But go ahead.
PIRRO: No, but that's OK. They scream in my ear all the time. Do you know how big an electric battery is when you get rid of an electric car? I know somebody who's in cars. They say it's as big as the bottom of the car. When you get rid of the car, what are we doing with those batteries? OK, go.
BREAM: OK, thank you, Judge. Up next, climate change elites want to track everything you do, including what you eat and where you travel. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FORD JR.: Global elites at Davos being criticized for living large while telling the rest of the world how they should behave. Financial titans at the World Economic Forum boasting about the development of an individual carbon footprint tracker that would monitor just about everything you buy and do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J. MICHAEL EVANS, PRESIDENT, AURORA GROUP: We're developing through technology an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That's where are they traveling? How are they traveling? What are they eating? What are they consuming on the platform? So, individual carbon footprint tracker. Stay tuned. We don't have it operational yet, but this is something that we're working on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PIRRO: Of course you are.
FORD JR.: And the world's elites -- one more second -- the world's elites are shelling out big bucks for some snacks. A hotel that the conference gathered charges 50 bucks for burrito. And french fries cost $22. Judge Gutfeld?
GUTFELD: Yes, I would like to quote Shannon Bream in agreement. I want to punch that man in the face. That is what she said.
BREAM: Don't --
GUTFELD: We don't -- I told you she's evil but In a good way. We don't need a carbon tracker. I have the best idea ever, a hypocrisy tracker. So, every time -- every time you talk climate change on your way to being driven to your private jet, the hypocrisy tracker sends a moderate electric shock that not just to you but to your close friends and immediate family, so they know what a hypocrite you are.
And if you -- if you're talking about gun control behind a wall of security provided by your company, then you get shocked. So, I say if somebody comes up with a hypocrisy tracker, I will invest, although I don't have that much money, but --
FORD JR.: Shannon?
BREAM: Yes, I will join you. We'll have $5.00 each.
GUTFELD: Yes. And we go punch people on the face, Shannon.
BREAM: Well, I'll do that for free. Here's the thing. They're eating $50 burritos, right? They want us to get used to things like eating bugs. I think that's one of the things that we're supposed to get excited about. The wealthiest 10 percent of people, I'm sure many of them are in Davos, are responsible for 50 percent of all carbon emissions.
So, when he says we're going to track how you travel, I want to ask these jokers how they all got there, because I'm pretty sure that they didn't do rowboats across the ocean. I'm pretty sure they didn't even go first-class commercial. There is a collection of private jets right now in Davos.
And I think when they say to the plebes down here, we're going to tell you how to live your live, get -- use more deodorant because you need to turn off your air conditioner. I mean, it just falls on deaf ears. There's a Norwegian official there who said yes, energy transition is going to create inflationary pressures and energy shortages, but the pain is worth it. They're not going to feel the pain.
FORD JR.: Yes, Joey? And I'm going to let you clean it up, Judge.
JONES: Listen, the threshold to meet would be John Kerry's carbon footprint. If you stay below John Kerry's carbon footprint, no repercussions whatsoever. If you can aspire to pollute the world at the level that John Kerry does, then maybe you can be fined or tracked or bothered to reduce what you do.
We live in one of the cleanest carbon -- cleanest carbon countries out there that even cares about this. We take measures in local municipalities every single day. If you want us to quit polluting and doing carbon, continue to progress to where the things we need to survive are cheaper to buy in a clean way.
The free market can solve this problem. We don't need the World Economic Forum to solve this problem. And you know what? This is probably going to happen. We're going to devolve into lawlessness long before this problem catches up to us.
FORD JR.: Judge.
PIRRO: You know, he's -- he just reminds me of someone in a circus. You know, like a ring master who says just imagine you can -- you consumers can find out what your own carbon footprint is. I don't want to know. What makes you think that that's a good thing for me? It's like they think we're stupid. And we're like, oh, finally I can find out what my carbon footprint is.
When you say footprint, I think is shoes. That's the end of it, OK.
FORD JR.: The biggest emitter of carbon, two things, concrete and cows. It's an amazing thing. "ONE MORE THING" is up next.
PIRRO: I like hamburgers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PIRRO: A programming note. Tune in on Monday for our Memorial Day Fan Mail Special. It's a fun-filled show. Don't miss it. It's time now for "ONE MORE THING." Greg, hit it.
GUTFELD: We got a great show tonight. I know some of you might be driving but I got Walter Kirn, the great writer, Dagen McDowell, Kat Timpf, Tyrus. You're going to love this show. Now, let's do this.
You know, people often ask me hey, what do other co-hosts, celebrity co- hosts like the people in THE FIVE do when they're not on the show? Well, they often watch the show. Check out Geraldo at home and -- where is he? There he is watching the show. His hair is all over the place.
BREAM: Look at him.
GUTFELD: Lounging on the couch.
BREAM: He's a cutie.
GUTFELD: Yes, he gets a little staticky after, you know, in humid weather. But he's such a fan of the show that he watches it when he's not even on. Look at that.
PIRRO: Oh, he's adorable.
BREAM: I love it.
PIRRO: OK, it's my turn. Now -- first of all, Father's Day is coming up soon, so if you want a cameo from me, go to cameo.com/judgejeanine.
GUTFELD: You have cameo?
PIRRO: Yes.
GUTFELD: We don't pay you enough?
PIRRO: Yes. So, listen, OK, so, inseparable shelter chihuahuas get married in an adorable ceremony. I'm talking. Be quiet. Two chihuahuas found love in an unlikely place. Peanut, 9-years-old and Cashew 3-years-old met at a Texas shelter and had been inseparable ever since. They decided to make it official with a marriage ceremony. They said their I do's at the San Antonio Humane Society.
The small intimate wedding was attended by staff volunteers and their closest pet pals. The first -- the pair first laid eyes on each other in the medical wing after they both had dentals.
GUTFELD: Where are their nuts?
PIRRO: Joey, hit it.
BREAM: They only have peanut and cashews.
JONES: I do not have a cameo, by the way. This is my cameo.
GUTFELD: Can you even be around anymore?
BREAM: How did you get that?
JONES: Listen, One Tribe Foundation, formerly known as 22Kill is a military organization headed up by my buddy, Jake Schick, also a combat amputee, a marine it was better at raising money than combat apparently like me. Listen, they have partnered with Carry The Load. Carry The Load walks 20 miles and for 20 hours and 22 minutes to honor those that have fallen, basically the restoring the meaning of Memorial Day by doing something on Memorial Day to remember people and show they care.
22Kill is the team that One Tribe Foundation has as a part of Carry The Load. Go to either onetribefoundation.org or Carry The Load to join in virtually and help these guys and gals out.
PIRRO: All right, Harold.
FORD JR.: I can't wait to see Top Gun this weekend.
PIRRO: Me too.
FORD JR.: Go see it if you're a real American. And watch Ray Liotta movie. Rest in peace, my friend.
PIRRO: Yes. OK, Shannon.
BREAM: OK, New York is full of characters. This guy is spotted on the street. I love it. He's in Brooklyn. He is balancing a giant full trashcan on his head while he's riding a bike.
PIRRO: Oh, my gosh.
BREAM: And he's also, he gets even more acrobatic. Look, he gets on here and he's got his leg kicked up in there. Listen, everybody needs a little entertainment. We need a little laugh right now. The characters of New York never disappoint, Judge.
PIRRO: All right, that's it for us.
GUTFELD: Oh, yes they do.
PIRRO: We'll see you back here on Monday. Enjoy memorial day weekend. We love you.
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