Haley: GOP must continue to be the party of 'solution'
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley joins 'The Ingraham Angle' to discuss the future of the Republican party post-Trump.
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 25, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: All right. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington tonight. We do have a big show former.
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on the future of the GOP and her plans. Mollie Hemingway on the feudal and constitutionally damaging Trump impeachment report.
Plus, this may be my favorite segment. Biden's dogs, cats and ice cream, oh, my. Raymond Arroyo has it all in a hilarious "Seen & Unseen." But first, "Using and Abusing the Troops," that's the focus of tonight's Angle.
It seems like only yesterday doesn't it, when the Democrats were worried about deploying the military against Antifa and the BLM mobs who were rampaging paging across our cities last summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): Misuse our American military for basically his political campaign, coldly unable to unite us as a country.
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): He is misusing military and governmental assets. It is not the role of the U.S. military to go into cities and states and undermine local law enforcement.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): President Trump has degraded the independence of the military and ignored some of the dangerous tendencies of political activity within the military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Well, those same Democrats now have had a change of heart. Liberal D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that 5,000 National Guardsmen will remain in D.C. through at least March. Now, this is down from that obscene number of 25,000, who were called up after the January 6th Capital riot.
Now, did they really think that that insane, animal skin guy was planning to return to D.C. with other furry fins to make a stand? I don't think so. This is all political theater directed by Democrat leadership with a horrible edge. They're using the military right now to ratchet up the drama of their kangaroo impeachment trial of former President Trump.
And the true presence, it allows these liberals to do what they do best, play the victim, despite evidence of any serious ongoing threat. And it furnishes them with a backdoor way to execute their next agenda item, purging the military of any political opponents.
Now, according to "The Hill," Democrats will accomplish this by inserting language into this year's National Defense Authorization Act to address extremism at the Pentagon and other federal agencies. "We know that some groups actively attempt to recruit our personnel into their cause, or actually encourage them members to join the military for the purpose of acquiring skills and experience." A senior Pentagon official told reporters earlier this month.
Now, of course, this is all kind of vague for a reason. The broader and more opaque the language, the easier it is to cancel military members and other government personnel who don't fall in line politically or even culturally.
Now, most people would agree that generally dangerous extremists should not be allowed to serve and join in the military. Of course, we don't want members of say ISIS embedding themselves in our ranks, obviously KKK, of course not. But that's not really who the Democrats are talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it comes to right extremist groups, domestic terrorist, somehow we find ourselves unable to address those groups.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The fear that other Americans, President Trump's supporters, will harm their fellow Americans, some of them far right extremists with whom President Trump has been playing footsie for years.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: What is that definition of the Republican Party right now or are there several?
BILL KRISTOL, THE BULWARK EDITOR-AT-LARGE: There are several but unfortunately the largest right now I think is Trump loyalists. And part of that Trump loyalist faction is true conspiracy theorists and Kooks and extremists
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Trump loyalists, wow. They want to fuel the narrative that not only is your conservative neighbor or family member untrustworthy, suspicious and potentially seditious, but that the military itself is full of right wing extremists ready to rise up at a moment's notice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LLOYD AUSTIN, DEFENSE SECRETARY: To run our ranks of racist and extremist and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity. The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies. But we can't do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: OK. Just take that in for a moment. Our Secretary of Defense says the Pentagon, with its bloated budget, cannot provide for the National Defense unless it carries out essentially purges of undesirables within the military ranks? Forget the fact that China is poised for global domination it's likely going to take Taiwan, forget about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national security threat. The Biden administration will confront this threat with the necessary resources and resolve.
The first is a tasking from President Biden send to the ODNI today, requesting a comprehensive threat assessment coordinated with the FBI and DHS on domestic violent extremism. This assessment will draw on the analysis from across the government and as appropriate non-governmental organizations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What non-governmental organizations is she talking about exactly, that are going to report on their fellow Americans - the ACLU, Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, anti-gun rights organizations? I mean, presumably they think anyone who disagrees with their Far Left goals are extremists.
