Gov. Cuomo callously dismisses COVID report: 'Who cares'

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Gov. Cuomo callously dismisses COVID report: 'Who cares'

Damning report shows New York underreported nursing home coronavirus deaths; 'The Five' reacts

This is a rush transcript from "The Five" January 29, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters, along
with Juan Williams, Katie Pavlich, Greg Gutfeld, and Gillian Turner. It's
five o'clock in New York City. And this is The Five.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo showing little remorse, taking zero
responsibility and saying who cares? The governor answering questions for
the first time after his incompetence, got called out by his state's own
Democratic A.G. The A.G. releasing a damning report, showing that New York
underreported nursing home deaths by as much is up to 50 percent.

This is a massive failure that caused 12,000 people their lives. So, Cuomo
is obviously sorry about it, right? Not a chance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Where this start is, frankly, a political attack
from prior federal administration HHS. Everyone did the best they could.
The State Department of Health followed federal guidelines. So, if you
think there was a mistake, then go talk to the federal government. It's not
about pointing finger. It's a blame. It's that this became a political
football, but who cares? Thirty-three, 28 died in a hospital, died in a
nursing home. They died! Why COVID? Why did God do this? I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: And the media is doing their best to protect and cover up for
Cuomo by giving this few nursing home scandal very little airtime. Look at
this chart right here. The major networks barely touched the story
yesterday. Not surprising though because for months they sucked up to this
guy and told Americans he handled the pandemic better than anybody. Here is
just the small sample of the praise they heap on him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: Even lifelong Republicans tell me they look at
Cuomo, and they're are like, God, there is a leader.

UNKNOWN: I heard though that you had a crush on her boyfriend, Andrew
Cuomo.

UNKNOWN: Dude, everyone does, right? He is fantastic.

UNKNOWN: I'm so turned on by him. I'm so turned on by the leadership.

UNKNOWN: And you exposed a lot of your own vulnerabilities.

UNKNOWN: The very buzz about topic about you is your love life.

UNKNOWN: You have been commended for your clear and your calm leadership.

UNKNOWN: We are grateful that across the country, there are responsible
leaders who are stepping up. One of them provided clear direction and
memorable power points, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: Greg, the media has got such a crush on the guy, and they find out
he is a murderer. Not a good look.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, here's the thing. All -- why was there
so much praise? It was done not for Cuomo. It was done for Trump. This was
a very childish and emotional response based on their loathing of Donald
Trump. So, it's like Donald Trump, he's not a leader, but this guy is a
leader. He is a great leader. We hate you, Donald Trump, but we love him.

So now that Donald Trump is gone, Cuomo and other incompetents like him,
they don't have the cover, though still be covered by the media, but they
can't be as bad as they used to be because there's nobody to compare them
to.

WATTERS: Yes.

GUTFELD: Finally, though, CNN admits that the hype - it was in the headline
- the hype over Cuomo's role in the pandemic, it was hype, but they don't
actually say where the hype came from -- which would be CNN -- obviously,
they think like it miraculously appeared. They said that his role in the
pandemic was less than stellar, which is like saying the Hindenburg's final
flight was less than stellar.

It's also really, really, really hard to listen to Cuomo because of the way
he talks. Just now it's as though you are stupid, and you've got to talk
really slow like you're some dumb weather lady that seems to be his default
position about everybody.

And I love how he says look to the federal government, but I don't want to
point any fingers. who signed the order, Cuomo? I think it's you. His
callous -- his callousness is so callous it has calluses.

WATTERS: That's a good point though. Because when the Democrats don't have
a foil --

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: -- they look more and more like fools. Juan, let me you an analogy
here. Let's say Bush during the Iraq war he moved the body count over from
Iraq over to Saudi Arabia to hide the death toll in the war zone. That's a
pretty nasty thing to do. This is exactly what Cuomo did. He played around
with the body count and shifted it to hide the blame for his deadly policy.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST: Wow. I don't think that's right, but I must
say I agree with you that Cuomo made mistakes and a tragic mistake --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: It's so right, Juan, your head is going to spin.

WILLIAMS: OK. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just spin around for a second,
see if I can get it on right. I will say that Cuomo made tragic mistakes, I
say, you know, obviously if you lose a loved one. But Jesse, unlike your
analogy, there was never any question about the total numbers. This was all
about whether someone got sick in a nursing home, died in the nursing home,
or died in the hospital.

