New York Times' Trump tax scoop falls flat
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This is a rush transcript from "The Five," May 8, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Hi. I'm Greg Gutfeld, with Jedediah Bila, Juan Williams, Jesse Watters, and he pull bulbs with a screwdriver, Dana Perino -- "The Five" here.
Yes, Fox News alert. How about that? The House Judiciary Committee just voting to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt. That's the guy there. Chairman Jerry Nadler claiming there's now a constitutional crisis. Right.
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Our reaction to that breaking news later. But first, The New York Times published Trump's taxes from like, 30 years ago. You might ask how did they get the stuff but that doesn't matter if you hate the guy. Besides, publishing other people's stuff is what the Times is all about. Who cares if it was leaked or stolen or may be borrowed from Trump?
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It wasn't always so easy. About 13 years ago, I was seriously in trouble. I was billions of dollars in debt.
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GUTFELD: Yes, that's what the Times reported last night, quite a bombshell. Also, the Times last night, the Berlin Wall, down. The Bay City Rollers broke up. Nobody knows them. "Star Wars," actually a hit. And Trump once lost a bundle, say insiders, including Trump himself.
Actually, here's an idea. Get the rich kid who owns the Times to turn over his 1040s. So, if the Times gets another Pulitzer, they should share it with Trump for tipping them off years ago. Still, the media, of course, their responses Pavlovian.
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DON LEMON, CNN HOST: It turns out Donald Trump is our con man in chief.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Whatever the opposite of everything you touch turning to gold is, that is the opposite of what Donald Trump had.
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JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: If you have a word for someone who can build up an image like that despite the facts, correct?
MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Con artist.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, MSNBC: Biggest story. Yes, a lot of --
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(CROSSTALK)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, HOST, MSNBC: I mean, no one has lost as much money. Right?
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GUTFELD: Well, maybe in a divorce. Anyway, here is the media's immortal take. We got him again. This time, right, we got him, right? No, but it's fun to watch you try. That it's hilarious. They keep stepping on the same rake and getting whacked in the head again and again.
As all those anti-Trump headlines keep falling flat. Why is that? Well, life is good and the economy is roaring. Unemployment keeps hitting record low so when you're in the media and the world doesn't go in your way you got to find another story even if that stories have been told over and over again by the target himself.
So, I can't wait to hear about the next scoop that Trump has been married twice, then he loves golf, and women, and yet, what do you have from the American public? It's the sound of life in 2019 under Trump. It's the sound of calm.
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But as the press should know by now, you can't hear it when you're screaming.
All right, Dana, I want to show you how old this news is. We have some pictures here of some old tabloid covers "Jilted by Lady Luck." That's about his financial ails. "Trump slump," again about his financial ails. The New York Times when you can barely read, it's about his financial ails, and then of course Donald dumps Marla which was a terrible moment for me. Dana, you are about three years old.
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, I would say there's no training for politics like having to go through the New York media gauntlet.
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GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: And I didn't really appreciate that until I kind of had been in politics myself, at the White House or even like here. (CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: You worked for Trump. I mean, you worked for Bush.
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PERINO: Like, how it moves, how it absolutely can shape a whole generation. Like everybody here --
GUTFELD: Knows.
PERINO: -- knows President Trump.
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GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: They've known him for 30 years. And so, this didn't come as a surprise. You talk about insider, so he is the ultimate insider. There's kind of like nothing you don't know.
GUTFELD: Yes. No, it's true. Jesse, if I remember, he talked about this and about how, you know, the tax thing is a game. I know, I played the tax game. I know how not to pay taxes.
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JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes.
GUTFELD: I'm pretty sure I paraphrase him.
WATTERS: First of all, I love it when you do Fox News breaking news alerts. Can you always do that? There is something very Gutfeldian about breaking in the news.
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(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Well, there's so many of them.
WATTERS: I know. You really sell an art. I mean, he wrote a book, it was "The Art of the Comeback" and he explains --
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GUTFELD: Yes.
WATTERS: -- everything about all the tax losses. You do take a loss when you build a business. I think also in the '80s, wasn't he on a massive, multimillion dollar buying spree?
GUTFELD: Yes.
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WATTERS: He bought the Plaza Hotel for half a billion. He bought a yacht, a football franchise, an airline.
GUTFELD: Yes.
WATTERS: So, when you grow business, you're going to have some liabilities and then you can write off with the depreciation. But the point is, after he did this and took all these losses, The New York Times called him the comeback king.
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GUTFELD: Right.
WATTERS: And speaking of the New York Times, The New York Times lost a billion dollars buying the Boston Globe and they have had to get bailed out by a Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, and they still operate to this day on a quarter billion dollars in losses.