Now, from what we've already heard the Biden ministration say it's clear that they're going to use the power and surveillance of the U.S. government to keep tabs on a lot more people than we ever would have thought would have been embedded in government agencies as domestic terrorists. Yes, law abiding Americans, who may be the party in power think they're getting out of line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: As a part of this, the NSC will undertake a policy review effort to determine how the government can share information better about this threat, support efforts to prevent radicalization, disrupt violent extremist networks and more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Sharing information. Well, some Democrats are already pushing an even broader ideological purge of the entire national security apparatus. Now, earlier this month, Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy proposed a bill to keep Trump supporters from holding security clearances.
She did this by asking applicants whether they participated in the January 6, 2021 activities at the U.S. Capitol, or a similar "Stop the Steal" activity and the precise role they played at such activity. Even if it does not constitute a criminal offense, attendance at an event designed to delegitimize the results of a presidential election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power raises serious questions about an applicant's suitability for a security clearance.
Wow. President Xi Jinping would be very proud. Drive out all political opposition, drive them underground, force everyday Americans to live in fear. Encourage neighbor to snitch on neighbor, family to snitch on family, American against American.
My friends, the message is clear. If you're a conservative who has any questions about election irregularities, then you better shut up if you want to keep your job. First Amendment, forget about it. Which makes it all the more ironic that it's being cheered on by the media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH NEUMANN, DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: I do think we have a problem with infiltration in law enforcement, in the military and it's going to take a while for us to both de- radicalize and remove those elements from positions of authority.
JACK WEINSTEIN, RETIRED LIEUTENANT GENERAL, U.S. AIR FORCE: This screening needs to happen across the entire military. And we should be removing people that are members, even if they are not active members, because it's really against their oath of office.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can't stand by idly and see people in uniform, whether it's law enforcement or military, have QAnon patches on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: This is absolutely poisonous for the country. Republicans have to stand up and stop Democrats from targeting our active duty military personnel or our vets. These men and women have endured oftentimes repeated tours of duty abroad, risking life and limb, many times coming back to destroyed families, and now they're viewed with suspicion and targeted by elected officials at home?
Republicans need to step up in unison and demand that the Defense Department and the Biden administration clearly define what they think constitutes extremism. Now, if a member of the military voted for Trump, does that make him an extremist?
Now, what if someone complains on Facebook that the federal government wastes a lot of money? Is she an extremist? What if they say that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned? Or what if they participate in the March for Life? What if they're conservative Baptists? They believe that sex outside of marriage is immoral, is that extremist? What if they have guns at home and they're lifetime NRA members? Will they now be considered extremists, or even terrorists? We deserve to know.
You see where this is destined to lead? And it is certainly not to a freer and more united America. And that's THE ANGLE.
Joining us now is Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis. He served 21 years in the Army and is currently Senior Fellow and military expert for Defense Priorities; and Dinesh D'Souza, executive producer of Trump Card, host of the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
Lieutenant Colonel Davis, what about this, what they're doing? They're vetting members of the military for undesirable views that are now branded in these broad terms as threatening to the Republic?
LT COL DANNY DAVIS (RET), SENIOR FELLOW DEFENSE PRIORITIES: Yes, there's a lot of problems with this. But right up front, I think the most important thing for Americans to understand is context. I mean, there are allegedly 27 people who are accused of doing something illegal with the Capitol riots couple of weeks ago, and 2.5 something million Americans who are on active or reserve duty. There are 18 million Americans who are veterans.
And to suggest that because a handful - a tiny handful, is somehow systematically - that there's something involved with the entire national defense apparatus, that we need to go and check on each individual, I think is a way big overstretch and, frankly, an insult to the troops that we have. Because as you just accurately pointed out, I mean, these are patriotic Americans, the vast majority of them, who are sacrificing to serve our country and deserve our thanks. They don't deserve to be checked into like they're doing something wrong.
INGRAHAM: But Dinesh, they're doing this with a purpose. This is a plan. This is not some random act of, Oh, we just got to be tidy about domestic terrorism, not with 5,000 troops still in D.C. tonight, with barbed wire around the Capitol.
DINESH D'SOUZA, HOST, DINESH D'SOUZA PODCAST: Yes, absolutely. One of the key elements of our political system is the distinction between a political party and the state. Now, that's a distinction in other countries that is routinely overridden.