So, look, he made a mistake, he was trying to keep the capacity in the
hospitals by telling people to go back to nursing homes. I think it was an
error, and it's very clear, and he is being scolded by it for it on the
front page of American newspapers as I read them this morning. So, I don't
know how the media is not holding him responsible.

WATTERS: Yes.

WILLIAMS: I will say that I think it's also clear, and this is may be, you
know, to his credit, that he was trying to deal with a very difficult
situation in New York, which was hit right at the start of this coronavirus
crisis, this pandemic. He was dealing with a crisis and trying to make the
best of it at a time when there was no national leadership.

Greg just said a minute ago, everyone wants to compare him to Trump. I
think Cuomo looks good because right from the start people were comparing
him to Trump. And Trump was just not on the game.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: And Trump was --

WILLIAMS: Trump was -- Trump was saying it's going to disappear magically.
Remember that? It's going to be gone by Easter.

GUTFELD: You're rewriting history.

WILLIAMS: Not to mention drinks are crazy things.

(CROSSTALK)

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS HOST: He never said that.

GUTFELD: He never said that either. He never said drinking crazy things.

WILLIAMS: Yes, he never said it would be gone by Easter.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: You're making it by --

WATTERS: A lot of the old fight.

GUTFELD: You people hoax.

WILLIAMS: No. You go, how about hydroxychloroquine or whatever.

WATTERS: All right, Juan.

WILLIAMS: You want to go. That's no hoax.

WATTERS: It's hydroxychloroquine, Juan.

WILLIAMS: There's no way --

WATTERS: All right. Let's move it along.

WILLIAMS: There is no way to rewrite Trump's failure. No. There is now way
to rewrite Trump's failure.

WATTERS: Again, Juan --

WILLIAMS: That history is very real, and you can't beat up Cuomo over that.

WATTERS: Juan, again, this is also a deflection. OK, Juan.

WILLIAMS: If there was -- there's no deflection. There should be a mea
culpa.

WATTERS: This is a deflection.

WILLIAMS: The mea culpa should come from Trump.

WATTERS: Let's get Katie please.

GUTFELD: Trump killed those people.

WATTERS: Again, Trump is not there anymore.

PAVLICH: OK.

WATTERS: We're talking about Andrew Cuomo, Katie.

PAVLICH: I think if Andrew Cuomo is going to blame anybody, maybe he can
like give China a little bit of the blame here, the Chinese Communist
Party, but you know, he's like blaming President Trump. I don't know why
Cuomo again would have thanked President Trump if he was really the one who
was the problem here.

And I want to look forward. I mean, you've had -- you have a number of
criminal charges that have been brought in places like Massachusetts
against nursing home leaders for a situation that occurred with
coronavirus. You have a grand jury investigating nursing homes in New
Jersey.

And today, you have people like Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik
from New York saying there need to be subpoenas of Andrew Cuomo, all of his
staff members, lobbyists, who they were talking to because we need to get
to the bottom of this and find out if there is any kind of criminal
liability for this.

And Andrew Cuomo, given the series of facts here and his statements and his
flippant attitude about people dying and who cares where they died, you
know, I think people are going to want some answers. And when you have your
own attorney general who is also a Democrat, not a Republican, nailing you
for cooking up the numbers or ignoring the numbers or reclassifying them,
you know, Elise Stefanik says this is not just about a nursing home scandal
anymore, this is about corruption.

And so, and then one more thing. The White House will not comment on this.
You know, they were asked about this today by Kristin Fisher. And Andrew
Cuomo was almost Joe Biden's attorney general. So, this idea that they are
now not commenting on this massive scandal and the media covering it up
when COVID has been like the biggest story for them for the last year,
really there are a lot of questions moving forward, but the criminal
liability part I think is something to watch.

WATTERS: Yes. Gillian, we are trying to be fair to Cuomo. He did get dealt
a tough hand, as Juan said. I guess he did the best he could. Juan said it
was a mistake and that was the right thing to say. But, Cuomo, if you
listen to him, he didn't even admit it was a mistake. He said well, if you
think it was a mistake, you know, talk to the Trump administration. He
won't even admit that he made a mistake, and that's why people are
hammering him.

GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS HOST: I watch the whole press conference today. My
takeaway was that he went on defense, which as you say, Jesse, is really
the only thing he could do. But what I took from it was that today Cuomo
was trying to make the case that everything that has happened in New York
is essentially like an act of God.

