'The Ingraham Angle' on the Durham Russia Probe
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This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," February 14, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Please remember, set your DVR so you never miss an episode. In the meantime, let not your heart be troubled. Laura Ingraham, freedom matters takes it away.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: You got it. You got it.
HANNITY: So I got - it's a hoodie, which I love, is great for work. This is great for working out in.
INGRAHAM: Awesome.
HANNITY: OK, but we got a little problem here.
INGRAHAM: You got the pink hat?
HANNITY: OK, I got the pink hat. It's really--
INGRAHAM: Isn't that cool?
HANNITY: I'm giving this to my daughter, because I'm not a chosen - What do you want me to wear? A pink hat when I work out. I do punching elbows, hitting, kicking.
INGRAHAM: OK. How about this? (inaudible) hat
HANNITY: Oh, do I have to wait another three weeks to get that one?
INGRAHAM: No, I'm sending you this actually.
HANNITY: OK. This goes to my daughter. And I'll take that one. And I'll even get video of me working out and throwing some punches and elbows and knees. All right.
INGRAHAM: Oh, what are you? Chris Cuomo? What is that, a video of you working out? I don't think so.
By the way, Hannity. I'm seeing you. I'm glad you're going to look good in that freedom matters gear. All right. It's all made in the USA, by the way. But I see you're - ok. First of all, you have a lot of guests lately with hats on, I've noticed. Is that a continuing trend? So that's number one.
Yes. You have a lot of hats. But this was like, what was that show in the 70s, when we were kids? The Battle of the All Stars. Remember, they had the--
HANNITY: Yes, I do remember that.
INGRAHAM: So you got Weiner on, you have (inaudible). I'm thinking of who else can we get on?
HANNITY: I don't - It was like a softball question. Have you changed? Are you a better person? Did you learn from this? Are you ever going to do this again? I didn't think that was a hard question.
INGRAHAM: You're like Barbara Walters now. That means she's a - it's a great tribute to you. All right, Hannity. I got to--
HANNITY: Hit me. Go ahead. Just keep hitting me.
INGRAHAM: They're telling me I got to go, but - it was an old home week there with the old scandals.
HANNITY: Oos.
INGRAHAM: All right. Good to see you, my friend. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight. We have a lot to get to. So let's dive right in.
Speaking of freedom matters, the freedom problem. That's the focus of tonight's 'Angle'.
Now, back in May of 2020, just a few months into the pandemic, the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights delivered what was actually a surprising warning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE BACHELET, UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: When we restrict certain human rights because of a need like a natural cause or a pandemic like this one, it has to be - first of all, it has to be a clear need. It has to be proportionate to the need. And it has to have a time bound. It cannot be forever.
We have seen that some governments are using it to shrink, to make even more shrink their civic space and the possibility of civil society to express and that is unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: How prescient she was. Two years later with freedom convoys, inspiring millions around the world, officials who thought they would never be held accountable, are growing more desperate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTIN TRUDEAU, PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA: The emergencies act will be used to strengthen and support law enforcement agencies at all level across the country. This is about keeping Canadians safe. These tools include strengthening their ability to impose fines, or imprisonment.
Financial institutions will be authorized or directed to render essential services to help address the situation by regulating and prohibiting the use of property to fund or support illegal blockades.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: What would such a soft pretty man ever know about keeping anyone safe? Not much. Weaken ineffective leaders don't change course even when COVID recedes, because I've said for almost two years now, this was never about the virus. It was about creating a compliant public. A compliant public that was kind of primed to obey the next lockdown order. No questions asked.
The assaults on our basic liberties have been wide ranging. School closures denied children quality education. That was the freedom to learn. Vax and max - vax and mask vaccine mask mandates deprived us of our freedom to decide what we put into our own bodies. Stay at home orders destroyed small businesses, while large corporations thrived. That was our freedom to work.
Then Big Tech censorship, where YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, they acted as proxy speech police for the government. Our freedom of expression. Anyone who didn't tow the Fauci line, even treating physicians and renowned researchers were threatened. They were suspended, maligned and even banned completely. Some lost their jobs, calling something COVID misinformation, gave the government carte blanche through their proxies to trample on free expression.
