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Obama eyes Democratic unifier role in general election

Can the former president mend a divided party? Reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," February 19, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Well, it's still early. That's a whole other show, a whole other discussion. Guys, I want to thank you both very, very much, the big debate tonight, "THE FIVE" now.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters, along with Emily Compagno, Geraldo Rivera, Dana Perino, and Greg. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is THE FIVE. Is mini-Mike Bloomberg ready for an onslaught of attacks from his fellow Democrats? He will be stepping on to the debate stage for the first time tonight, where he won't be able to hide behind his million dollar ads and massive campaign apparatus. Democrats are sure to make Mike a top target.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY KLOBUCHAR (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I actually thought he should be on the debate stage, because I don't think you should just be able to buy your way to the presidency.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy the Democratic nomination for president?

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, yes.

BERNIE SANDERS (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do think it's a bit obscene that we have somebody who, by the way, chose not to contest in Iowa, in Nevada, in South Carolina. He said I don't have to do that. I'm worth $60 billion. I'll buy the presidency. That offends me very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: And President Trump's mixing it up with Bloomberg on Twitter. Quote, "Is corrupt Bloomberg news going to say what a pathetic debater mini-Mike is, he doesn't respect our great farmers or that he has violated campaign finance laws at the highest and most sinister level with payoffs all over the place?" Oh, and some breaking news, Michael Bloomberg will reportedly not, not be standing on a box during tonight's debate.

Dana, do you think his expectations for tonight's debate have been set at the correct level?

DANA PERINO, Fox News ANCHOR: Did you read my little piece here -- expectations for Bloomberg as a debater are very low.

(CROSSTALK)

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You just put your hand on it.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: So everybody who -- Geraldo knows him better than I do and I didn't live here when -- for that long when he was mayor. So I've never really seen him debate, and people have seen him in all of these ads. He's in all the ads. So I'm wondering, like, people who are kind of Bloomberg curious, when they see him tonight as a debater, will that match what they've been seeing in these very well produced, like, ads?

WATTERS: Well, he hasn't debated anybody in 10 years.

PERINO: Right. And also, like, these other people have been debating. And sort of you build up a little bit of a fighting form. But I guess -- I also think he's super confident. And I think the worst thing you can do is get up there and apologize for his whole life and all the policies. You should just tell them absolutely not.

Yes, I'm proud of that. Yes, we did. Yes, I did. And try to let it go. But the temptation for him to apologize will be pretty high.

WATTERS: Yeah. Does he apologize or does he just say, you know what, it was another time, another era. Let's move forward.

RIVERA: I will be Bloomberg. I apologize for making New York the safest big city on Earth. I apologize for picking up the garbage. I apologize for shoveling the snow. I apologize for getting the homeless off the streets. I apologize for making this a working city. That's what I apologize for. Now, he had accesses from time to time in terms of the strategies that we use.

I'm sorry for it. But ladies and gentlemen, the people -- I submit to you the -- made most safe was the lives were improved the most for the same poor people that you profess --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: How does he defend buying the election allegation?

RIVERA: Hey, you know, he made $60 billion, $60 billion. It didn't happen by luck. It happened -- he's a scrappy guy from nowhere. He goes and he puts together a company that employs tens of thousands of people around the globe. How many of the people on that stage have ever created one job for a person? These people on the stage like Bernie Sanders.

He never worked for a day in a private company in his life. Maybe he delivered newspapers as a kid. I doubt it. It was maybe the communist manifesto.

WATTERS: And he could also say I'm beholden to any special interests. I'm paying my own way through.

EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Exactly, especially given his background, too, that he certainly touched every corner so it's not like he has to have some type of consistent record -- his allegiance to one party over another. I think his natural public demeanor is not combative. Obviously, we've seen him kind of trading barbs with Trump on Twitter and etcetera.

But remember in the 2009 mayoral election, in those debates the New York Times said he has the ferocity of a bulldog. So I think tonight he's going to come out swinging. And on the flip side, we know that Biden, Mayor Pete, and Klobuchar, they need him to fall, because they would be the alternative mainstream candidate to Bernie obviously surging.

And I think that to both of your guys' point, the only way, you know -- explaining controversial statements is losing. So yes, he needs to have a proactive, positive spin on the past. Final point, Hillary Clinton's former advisor, Philippe Reines, said his only advice to Bloomberg is don't go.

(CROSSTALK)

ATTERS: He's doing well by not going so far. Philippe Reines has a point. Greg, now I guess Bloomberg's saying, you know, all of you non-Bernie people need to get out of the race. Clear the field so I can go head-to- head with Bernie.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Yeah. If Sanders actually says to him you can't buy an election, Bloomberg should say if you become president, we won't be able to buy anything. Because to your point, Geraldo, you're absolutely right. He -- like, Sanders has produced nothing. Instead, he's lived off the producers as a politician for most of his life.