He said the reason people in nursing homes are dying at faster rates than
the rest of Americans is because they are older, and they have
comorbidities. And then he went on to say this is really all just a big
tragedy. That's a way of throwing up your hands and saying look, it was an
act of God. What could we have done? We did the best we could.

And to answer Greg's question really quickly though, about why the media
fell so hard for the governor. I think the answer is that, they started
covering his press conferences back during the height of the pandemic, and
completely stopped covering his actual policies that he was implementing at
the time. It's a real blind spot with the media and politicians right now
in this country.

They start watching their mouths, what they are saying, and they stop
watching what they are doing. It's something that we saw with President
Trump. If somebody says things that are outlandish, no one cares about your
policies. They want to talk about your tweets and what you said at the
press conference. It's the same thing sort of, in reverse with Cuomo.

GUTFELD: Right.

TURNER: They were enamored by how authoritative he sounded, and how
compassionate, and then the buck stopped there. There was nothing more.

GUTFELD: Yes. It's the words versus deeds.

TURNER: Yes.

GUTFELD: In reverse.

WATTERS: There you go.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: I just wonder why --

WATTERS: Greg, I don't believe --

WILLIAMS: I think --

WATTERS: OK. Go ahead, Juan.

WILLIAMS: I just think it's incredible that, in fact, we, the United States
leads the world in COVID deaths. I mean, that's on Trump. That's not on
Cuomo.

PAVLICH: And that's the real tragedy.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: That's not Trump.

PAVLICH: That's the real tragedy.

WATTERS: it's on Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: All the stuff is on Trump.

WATTERS: I think Juan is getting paid by China under the table.

GUTFELD: Perfect analysis. How is that not incendiary language? That sounds
extremist to me. All of this death is on Trump.

WATTERS: Now I would -- Juan is not a fan of democracy.

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: That's obviously the answer.

TURNER: That's not nice.

WATTERS: I have a line -- I'm kidding. I have a line that I want to use,
and here it is. I don't believe the line but I'm going to say it because
it's such a good line. The only time Democrats believe in God is when they
can blame him.

GUTFELD: Nice.

WATTERS: It's a killer line. I don't believe the line, but I had to say it
because it's so good. And I will leave you with that.

Coming up next, the GameStop chaos continues after Wall Street titans
crackdown on amateur traders. It was becoming a major political flash point
in America.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAVLICH: The GameStop trading controversy becoming much bigger than just
the story about the stock market. There is bipartisan backlash against only
trading apps like Robinhood after amateur investors were blocked for making
trades on stocks like GameStop. Well, hedge funds losing billions after
shorting those stocks were trying to profit if the prices fall. Rush
Limbaugh saying the situation looks a lot like our political landscape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: Folks, it's not just political now. The elites
are bent out of shape that a bunch of average, ordinary users have figured
out how to make themselves billionaires. Whatever you think is going on in
politics, the Washington establishment, the deep state, what have you, it's
the same thing in finance. There are those who are allowed to make a lot of
money, and those of you who aren't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAVLICH: And Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy wants people to go to
prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE PORTNOY, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, BARSTOOL SPORTS FUND: The name of the
company is Robinhood, supposed to steal from the rich and give to the poor.
They did the opposite. And we found out they are selling information to the
hedge funds. These guys are the biggest frauds of all time. And again, I
keep saying it that it's criminal and they belong in jail once we figure
out what actually happened and why they did what they did. It wasn't to
protect their clients. Get out of here. How stupid do they think we are?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAVLICH: All right, Jesse, I know that you've done a lot of research on
this, and you are going to provide us with wisdom about what is going on,
what happened, and what's going to happen next.

WATTERS: Well, you assume I've done a lot of research on this, Katie. I
don't know where you got that idea. I mean, it's kind of simple. It would
be like --

(CROSSTALK)

PAVLICH: just pretend.

WATTERS: It would be like LeBron James getting blown out by the worst team
in the NBA, and the NBA just stops the game and let LeBron to shoot free
throws until he is ahead. You can't do that. Basically, Wall Street just
rigged the stock market in broad daylight.

Where is Joe Biden? Where is Joe Biden? I though this guy was from
Scranton. He's running against Park Avenue. Well, Park Avenue just cheated
in front of everybody, and what's he doing, whistling dixie? He's writing
an E.O. about what we can't say about an illegal immigrant? You have to
call them undocumented? Flying around on Marine One?