Now, who'll ever forget how Democrat governors let you shop together but not pray together? Churches shuttered our freedom to worship, halted. The experts never thought that faith was essential, but somehow they deem that liquor stores were. So this anti-freedom coalition on the left even deployed intimidation squads and corporate in school settings with the goal of silencing employees and parents who spoke out.
Now, take this fascinating case of Jennifer Sey. She was an Elizabeth Warren supporter from the Bay Area, who was forced out of her high profile job merely for speaking out against school closures and lockdowns.
Now, Ms. Sey, then president of Levi Strauss, felt passionately about the need for in-person schooling. She wrote, "I kept calling out hypocritical and unproven policies. I met with the mayor's office and eventually uprooted my entire life in California, so that my kindergartener could finally experience real school."
Well, back in March 2021, Jennifer appeared on the 'Angle'.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER SEY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF LEVI STRAUSS: Whether there's politics involved or not, I got to take care of my kid. And I want to help all kids, because I realized I'm very lucky that I can pick up and come here. And I know not everyone has that opportunity. But I will tell you, families I know are scraping together everything they have to either go to private, or move to a district or a state that's open, because at the end of the day, our kids need to be in school.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, she's a liberal, I'm a conservative. Her comments were entirely reasonable. But then she writes, "That appearance, on this show, was the last straw. The Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the company asked that I do an apology tour. I was told that the main complaint against me was that I was not a friend of the Black community at Levi's. I was told to say that I am an imperfect ally."
Well, then she said she refused to do any of that. Now, this woman was on track to be the CEO of a major company, a liberal with biracial children, canceled by the corporate mob. Think about that.
So the left is so freaked out now, because their COVID fortress of rules and edicts is collapsing before they had the chance, of course, to make their new normal permanent. They're so frantic that they're trying to stigmatize the word freedom. In other words, your freedom kills people, even when they're vaccinated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I love how people talk about personal freedom. If you're exercising personal freedom puts someone else in jeopardy, their health in jeopardy, I don't consider that being very dealing with freedom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, the marking of freedom has been a thing of Biden's for a while now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Two things that concern me. One are those who just try to make this a political issue of freedom. I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID. I mean, come on, freedom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Ever heard a president? Never thought I would hear a president say something like that. And the media picks it up and then repeats it with their own lame flourish. Now, the message is to be afraid of those who want freedom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you've seen in Canada is others are fearful of these protesters who are arguing for freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, it's sort of generically anti-government all wrapped in this, sort of, notion or the guise of freedom, whatever that means to these individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But freedom for the rest of you to do and speak your mind, no, no. They don't want that. Here's the way the progs at the CBC described the word, "It's malleable, and a term that thrives among far-right groups." Yet no matter the rubbish they say or publish about this freedom quest spreading across the globe now, the truth about what the powerful did these past two years is coming to the fore.
It can't be that we live in a country where freedom only exists for the connected and wealthy, who can go maskless at the Super Bowl as third graders sweated out in N-95 masks in class in LA.
But they'll always feel justified when they take away your freedom, or when they skirt the rules. It's going to be that the roads are dangerous; the climates warming; the variants are coming. And almost six years ago, it was that Trump was running. They had to stop him. Rules be damned.
The left didn't think twice when they locked the children out of schools. And the Clinton campaign didn't think twice when they deployed internet spies in an effort to destroy Trump and nullify your vote. Even though the ends for them always justify the means, we know what was going on.
And the press, they did too. But they didn't cover the stories that mattered. They covered them up. But here's the good news. The anti-freedom coalition is unraveling. And that 'Angle'.
We'll have more on the potential criminal indictments coming from the Durham bombshell later on in the show. But first, check out this video of the freedom convoys and protests over the weekend from across the world.
(VIDEO PLAYING)
INGRAHAM: LibertAc. Well, spectacular sights to see. How significant is this, given the sustained attacks on freedom here and abroad the word 'freedom' under assault.