Also, everybody loses money when they're building a business. Twitter lost $2 billion since it went public. Uber last year alone lost $3 billion. And then let's just look at the politicians, AOC lost the state, what was it, $24 billion in revenue. Barack Obama doubled our debt, lost to have a billion to Solyndra. Lost two billion on a broken web site.
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Hillary lost a billion her donor shelled out when she lost to Donald Trump. So, he may have lost a lot of money but now he has towers all over the globe. He's got great golf courses, and he has the presidency. Pretty good.
GUTFELD: What do you think, Juan?
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST & POLITICAL ANALYST: I think he had his daddy to bail him out. I think his dad gave him like 400-plus million to help them out of all his troubles.
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GUTFELD: Is The New York Times a family business?
WILLIAMS: But what I'm struck by in listing to all this is, you know, Trump lies to his supporters. He says I'm a successful businessman. That's why I can run this country than anyone else. I'll make you rich because I'm rich. And then it turns out it's a scam.
(CROSSTALK)
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GUTFELD: He's not rich?
WILLIAMS: It's a total -- because guess what?
WATTERS: He's not rich?
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WILLIAMS: He lost more money than anybody else in America, apparently.
GUTFELD: He also made more money. That's what happens.
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WILLIAMS: Billion dollars. No, he didn't.
GUTFELD: It goes up and down.
WILLIAMS: No. This is the --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Economic mobility.
WILLIAMS: -- you can try. Or he may or Jesse goes on about someone else lost money. This guy lost money. Please. Let's just pay attention to the fact that the president of the United States may in fact have engaged in tax fraud, bank fraud.
WATTERS: May have?
WILLIAMS: These are serious considerations.
GUTFELD: That's serious accusations.
WILLIAMS: And by the way, that's why -- that's why the Congress should have access to his tax records. Because if he's losing all this money in Russia or some other country decides you know what, we can get our hooks into this guy by bailing him out, we, the American people.
GUTFELD: The Russians. It's the Russians, Jedediah, it's always goes back to --
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JEDEDIAH BILA, FOX NEWS HOST: Always, always goes back to that.
GUTFELD: They're going to collude now with his businesses.
BILA: Always goes back to that. You know, you talked about him talking about being a businessman and, he's this great businessman and now it's his selling point. So, what's the story here?
Let's say he was a terrible businessman. He's not because the businesses wound up blooming ultimately, but even if you say that, that did not translate to a poor economy. The economy you cannot change the reality that this guy who went in there, had experience with business, suffered some losses, came out of it, still managed to get a booming economy with his policies of deregulation, lowering taxes and whatnot.
So, you can't take that away from him. The truth is, business owners around the country read a story like this. I come from a family where my mom and dad ran a small business at two different points in their lives. It's really hard.
They saw this and they saw relatability. They said yes, you know what, guess what. You open the business, whether it's small or large, you struggle. You fall. Sometimes you're lucky enough to be able to build yourself back up again, and he was honest about this. He said this. We just played the tape. So, people at home are saying, I'm sorry, but what's the story here? That he's a comeback story?
WILLIAMS: Well, he's a rich kid. I'll tell you it's not like your folks because this rich kid had a big daddy to come in and bail him out.
WATTERS: Like what?
WILLIAMS: And then, instead of saying hey, I struggle like everybody. He lied about it.
GUTFELD: But, Juan --
WILLIAMS: But here's the final point I want to make, Greg.
GUTFELD: OK.
WILLIAMS: This is, you guys talk about socialism. This is socialism for the rich. The working man in America pays taxes and he, for 10 years, Donald Trump paid no taxes and we bailed him out.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: The he didn't pay any taxes.
WATTERS: You just said he was broke.
WILLIAMS: No, I didn't say he was broke.
WATTERS: I like to be broke like Donald Trump.
WILLIAMS: His dad bailed him out.
WATTERS: He's got a jet. He's got Mar-a-Lago, he's got Trump tower.
WILLIAMS: Please.
WATTERS: It's pretty good one.
BILA: But that doesn't change what's going on. That doesn't change the success he's had with the economy and voters are not voting based on Donald Trump's record from 35 years ago with his private business. They are voting on how much money they have in their pocket and what life looks like for them since he's elected.
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WILLIAMS: Yes, because the Trump cult just close his eyes.
GUTFELD: Yes, the Trump cult elected him over the Democrat. That's quite a cult. That's like 60 some-odd million in a cult. You got to start thinking. If you think he's that bad and America accepted it, he still won because you guys suck.
WILLIAMS: All right. Who got more votes?
GUTFELD: Yes, yes. Who gave more -- who gave more yardage in a football game? Who gave more yardage in a football?
WILLIAMS: Please.
GUTFELD: It's about the points.