You'll often find in other countries, the ruling party becomes the state, it takes over the police, it takes over the military and uses the military to hand out election flyers. The military becomes an extension of its own ideology. Now, we've been able, by and large, to immunize ourselves against this in America. So I think the Left here is crossing a new boundary.
Now, why are they doing it? I think they're doing it because of this. They believe that if we, and by we here, I don't mean radicals. I don't mean terrorists. I'm talking about you and me. I'm talking about the kind of people that they don't hesitate to call extreme.
Now, why do they call us extreme? Because they believe that if we had the same information they had, we would think like them. But the truth of it is we do have the same information that they have. We know - we hear their news reports, we know what they have to say and yet we don't agree.
So they're really baffled. They think there's got to be some - we must be members of a cult. We must be radicalized in some way we must be living in a cocoon, because if only we listened to Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper and MSNBC, we would basically be on board with their views. So the recalcitrance of Trump supporters and not going along with their nonsense, that convinces them that somehow some conspiracy, some cult, some dangerous extremism must be at work.
INGRAHAM: But we saw Lieutenant Colonel what happened with the PATRIOT Act after 9/11? Maybe the road to surveillance is paved with good intentions or maybe it just gets completely out of control. Well, MSNBC is Frank Figliuzzi wants more domestic spying now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, MSNBC NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: There have been domestic terror bills proposed. They routinely get shut down and always cited is this valid civil liberties and privacy concerns, right. But they jump immediately from passing a law with strict consequences to we don't want people spying on Americans. This is going to result in spying on Americans. I say that's wrong. I say we can do this right
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Lieutenant Colonel, do you trust the government to start another domestic spying apparatus? So this is what--
DAVIS: No--
INGRAHAM: --when everyone voted for the nice guy Biden, OK, he was like the grandfatherly figure, caretaker government. He's going to fix COVID, this is what people voted for really?
DAVIS: Yes. And you really hit the nail on the head earlier that this is a dangerous move in a direction that you're potentially going to criminalize, if not demonize, members of the armed forces. And what's the criteria that this language in the NDAA is being suggested? Is it if you went to a Trump rally, is if you voted for Trump?
I mean, you see where this could go. And where is the criteria you're going to be drawing? It's not going to be drawn on something that gives people the benefit of the doubt. And I just think that you're potentially demonizing vast percentages of the armed forces that we depend on for our security, and I think it's a bad move.
INGRAHAM: And Dinesh I saw online somewhere the rejoinder was, you're an extremist, if you've questioned the wisdom of - not the human worth of - but the wisdom of transgendered Americans in the military, that also will qualify as extremists, potentially. Final thought.
D'SOUZA: Well, it really shows that you've got this package of policy proposals from transgenderism and down the line that the Left is now trying to impose on the military. They're trying to get the military to conform to their way of thinking.
And they want to browbeat and terrify military members who are not on board with all this, with the risk that they will be under surveillance, they will be called in for interviews, they might even be routed out of the military. So this is a case where the Left is conducting its own internal purge of the military.
And I think you're right, this is a very dangerous road to go under. And this is not the way to treat any kind of political opposition in a Democratic society.
INGRAHAM: Dinesh, Lieutenant Colonel, thank you so much. And Democrats are not just trying to debate the military, abuse them, use them, but our Constitution as well, by moving forward with this farce of an impeachment against Donald Trump.
Now, "The Ingraham Angle" can report tonight, the GOP senators will demand a vote for the trial to be dismissed at the outset and after 45 members could join that effort. Now, that would leave Democrats a dozen vote short of what they need to convict.
Here now is Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor at The Federalist, Fox News Contributor. Mollie they know this is going to fail. Even the Eric Swalwell of the China paramour fame was saying, well, we need to do this to show the world, to show ourselves. But, Senate, you know, they don't care. They are happy in this case to grind him into the dirt if they feel like they can, even if they don't win on the trial.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think it's more than that too. The Democratic and media impeachment effort is not about separating Donald Trump from his office. That already happened. It's about separating the Republican Party from its voters.
And so they want to gin up controversy to make Republican elected officials who - particularly those who already dislike President Trump, support their impeachment effort as a way of demoralizing and discouraging the Republican Party voters and making the Republican Party less effective.