Joining me now is Stephen Miller, America First Legal founder, former senior White House adviser; also with me Dinesh D'Souza, conservative commentator, and filmmaker.
Dinesh, China is rising and America is faltering under Biden. So free speech is under attack here. Canada's moving toward martial law. But is the tide turning?
DINESH D'SOUZA, "THE DINESH D'SOUZA PODCAST" HOST: I think it is. And the reason it's turning is because what people are looking for when they when they think about freedom is nothing more than the scope or the space to normalize their life. We're not talking about some exotic exercise of freedom, we're talking about things like going to work, getting your kid to school.
And so these are - this is freedom in the normal sense of the term in the same common sensical sense that I am free to move my arm. Now, Biden and the left have stigmatized freedom in such a way that they're making the - they're presenting the idea that somehow it's not freedom, if it affects somebody else. But all freedom affects somebody else.
If a woman takes a job, as opposed to staying home, that affects the workforce, that affects her husband, that affects her children. So it's not as if the normal exercise of freedom doesn't have an impact on others. The real question is, does it hurt the rights of other people?
Obviously, if I swing my arm, it makes contact with your jaw. That is an unacceptable use of freedom. But if I'm going to a grocery store or a mall, and somebody else goes, Oh, by you showing up here without a mask or unvaccinated, you're increasing my risk of COVID. Well, nobody's asking you to go to the mall. You can stay home. So this idea that somehow one group of people gets to live their life, and they can force other people not to, this is the essence of the issue, I think.
INGRAHAM: Yes. Stephen, this was the chilling message, speaking of freedom crushers from Trudeau's Deputy Prime Minister today. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRYSTIA FREELAND, MINISTER OF FINANCE OF CANADA: As of today, a bank or other financial service provider will be able to immediately freeze, or suspend an account without a court order. If your truck is being used in these illegal blockades, your corporate accounts will be frozen. The insurance on your vehicle will be suspended.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Stephen, is this what Canada does now? Because I thought it was what dictatorships do.
STEPHEN MILLER, "AMERICA FIRST LEGAL" FOUNDER: Well, I don't think any of us a few years ago would have guessed that Trudeau would be doing his best impersonation of Mussolini. But that's where we are right now.
The reality is, and I think a lot of us who have been paying attention to be concerned about this for a while, is that modern leftism is only a hair's breadth away from fascism. If you look at cancel culture, that's the left using corporate power to punish dissent. It is a very short road from that to using state power to punish dissent, to punish political enemies.
And so everywhere you look, you see the strong armed against the weak. Administrators against helpless students, powerful CEOs against wage earners. And now you see the leaders of countries against peaceful protesters. I think anybody who cherishes liberty and freedom and Western civilization should be profoundly alarmed about what we are seeing unfold right now.
INGRAHAM: Dinesh, this attack on the word 'freedom', I think is a fascinating development. I mean, it's kind of a desperate play now from the left, I think. Like, well, we are asking for freedom. This is a far right tactic. What? I mean, these people were the free speech people that so long ago. They believed - they were about free love, free speech, free expression, artistic expression, teachers' expression in classroom, you couldn't touch it, you couldn't regulate it.
Now, they've turned the whole concept upside down, because they're on the losing side of the argument. How long can this last?
D'SOUZA: Well, we see that the left is attacking freedom at both prongs. And we've talked about one, which is the idea of individual rights or individual liberties. And so that would be things like free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of conscience and so on. But we haven't spoken about the other type of freedom the left is also attacking, and this is the freedom of local communities, to be able to make decisions for themselves.
And so if you're looking, for example, at COVID, obviously COVID may be spiking in certain places, not spiking in others. Circumstances vary from one place to the other. So why shouldn't people living in their own local communities be able to make rules that are adapted to their own particular situation?
Biden seems to imply that you have to have a federal or a centralized approach to the problem, whereas a second form of freedom would be the freedom of local self government.
INGRAHAM: Well, thank God, right, Steve, that we had founders who understood the power of overreaching power of a federal government. So we have state governors who are able to show the way for reopening. Imagine if we didn't have those.