I mean, where is the SEC commissioner, Allison Lee? I'd like a subpoena on
Robinhood right now and find out who these hedge funds were that told these
guys to choke the trades off. You can't bail out hedge funds because the
retail investors are winning. That's impossible. That's not how the system
is. It's securities fraud. And they are so arrogant about it, they did it
so everybody could see, and they don't even care because Joe is not going
to do anything about it.

PAVLICH: Yes. So, Gillian, I mean, the White House has been asked about
this multiple times. There are now questions about whether the new treasury
secretary should be recusing herself with not advising the president on
this due to her financial ties. I mean, do they have an obligation to
comment on this given her situation?

TURNER: Definitely. They punted the question today, it's kind of like they
can get one day may be, two of a past. But this issue is not going
anywhere. They are going to have to come up with some talking points pretty
quickly.

I want to just point out, though. This is no longer a story that's just
Wall Street versus main street. It's really about Wall Street and big tech
against main street, against the little guy. What happened yesterday was
incredible. Big tech inserted themselves into this situation and
essentially sided with the hedge funders.

Reddit and Facebook shut down the chat rooms that were hosting the
thousands or millions of investors that were making this GameStop play. So,
it's really another prime example of big tech coming in and changing the
rules in the middle of the game, like Jesse said moving the goalpost in
real time.

I mean, these forces crushing, crushing the economic prospects of the vast
majority of Americans are becoming overpowering.

PAVLICH: So, Greg, you know who else is now siding with the hedge funds is
Senator Elizabeth Warren. She wrote this letter today and she wants to make
sure that the GameStop folks and the Reddit investors can't do this again.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PAVLICH: They don't have a chance.

GUTFELD: And also, she wants to look at this to see whether any laws were
broken by these outsider investors. Look, this is a great story. You can
already kind of see the movie being planned. You've got Seth Rogen playing
the Reddit dude comes up with this idea, you got Will Arnett, you know,
playing the eagle greedy hedge funder.

TURNER: Yes.

GUTFELD: You have Glenn Close as Janet Yellen, you got Meryl Streep as Elon
Musk. It's going to be a great story if it turns out, if it turns out to be
true. Because right now, from what I understand, there are nine investors
that made $60 billion off of this. And some of the investors are from
Fidelity and BlackRock, so it's not just the little guy that's involved
here. There's some other -- there's a little murkiness going on there.

But I think it's a great story for two reasons. One, it reminds everybody
how screwy this idea of short selling is, that you can be able to sell
something --

PAVLICH: Yes.

GUTFELD: -- that you didn't buy seems deliberately immoral. And we don't do
it with anything else in life. And it also shows kind of as Tucker said
last night, a realignment in the way we look at things. We are shuffling
the deck left and right so that you have liberals like Liz Warren defending
Wall Street, and then you got righties like Jesse Watters saying embracing
the attack on these greedy hedge funders.

So, it's great to see all these bed fellows where you have Jesse Watters
and Glenn Greenwald, you know, agreeing with each other, and Liz Warren and
some, you know, hedge funder which, you know, in the same bed --
metaphorically. So, I like that as a story.

TURNER: Also, AOC and Ted Cruz agree.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Who would play me in the movie?

GUTFELD: Yes. Ted Cruz and AOC.

PAVLICH: Yes, that's true.

GUTFELD: You know, Steve Guttenberg would play you, Jesse.

PAVLICH: So, Juan, if AOC and Ted Cruz can agree --

WATTERS: Thank you.

PAVLICH: -- can you agree with Jesse today? This is the big question.

WILLIAMS: No, actually, this is a rare moment where I agree with ted Cruz
because I'm a capitalist and I think that, you know what, the big boys are
playing the game, and they got beat at their game. So that's the way it
goes. Anytime it's, you know, David versus Goliath, you know, Katie, I'm a
David guy. I rooted for the Mets as a child. So, you know, that's the kind,
I like the underdog.

I will say this. You know, to me, you know, what matters is, as an investor
that Wall Street just had its worst week this week, you know, since
October. It was a bad week for Wall Street. And there are lots of ups and
downs and tricks to this. You know, we don't know exactly, exactly how the
hedge funds played, and some of them may have made out.

And in addition, you know, you think about that Robinhood thing. They are
saying that they didn't have the money. It wasn't that the hedge funds were
telling them to shut down, it was that they didn't want to come up, you
know, empty-handed.

So, I don't know what's true. Do the SEC get involved or not? We still
don't know. I'd like to know some of those answers. I do think that it's
interesting about Elizabeth Warren.