And the Republican Party already doesn't control the Senate or the House, so they need to be very unified and strong in the days to come for that half of the country that really needs them to have their A game on and understanding where their true battles lay.
INGRAHAM: Well, we have Senator Mazie Hirono, one of your favorites, Mollie, today, speaking out on impeachment and how it will unfold, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): They're certainly pulling back some of their outrage. This is typical of a party that does not want to take responsibility. They will have a chance to decide whether inciting in his direction is an impeachable offense. We should make sure that this president cannot ever hold the elected office again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That's it, right? I mean, they're not very confident about their ability to beat Donald Trump a second time. They're not confident about - if they're confident about it, why are they so obsessed about Trump running four years from now?
HEMINGWAY: There isn't truth first off in what Mazie Hirono said. She says, oh, they've calmed down now. Actually, that was one of the problems with this snap impeachment. They just rushed into it without in any way exploring the facts on the ground. So the claim that she makes, this assertion she provides without evidence of President Trump inciting a riot, turns out that's not true.
President Trump was speaking at the time the Capitol was breached miles away. And everything we know about it from the reporting shows that this was planned well in advance. So the entire Article of Impeachment is based on a false theory that would have been able to be known if they'd spent any amount of time looking into it. But again, it's not about facts, it's not about reason, it's about trying to make sure that they won't have any effective opposition. Partly, that's about sidelining their political enemy.
I mean, if another country you had this where you have the government - trying the previous government, while the military is occupying a city, you would just say this is not a healthy situation for the Republic. And yet we have all sorts of people acting like this is totally normal and OK, and not thinking through how to be adults right now in this situation.
INGRAHAM: Mollie, wonderful to see you tonight. Thanks so much. And what does America First look like as the GOP moves forward? Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who many people believe is going to be running for president in 2024, has some thoughts. She's here next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF FLAKE (R) FORMER ARIZONA SENATOR: I think the President will fade away a lot faster than he wants to. There is no future with Trumpism.
WILL HURD (R) FORMER TEXAS CONGRESSMAN: There were plenty of Republicans that outperformed Donald Trump at the ballot box, and so we should be looking forward, not looking back.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): There are less and less people that would consider themselves Trump Republicans, as the emotion wears off. So I think in six months it's not going to be necessarily the party of Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I think Adam means fewer and fewer people. It's a common mistake. Well, if you only watch CNN, you might think those voices are representative of the GOP post Trump, but what's the real truth?
Well, the latest NBC News poll, 87 percent of Republicans approved of Trump, virtually unchanged, NBC had to admit from right before the election. Now, the same number oppose impeachment according to a new Monmouth poll. So it seems that, despite what you just heard, Trump's America First does have a future.
One GOP voters seem to like, at least the policies, here with her perspective on things Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and Founder of "Save America PAC." All right, Ambassador Haley, thanks for being here tonight.
Where do you see the Republican Party going as the months and years move forward? And do you see yourself having a part in it?
NIKKI HALEY, FOUNDER OF STAND FOR AMERICA PAC: I think the Republican Party should continue to be the party of solution, that's what we've always been. When it comes to policies, when it comes to anything that brings about economic freedom and opportunities for people, that's who we are.
And I think it's funny for everyone trying to determine where the party goes, we should not want to go back to the Republican Party before Trump. We gained a lot of people that were unheard unseen, many of whom, like I grew up in South Carolina, had just been misunderstood, we want to keep them in the party.
But the reality is, we lost a lot of women and we lost a lot of college educated. We want to bring them in and we want to expand the tent. But the way we expand the tent, is by going back to what has always made us the stronger party. That we believe in freedom of speech. We believe in freedom of religion. We believe that every person has an opportunity, if they're given the tools to do it.
And what you're seeing the Democratic Party do now is they've now gone to where they're the party of censorship, and they're the party of government control. And this is going to be a real opportunity for us to see what we've been dealt, which is a tough hand. We don't have the White House. We don't have the Senate. We don't have the House. But we can't be quiet about it.
2022 is right around the corner. We have to start getting focused on how we're going to win the house back how we're going to win the senate back and how we're going to pick up governors seats--
INGRAHAM: And--
HALEY: And I think we do it - go ahead.
