This is a rush transcript from "Your World," March 20, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: He's a whack job. There's no question about it. But I really don't know him.

He -- I think he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife. Kellyanne is a wonderful woman. And I call him Mr. Kellyanne.

The fact is that he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wife and family. She's a wonderful woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: The president talking about Kellyanne Conway's husband there.

Now, here's the interesting thing about that, though. Kellyanne did respond, but not to defend her husband, but the president saying that about her husband. It's a pattern. It seems to be a weird one, but a remarkably consistent one, where the president blasts, but those affected don't really blast back.

Today, Fox on top of how all this nastiness is going down -- not well -- and when it comes to Republicans on the receiving end of it just letting it go.

Welcome, everybody. Glad to have you. I'm Neil Cavuto.

And I want you to think about that for a second. The president calls George Conway a whack job and a stone-cold loser, and his wife, well, just lets it go. Calls the late John McCain even worse things, yet his old Senate pals largely let it ride.

Now, I'm not talking about Georgia's Johnny Isakson, who ripped into the president today, but more like friends like Lindsey Graham, who tweet glowingly of their departed colleague, but curiously avoid offending the president who bashed that old colleague.

The same with former Speaker Paul Ryan, who the president ripped for not doing enough to go after Democrats, even after Ryan helped deliver the administration's crowning achievement, that big tax cut that was rejected by all Democrats.

Then, of course, there's Mitch McConnell, blasted for not doing more to end the filibuster in the Senate, even though McConnell almost single-handedly secured two Supreme Court nominations for the president in the Senate.

Maybe these guys figure it is really not worth the fight. Maybe they calculate, you rip him back, he will just rip you to shreds, rarely in person, more coldly, more consistently via tweet.

It is how former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found out he lost his job and how his successor, Mike Pompeo, joked he will find out if he loses his. Just ask Jeff Sessions, a punching bag while in office, until he ultimately lost his office.

So a lot of these guys just swallow their pride and keep taking the hits, hoping that the machine gun friendly fire out of the White House will find yet another target, usually a colleague, usually a friend, but usually the same response, no response. Better to duck and wave and stand up and maybe raise a finger back.

None of this should mask the president's clear victories here, maybe just the Pyrrhic nature of those victories. That's what happens when you take all the credit and you spread all the blame. After a while, even your friends wonder whether you're up to the fight, or whether there are those willing to be in the fight with you, just not now, maybe not even soon.

Maybe, in this age at Trump, it is better to take the blows than risk a blowup, no matter how much it hurts you or demeans you or makes average folks wonder whether there is any backbone to you.

It is why spouses stay silent when their significant others are bashed and why former speakers leave without a fuss, even when their accomplishments are all but trashed.

They figure it is not worth it. And maybe that is the most telling response of all, a silence that isn't only damaging, but all the more so because it is so deafening.

Let's go to John Roberts at the White House with the fallout from all of this today -- John.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon to you, Neil.

Don't forget, Reince Priebus was the first one to learn that he was fired by tweet. That was a long time ago now. But this thing that's going on with the president, Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George Conway, really has an unusual pathology to the whole thing.

Over the weekend and on Monday, George Conway kept tweeting about the fact that he believed that the president had some sort of mental disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, suggested that the president was not mentally stable enough to hold the office of the president.

The president fought back. Kellyanne Conway stayed silent until today, when she did a brief phone interview with Politico, in which she said of the president -- quote -- "But do you think he shouldn't respond when somebody, a non-medical professional, accuses him of him having a mental disorder? You think he should just take that sitting down?"

Kellyanne Conway siding with the president over her husband, going on to say: "The president is obviously defending me. He could privately say to me, honey, you're a distraction. We love you. You will always be part of the family, but go be with your kids. They need you. Go make a million dollars an hour and go do that, honey. It is the opposite."

So the president and Kellyanne Conway both defending each other. And, meanwhile, Kellyanne Conway's husband, George, is kind of out there twisting in the wind by himself.

There are some people who speculate that maybe the two Conways are setting themselves up for a Carville-Matalin sort of thing after Kellyanne Conway leaves the White House. But that is only rank speculation.

The president also this afternoon -- and this just happened, Neil -- going after Senator John McCain again in a huge way at the only plant left in the United States that builds tanks. It's a Lima, Ohio, tank plant where they build M1-A1 Abrams tank.

And the president, who renewed his feud with John McCain over the weekend over that dodgy dossier that John McCain said a long time ago he got and thought he would turn it over to the FBI, the president going after McCain on that and his Obamacare vote this afternoon.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I have never liked him much. Hasn't been for me.

I have really probably never will. But there are certain reasons for it. John McCain received the fake and phony dossier.