TURNER: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Because after the '08 recession, that financial crisis, it was
Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren, you know, Consumer Protection Board and
the like, who tried to put in place regulations to stop some of this excess
that turmoil that just hurts us as, you know, ordinary investors. And
obviously this week was not good for the ordinary American investor.

GUTFELD: Yes. Hedge funders don't create anything. I mean, if you tried to
--

WILLIAMS: I agree.

GUTFELD: If you try to -- I mean, everybody gets up in the morning and make
some, they fill -- everybody fills a bucket. When they get in the morning,
they do a job. Hedge funders just leech off everybody else's work. I don't
understand this whole business.

TURNER: Well, the SEC --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: And I'm a socialist.

TURNER: The SEC announced today they are going to investigate, so hopefully
that's work.

WATTERS: All right.

PAVLICH: Yes. And subpoenas and hearings are on the way. So, we will
definitely learn more. All right. Up next, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden
drop killing climate agenda, getting a seal of approval from one of the
most radical numbers of Congress. Why AOC said it's just like the Green New
Deal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is fired up about
President Joe Biden's climate agenda. After comparing it to the Green New
Deal earlier in the week, she's now saying this. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I'm feeling extraordinarily
encouraged. And I think that the significance of President Biden's
executive orders communicates a lot. One, is that it really communicates
that he meant what he said on the campaign trail, that he would make
climate change a central priority of his administration, and that he
considers it not just a national security threat, but frankly, you know,
the global matter it is. But it also really -- it also really signifies a
good faith, openness, and relationship to those that acted as communities
that you had mentioned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Ans Senator Bernie Sanders is on board as well. He thinks Biden's
climate executive orders are, quote, "very good news."

Katie, I mean, I'm wondering just from a political standpoint, if it isn't
good news for Biden, I have, you know, AOC, Bernie on board, as he begins
negotiations, not only with Republicans, but with centrist Democrats like
Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema. Isn't that a good starting point for the
incoming president?

PAVLICH: Well, it's good for him in the sense that the far-left is happy
with him, and therefore they're not making a lot of noise. But when it
comes to this climate change policy, which kills American union jobs, I
think people like Joe Manchin in West Virginia would have some questions
and problems with the climate change agenda.

You know, it's interesting that Joe Biden ran as a moderate, and now all of
a sudden, AOC is praising this Green New Deal plan as something that Biden
supports when Joe Biden continuously said on the campaign trail that he
doesn't support the Green New Deal, although he does support some kind of
climate change legislation or executive orders.

Well, now we know that his vice president, Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored
the Green New Deal with AOC, is getting exactly what they want when it
comes to this overwhelming takeover of the federal government in terms of
climate change and going after every aspect of Americans lies because you
can justify it by saying it's environmentally friendly.

WILLIAMS: All right, so Greg, let's talk about jobs. Katie was just
mentioning, and I was looking at the numbers. You know, Bank of America's
outlook, five percent growth in 2021. Goldman Sachs says unemployment will
drop in 2021. Moody's is even saying we may have full unemployment in this
country by 2021 with Biden's climate change and stimulus package. How do
you understand this?

GUTFELD: I don't. I don't buy it. Look -- and I don't have to buy it.
America was sold a bill of goods, right. I mean, Biden was supposed to be
this benign, middle of the road creature. But we knew when we talked about
this on THE FIVE, that he's an empty vessel for the left. That's why they
had -- they didn't mind him being nominated, and why Bernie was actually OK
with it.

Remember we were talking about the coming Civil War inside the Democratic
Party? It's over, all right. Basically, Joe Biden is Wile E. Coyote, after
Bugs Bunny meets him with the steamroller. He is flattened. He's not even
trying to stand up for the average American because he can't. He doesn't
have the energy. He's feeble and he's tired. He is perfect for the hard
left, so he's not in control of this. And everybody -- he doesn't even know
what these executive orders are. Let's be serious. Sad, it's actually sad.

WILLIAMS: All right. So, Jesse, the other big news, I mentioned this
yesterday is GM, you know, iconic carmaker says they're not going to make
any more gas cars by 2035. Isn't that another signal that gee, I think that
things are changing, and you got to get on the cutting edge of innovation
here, and that's what Biden's doing?

WATTERS: Yes, I don't believe it. All those companies say that. They're
just looking for handouts from the Feds. Juan, Joe just joined The Squad. I
mean, this guy -- there's no daylight between Sleepy and AOC, or I should
say Job-Killing Joe, as he's known. Maybe that's why AOC likes him so much.