WILLIAMS: Stop it.
GUTFELD: All right. Also, why do not care about how they got the tax returns. But up next, breaking news on Capitol Hill. House Judiciary Committee Democrat is voting to hold A.G. Bill Barr in contempt. That's the latest, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: Breaking news on Capitol Hill. A major clash in Washington after House committee votes to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress. Barr refusing to give into Democrats' demands to turn over the full unredacted Mueller report and its underlying materials.
The White House responding now by asserting executive privilege to protect these documents and the special counsel's findings.
Chairman Jerry Nadler declaring it's a constitutional crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D-NY): We've talked for a long time about approaching a constitutional crisis. We are now in it. We are now in a constitutional crisis.
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WILLIAMS: But lawmakers aren't done going after Barr and the Trump administration. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, raising eyebrows by joking about potentially jailing Trump officials who don't comply with demands from Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY PELOSI, UNITED STATES SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We do have a jail down in the basement of the Capitol. But if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation. And I'm not for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: And, of course, now we understand that the Senate intelligence committee, Republican-led, has made a request for Don Jr. to come in under subpoena.
GUTFELD: Yes, there is a mental illness going on around here. You said that Nads was like a Peeping Tom. It's actually worse. He -- a Peeping Tom -- he is a Peeping Tom now who wants to rifle through your underwear drawer, you know, steal your dirty socks and sniff your workout gear.
WATTERS: Nads?
GUTFELD: Nads, that's his nick name. This is no longer an investigation. It is a full-blown compulsion and it's the product of cognitive dissidents. When -- the thing that you believe in, which was the Mueller report, it falls apart after two years, you either go one route which is OK, time to move on. Or you think yourself different -- deeper into the morass which is what you're seeing here, are people who can't let go and can't stop.
I don't care about her talking about putting people in jail, I mean, lock her up. We remember that. So, what's good for the goose. I don't know if you've heard this before. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
PERINO: Yes, you just make that.
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: What is the gander?
GUTFELD: We don't know what the gander, is that a male goose?
WATTERS: I don't know what a gander is.
WILLIAMS: We've got to get you guys in school. One day. One day.
GUTFELD: It's a male -- it's a male goose.
WILLIAMS: All right, all right, all right.
GUTFELD: Is it?
WATTERS: I don't know. I was asking you. We should probably ask you. You grew up on a farm.
PERINO: I know. I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: OK. OK. OK. Enough of this. You know, it's bad enough I've got a deal but -- this is making me crazy. All right.
Jedediah, let me just make the case for the other side.
BILA: OK.
WILLIAMS: So, Pelosi says Bill Barr lied to Congress. Anybody who lies to Congress, they are in trouble. So, nobody should be above the law and he should be held in contempt. How do you respond?
BILA: Well, I don't think he lied to Congress, first of all. But also, I don't think that's what her problem is. I think her problem is that when he came out and he bottom lined the whole case, it took the wind out -- it took the wind out of their sails. There's nothing left.
If Barr's conclusion is fair and accurate and they now have, what is it, 98.5 percent of the report. I think they have 99 percent of volume 2. So, at one point, now they want to see all the underlying evidence, at what point do you just give up and go home and say you know what, this is going to be a hill that if Democrats want to die on this hill, they can go ahead.
But they are -- your -- Democrats are absolutely going to lose the election if at some point they don't realize that the public has tune this out in large part.
Even Democratic voters who, a lot of my friends are Democrats, I live in New York City, will say to me I wish that the Democrats would stop talking about these issues because the more they -- the more time they spend talking about Barr and Mueller at this stage of the game and the less time they are talking about health care and the economy, the more the votes are going by the wayside are going to Trump.
Because people are so -- it's enough. What is left to do here? What, tell me what's going to be in that 1 percent that has not been disclosed that you're waiting to see that will change drastically what we have discovered.
WILLIAMS: OK. So, let me put that to Jesse. Because the other way to view this, Jesse, is, well, if so much of it is out, what is President Trump, what is Bill Barr hiding? Why hide if everything is out. Just give it all to them. The redacted material, the underlying material, because Congress is an equal branch of government.
WATTERS: Well, because releasing grand jury information is against the law. So, Democrats want to hold Barr in contempt for following the law. The law that Congress passed.
I mean, the only real reason he wants this is because he wants to leak it and he wants to show his base --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: It's true.
WATTERS: -- that he's fighting really hard for it. I mean, Mueller is the one that did the redactions anyway. It's not even about redactions. They just want to hold this guy in contempt so they hurt his credibility when he investigates the investigators.
Because now every A.P. article will have to write William Barr, held in contempt by Congress whenever they write a story. So that's what this is all about.