INGRAHAM: I'm sorry to interrupt. But we did really well on the state legislatures, which is a great sign, obviously picked up a number of seats in the House. You also said that you thought the President Trump would be judged harshly because of what happened at the Capitol. I'm not sure most Republican voters agree with you on that. Would you like to expand on why you think that moving forward?
HALEY: Yes, January 6th, was it tough. And honestly the actions that President had since Election Day were not his finest. And for me it troubles me greatly, because I'm really proud of the successes of the Trump administration. Whether it was foreign policy or domestic policy, we should embrace those. Those were the right policies. That's what our party cares about. That's what we were looking to do.
I mean, just if you look at the foreign policy side, the strength that we were able to show as America was something that's really important. The actions of the president post January 6th weren't them. Post-election day were not great. What happened on January 6th was not great. Does he deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not.
INGRAHAM: So you would vote against impeachment?
HALEY: So it's a political game that they're--
INGRAHAM: Yes, you'd vote against impeachment?
HALEY: Absolutely. Absolutely.
INGRAHAM: So that's where you would part ways--
(CROSSTALK)
HALEY: The Trump is just kick him out the door--
INGRAHAM: You would part ways with, for instance, Mitt Romney, who will be voting, it sounds like, for impeachment, for - to convict, at least it sounds that way.
HALEY: I don't even think there is a basis for impeachment. The idea that they're even bringing this up, they didn't even have a hearing in the House. Now, they're going to turn around and bring about impeachment, yet they say they are for unity. They beat him up before he got into office. They are beating him up after he leaves office. At some point, give the man a break. Move on. If you truly are about moving on, move on. The idea that they're going to do impeachment, that's not going to bring our country together. That's only dividing our country.
INGRAHAM: When will you make a decision about 2024?
HALEY: Nobody wants to think about another presidential election. I think everybody wants to think about what we're going to do now. If you look at just the days since Biden has started, he is trying to see how many executive orders he can sign. But there is no strategy. There is vision to it. He is going to jump and get into the World Health Organization again, but you're not going to have a Security Council meeting asking China what they knew, when they know, how they did it. He's going to jump into the Paris Climate Agreement, but you are not going to go and ask India and China before you get to come back and make sure they slow their emissions now and not 10 years from now. You're letting Iranian nuclear weapons get produced, and you're going to jump back into the Iran deal without using those sanctions as leverage? And God forbid you're going to get back into the awful Human Rights Council without ever holding them accountable on their political --.
INGRAHAM: Yes, it's all going to happen. Election have consequences, yes.
HALEY: Election have consequences. And he is all about the numbers of the transactions. But what he is doing is he is showing us to have a very weak hand to the world. And I don't know that -- literally Russia and China are very happy right now. If you end fracking, the one thing we had against Russia was they hated that we were energy independent. To ban fracking and not even talk to these governors about the thousands of families that are going to lose their jobs.
INGRAHAM: That's a nightmare.
HALEY: That's not what you do. That's not a president that's about unifying. That's about a president that wants to hurt the Republican Party and continue to kick us. We have to stand up, and we have to continue to fight.
INGRAHAM: Ambassador Haley, come back soon. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Great to see you.
And the media covers the big Biden stories you need to know, if you're a small child. Raymond Arroyo with "Seen and Unseen" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment, and for that we turn to FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo. All right, Ray, you have a new segment for us tonight? Pray tell.
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: That is true, Laura. Years ago, when the media swooned over all things Obama, you called it the razzle dazzle on your radio show. We are now in the age of Biden, and the media defaulted to its old ways. We will chronicle those shameless reports, all the fawning filler in a new segment called "Marquee Malarkey."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Bunch of malarkey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Topping tonight's malarkey, Laura, is a critical report, this critical report, from another network.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just into CNN, two new arrivals at the White House, Champ and Major. They are now in residence, we are told. The Bidens' German Shepherds, we're told Champ is enjoying his new dog bed by the fireplace. Major is partial to running on the South Lawn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And if that wasn't newsy enough for you, Ingraham, Press Secretary Jen Psaki released these important tidbits over the weekend about the anticipated cat the Bidens promised to bring to D.C. Get your pencils ready.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The first feline will be greatly appreciated. I'm also wondering about the cat, because the cat is going to dominate the Internet whenever the cat is announced and wherever that cat is found. I did ask him for my four-years-old niece who is very curious about what his favorite ice cream was. His favorite is chocolate chip.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Chocolate Chip. Laura, we are having fun with this, but there is a serious side to this thing. This is designed to distract people from the radical policies being advanced by the Biden administration. Despite the rescue dog and the ice cream chatter, Biden has already killed 11,000 jobs by cancelling the XL pipeline. He's forced biological males into female sports competitions. And in a few days he's going to pay for abortions abroad. This is not what the American people voted for.