MILLER: Well, our founding fathers very wisely understood human nature, and they understood how dangerous it was. When leaders accrue power to rule over you now, they do not lightly let it go. And so the fact that we habituated that we've normalized, forcing toddlers to wear masks all day long, and we've normalized firing people for not getting vaccinated and we've normalized canceling people for having conservative thoughts. This all leaves in a very dark road and Americans must reclaim our heritage as a free nation and quickly.
INGRAHAM: Gentlemen, thank you. Great to see you.
And just miles from our nation's capitol, the petty tyrant running Montgomery County, Maryland, is ramping up the war on freedom too. County executive Marc Elrich is still pushing for vaccine passports, despite the county council refusing to vote on them. And despite COVID positivity rates falling below metrics he set.
On top of that, he's openly defying Governor Larry Hogan's call to end force masking in schools.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARC ELRICH, MONTGOMERY COUNTY EXECUTIVE: --made movements early, you know, throughout this pandemic where we lighten things up, and other people lightening things up. And I will say almost every time he did that, our numbers jumped back up.
I think he would serve us all better if he was a little bit more patient about it, and got us at least into the moderate transmission range.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Here now as a Montgomery County parent, who has been calling out Elrich from the beginning on this, Phil Kerpen, President of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
Phil, you know, there are a lot of county execs across the country who've abused their powers over the last two years. But this character Marc Elrich really takes the cake. Why does someone like him continue to get elected, given what's happened to that community?
PHIL KERPEN, PRESIDENT, COMMITTEE TO UNLEASH PROSPERITY: Well, he was sort of an accidental county executive. In that he won his primary by a handful of votes in a multi-candidate field. And I think that this is a really good example of people not necessarily paying as much attention to local races, as they should.
County - like, the Montgomery County is over a million people. It's bigger than six or seven states. It's an enormous jurisdiction. And a race like that ought to be viewed like a governor's race, like a very, very high stakes race. But it's typically not, especially in a place like this, where people are much more concerned about national politics, generally have a broader focus than what's happening locally.
And so this guy, he's kind of squeaked in. And he became one of the worst Covidian petty tyrants in the entire country, as you pointed out. He's got his deputy saying, they still want to do the vaccine passport, restaurant mandate thing. And they said, We'll shelve it for now, but next variant, we're going to bring it right back out. We're going to be ready to go on that. He's been horrendous every step of the way.
And he has no curiosity to actually understand what any of these numbers mean. And so he says, Oh, we should have CDC moderate transmissions. You know what that means, Laura? It means 50 cases per 100,000 population per week. But the standard CDC invented in spring 2020 when there was almost no testing.
INGRAHAM: You know what I say about this, Phil, all you business owners in liberal Montgomery County, all you parents and your kids, all the fancy schools there, how's it working out for you? I mean, is this what you want? I guess that's what they want.
But I got to say, I talked to so many parents from that community that are just - they're horrified. So I mean, this is where we got to get local people to step up and challenge him and run against him. And whether you're a Democrat or Republican, just moderate common sense policies. I think that's what people are asking for finally.
KERPEN: Yes, I think that. I hope we see a turnover in that position and turnover in all the county council seats as well which are up. I think that the - it's - just the casualness with which they turn people's lives upside down, like for a while last year, youth sports were exempt from the masks, then suddenly they weren't. No reason, no explanation, no logic, no science. Somebody felt like it.
So then kids were running around playing games with masks. It just - they make these decisions based on nothing. They told us we were going to be unmasked. Then 80 percent vaxxed and then 85 percent, then they made up a--
(CROSSTALK)
INGRAHAM: We got to go.
KERPEN: I don't know.
INGRAHAM: Yes, yes. Phil, we got to go. But I don't think Elrich is out there playing a lot of touch football. That's my sense. Good to see you, Phil.