So, in a way, from a P.R. perspective, they are trying to obstruct William Barr's investigation into Spygate. But here's where the tactical error is on the Democrats part.
This is way too early to go nuclear. This is now going to get tied up in courts and it could last months, maybe a year. And now they've asserted executive privilege and they have access to nothing with regard to the Mueller report.
So, Republicans when they dealt with history in Fast and Furious, they took eight months to negotiate with Eric Holder before they held him in contempt. They didn't even negotiate with William Barr at all. They waited less than a week to do this.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think he's not --
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: Way too early.
WILLIAMS: I think he is not negotiating with them.
WATTERS: They were having ongoing negotiations about this.
WILLIAMS: No, they were not.
WATTERS: OK, read the statement.
WILLIAMS: Dana, so this is the question then. Let me just, again, from the other perspective, if you have a government in which the president says I'm not cooperating with the Congress, is that essentially an autocrat?
PERINO: Well, under our system because our founders said we are coequal branches of government, it then gets thrown to the third which is the court. Right? Because that's how our founding fathers were really super smart.
Now the court is usually reluctant to do that. They are like, can you guys just work this out because we got other stuff to do? But the thing about, two things about this for me, Democrats think that they were elected in 2018 to hold the president to account and to do health care. OK.
So, can you do both? I don't know. Like, and is holding them to account, does this make sense. Because this is the leading news. We actually didn't have actual programming today because we are watching them argue about this contempt vote. No one is talking about health care.
And in those districts where the Democrats won in Republican-leaning districts where President Trump won and he'll be on the ballot in 2020, do they want to run on this? They don't. They are super frustrated as well. And the bottom line is --
GUTFELD: What about the gander?
PERINO: Well -- I'm going to tell you in a moment. I have the gander answer. Will the reading of the unredacted Mueller report change Mueller's conclusion? No.
GUTFELD: No.
PERINO: Therefore, I think you have to move on. A gander is a male goose.
GUTFELD: Thank you.
WILLIAMS: Wait a minute, wait a minute. You guys really didn't know that?
WATTERS: No.
PERINO: No, I didn't.
WILLIAMS: Get out. You guys like to pull my leg.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: He knew it.
GUTFELD: I didn't.
WILLIAMS: You know, you just --
GUTFELD: I did.
WILLIAMS: You skewer me every day but that was too much. I mean, I don't believe that.
PERINO: He know that.
WILLIAMS: All right. I think kindergartens know that. Democrats making new explosive comments about abortion. We are going to show you that next right here on THE FIVE.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATTERS: Liberals now openly pushing their extreme pro-abortion views. A former New York City council speaker turn CNN contributor making this comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE QUINN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: When a woman gets pregnant, that is not a human being inside of her. It's part of her body.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's a lie.
QUINN: And this is about a woman having full agency and control of her body and making decisions about her body and what is part of her body with medical professionals.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, the baby --
QUINN: Those are the facts and that's the law of the land.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Listen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: Meanwhile, Facebook appearing to take a hard line against left- wing Pennsylvania lawmaker Brian Sims. The social media platform reportedly deleting a video of him harassing teenage girls praying outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic. He then offered a reward for anyone who would identify them. The mother of two of the teens responding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEY GARECHT, MOTHER OF TEENS CONFRONTED BY BRIAN SIMS: I was concerned for my girls. I was genuinely trying to enter into just like a dialogue with him to try to bring the situation, calm it down a little bit. And say to him on film, we're really here just praying for these women and babies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: All right. Well, Dana, let's just take it to the top with the CNN contributor. I don't think anybody pro-life, pro-choice, sees whether it's a fetus or a human life inside the womb, as just some extension of the body like it's a ponytail.
PERINO: You know what, Jesse, there are a lot of people who think that.
WATTERS: Really?
PERINO: There are. Yes. There are and I'm not one of them. But there are people who believe that and they would believe that there's actually -- it's not actually a baby until it is born and there is the first breath.
And then actually they could even argue that, as we had seen from the governor of Virginia --
(CROSSTALK)
BILA: And they are.
WATTERS: Right.
PERINO: -- when he was talking about that bill. I go back to this. If a pregnant woman is driving down the highway in Virginia and she gets hit by a drunk driver and she dies, what does the prosecutor do? They charge the drunk driver not with one murder but with two.
WATTERS: Yes.
PERINO: So, in some cases, our laws say that that is a baby. In others, like this woman would say, no, it's not. To me, it's clear. You have gender reveal parties for a reason. Right. You have excitement over the baby is coming.
People start referring to my baby, my baby. I know that there are people like her who think that way but there are many more I believe that believe that that is a life.
WATTERS: And Greg, another blackeye for the pro-choice community, if you look at the Ralph Northam situation, Pennsylvania situation, the CNN comments, and then what we saw last week in Alabama the lawmaker saying some explosive things.