It's like that old joke, Laura -- parents don't want peace, they want quiet. And that's what the American voter wanted. Instead they are getting this radicalism and a revision -- a return, rather, to the Obama media playbook. Does any of this look familiar to you?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We're going to go get some burgers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back at the White House, he exits the limo with two enormous grease-stained shopping bags full of real food for the hungry staff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brand new pictures of Bo Obama looking like he has the run of the place. There he is on this rather gray Friday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama on vacation with his family in Maine. They all stop. They get ice cream.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: There it all is, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Move over, move over Edward R. Murrow. It's so they have gone from the Obama razzle dazzle to the Biden marquee malarkey.
ARROYO: That's it. That's it. Laura, ice cream dogs -- can empire wastes and Broadway date nights be far away? I don't think so.
INGRAHAM: And we have to apologize, because for weeks we've been saying that the media were unwilling to cover Hunter Biden, and when we're wrong, we admit it. They proved us wrong, indeed, over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Biden and his family have frequently gone to Catholic mass on Saturdays or Sundays. They made a visit there, and then on the way back we understand Hunter Biden, the president's son, got out of the motorcade and picked up some bagels at Call Your Mother, a Jewish deli. Already just in 45 minutes this afternoon, a very different approach to spending a Sunday from what we saw over the Trump years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: The holy bagel run, Laura it's amazing. You would never know he is under federal investigation for his foreign dealings with other governments.
INGRAHAM: No Chinese food for the Bidens?
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Speaking of the Bidens' mass attendance, I've got to your reaction, Raymond, to this "Times" piece by Elizabeth Dias. She writes that "President Biden, perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century speaks of how his Catholic faith grounds his policies."
ARROYO: Well, he speaks about it, Laura, but it really doesn't guide his policies. This is a man that the U.S. bishops just said your policies advance moral evils. And that article trying to cut the Pope, somehow, away from Catholic teaching so that Biden looks better. The truth is, Pope Francis has called abortion an assassination. He has that gender ideology is evil. Though he does support immigration and environmental rights, he has not jettisoned all of Catholic doctrine in the way that Joe Biden has. So this is a kind of disingenuous faith play. People have to see through this for what it is.
INGRAHAM: Raymond, the Biden bagel run, Hunter Biden finally gets that incisive press coverage we have been waiting for. Thanks so much.
ARROYO: He got the sesame.
INGRAHAM: From the Biden administration's repeated lies about the vaccine roll out to California hiding key COVID data from the public, the left shows that they have utter disdain for you and basic common sense. Victor Davis Hanson has it all next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: In an effort to tamp down expectations of the vaccine rollout, the Biden White House has been trotting out the oft-repeated lie about the previous administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The confusion around this issue speaks to a larger problem, which is what we're inherited from the prior administration, which is much worse than we could have imagined. We're eyes wide open, all of us, including the president, with the knowledge that we were not walking into a circumstance where there was going to be a concrete assessment or plan presented to us when we walked in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Oh, my God, they think we are just complete morons. The Trump administration and Operation Warp Speed were responsible for getting two vaccines to market in less than 12 months. A lot of those folks, by the way, were saying it was never going to happen. This as the infallible Fauci and the media cartel continue to say it would take years.
Further complicating these claims is the fact that on Trump's last day in it office, 1.6 million doses were administrated across the country. Since then, an average of 1.3 million vaccine doses have been administered every day.
So when Biden says that he wants a million vaccines a day, he is telling the American people he actually wants to slow down the pace of what it was during the Trump administration. So what the media and the Biden team are doing is a slap in the face to the people who worked tirelessly to develop and deliver more than 40 million vaccine doses to the American people. Shame on them.