Remember what she did to Amazon in New York City, cost us all those jobs?
Well, Joe just cost us about 11,000 with the Keystone. AOC is like, oh,
yes, that's the kind of guy we're looking for. Come over here and join us
in the squad while we just destroy union jobs, Juan. And then, what was it,
5,000 jobs building the border wall by fracking bans on federal lands.
That's another couple 100,000 jobs right there. A couple 100,000 people
lost their shirts in that trade against those hedge fund thieves.

Biden just walked away in the Marine One and said, see you later. He
doesn't care, Juan. He's injecting vaccines into KSM and Gitmo while my
parents can't even get stuck in the arm. I mean, what does -- I mean, what
are we doing here, Juan?

WILLIAMS: I'm telling, it's a puzzle, Jesse. Jillian, I just --

WATTERS: I putting it together.

WILLIAMS: -- I'm taken by the fact that Janet Yellen, Janet Yellen was in
the White House today meeting with President Biden. And their message was
the big risk is not doing enough -- the big risk is doing too little, not
doing enough and they need to be bold on all fronts. What did you take away
from that meeting?

TURNER: It's the 2008 housing collapse playbook and they're putting it into
action now. I wish them the best. We obviously hope it works. A quick note
on AOC. She's saying she's encouraged by Joe Biden's climate executive
orders because he's fulfilling campaign commitments.

But keep in mind that Joe Biden was completely written off by progressives
during the primaries. They said he's too old, he's too white. He's too
embedded in the establishment to make the kind of progressive change that
we want to see in this country. But right now, where we are two weeks in,
if you look at the 40 executive actions he's taken, progressives are very,
very happy with it.

That's what Greg was talking about when you see Bernie Sanders and Liz
Warren and now AOC lining up behind these policy proposals. If we look at
his record so far, it is a fairly liberal agenda by all accounts.

WILLIAMS: All right, coming up, more outrage over school staying closed.
And the White House Press Secretary is suggesting Republicans could beat a
blank next on THE FIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TURNER: All right? Welcome back. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
today is appearing to put the blame on Republicans for public schools not
being open yet. Psaki made the comment while trying to pressure the GOP
into supporting President Biden's COVID stimulus package. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The pieces that are in, for
example, this COVID package that is the top priority for him right now are
things that Democrats and Republicans across the country support. 70
percent of the public supports them. Are Republicans now against reopening
schools? Are they against getting unemployment insurance checks to the
American people? Are they against getting vaccines in the arms of
Americans?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: Well, unsurprisingly, frustration is boiling over now for parents
whose kids can't yet return to the classroom. The Virginia dad who went
viral for erupting during the school board meeting telling Tucker Carlson
last night just why he did it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRANDON MICHON, PARENT, LOUDOUN COUNTY: We've gone for months to the school
board meetings. And as parents, you know, our voice wasn't being heard.

What happened was when I got up there, you know, my blood started boiling a
little bit. And as I began speaking, I said, Look, I want him to hear me
and I want him to look up and pay attention. And I think we've got some
acknowledgement from that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: So, Jesse, one of the policies that Biden has put into place via
executive action is opening kindergarten through eighth-grade schools all
across the country in his first 100 days in office, but his critics are
saying, look, following the year in which these Democrat-led unions lobbied
Washington in the states so hard to keep schools closed, this seems a
little bit hypocritical.

WATTERS: Well, I think the unions are going to steal the COVID relief and
here's why. When my daughters come up and say, Daddy, can I have money for
a snack at the snack bar? I say sure. How much do you need? And if they
said, yes, Dad, I need $150,000, I'd say -- I mean, a grilled cheese and a
coke and fries cost $5.00.

TURNER: Oh, come on.

WATTERS: They're asking for a quarter of a trillion dollars, a quarter of a
trillion dollars to get these schools open. Now, I priced it out, and I'm
looking at thermometers, masks, the plastic dividers you put, up even an
upgrade to the air filtration system. I price it out Chicago School
District, 600 schools there, $24 million, $24 million.

You put, I don't know, the next 19 biggest school districts in the United
States, that only adds up to $1 billion dollars. They're asking for $250
billion. Where is that money going? Where is the money going? It doesn't
take that much money to do this.

TURNER: Juan, is this all Republicans' fault?