And John McCain got it. He got it. And what did he do? Didn't call me. He turned it over to the FBI, hoping to put me in jeopardy. When he finally had the chance to do it, he voted against repeal and replace. He voted against at 2:00 in the morning, remember, thumbs down.

We said, what the hell happened? He said two hours before he was voting to repeal and replace. Then he went thumbs down, badly hurting the Republican Party, badly hurting our nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Now, Senator John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, over the weekend showed outrage over what the president had said about her father, did it again Monday morning on ABC's "The View," but today on "The View" seemed to sense the irony in John McCain continuing to have the president's goat.

Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGHAN MCCAIN, DAUGHTER OF JOHN MCCAIN: I think, if I had told my dad, seven months after you're dead, you're going to be dominating the news and all over Twitter, he would think it was hilarious that our president was so jealous of him, that he was dominating the news cycle in death as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: But Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, a close friend of Senator John McCain, did not see any irony in it at all.

Listen to what he said on Georgia Public Broadcasting earlier this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHNNY ISAKSON, R-GA: It's deplorable, what he said. That's what I called it from the floor of the Senate seven months ago.

It will be deplorable -- deplorable seven months from now, if he says it again. And I will continue to speak out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: So there you go. Some of the president's Republican colleagues slamming him for what he's saying about John McCain.

You know, Neil, we thought going into today that the feud with John McCain might be over, but then just suddenly out of the blue at that tank plant today, the president said, you know, I get asked a lot about John McCain. Well, let me tell you what I have to say about that.

It was really quite interesting.

CAVUTO: He cannot let go.

ROBERTS: No.

CAVUTO: All right, John Roberts, thank you very, very much.

ROBERTS: You bet.

CAVUTO: Republicans who largely ignore this sort of thing, with the exception of folks like Senator Isakson, do they do so at their own peril? How do they look in the process?

Daily Mail White House correspondent Francesca Chambers is with us, Democratic strategist Jon Summers, and Republican strategist Matt Braynard.

Welcome to all of you.

Francesca, largely silence out of Republicans when they hear this sort of stuff. They may be saying, all right, we're used to this, we move on from this. What's the deal?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, THE DAILY MAIL: Well, it's not just that, Neil.

The fact of the matter is, Donald Trump is the president of the United States. And Lindsey Graham has said that he wants to be able to remain in a position where he can advise the president. If he's on the president's bad side, the president wouldn't have him over to the White House as frequently.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: But is it worth that much that you would go ahead and surrender a decades-long friendship to stay in good relations with a guy in the White House bashing your dearest friend?

CHAMBERS: Well, again, Donald Trump is the one who sitting in the White House, and John McCain is no longer around to defend himself. He has Meghan McCain defending him, as you pointed out earlier.

But as far as foreign policy goes, and being able to shape that, Donald Trump is the one who's sitting in the chair. He's the commander in chief. And so Lindsey Graham has said repeatedly that he feels that the ability to be able to advise the president on foreign policy, which so many times he had said that he disagreed with him on some of those issues, be able to steer them on what Graham sees as the right track, has outweighed that consideration.

CAVUTO: Matt, I don't know.

I mean, I know you're a former camp -- Trump campaign director. It just seems weird.

MATT BRAYNARD, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: No, I have to push back against this narrative that somehow this is bashing or a feud.

These are really concrete public policy critiques of positions that were taken and actions that were taken regarding the Mueller investigation. This isn't something down -- underhanded or dirty or crude. These are -- these are public votes he took.

And that record is open for criticism. And I will tell you something. Maybe we can reconsider criticizing a politician's public record when the left lays off and stops vilifying Ronald Reagan. Because that never ended.

CAVUTO: All right, but, Matt, John McCain did not hide the fact that he passed along that dossier early on, not knowing its origins, not knowing or caring whether it was Donald Trump or anyone else, just saying, as a patriot, that it was a big enough concern of his to pass it along.

And somehow, after the fact, he's vilified for that. I could see what you're saying about votes on this matter or that matter.

BRAYNARD: It's not vilification. It's an honest criticism of that and his vote for the ACA, which was a massive betrayal of his public position on the matter.

CAVUTO: But where -- did you ever hear that John McCain going into that night and that famous vote to turn it down was going to vote for it? No one I talked who followed that very closely said that was the case.

BRAYNARD: He campaigned against it for president -- as a presidential candidate, as a Senate candidate over and over. He raised a lot of money on the promise of fighting to repeal Obamacare.

And when he had the chance, he...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: But that that was not the means to do it.

So the president seemed to say that John McCain...

BRAYNARD: What other means were there?

CAVUTO: ... had already told him that he was going to vote for it.

No one I talk to who was involved in that at the time said that was the case.

BRAYNARD: Well, who cares? What's that got to do with criticizing his position on the issue? He voted against repealing ACA. That's fair. That's fair.