Now, it turns out that the Obama administration wasn't alone in spying on the Trump campaign. Former Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is here in moments on the shocking filing in the John Durham probe. Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: There's been no transition from when I won. I won that election. And if you look at crooked Hillary Clinton, if you look at all of the different people, there was no transition because they came after me tried to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won, and even before I won.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: He was right before he won, absolutely. A bombshell, a new court filing from Special Counsel John Durham alleges that the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to surreptitiously monitor computer servers at Trump Tower and even in the Executive Office of the President.
The goal was to mine the servers for dirt and then use it to peddle the phony Russia collusion narrative. And that's, of course, exactly what they did. The Clinton campaign attorney Mark Michael Sussmann fed this garbage to the FBI in 2016, and unnamed second agency in 2017.
Joining me now is John Ratcliffe, former director of National Intel. John, a lot of the documents that you declassified point to what we learned in this Durham filing. Explain.
JOHN RATCLIFFE, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, Laura, when I became the Director of National Intelligence, the first thing I said was, Look, I'd like to see all of the intelligence we have on Trump-Russia collusion. And the answer was, Well, we don't have any. Not a little bit, but we don't have any. And that's why, Jim Comey and John Brennan and James Clapper went all pressed under oath, is there evidence of Trump Russia collusion, they all said, no, there isn't.
But what I found was interesting. That I didn't know as a member of Congress is that, we had a lot of intelligence of fake Trump-Russia collusion. What do I mean? We had intelligence that Hillary Clinton had a plan to create this narrative, this false Trump-Russia connection. And that is the notes that I declassified, John Brennan's handwritten notes that showed that he briefed President Obama and Vice President Biden and their national security team about that plan.
But in addition to those declassified documents, Laura, I gave John Durham thousands of other documents that are still classified that detailed what that plan was, and these public filings are starting to be - John Durham is starting to reveal to the public what some of the details of that plan specifically were.
INGRAHAM: And, John, did they also withhold that briefing or those details, if you can say this from then candidate Trump in August of 2016? If my memory serves me, correct.
RATCLIFFE: Your memory is absolutely correct. As a candidate, Donald Trump received a briefing. And in fact, the agents that were investigating him under this false Trump-Russia narrative didn't disclose that they were investigating him and none of this information was shared.
The public found out about this when I declassified in September of 2020, John Brennan's handwritten notes. So think about that, Laura. I was on the Judiciary Committee, I was on the Intelligence Committee, no member of Congress was aware of this intelligence until I declassified it. And when I did, they said, Well, no, it's Russian disinformation. But now, John Durham is putting it in federal criminal pleadings and charging people. It's very real. This was very real, and the public is starting to find out what the details are.
INGRAHAM: John, just very quickly, when we can't trust our national intelligence agencies to look out for our interests without political gamesmanship, trickery, cheating, criminality, where does that leave us as a country today? And set aside Trump, I mean, if you can for a - just on that.
RATCLIFFE: Well, I think that's why this is so important is, when you have the right people in and folks are willing to declassify the information to hold agencies accountable. The people can have that trust. Unfortunately, what you have is a lot of bureaucrats that protect the institutions like the CIA and the FBI for the sake of protecting them, even when they don't stand up for the values that they're supposed to represent.
Instead of when they when they do fall, and when they do falter, coming out clean and being honest with the American people, and that's what we should do. That's what I did. And that's what good leadership demands. And we don't have that right now. And we didn't have it in 2016.
INGRAHAM: Well, John, thank you for declassifying what you did. And we really appreciate your insights tonight. Thank you.
And joining me now is Sol Wisenberg, former deputy, independent counsel and former Assistant U.S. Attorney. Sol, great to see you. Why was the filing - this filing, in particular, legally significant in your eye?
SOL WISENBERG, FORMER DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Well, the reason why, one of the reasons why it is a bombshell is because Durham hasn't been leaking, unlike some other famous prosecutors. So there has been no hint that this was there. So that's number one.
Number two, it shows why Sussmann was lying, or allegedly lying, according to Mr. Durham. Remember, the argument has been in the press by the defenders of Michael Sussmann, oh, this was a mistake, or, hell, everybody knew that Sussmann and Perkins Coie had done work for the Clinton campaign. But this was a very specific question he was asked. He was there at the FBI talking to the general counsel about supposedly a crime committed by the Trump campaign. And he was asked, who are you here for? Are you here as a good citizen or are you here representing a particular client? And he said, no. And he said no a couple of months later to agency two, I think we know who that is.