WILLIAMS: I didn't think Jen Psaki said that it was Republicans' fault. I
think she's saying that if you look at the whole package, which includes
money for opening schools, she wants to know what part of that Republicans
don't back. Because as you can see, everybody wants schools open, including
President Biden.

But you know, that one viral video, I don't think that tells you the scope
of parents' concerns. I think parents want schools open, but they also want
their kids safe. There's nothing more valuable in our lives than our
children, our grandchildren. And people want to know that those kids are
going to be safe.

So, right now, I think you're seeing lots of school districts open, you
know, the lower schools open. Sometimes it's one week on, one week off,
limited number in classrooms. So, you have to have more classrooms and more
pay for those teachers. This is more complex than just, you know, making it
into a political punching bag.

TURNER: Greg, the Chicago Teachers Union is now -- there's this big
brouhaha because they want vaccines before Chicago schools opened back up.
At the top school districts in this country, New York, Miami, Houston,
they're all open without shots. What do you think gives there? Should
Chicago get a special exemption?

GUTFELD: Well, you know, Juan just said, you know, we all want our kids to
be safe. Well, if the data is telling you they're safer at school than not
in school, I think there's your answer. All you need to do is make the
proper adjustments as Jesse was saying. And it's actually safer than not
having them at school when they're going off and doing whatever they want,
hanging out with each other whatever, and not social distancing.

I remember when I was a teen. We didn't social distance at all. But let's
not forget the COVID package was deliberately delayed so Trump would lose.
And people died because of that. People suffered. People died. So, they got
blood on their hands. So, they can't come here -- Jen -- you know, Jen, I
have to say Jen Psaki sounded a lot like Donald Trump who was the first and
loudest proponent for schools reopening, which was based on data.

But when he doubled down on that, he was accused of putting teachers and
children at risk. And the media consistently would do that with any kind of
act meant to help the economy or help people get back to work or help
people from going crazy or overdosing in their isolation. Anytime you even
brought that up, you would be portrayed as somebody who would let people
die, that you didn't believe in safety first.

So, this is now the -- now, they've inherited the problem. They're no
longer on the Dems in the left or no longer on the outside who can gawk and
make fun of people. Now, they've got the responsibility, and suddenly
they're discovering nuance. They're saying, oh, this is very hard. This is
very difficult. Well, it was too hard and difficult under Trump and you
didn't seem to mind calling him a mass murderer.

TURNER: Katie, I saved the best for last. What do you got?

PAVLICH: This is extortion by the teacher's unions, plain and simple.
They're trying to get more taxpayer money, even though they already got $65
billion to reopen schools. And there are school districts around the
country that have no money, have never had any money that are open. So,
it's extortion plain and simple.

TURNER: Right. Stick with us because coming up next, we've got "FAN MAIL
FRIDAY." It's Greg's favorite segment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: All right, it's "FAN MAIL FRIDAY." We're going to sedate you with
some questions. All right, the first one Instagram BearLovesDutch asks,
what was your last bad decision? Jillian, was it to come on THE FIVE?

TURNER: My last bad decision was, this is really gross, but I'm obsessed
with soup in a plastic container from Whole Foods. And I bought one over
the weekend. It was a split pea and I ate the entire thing and then felt
really sick for the rest of the day on Saturday. That's disgusting but
true.

GUTFELD: Split pea, not my favorite soup.

TURNER: It was like a -- it was like a gallon of split peas. Oh, it's so
good, Greg. It's so good.

GUTFELD: I don't know about that. Ever since the Exorcist, I can't have
split pea soup. Juan, what was your last bad decision? I know there are
many.

WILLIAMS: Pretty serious, I went -- I went into a -- indoors to a
restaurant and got sick. I got COVID. That's a bad decision.

TURNER: Oh, that is a bad decision.

WATTERS: Well, that's Trump's fault.

GUTFELD: How do you know it's the restaurant? How do you know it's the
restaurant?

TURNER: Yes, that's true.

GUTFELD: You can't blame the restaurant.

WILLIAMS: There's no way -- that was the biggest -- that's the biggest risk
I took. That's all I can say.

GUTFELD: All right, Katie, what was your last bad decision?

PAVLICH: Well, I, like Jesse don't make any bad decisions, so I can't
answer this question.

GUTFELD: You have to answer the question.

TURNER: Oh, come on.

GUTFELD: You have to answer the question.

TURNER: That is not fair.

PERINO: The last bad decision that I made was probably ordering too many
clothes on the internet during COVID.