CAVUTO: No, because the president -- the president then might have lied about it. Does that bother you, that the president might have lied about what a dead man did?

BRAYNARD: Lied about the fact that he repeatedly said he opposed Obamacare, that he repeatedly said he would repeal it?

CAVUTO: No, no, no, no. You're obfuscating the clear facts here.

He said that John McCain had told him that he was going to vote for that measure, and hours later ultimately voted against it. Do you have proof that was the case? Because no one I talked to said it was.

BRAYNARD: Do you have proof that he didn't say it? Do you have proof that he didn't? I -- I don't have it either way.

But the point -- the point of anger here is the betrayal on an issue that he campaigned so hard against, and ended up voting to preserve Obamacare. That's a fair public critique.

(CROSSTALK)

BRAYNARD: ... some dirty skullduggery.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Fair enough.

But, Jon Summers, I'm just wondering about the discourse now in Washington, because I don't think you have to be right or left to find that maybe you can be justified in making these remarks or thinking them.

But I just think, as president of the United States, they demean you. That's my opinion, my opinion only maybe. I just think they demean you.

(CROSSTALK)

BRAYNARD: Yes, I don't think you get a pass on criticism of your public record just because you're no longer with us.

(CROSSTALK)

BRAYNARD: When will Ronald Reagan finally get a pass?

CAVUTO: All right, Jon, to you. Jon, to you.

I understand your allegiance to the president, Matt. And that's wonderful.

But, Jon, I'm wondering about the discourse and the debate this sets going forward. Do you worry about that?

JON SUMMERS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes. And I agree with you.

I want to go back to the FBI report real quickly, because what -- this can't be left unchecked. What the president is mad about is, he's mad at John McCain doing exactly what he should have done, which is turn that over to the FBI.

Contrast that to what the president did, and actually tried to use that information, created an open line of communication with the Russians, who very clearly meddled in our elections. And that part can't go unchecked.

In terms of what it's doing with our discourse, this falls way below the level of the office, whether we're talking about attacking John McCain. Again, sure, I guess you're free to criticize, but to what end? What is he at all hoping to get out of this?

There's a very solid Republican base that actually likes John McCain. So he's not doing any -- he's not doing himself any favors by going after him. He's not doing himself any favors by name-calling Kellyanne Conway's husband on Twitter.

All of these things fall below the level of the office. He's got way too much executive time on his hands, when there are major issues out there that he could be working on and talking about.

CAVUTO: And, Francesca, he's got a good economic story to tell, a very good market story to tell.

And I think he steps on that message. Again, this is my opinion, but I am wondering about the muted response he gets from Republicans, who maybe don't want to trigger a Twitter war or a back and forth, so they suck it up and they take it, realizing he is the leader of their party, the leader this country.

I get that. I understand that. I can even kind of respect that. But there is a line that, now and then, they can cross, or at least test it, can't they?

CHAMBERS: Neil, to John's point earlier, just before we came on, this came up pretty unprovoked today when the president was at that plant speaking about his economic message, about how he said he had saved the plant that was on track to close, and how he thinks, in 2020, he will have a pretty easy time getting reelected, because how would you debate the fact that he's lowered unemployment levels for women, minorities, those sorts of things?

So to what you were saying, that's what he was talking about, switched to John McCain. He did come back to that message and continue to talk about the economy.

As for the president's anger at John McCain, I remember being in the Rose Garden on the day when John McCain came back to -- back from Arizona. Remember, he had been in treatment.

CAVUTO: Right.

CHAMBERS: And he came back for the Obamacare vote. And the White House actually delayed an event in the Rose Garden, so that John McCain could speak on the floor.

So they did at least have a sense, right, that they thought his comments were going to be something that was positive for them. So he's very disappointed with the fact that that was not the case. And he's making that clear.

CAVUTO: I get that. I understand that. There's frustration in that.

But this maybe is beyond the pale. But we will see.

Guys, I appreciate all of you taking your time and your perspective on this.

But it occurs on the same day we're getting a number of Democrats responding in the weirdest of ways themselves, including the push to shake up the Supreme Court by just adding a lot of people to the Supreme Court.

The son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia on that -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: Well, remember when FDR tried to pack the court? Well, it's a different theme this year among the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, all in an overhauling the Supreme Court, maybe by including just more justices on the bench and imposing term limits to what is now a lifetime appointment.

The son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia on that, co-editor of Scalia Speaks, Chris Scalia.

Chris, very good to have you.

CHRIS SCALIA, SON OF ANTONIN SCALIA: Thanks, Neil. Great to talk to again.

CAVUTO: What do you make of this here, this push right now, maybe if we had more justices, we could spread this out, there wouldn't be one dominant -- obviously, the intent -- a conservative edge on the bench. What would your dad think of that?