And the bombshell that Durham laid out shows why. It gives a motive for why Sussmann was doing it. As John said, as John Ratcliffe just said, because if he didn't lie, it would reveal the wide-ranging conspiracy going on. I don't know if it's a criminal conspiracy, but it's a conspiracy going on involving the Clinton campaign to both, number one, feed lies to the FBI about Trump and, then, number two, leak to the press that the FBI is investigating this. That's exactly what they did with the Alpha Bank server allegations, which were not true. And that is what Sussmann was there at the FBI that day to talk about.
INGRAHAM: Sol, really, really quickly, we only have a few seconds, are we running into a statute of limitations issue here in a possible criminal probe given the timeframe and how much time has lapsed?
WISENBERG: That's a great question. It would look like on the surface that we might be. But Durham has been working very, very hard, and there is a wealth of things he's doing that we don't know anything about. So there could be further lies that were told to clean up the messes you talked about. When Clinton didn't win, when Trump won, oh, my God, we've got a mess to clean up. So there could be all kinds of things that went on that Durham is still looking at. So it's hard to tell when all you have is what's on the surface there and you've got a good prosecutor who isn't leaking.
INGRAHAM: Sol, that is an excellent point. We don't want leaky prosecutors, but we often have them. Great to see you, Sol.
And the Super Bowl and the Bidens go back to the future on a nostalgia trip by design. Raymond Arroyo, tells us why. "Seen and Unseen" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we explore the big cultural stories of the day. For that we go to FOX News contributor, Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, there was kind of a recurring theme I noticed at the Super Bowl, maybe you did, too, and even in today's headlines that some may have missed.
ARROYO: Yes, Laura. It' called, we've used the term before, cultural regurgitation, where the country seems to be on a carousel of nostalgia. In this case, the halftime show, it's kind of typical to go back and bring out the old acts. My gripe was not so much the elder hip-hop performers, but the way NBC tried to sell them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the first time ever, hip-hop and rap take center stage. Literally music's biggest stage is getting set as I stand right next to Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. We have seen Mary J. Blige and Eminem already walk in here, Kendrick Lamar as well. It will likely be the greatest halftime performance of all time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Come on. Laura, everybody from Prince to Michael Jackson to Ella Fitzgerald, even Bruno Mars have done this halftime show. To say it is the greatest. Whatever it was, it was not the greatest halftime show of all time. Please.
INGRAHAM: They had a cool set. I liked that set. But Raymond --
ARROYO: But it felt small. Didn't it feel small to you compared to others, Katie Perry and Bruno Mars?
INGRAHAM: Raymond, I know you are a big Naughty by Nature far, so you really dug the whole thing. You dug it all. You thought it was pretty cool.
ARROYO: Compton and are like this. I am there every weekend.
INGRAHAM: What can I say? The kids like it. The older kids like it. The Rolling Stones are more my style.
Eminem's music, what are you going to tell us about that, though? That wasn't the only thing.
ARROYO: Eminem's music was not the only nostalgia trip. He was reenacting protests from years gone by, Laura.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMINEM, RAPPER: -- because opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Now, the NFL had the Black National Anthem featured prominently. No athlete black or white knelt during the actual National Anthem. So what was Eminem protesting here exactly? He's like two years late, Laura. Maybe it was a guilty conscience, you might call it.
INGRAHAM: I thought a couple did kneel.
ARROYO: I didn't see anybody.
INGRAHAM: That seems really old. I thought he dropped something. I didn't know what.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: Lost a contact.
INGRAHAM: Honestly, I couldn't tell. There was so much going on there. I actually thought he dropped something. Then I realized what he was doing. So it was kind of an ode to Colin Kaepernick. It seemed like there was a lot of backing vocals in the performances.
ARROYO: Yes.
INGRAHAM: But maybe I had an echo on my screen, or something.