GUTFELD: There you go. I mean, that's kind of bad. Nobody got hurt. I mean,
Jesse, I'm sure whatever bad decision was yours hurt somebody badly.

WATTERS: Well, I hurt myself. I don't smoke cigarettes, so you know, once
in a while you have too much to drink and you want a cigarette really
badly. So, I had one. And you know, the first drag is great, but then after
that, not so good.

GUTFELD: You know, I had a similar experience. Since my wife's away, I can
talk about this. I've been experimenting legally, of course, with edibles.
And the problem with edibles is that they're not -- they're not
concentrated evenly. So, you take a little bit, and nothing happens, and
then you take a little bit an hour later, and nothing happens. And then you
take more, and then four hours later, you think you're going to die.

My eyes -- like, one of my eyes was going this way, and one of my eyes was
going that way. I was trying to take it to deal with insomnia, just try
something new --

WATTERS: Are you on a read eye right now?

GUTFELD: I will never --

TURNER: Next time that happens, you should just get on Facebook Live, Greg.

GUTFELD: I will never do edibles again unless it's in California and
there's a specific brand. But like -- there's got to be some more
regulation on these things. "ONE MORE THING" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WATTERS: It's time now for "ONE MORE THING." Juan Williams, take us away.

WILLIAMS: All right, Jesse, America lost an iconic actress last night.
Cicely Tyson died at 96. Her composed passionate presence made her a star
of movies, theater, and television. Take a look at her in the 1974 film The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

Tyson won two Emmys for that show portraying 110-year-old former slave
telling her life story. She also won an Oscar nomination for her role in
the movie Sounder. Obviously, no one gets an award for not taking a role,
but Tyson earned a lot of respect for refusing to act and Blaxploitation
movies which played to negative stereotypes.

She also was all over the celebrity press as the wife of the famous
trumpeter Miles Davis. Rest in peace, Cicely Tyson. You will be remembered.

TURNER: Well done.

WATTERS: That is right. All right, Greg, you're up.

GUTFELD: All right, tomorrow night "THE GREG GUTFELD SHOW" brand new. I got
Rob O'Neill -- he's going to kill it -- Joe DeVito, great comedian, Kat
Timpf, and Tyrus. That's tomorrow at 10:00 p.m. Be there. Now, we're going
to do something really fun.

Yes, it is the Greg's Cat-off. Greg's Cat-off. All right, Jill, you don't
know how this works. Three -- I'm going to have three videos and you get to
vote which one is best. Check out this cat climbing up the wall. That's
pretty impressive. There he is wagging his tail. He knows what time it is.

All right. Let's go to the second video. Here we go. This is interesting.
You have to wait for it. Oh, there you go, a little bit of it. A lot of
cats involved in that one. A lot of -- what are -- the birds are on TV. All
right, and let's go to the third one. This is just a cat beating on a
banana. He thinks the banana is something else. By the way, you shouldn't
do this until you're married.

PAVLICH: Greg.

GUTFELD: All right, Juan, What's your cat video?

WILLIAMS: I think -- I think that second one, although I'm sorry to see the
crash.

GUTFELD: Yes. All right, Jesse.

WATTERS: Beating on the banana.

GUTFELD: Katie?

PAVLICH: Number two, the birdwatching.

GUTFELD: And Jillian.

TURNER: I'm going with one because what is that cat even gripping onto.
There's nothing on the wall.

GUTFELD: You know what, that's why you're a reporter. You're asking the
right questions.

TURNER: He's like a superhero.

GUTFELD: I go with number one. All right, all done.

WATTERS: Wow. That is tough to follow, Greg, but I will try my best. The
producers keep sending me really low brow slapstick videos. Apparently,
that's my thing. So, America, here you go. Let's watch. A big hefty guy
trying to take a golf swing, and it doesn't work. I don't want to --

GUTFELD: It is funny though.

WATTERS: I mean, it's dumb it's funny. It's just funny. It's so stupid it's
funny. Speaking of so stupid it's funny, "WATTERS' WORLD" 8:00 p.m. That's
not what I wanted. I wanted a wolf on there. Anyway, I guess that was beat
up. 15 seconds, Katie. Can you do it?

PAVLICH: I don't think -- well, OK. There's --

WATTERS: Apparently not.

PAVLICH: We have to go.

WATTERS: See you later, everybody.

PAVLICH: Sorry.

WATTERS: Have a nice weekend.

END

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