SCALIA: Well, it's pretty clear that one element of what some of the candidates are suggesting is just unconstitutional.

A couple of the Democratic presidential candidates have said that, to pack the court, you should have 15 justices, and you get those justices by having Democrats pick five, Republicans pick five, and then those 10 justices pick five more.

The problem with that is obviously Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution makes very clear that the president has the power and authority to nominate and with the advice and consent of the Senate to appoint Supreme Court justices.

So, I mean, I don't know what Democrats and Republicans these candidates are talking about, but they certainly can't have justices appoint their colleagues. So that would require an amendment that I just don't think has a snowball's chance anywhere of being ratified.

And then, as far as the number itself, the number of justices, that would have to be passed by a statute. The Constitution does not say that there needs to be nine justices, and there haven't always been nine justices.

So, theoretically, that -- that's something, that could happen. And that's maybe an argument worth taking seriously. But when FDR did that, it didn't go over -- or when he tried to do that, it didn't go over very well.

And -- but it did have an effect. And it kind of intimidated the Supreme Court -- or so that kind of the conventional wisdom goes -- into being more amenable to what he was trying to do with the New Deal.

So he didn't get more justices, but he did get a lot of what he wanted done, done. And it's possible that the Democrats, just by -- by raising this threat of packing the court, are trying to do something similar.

CAVUTO: Chris, I was thinking of your dad and how he recoiled when the court was suddenly thrust into the national political debate, and didn't really enjoy it.

Others have expressed resentment, that is, among Supreme Court justices, even today attending any president's State of the Union address, for fear that they're going to be dragged into the political back and forth.

How do you think he would feel in this environment right now?

SCALIA: Well, again, I do think it was something he saw coming to a large degree.

He saw how politicized things were getting even when he was on the court, and he spoke about that a lot. I don't know that he would be terribly surprised by some of these court-packing ideas.

I think one of the problems we're seeing here is that it -- this goes back to the early 2000s, when Democrats filibustered a lot of President Bush's nominees. And Republicans responded in kind by filibustering a lot of Obama's nominees. And so the Democrats responded by ending the filibuster for lower court nominees.

And then Republicans, when the Democrats filibustered Gorsuch, Republicans got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

CAVUTO: Right.

SCALIA: It goes on and on.

So if the Democrats try to do this, try to pack the court, I don't know why they're under the impression that the next time they have the Senate and the next time they have the president, Republicans will never be in power again, because they're on the right side of history and history will finally meet its ultimate end.

CAVUTO: That can be fleeting. That can be fleeting.

SCALIA: Yes.

CAVUTO: But I think fleeting are the days -- like, I think, in your dad's case, approved 98-0.

SCALIA: Yes.

CAVUTO: That would never happen, not in any environment now.

SCALIA: No, unfortunately not.

I mean, my dad used to say that once judges go back to abiding by their proper constitutional role of interpreting the law according to its original public meaning, judges would have less power, and they would be less politicized.

CAVUTO: I think you're right. I think your late dad was right.

Chris, a real pleasure. Thank you very, very much.

SCALIA: Thanks, Neil.

CAVUTO: More on the market big movers today -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, we had a weird kind of market today, actually two markets, because around 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, the Dow was diving, with the president saying that tariffs on China should stay in place for a while.

That rattled them. Then, at 2:00 p.m., the Dow was rallying, as the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged, signaled maybe no more hikes at all. By day's end, we were still down about 141 points. So maybe the fear about trade went out.

Let's go to Alan Knuckman, market watcher extraordinaire, former Dallas Federal Reserve Bank adviser Danielle DiMartino Booth.

Danielle, first to you on your old Fed buddies and what they signaled, that there are no hikes coming, or at least that's the perception. Normally, that would be a relief to the markets. Not today. What happened?

DANIELLE DIMARTINO BOOTH, FORMER FEDERAL RESERVE ADVISER: I think the Fed actually has the market worried because they overdelivered on their dovishness, Neil.

They said, not only no rate hikes in 2019, but a majority of the members said that there wouldn't be any rate hikes also next year. So -- and they changed the verbiage of the statement. They alluded to consumption being weak, as in the household, to business investment weakening.

So this was more than just alluding to weakness overseas or the trade war weighing on businesses. This was a nod to the U.S. economy slowing. And I think that that's how the market eventually interpreted it by the end of the day.

CAVUTO: That's very interesting, because, Alan, you could take that away to say, all right, well, if the Federal Reserve is inclined not to hike for awhile, they must be worried about something, right?

ALAN KNUCKMAN, BULLS EYE OPTION: If you're a warrior.