The most memorable Super Bowl commercials, Raymond, were also throwbacks. Jim Carrey reprised his "Cable Guy" role.
ARROYO: Yes, and the late 1990s were also resurrected by Michael Myers, or was it Dr. Evil?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, our takeover of General Motors is complete. We're going all electric.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, the floor has opened up and there are cars there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, G.M. also produced, and keep that image in your mind, but G.M. also produced the best commercial of the night. And it solved a bit of that "Sopranos" final episode mystery. We don't know if Tony survived. But it looks like his children did.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, this is all part of G.M.'s push to try to get the next generation, or the older generation, to buy into electric vehicles. But unwittingly, G.M. has recruited a supervillain and a mob family to be their spokespeople. I'm not sure if that is going to go down well when this is all over.
INGRAHAM: My question, though, Raymond, is when they are trying to run away from the police or escape, then they are going to run out of a charge. They have to make sure they are charged. That's the whole problem. Can you make it to the pines, where did they use to dump the bodies, in the pines?
ARROYO: Yes, exactly.
INGRAHAM: They can't get there.
ARROYO: Tony didn't have Duracell in the duffle bags in the back. That's not what he was carrying.
Laura, happy Valentine's Day, and even the Bidens went all nostalgic today. Jill posted a Valentine for the country on the front lawn of the White House, though whoever painted Commander the dog needs a refresher course. This looks like a mongoose bred with a rabbit. This is a very bad looking image. Really bad.
INGRAHAM: I can't see it. I can't -- oh, that's it. I thought it was contemporary art. I didn't know what that was. And so Joe sent out a tweet, he sent out a tweet to Jill that read, you are the love of my life and the life of my love, Jilly.
ARROYO: Laura, even that was a repeat, a nostalgic moment. How many times has Joe Biden said that line? Watch.
INGRAHAM: Many times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Jill is the life of my love and the love of my life.
The love of my life, and the life of my love.
The love of my life, the life of my love.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: The life of my living, the loving, the loving, the lack of the love of the lack.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: That was sweet.
Raymond, I just want to say, to all the people who didn't realize that you are in Beijing, congratulations for the ice dancing. You got the gold medal.
ARROYO: Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: That's amazing. How did you get back in time?
ARROYO: This bling -- I can't let Joe Burrow and Tyrus get all the bling, Laura. This is my Endymion Grand Marshal Medallion. The gave it to me the other day. I thought I would wear it tonight and I'll wear the Friday before my ride to Mardi Gras. So I've got to show my bling.
INGRAHAM: I don't know what you talked about more, Raymond. First of all, it's a huge honor, but I don't know what you have talked about more on THE INGRAHAM ANGLE, "The Spider Who Save Christmas" or the dame Endymion parade, OK. I don't know which one. It's a tie.
ARROYO: Easy. I'm the grand marshal that saved Mardi Gras, Ingraham.
INGRAHAM: We've got to go, but it's a cute little gold medal for the ice dancing. All right, Raymond, thank you.
If you are looking for a simple example as to why the health establishment lost so much trust these past two years, just compare their responses to the BLM protest in 2020 to the Canadian truckers today. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: OK, there are a lot of differences between the trucker convoys and the BLM riots of 2020, but one of the most striking is how the medical establishment is condemning the former despite embracing the latter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. LAMAR HASBROUCK, FORMER MEDICAL EPIDEMIOLOGIST WITH CDC: Folks are really taking an informed and calculated risk in saying that in this case I think the risk is worth it. And I can't say I disagree with them.
DR. NAHID BHADELIA, BOSTON COLLEGE PROFESSOR, INFECTIOUS DISEASE: The good news and the thing that is on the side of the protesters is this is outdoors, and in some cases people have taken the personal responsibility of wearing a mask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: What does this reveal? Joining me now is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford Medical School professor, and Dr. Peter McCullough, cardiologist, epidemiologist based in Dallas. Dr. Bhattacharya, pretty emblematic, don't you think, of how policy infected public health? I'm laughing because it's so obvious what they did.
DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, STANFORD UNIVERSITY EPIDEMIOLOGIST: I think the right to protest is a fundamental right. I support both the right of the BLM protesters to protest as well as the truckers to protest. But I do think that it is very interesting that the medical establishment supported one versus the other. And it's not as if people don't notice. This has real consequences. If the people on the right think that public health is not supporting their basic civil rights, they are going to distrust public health. And in fact, I think that has already happened and will have long- term negative consequences.
INGRAHAM: Dr. McCullough, you have been talking a lot about the public trust waning given the attacks on you, obviously the entire Great Barrington Declaration, all of you have been trashed morning, noon, and night, and you've turned out to be right about pretty much everything. But we still have people on television who are involved in the scaremongering. Doctor Leana Wen today, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Lifting a government-imposed mask mandate doesn't mean that it's suddenly safe. It doesn't mean that people should go out and rip off their masks because COVID is gone.
I do think that there is a level of unfairness in this in that life has now become less safe for those who are the most vulnerable. If they are now going to be surrounded by people who are maybe unvaccinated and also unmasked, they could be more exposed than before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Dr. McCullough, will they ever drop this? Will they ever relent, ever?
DR. PETER MCCULLOUGH, MD, MPH, INTERNIST AND CARDIOLOGIST: Laura, the two Super Bowls were night and day. Remember, last year, it was in Tampa Bay, and they let in just a few vaccinated, uncertain health care workers. This time, it's in L.A., the stadium was packed. I noticed all the interviews afterwards. There were no masks, no cameras on six-foot sticks. It's completely changed. The emergency phase of the pandemic is over. People know it. And it's time to move on.
INGRAHAM: And Dr. Bhattacharya, I was talking to one of our mutual friends the other day, and he said by his calculation, he's a pretty good mathematician, we could be at 94 percent seroprevalence. Explain what that means and why it could be significant?
BHATTACHARYA: When the disease first arrived, no one was immune. No one had any exposure to it. And it could cause severe disease. Now, what 94 percent seroprevalence means is that a very large fraction of the population is either recovered from COVID or has some protection due to the vaccine. That means that it is no longer an immune 90 population. The disease is nowhere near as dangerous to the population as it once was simply by dint of the fact that the population has protective immunity to it.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Mccullough, Biden's former COVID adviser lamented what he thought was the backlash, not against people like you, but against the controllers. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We have two pandemics going on right now in this country. One is caused by COVID, and it surely is taking a heavy toll on us. The second one is a pandemic, a loss of trust in government, in public health, and in some cases the media.
And in all cases where we lose the trust of the people, to try to get them to comply with recommendations to help save their life and the life of their loved ones becomes very challenging when they don't believe you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But that begs the question, Dr. Mccullough. It is challenging why? Why is it challenging to try to get them to believe you next time?
MCCULLOUGH: Well, you know, once there is a series of committed statements --
INGRAHAM: We lost him. There we go. Go ahead.
MCCULLOUGH: Once there is a series of committed statements and they turn out not to be true or misleading, trust is broken. And it's very difficult to repair. We should have always seen teams of doctors working in groups, coming in consensus. It is far safer than what happened over the course of the pandemic with our public health agencies and their communication plan.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Bhattacharya, should we have ever shut down this country at all?
BHATTACHARYA: I do not think a shutdown was ever justified. What was justified was focused protection of the vulnerable. We knew from the very early stages of the epidemic that it was older people and certain other folks with chronic conditions that were really at high risk. We should have moved heaven and earth to protect them instead of closing schools, which did nothing to protect them and hurt our kids.
INGRAHAM: Gentlemen, thank you, great to see you both tonight.
When we come back, I received a very special Valentine today. So who is it from? Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: I received a very special Valentine's Day card today from my son Niko. It was so great. I'm going to read it, OK. "Dear mom, you are the best mom ever. Everything you do for me as an act of kindness. I could not ask for more from anyone. Whenever I see you, you brighten my day. I love you to the moon and back and 100 dogs." It's kind of a thing with us. It's great.
But everyone, I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Wear your Freedom Matters gear, and remember, Greg Gutfeld is next.
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