GUTFELD: You know, when people like this refer to an unborn child as a comp of cells or an extension or no different than a tumor actually that could be removed, that's not scientific thought. It's actually a political thought. It's how -- it shows you how politics can dehumanize because you are forced to fit -- you have to follow this ideology.
So, politics dictates now what a human life is which is kind of what it was before the Civil War. It's also, oddly enough, a denial of science. When someone's heart stops beating, the hospital staff or bystanders in a public space will do their best to revive the heart. The beating heart is a vital sign. It means you are alive, so when the heart is beating, you are life.
We, as Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians, has been smeared for decades as being anti-science because we question the statistics of climate change but I believe that the most anti-science party is always or it's always going to be the left.
They don't believe in differences between gender, right? Boy, girl. You can't call your child a boy or girl, not yet anyway, not until they decide. Now there's no difference to them, to her, Christine Quinn, there's no difference between life and death. If you decide that the heartbeat is not a vital sign of life, kill anything. Go for it.
WATTERS: I wonder, Juan, if Christine Quinn would've changed the way she spoke if she had a second chance.
WILLIAMS: I don't think so.
WATTERS: No?
WILLIAMS: No. I think she spoke from the heart. And I tell you what. To me --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Was her heart beating?
WILLIAMS: So much of this is about the heartbeat bill that's now caught fire across the country. I think that people who are opposed to abortion in principle see themselves as having a chance.
Because President Trump, Kavanaugh on the court, all the rest, and so they've got several bills, these heartbeat bills that are right now in Kentucky, Missouri -- I'm sorry -- Mississippi, Ohio, and most recently in Georgia.
And so, they are looking to try to build this case. But the reality is you should worry about women who are having miscarried, you should worry about mortality for women who are having children.
Georgia, I think it's the second highest in the nation, women dying for miscarriages. He is not paying attention to the health of the mother or the health of the family. Instead, they are making a political case about this and they are blowing this way out of proportion for political reasons only.
And I think that's an abomination because the health of a mother, the health of a family, why people make decisions to have an abortion, oftentimes they are married women who - they are raising enough kids, they have whatever reason they have. But it's not my decision. It should be her decision with the doctor.
BILA: You can have those conversations and you can have a debate about the Heartbeat Bill. It's very controversial bill because the heartbeat shows up around six weeks, which really people don't realize you are about four weeks pregnancy - it's very early on in the pregnancy. You can have that conversation or you can have it without dehumanizing a baby in the process and that's what's happening.
And the reason it is happening is because it's been a slippery slope from the sexual revolution that took sex and said it's no big deal, this is empowering for women, this is a great idea. And then birth control pills got treated like candy, and then the morning-after pill got treated like candy, and now abortion is being treated like a dental exam.
That is where this trail came in. I'm not opposed to contraception. I took birth control pills for years, but I am opposed to the way these conversations are happening. These are serious topics, these are serious issues, and you should not be able to talk about a baby. We are talking about born alive babies as a woman's right issue.
That's a human issue. That baby is a life in its own right and if we cease to remember that, we have forgotten the humanity of everything involved in this. So it's a very scary way it's being approached.
WATTERS: Right, I thought it was the kind of flip way she characterized it- -
BILA: Yes.
WATTERS: --it offended a lot of people. All right, up next, the intense Late-Night Fight everyone is talking about. Meghan McCain battling Seth Meyers over radical Democrat Ilhan Omar.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BILA: An epic clash on Late-Night TV over radical Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Meghan McCain mixing it up with Seth Meyers over Omar's long list of controversies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SETH MEYERS, HOST, LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS: Agreed.
MEGHAN MCCAIN, AMERICAN COLUMNIST, AUTHOR, AND CO-HOST OF THE VIEW: Are you bothered by her language about 9/11?
MEYERS: I thought it was taken out of context. And I think if you watch that whole speech--
MCCAIN: Would you give President Trump the same leverage if he said the same thing, Benjamin?
MEYERS: You do keep bringing up the two tweets that she's apologized for, and I think that's a little unfair to her, especially because we've established--
MCCAIN: Are you her publicist?
MEYERS: What?
MCCAIN: Are you her press person?
MEYERS: No, I'm just someone who cares about the fact that there's someone out there who is in a minority, who has had death threats against her and I think that we should all use the same language that you are asking her to be careful about her language, and I would ask everybody else to be careful about theirs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BILA: Feisty. What do you make of the exchange, Greg?
GUTFELD: Well, I thought she did a fine job, but you got to remind yourself that that's a comedy show, not public access. And if that was a show in which she had different political beliefs, it would not exist because it's not entertaining and it's not funny.