Now, for me, there's no surprises here. Nothing new. We have talked about this months ago, that the markets were telling us that there was not going to be any rate hikes in 2019. If you look up to 2020, maybe the worry is there's going to be a rate cut.

If you look at the Eurodollar futures contracts, that's forecasting possibly a cut at the end of 2020. So let's wait and see. Maybe that's what tempered the enthusiasm after the announcement here today.

CAVUTO: Well, if the Fed Reserve is signaling something like that, then, Alan, to Danielle's point, would that worry you?

KNUCKMAN: No.

CAVUTO: OK.

KNUCKMAN: Because, to me, it really doesn't matter.

You're looking at interest rates. We are overanalyzing every little statement over the last few years. We're on a path, an upward path for 10 years. Nothing has changed. We were so worried about rates, if you remember last year. And now if you look at a mortgage rates, the 10-year note, we have got yields below where they were at this time last year.

So that's been taken off the table. I like the strength of the market. Let's look at the Nasdaq. Tech made new highs say, highest since October, up 25 percent off the lows. So it's still up, up and away day.

CAVUTO: All right, Danielle, excuse him. He's always an optimist and always makes people feel good. But that's his nature. I can't disavow him of that.

(LAUGHTER)

DIMARTINO BOOTH: I want his -- I'd like a cup of his coffee, please.

CAVUTO: No, he's great. And he's so good at what he does, as are you, Danielle.

So if I'm looking at mortgage rates, and a lot of people listen and wonder, all right, where am I going with mortgage rates, it sounds like they're not going to budge.

DIMARTINO BOOTH: Well, it looks like actually mortgage rates are going to come down even more, Neil, given where the bond market closed out the day. We're at -- the 10-year yield is at 2.53 percent.

That goes below kind of the Armageddon 2.55 level of December. And as we saw out this morning from the Mortgage Bankers Association, purchases -- applications to purchase a home were flat year over year. And I think that that is indicative of the fact that, even with falling mortgage rates, you're not getting the traction.

Jay Powell is not getting the traction that he would like to see out of residential housing. And, again, I think that that is signaling potentially -- with all due deference to Alan -- potentially a weakening in the economy.

CAVUTO: All right, he doesn't need any deference. He does fine.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: No, guys, I want to thank you both very, very much.

KNUCKMAN: Thank you.

CAVUTO: We are following other developments, including this, a new message from Democrats to all you high school students out there. You're 16, you're beautiful, and hopefully soon you will be a voter of theirs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: Beto O'Rourke in Conway, New Hampshire. I can't help but look at the hand gestures, right? Maybe that criticism just sticks.

Anyway, he's proposing a number of things that are sort of jostling the system as we know it. What's the fallout for you?

After this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, we had the late Justice Antonin Scalia's son, Chris, here just a few seconds ago.

And he said the idea of expanding the Supreme Court will really go nowhere. Nevertheless, a lot of the 2020 Democrats have that and some other ideas, including lowering the voting age to 16.

I still can't get my 16-year-old to take out the garbage.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: But, anyway, that's one of the ideas that is out there.

Fox News' Peter Doocy has been following all of this.

Hey, Peter.

PETER DOOCY, CORRESPONDENT: Neil, some Democratic candidates are now expressing concern that 2020 could be a repeat of 2016, where their nominee wins the popular vote, but loses the Electoral College.

So there's talk about just getting rid of the Electoral College.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every vote matters. And the way we can we make that happen is that we can have national voting. And that means, get rid of the Electoral College.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOOCY: Other Democratic candidates, like Pete Buttigieg, are trying to recapture the left's anger and enthusiasm from the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings by proposing a way to water down the influence of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and anybody else that Trump gets confirmed, adding seats to the Supreme Court.

Another advantage Democrats believe could help them win elections, lowering the voting age from 18 to 16.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETO O'ROURKE, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm open to the idea of a younger voting age. I want to listen to people, learn more about it. It's a new idea to me.

But I got to tell you, there's some merit in it, just given the number of young people who are part of the -- not part of -- leading the conversation right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOOCY: These changes would require constitutional amendments. That's two- thirds of the House and Senate and three-quarters of the states, to support them.

It is a very high bar that seems out of reach for now -- Neil.

CAVUTO: Peter, thank you very, very much.

So, Republicans quickly say about Democrats, they don't like the rules, they want to change the rules.

Let's get to it with GOP strategist Deneen Borelli, The Wall Street Journal's Bill McGurn, and Danielle McLaughlin.

Danielle, you don't get your way, force your way. What do you think?

DANIELLE MCLAUGHLIN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't like it, actually.

I think that norms and traditions are really important in a representative democracy. I think, as we relate to -- we think about court-packing, we saw what happened, as Scalia Jr. talked about, the idea that we're getting rid of filibusters, we're getting rid of blue slips.