Speaking of lying about COVID, Governor Gavin Newsom of California is refusing to share crucial data on the virus with his own citizens. The Associated Press reporting Newsom's administration won't disclose key information that will help determine when his latest stay at home order is lifted. State health officials say they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.
Joining me now is Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution senior fellow. Victor, this goes in the category of the American people are too stupid for us to explain stuff, so we're going to conceal stuff that would make us look back.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Yes, I think everybody wants to know why on the night of the 6th of December and 7th, we went into a total lockdown, and we had 5,000 or 6,000 fewer cases than we do now when we are opening up the entire state. So everybody wants to know, is this a connection between how many people are infected and how many freedom we have or not? He is basically saying shut up.
And that is sort of the progressive modus operandi, Laura, where we the people are not educated enough, so we have this technocratic, progressive elite. They make the decisions and they do it for our own good. They are kind of like Platonic guardians. And we saw that with Fauci. Remember, mask bad, mask good. Herd immunity, not until we get 90 percent, maybe 60 percent. Wuhan virus, nothing to do with the lab in China. And then later we find out that he lied about the masks for our own good so we wouldn't be stupid and go out and buy masks. And herd immunity, we'd get the vaccination, but we wouldn't still social distancing. It's the same idea that he is talking down to us, because we are stupid. And that's how the progressive mind works.
And then finally, we're in a year zero where all of a sudden around the 20th of January we set the calendar back to zero. And at that point, Joe Biden came out and said Trump had not plan and he killed 400,000 people. But guess what, I don't have a plan either other than the Trump vaccine, and 600,000 will end up dying, and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't stop the trajectory. If he had said that on November 2nd, he wouldn't have been elected. But everything starts over again, and that's where we are now.
We are open now for business. Illinois is going to open up, New York, because the Biden economy, as Cuomo said, we need to get people back to work. A month ago, if you put people back to work you were essentially killing them, you had blood on your hands. So it's scary. It's kind of like Maoist China where the news gets recalibrated, the truth gets redefined, and we have this artificial year zero, January 20th, 2021, everything is new, new reality.
INGRAHAM: Victor, all this stuff we were saying, you and I were saying last May and June was heresy. We were saying a virus is going to virus, Farr's law, it has a natural trajectory. Lockdowns won't really help. Social distancing might, but you can't social distance do that forever. One, mask, two masks, three masks, four. How many masks are good enough? We don't know, but that keeps changing. And you mentioned Biden, today he still showed that he is a complete pawn of the teachers' unions when it comes to school openings, Victor. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe, sir, that teachers should return to schools now?
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe we should make school classrooms safe and secure for the students, for the teachers. We need new ventilation systems in those schools. We need testing for people coming in and out of the classes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: So Victor, I guess all kids are going to get tested several times a week, and a whole new HVAC system, and then maybe at some point in the next three or four years, schools will open again. Talk about child abuse. This is a scandal.
HANSON: Yes. They destroyed the reputation, they tried to, of my colleague Scott Atlas who told the nation that you have to social distance, you've got to wear masks, but this has a trajectory that it's going to be very difficult until we have vaccinations. And we don't want to kill people through this lockdown, through substance abuse, spousal abuse, missed procedures, missed surgeries. And they said he was crazy, and he was absolutely correct. It's tragic the way they treat people. Take their ideas and then they defame them.
INGRAHAM: Victor, thank you so much. Wonderful to see you tonight. I am glad you are somewhat opening in California.
Two lies in two sentences from Biden's Press Secretary Jen Psaki, could that be possible? The Last Bite will show you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: When President Trump was imposing travel restrictions in March, specifically on China, then candidate Biden called it xenophobic and fearmongering. So now President Biden is putting travel restrictions on people coming in from other countries.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't think that's quite a fair articulation. The president has been clear that he felt the Muslim ban was xenophobic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Two lies in less than 30 seconds. Let's correct the record. One, Biden absolutely called Trump's China travel ban xenophobic. You see one of his tweets right there to Trump never enacted a Muslim ban. Don't take our word for it. Here's PolitiFact. The order does not specifically bar Muslims. It applies only to citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen."
Funny how CNN's army a fact checkers seemed to miss those lies. Well, that's all the time we have tonight. We'll be fact checkers. Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team take it all from here. Shannon.
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