He was almost humorous on SNL but now he has retreated into never funny zone. And this is an example where politics, if you fully embrace it, can kill anything fun. I imagine that his staff was scratching their heads going, why are we doing this segment? When I came to do this show, we were supposed to have fun. We were supposed to be talking about good things and jokes. This is not funny.
And it was weird because he was almost operating as a white knight for Omar. It was like a weird kind of lefty apologist. And it just - I felt bad for the show. Like, if I was working for that show, I'd throw up.
BILA: Yes. Do you think, Juan, that maybe she was taken aback by that? If I were invited on the show like that, I would assume I was going to have a good time and it seems like suddenly she found herself in a political commentary debate with someone with an opposing view. That is a bit jarring.
WILLIAMS: It could be. I don't know what she was expecting. I don't know what - she's a celebrity, so I guess that's why she's on the couch. But it seems to me that she's been in the news for her approach to Congresswoman Omar. And so then Seth Meyers says, we'll wait a second.
For the first time, we've got two Muslim women in the Congress and of course they're going to have different views. But this woman is now subjected to death threats because of the comments, and they were offensive comments that she made, but that she apologized for.
So, I thought you know what, sometimes yes things are supposed to be funny, but sometimes you have important conversations and I thought it was an important conversation. Then it gets out of control and then it blows up, then Ben Domenech, who's her husband makes all kinds of offensive comments and name calling on Twitter about Seth Meyers. In fact, he said he's an example of how white men without talent get ahead.
GUTFELD: It's a good point. But you know what, why do you - I mean you're the one that attribute her views to be Muslim.
BILA: Right. I just find that really--
GUTFELD: That's weird.
WILLIAMS: No it's not really--
GUTFELD: You said two Muslim women and therefore have different opinions.
WILLIAMS: Seth Meyers said that.
BILA: Yes.
WILLIAMS: But I would add, I think that she does come from an experience, having been in a prisoner of war camp in Somalia and the like. She comes - she has a different level of experience--
GUTFELD: Why would that make her anti like - have to be so hypercritical like America makes no sense.
BILA: I just find it odd though that she - that people on the left are rushing to defend her when she has a long history of comments. She may have apologized for this and some didn't find her apology satisfactory, but this is a pattern of behavior that should be alarming to people left and right.
WATTERS: Yes, it's bizarre that the left tries to stick its neck out for someone like this so much after she said so many dumb things and so many offensive things. Why do they do that? And I think the reason why they do that is not because they want to protect her personally because she's not that talented. She didn't raise a lot of money. She's not that likable or empathetic.
The left wants to protect the ability of the left to traffic in anti- Semitism. Because there is a very strong strain of anti-Semitism on the left that needs to flourish apparently and then needs to be protected. So Seth Meyers gets up there and takes it upon himself to do that when he should be trying to make jokes.
And he should work - trying to help his career long-term because to position himself to the left of Colbert, I don't think you want to be there when you're in line for the late night show. Everybody gets death threats. McCain gets them big time. We get them. We don't whine about them.
GUTFELD: I did death threats to Jesse.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: And I forward them to HR.
GUTFELD: Yes, and they go, I agree with Greg.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: But I think in response to you, I just want to quickly say, I think that the whole notion of people saying obnoxious anti-Semitic things, even marching in the streets, I think we see that from the right.
(CROSSTALK)
BILA: It's not a left right issue.
WATTERS: Juan, I think you need to check the sources, "The New York Times" actually got into big trouble the other day with anti-Semitic cartoons that they published.
PERINO: Okay, so I think there are a hundred things that you could ask Meghan McCain, why would you would spend limited amount of time, precious time, asking Meghan McCain. You could ask for a million things. You want to ask her things, were she is going to criticize President Trump. I've got 25 of them.
(CROSSTALK)
That's not hard. So, why do you want to do this? Why do you want to have Meghan McCain defending her? And fair or not, the AOCs of the world, Talib and Omar, they are going to be the prime stars of ads in districts that I mentioned before, those house districts where Democrats won, where Trump won in 2016, and he will be back on the ballot in 2020. Those ads are going to be there. So, who will be the first 2020 Democratic candidate to stand up and say, enough?
(CROSSTALK)
BILA: That's why Nancy Pelosi is trying to rein them in.
GUTFELD: Megan, I wish Megan had asked him one question though, how do you have a late night gig and Norm Macdonald doesn't? That's the question.
(LAUGHTER)
BILA: Good question. Well, Kamala Harris blasting the media as sexist. Let's find out why, coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: The fight for the White House heating up. Democratic contender Kamala Harris comes out swinging against political pundits who think only a white male candidate could beat President Trump in 2020. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The conversation too often suggests certain voters will only vote for certain candidates regardless of whether their ideas will lift up all our families, and it is shortsighted. It's wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: All right. Jesse, I have a point to make and I'm going to ask you a question.