We have a system that obviously needs to be competitive in a marketplace of ideas. But once you start unwinding things when you're not getting your way, you better be careful, because time will come when the shoe is on the other foot, and you're going to be basically suffering because the other team is wanting to pack the courts or do something equally...

CAVUTO: In their favor. It can work for the other guys too.

MCLAUGHLIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: So, Bill McGurn, how much traction do you think this is getting? I'm talking not in a substantive way, but political traction?

Because a lot of the leading candidates like a lot of these ideas.

BILL MCGURN, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes, I think it's completely silly. On the 16-year-olds, my youngest just turned 16 on Sunday.

CAVUTO: Does that one take out the garbage?

MCGURN: Well, we won't -- I will put it this way. Her mother doesn't trust her to pick...

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

MCGURN: ... of going out.

It is interesting to me that Democrats seem to recognize the least informed segment of the American community, 16-year-olds, as natural Democratic voters. That strikes me.

But most of these are unserious.

CAVUTO: There goes my demographic push for young voters. But, anyway, go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

MCGURN: But it's just silly, because, as you say, for the Electoral College, for example, it either takes a constitutional amendment or for all -- for enough states accounting for 270 votes to change the rules, so that it would be for all them.

Well, all the ones that have done it so far are predominantly, if not exclusively blue states. And the red states just aren't going to do it. So I think they're wasting valuable time on these kind of things.

CAVUTO: But maybe there's a strategy here, right, Deneen?

In other words, to make you question whoever the Republican winner is, because the Republicans have benefited from the last two such anomalies, where the electoral vote goes one way and the popular vote goes the other way. But methinks they wouldn't be that way if it were the reverse for them.

DENEEN BORELLI, CONSERVATIVE REVIEW: How long have we had these rules in place, first of all?

It just goes to show how much Democrats want to control the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, by changing the rules, moving the goalposts. There's nothing to see here.

But it's not going to play out. What they really need to do is look at their big government policies, their extreme policies and ideas, abortion any time, the Green New Deal, higher taxes.

The policies that they're pushing is what America, their Main Street voters, are not in support of.

CAVUTO: All right, and that's called socialism in a lot of circles.

MCLAUGHLIN: No, we're not going to talk about Venezuela. You promised me, Neil, we were not going to talk about Venezuela.

CAVUTO: Right.

But one thing is interesting. We went and got into this on our weekend show one time, that take the word socialism out of it, and talk about helping -- to have the government stepping in to help kids pay for college or provide Medicare for all, then you get quite different numbers.

And that's what they seem to be focused on.

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, I will say that actually the Republicans' use of the word socialism as sort of a sword against Democrats has been one of the most powerful and effective rhetorical tools in the last couple of decades.

So it's not socialism if you're talking about 600,000 people not going to bankrupt every year, the idea of education, public education.

CAVUTO: Well, it is if the government is helping avoid that, right?

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, public education, for example, is one of the things that made America great.

Public libraries. I think if we didn't have those things now, and someone suggested them, some people would say this is socialism.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Fair enough.

Bill, what do you think of that?

MCGURN: Well, let me get back to something you just said about the Democrats seeing that the Republicans have benefited from the Electoral College recently, meaning George W. Bush and Donald Trump losing the popular vote.

But, look, the Senate itself is far less democratic than the Electoral College, right? The Electoral College's electors based on a combination of the House, which is very democratic, and the Senate, 100.

CAVUTO: Right.

MCGURN: If you put -- I was just crunching the numbers before in proportion to the House delegations. If you did that, it's not clear that, say, Delaware or Vermont would have a senator.

A place like California might have 12. And so there might not be a Senator Biden.

CAVUTO: And, by the way, people would campaign very differently if we had the popular vote. I always think that does a disservice.

MCGURN: But that would be the same in the Senate.

CAVUTO: absolutely.

MCGURN: Just imagine if we had a popular vote, and we had a Senate constituted in the same way as the House, fewer members.

Think of the difference in legislation, the difference in who would get confirmed. So, why a lot of these people, especially Elizabeth Warren, who are endorsing this for the Electoral College, why not for their own institution?

CAVUTO: It's a very good point.

(CROSSTALK)

MCGURN: Again I don't think Vermont would have a senator if there were 100 senators proportioned.

CAVUTO: And you could also -- I always think, again, if we had a popular vote system only, people would campaign differently. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but Republicans would go to Texas maybe, and then rural areas, and try to run up the vote.

The Democrat would go to California and New York, these states, and try to run up the vote. And a lot of states would get left out, right?

BORELLI: No, you're absolutely right. They would get left out.

And, again how many years that we have been doing this? Again, it just comes down to Democrats just want to control and change the games because their policies are not what Americans are really in support of.