WATTERS: Sure.
PERINO: She is talking about political pundits saying this, but it was last week that the stories were quoting Democratic women voters in South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, the first three states to vote, all saying that they don't think that Democrats - or America wants to vote for a woman. So, it's not necessarily the pundits. It's actually like, within their own party, and it's not true because Hillary Clinton showed you could win the popular vote.
WATTERS: It looks weak for her to play this card. It's funny to hear her complain that her voters are sexist and racist. I mean she got a really great week when she launched. She got a Morning Joe pseudo-endorsement. They had hard news reporters trying on clothes with her at the department store; everybody gets a little love when they launch. The bottom line is the people that they are polling on the Democratic side don't think she has the personality or the policies to beat Donald Trump. That's all there is to it.
PERINO: But she is hanging in there in the polls. Juan, do you think the debates will be different for her?
WILLIAMS: Yes, I think she is pretty - in fact she had a really good week when she was questioning some of the Republicans on the Hill, specifically Bill Barr. She came out as a star on that.
PERINO: A prosecutor.
WILLIAMS: Yes. She came out glowing. But I think this is about the electability. So it's the voters, the Democrats clearly prefer Biden. There is just no question. It's beyond question at this point. But what Democrats want is somebody who can beat Trump.
So if they are all hearing, well, only Biden or only Sanders can beat Trump, then she has a legitimate complaint which is to say, "Oh, no! There are lots of people in the Midwest who are beyond the kind of identity politics that you seem to think."
PERINO: But Greg, then they are looking to the last war right. They're looking to the last battle of 2016 thinking Biden going to beat Trump. Maybe, maybe not, who knows. But that doesn't -- 2020 is a different race.
GUTFELD: Yes. I think Juan is right. She is looking at the party in a way, and she's like going -- they talk a good intersectional game, but it's all white guys in front. That's not fair. I think being a prosecutor and a gun owner, she should just become a Republican.
WATTERS: Welcome.
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: And there are other women in the race too - they are not -- she's not the only one that's feeling this.
BILA: Yes. I think she's a much better candidate, Kamala Harris, than Joe Biden. I think she does shine every time there's a hearing; she also was shining in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. I didn't agree with what she was saying, but I think people should look out for her. I think she's probably frustrated with the Democratic establishment and their automatic backing for Joe Biden because of his name recognition and his history, when in fact I think on a debate stage she might shine a lot better.
PERINO: Well, we have a special treat for you. Let's bring in Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. They are moderating tonight's Fox News Town Hall with 2020 Presidential Candidate Amy Klobuchar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And so, she's one of the many candidates, but one of the few women that are running in 2020. This is a big night for her to have this opportunity and she's in Wisconsin, one of her neighboring states. Martha?
MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It sure is, Dana. Good to see you guys tonight. We are excited to be here in Milwaukee. We're going to get started with Amy Klobuchar in just a little while. I think that you nailed it on the head, because these Town Halls are an opportunity for these candidates to stand out. It's a huge field, 22 people. And potentially have sort of a bit of a breakthrough, a moment where they connect with the voters and a moment that people will find memorable that might build them some leverage going forward, because that's what it's all about at this point in this really crowded group.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Yes, and it is interesting. We offer these candidates these Town Hall opportunities. We say you can go to wherever you want to go to basically, we'll set it up. And Senator Klobuchar chose Wisconsin. Now remember, Hillary Clinton did not campaign here in 2016 and now Democrats see this as really ripe territory. In fact, they moved the convention here to Milwaukee. So, it will be interesting to see how she plays off the crowd in a state that economically is doing pretty well if you look at the numbers.
PERINO: Martha, what do you think is her best area to break out and to sort of leave the Fox Town Hall tonight and wake up in the morning feeling like she made a difference?
MACCALLUM: Yes. I mean the lane that she has carved for herself is as an experienced moderate Democrat Senator. And I think that she has kind of separated herself from Medicare for all, from free college. She is in favor of the Green New Deal, but she's basically saying that she is sort of a more practical perspective and she believes that the Midwest -- I think anybody who looks at this election knows that the path to victory probably cuts through the Midwest, as it did for Donald Trump in winning those counties back. This is her turf. She's from Minnesota. She understands the rural community.
That's something that she feels strongly about. So, she is kind of saying it -- all that stuff that's way out to the left is not going to be a winning formula for 2020. And although she might not be sort of the flashiest candidate out there, she believes that she's the one who has the most realistic path forward.
PERINO: One last thought from you, Bret?
BAIER: We'll see. Well, I think she has an uphill battle. Biden is at 39% in the real clear politics average. She is at 1.3%. But she is gathering money, she is gathering support. But it is an uphill battle. And when you talk about all these candidates searching for oxygen, this is a big moment for Amy Klobuchar. And we'll see how she handles their questions and ours.
PERINO: Yes. All right. Bret and Martha, have a good time tonight. We'll be watching. Thank you. So that is 6:30 PM Eastern for the Amy Klobuchar Town Hall which is going to be great. "One More Thing" is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: One More Thing, my podcast is just up. You go to foxnewspodcast.com. I interviewed the President of Environmental Progress, Michael Shellenberger and we talk about how no one talks about the death of birds because of wind power. It is amazing. This story is mind-blowing that how many birds are dying and nobody cares for some reason and now this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Robots are great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Yes, robots are great. Especially this new robot, IHMC robots have unveiled this little creature that can basically walk gingerly over suspended wooden planks and wobbly cinder blocks without losing its balance. This means that all you human gymnasts, Dana, you're obsolete, you're dead, because we would rather watch robots do this than gymnasts.
PERINO: What is wrong with you? This is terrifying.
GUTFELD: No, it's not terrifying. Their hugs are beautiful. All right.
WILLIAMS: I'd rather watch gymnasts.
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: No.
GUTFELD: Stop it.
WILLIAMS: All right. A quick heads up for you podcast fans. I did a panel on the press and First Amendment rights at Duquesne University last fall. It has now been turned into a podcast called live@americastownhall. The panel with Hugh Hewitt, Nadine Strausson (ph) and Jeffrey Rosen is the very first episode. Please give it a listen.
PERINO: Sounds good.
GUTFELD: Excellent.
WILLIAMS: Now, for some baby news. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed the name of their first born child today. He is Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Yes, the world got a first look at the baby today and so did his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth. He is her eighth great- grandchild, and seventh in line to the throne. Meghan Markle's American mom was also on hand and as you can see, so was the Duke of Edinburgh. God's speed kid.
WATTERS: Right.
PERINO: Archie.
WILLIAMS: Archie.
PERINO: I want to show you a young man in Miles Gregory. He is a yo-yo enthusiast, okay. Get this. 17-year-old from Colorado, since he first got introduced to the sport. We call it a pass time, not a sport.
BILA: School Assembly (ph).
PERINO: He has a part-time job as well to help pay for his travel to different states to compete in yo-yo competitions. He sold energy drinks and chips at School; he was in a regional competition in Seattle. He took second place and he's practicing for four hours a day for the 2019 National Yo-Yo Contest in Philly, your home town, in July. Good luck.
BILA: I'm going to go.
GUTFELD: He's another like K-Strass. Have you ever seen K-Strass? Go on YouTube, Google K-Strass and Yo-Yos, it will blow your mind.
PERINO: I don't know. Should we do that?
GUTFELD: Yes, you do it.
PERINO: America, don't do it.
GUTFELD: Trust me, Jesse.
WATTERS: I was quite an athlete. Sheriff's office in Indiana has a proposal for drug dealers. You ready what this is? Snitch on your competition, attention drug dealers, too much competition bringing you down? Are you not making the profits you once did? We're here to help you eliminate your competition. Just fill out the easy to complete form.
So, you fill out details like their name, their address, their license plate number of their fellow dealers, what kind of drugs they sell, hours of activity.
(LAUGHTER)
WATTERS: Listen, just snitch on your competition. That's the American way. All right. Rookie, my dog has an Instagram. That's right. @rookiewatters, you've got to follow me. Already has about 2,000 followers. Greg has already followed and then unfollowed.
GUTFELD: Yes, I wanted to hurt his feelings.
WILLIAMS: That is a beautiful dog.
WATTERS: Thank you.
PERINO: It looks like a bigger version of my dog. I'm going to bring her in here (ph).
WATTERS: All right.
GUTFELD: Hi Jed, your turn.
BILA: Yes, OK. So check out Jeff Addo who celebrated his 27th birthday, he -- skydiving. You guys have a picture of him skydiving; it is the best picture ever. He jumps out of a plane and the wind was so fierce that his mouth got blown back.
PERINO: Ouch.
BILA: And skydiving is super fun. I actually did it on Fox & Friends earlier this year. I actually have a picture, I was a little crazy. But, it's crazy. Everyone gets a different set of symptoms but when you jump, you actually feel like you are just in a wind tunnel. So your face, your hair, your body--
(CROSSTALK)
BILA: --kind of destroyed. But it is fun.
PERINO: No, you would have a good time.
GUTFELD: I like jumping into planes.
PERINO: Yes.
BILA: Into planes?
GUTFELD: Set your DVRs, never miss an episode of "The Five." "Special Report" is up next.
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