CAVUTO: But, as you pointed out, be careful what you wish for. It could come back to boomerang on them.

MCLAUGHLIN: Right.

Federal court -- federal courts, filibusters, because of Mitch McConnell holding up Obama. We have got Gorsuch because of the filibuster. It goes on and on and on.

CAVUTO: On and on. Tit for tat.

All right, thank you, guys, very, very much.

By the way, I want to take a look at what's going on in England right now. Theresa May is addressing folks here, saying that she does want an extension past the March 29 deadline. That was the time, of course, Britain was going to formally separate from the rest of the European Union.

That March 29 deadline has been very dicey, very iffy. She is saying right now, can we put it back a little bit?

I thought that was a very good accent, but apparently, everyone is shaking their head.

Anyway, we will have more on that and the implications if they do push it back. How far, I guess, is the question -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, all indications are Joe is ready to make it official, as in Joe Biden, the former vice president, that he is ready to pull the trigger and go ahead and make the run for the Democratic nomination.

He's apparently concerned about raising money, and fast, to try to beat the $6 million-plus haul Beto O'Rourke had. So he is tapping a lot of big money men and women here in the party to see if he could do that. No way to confirm that.

But we do know that our Charlie Gasparino has been following all of that -- Charlie.

CHARLIE GASPARINO, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, following it a lot, Neil.

I mean, this is a process I think that Joe Biden has been going through for about two years, trying to figure out whether he wants to run. I would say, over the last year or so -- at least since January -- he's been 95 percent there.

I think you could say, based on my sources that are close to him, he's now 99.9 percent there. And they just hesitate to say he's definitely going in there because you never know. When you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you might say, hey, I have had enough. I'm not going to be able to win.

But they're saying he's all but -- he's all but in. And one of the indications you get he's but in is -- again, the reporting that we have been doing is with the Wall Street crowd that follows him. He has about four or five people on Wall Street, very rich guys, billionaires, who are ready to raise money for him.

One guy his name Jim Chanos, a major money manager. Jim is what's known as a short seller. He bets stocks go down. He was the guy they uncovered the Enron fraud. He's a very significant player on Wall Street.

Another guy, his name is Tom Nides. He's the number two guy at Morgan Stanley. He's the head of the government relations, again, very prominent on Wall Street.

Bob Wolf, who's a contributor to our shows, is in that mix. And there's others that I'm probably not mentioning. And he's been speaking with these people. They tell me he's going to have the money to run.

Now, whether Wall Street money works now in a Democratic Party is really part of the calculus, I think, as well. I mean, can he get away with getting so much money from Wall Street, when he's running up against the likes of Elizabeth Warren, all these class warfare types, who absolutely hate the Wall Street crowd, even if a lot of the Wall Street crowd are left-of-center moderates?

And so if Joe Biden does do it -- and it looks like he is going to do it -- it's going to be a different campaign. He's going to stick out like a sore thumb. He's going to get -- it's going to be a bunch of raving liberals and a couple of socialists and Uncle Joe, kind of the center-left guy that is not afraid to be friends with Republicans and Wall Street guys, sticking out.

And he's hoping that sticking out like that is going to get him sticking out of the crowd, maybe get 20 percent of the vote, while the lefties split up the rest. I mean, that is his calculus, I am told -- back to you.

CAVUTO: But let me ask you about that money issue.

Let's say he does raise a record amount, but it's not in the small denominations that Beto O'Rourke got or that Kamala Harris got. Would his colleagues then quickly say, oh, you're trapped to the big bankers and the big Wall Street guys? Beto can come back and say, well, I had the people with me.

You know how that goes, that it's not just the money. It's where you're getting it.

GASPARINO: Yes.

I mean, listen, in the old days, it wasn't so bad being associated with Wall Street, right? Bill Clinton was associated with Wall Street. Hillary before the last election was associated with them. I mean, it was good to be associated with moderate, the centrist -- centrist, mildly liberal Wall Street guys that made money, but wanted to make the world a better place.

It's just so -- the Democratic Party now is just so turned upside down that, even if you're a liberal -- moderate liberal guy that works on Wall Street or woman who wants to make the world a better place, doesn't mind paying a little more taxes, but you're not anti-capitalist, that's a black mark against you.

And I think he's got to know that. I think, though, his calculus is this, Neil. He knows the party has changed. He knows it's going off the deep end on the left. But his calculus is this. Maybe he can get through the primaries, because he has enough of a vote, of a voting bloc.

You see the polls.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: And that would put him in good position in a general election.

GASPARINO: That would put him in good position.

And if he can get to the general, he's formidable with people in the general election, where the base doesn't necessarily run the day.

CAVUTO: OK.

Thank you, my friend, Charlie Gasparino.

He's the best in the business and is joining us out of Washington.

All right, in the meantime here, the president was saying today via a little drawing, a map he was showing, how ISIS is all but gone, in fact, that it will be finished by tonight.

The former USS Cole Commander Kirk Lippold on whether he's right -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is all ISIS. Now, on the bottom, that is as of today. This is ISIS. There's none. The caliphate is gone as of tonight.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, the president again declaring victory over ISIS while speaking at that tank factory in Ohio.

But where does ISIS really stand? Are they really on the run or gone, as the president seemed to intimate, maybe by tonight?

The former USS Cole Commander Kirk Lippold with us.

Commander, is he right?

KIRK LIPPOLD, FORMER COMMANDER, USS COLE: He's right in the fact that the physical territory that they actually control is one small little dot.

But is ISIS really gone? No. You can't kill an ideology. And it's going to take time. What we have really done is under this president invest in the destruction of their capability to gain and control territory from which they can train and teach operatives how to go out there and conduct terror attacks.

Will attacks continue? Probably. But will they continue to the extent and with the lethality we have seen before? No.

CAVUTO: One of the many things I have learned over the many years, having the honor of speaking with you and your service to this great country, is that terror groups can morph.

They morph into something that we -- we always remember the Taliban that morphed into another group, Boko Haram, and they combined. And then all of a sudden you have ISIS, and on and on, and Al Qaeda, back and forth, back and forth.

So they could become a new entity. But the president is saying, ISIS as we know it is on the run. Is he accurate saying that?

LIPPOLD: I would say he is.

You have to remember, with terror groups, they tend to be proactive in what they do. They can look for ability to adapt. They can look for the ability to try new techniques and tactics against their opponents, and against countries they're going after, whereas other countries tend to be reactive in nature, which means that they're always having to play a little bit behind.

And the key is going to be to be able to get ahead of that, to understand where they're going, what they're doing. That's driven by the intelligence world to hopefully get inside of that loop in how they actually conduct those operations to head them off and to hopefully kill those who are doing the planning.

CAVUTO: Commander, if I could switch gears a little bit to NATO and, more importantly, to Germany saying that it will not be able to make good on that 2 percent commitment to defense spending, for a variety of reasons.

I'm sure that's going to kick off a lot of people at the White House. Already, our ambassador to Germany has said it's a very disappointing move.

But what did you make of that and, furthermore, the indication, at least out of Angela Merkel, she has no intention to?

LIPPOLD: I think when you look at the NATO alliance, and especially with Germany, that is going to be more and more of a problematic relationship in the future.

When you look at what Germany is doing in building relationships with Russia, when they're building the Nord Stream II pipeline that is going to get Europe more addicted to Russian natural gas, there are all kinds of complications.

When you look at what Germany did even in the post-9/11 days, while they supported us, it wasn't with combat troops. So the bottom line is, Germany is going to continue to remain a problem. And if NATO wants to stay relevant, they're going to have to look at, what does NATO exist for?

If it's going to be the bulwark against Russian expansion, then they need to get on board and find ways to realize that Russia is not their friend. They need to head them off at the pass. You don't want to feed the beast that is going to be coming after you, which is exactly what Germany is doing today.

So I think Angela Merkel has got a lot on her hands, not just in aggravating the United States, but more with the alliance in toto, because all these other countries look to Germany to be a leader on the continent.

And, right now, they're not.

CAVUTO: Commander, what do you think of the president's ongoing attacks against Senator John McCain?

LIPPOLD: Disappointing, to say the least.

The man is a war hero. He is an American who dedicated a life of service to the nation. No, it wasn't perfect. Yes, John McCain was a political animal, but made decisions that suited the politics of the moment best in some cases.

But, at the end of the day, he chose a life of consequence and service to this nation. He has passed. He is dead. President Trump needs to let this go, let the man lie with honor and move on. It's time to be forward- looking, not backward-thinking, in how the president is tweeting him.

CAVUTO: Commander, thank you very much, as much for your service as your comments. Always good having you.

LIPPOLD: Thank you, Neil. Always wonderful to be on.

CAVUTO: All right, Commander.

As the commander was speaking, we're just learning now that the U.S. Senate committee, the Commerce Committee, wants to meet with Boeing and other manufacturers to testify at a future hearing -- they're not indicating a date -- to get to the bottom of that 737 MAX imbroglio.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: You know, you take away the stuff he says about John McCain or the ribbing of senators long left this world, when it comes to the economy and the business environment, he's firing on all cylinders.

The president will be addressing that with business leaders. We will be covering it live tomorrow at the White House, noon Eastern time. You can catch it on FOX Business.

We mean business. These are the kind of stories that are very consequential to you and your money. We will be there, noon Eastern, FBN.

"The Five" now.

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