I do think that Bloomberg is going to spend the majority of his time explaining the context of every out of context outrage, whether it's stop and frisk or the thing about minorities in the workplace, the farming -- he's going to have to say this is what I meant. This is what I meant. But the big news, the news that I love, is that NBC had to tweet out that Bloomberg will not be standing on a box, OK?

So think about this as yet another example of where Trump had created a visual that then sticks and takes a life of its own. Basically, Trump is a news magician, right? He's a -- he brings up the box and now the box has to be answered to. You have to talk about the box. And it's actually -- it's - - he's the Harry Potter of persuasion.

He just comes up with this stuff. I think everybody is also pulling for Bloomberg, because, man, he's making some serious money for all of us. He is - his political advertising is breaking revenue records for a lot of companies. He is the reverse Trump. Like, you know, Bloomberg paid full price for the suit that Trump got wholesale off the back of a truck.

Think of all that free media Trump got. And now Bloomberg for the next eight months is going to paying full price. We are all going to get third homes.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Greg, you could also say --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: I'm buying the election with my own money. Bernie is buying it with everyone else's money. You're all going to pay --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Bloomberg is the only one who can beat Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: I think you're probably right.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Two New Yorkers -- you know, the fact I love Trump. I like Bloomberg. I -- it's great seeing two guys that I watch in action evolving and becoming who they are.

WATTERS: So Geraldo, but his whole, I guess, central message for the campaign is electability, right?

RIVERA: Yes.

WATTERS: I am the only one that could beat Donald Trump. That was Biden's message and that doesn't really --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Why is Bloomberg's different, just because he's loaded?

RIVERA: Biden has never won an -- as far as I know, unless he won something in junior high school. I don't know that Biden has every won an election. All I know is that every time he's run for president, it's just - - Iowa wasn't an --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: But I -- you know, I don't know about the --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Can I repeat myself that I said three times?

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: None of Bloomberg's infractions come close to what Sanders has said during the time of the USSR. I don't know how nobody calls him on this stuff about the fact that he was praising a totalitarian dictatorship during the Cold War? Why isn't that a story? Is it because everybody's too young?

WATTERS: They're afraid of the Bernie bros, Greg.

RIVERA: Kids love commies.

WATTERS: I mean, let's --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Well, he's got the commie vote locked down. All right, coming up, President Trump taking on big liberal cities ahead of his rally tonight, see that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RIVERA: President Trump getting ready to host another big rally tonight, this one in Phoenix, Arizona. He's been out west this week contrasting his law and order agenda to the permissive policies of most big cities, the president, for instance demanding a fix to the homeless crisis cascading in California.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: You have needles. You have things that we don't want to discuss all over the streets flowing into the oceans. And you have beaches, and if they can't do it themselves, we're going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: Meanwhile, the Justice Department calling out self-styled social justice district attorneys as outrage grows over New York City's bail reform. A serial New York City subway thief who recently thanked Democrats for keeping him out of jail just got arrested for the 141st time. Now, Emily, I like bail reform. I like the fact that there is equity now.

But the system really has led to excesses that are untenable, it seems to me. You know, people arrested 141 times lose confidence in the system, liberal policies. And we want the president of the United States to have criminal justice reform. But liberal policies seem to be ricocheting.

COMPAGNO: I agree with you. There is no equity in being arrested 141 times. There is no justice in having our tax dollars be squandered and wasted and having cops put their lives on the line every time, because is it the 141st or the 142nd time of arrest. That's going to get the crop shot? I mean, all of that is ridiculous.

And I think that criminal justice reform is separate from bail reform. It's separate from -- in this particular state, my two issues with it, which I've said before are the crime classifications themselves and a lack of judicial discretion. So unlike other states, here, the classifications matter. So this particular new set of reform applies to a lot of crimes or excludes a lot of crimes that we would be horrified by like violent crimes against children.

But because of their classification, it doesn't count here, and those guys are on the streets. Secondly, removes judicial discretion. So a normal, reasonable person like yourself, as a judge, you can say. You know what? This guy -- I'm going to keep this guy locked up. This law remove that. This reform removes that ability by the judge, unlike in New Jersey.

So yes, I think the whole point is for all of us who are advocates for commonsense criminal justice reform. This is not that. Not by a long shot.

RIVERA: It's an excellent point. So here you have a situation where Giuliani, Bloomberg. I think of them as one administration, 5 terms, 20 years in New York. When they started in the early 90s, we were at over 2,000 murders a year. When they ended, you know, before de Blasio took over, they were around 400, so from over 2,000 to under 400.

That was the period where they went after the squeegee men, you know? Maybe you are too young to remember, the guys who wash the windows.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: That's what I did before I came to Fox.

RIVERA: And the homeless, you know, they got them off the streets. And I remember saying don't give the beggars money, because you only incur -- you know, sometimes -- I hate that Bloomberg is going to apologize for what worked in New York. That's my point.

WATTERS: Yeah. So Democrats and Republicans both agree. Rudy cleaned up Times Square and Bill Bratton cleaned up skid row in the mid-2000s. In Los Angeles, and they did that through broken windows policing, you know? You don't let small infractions slide and it improves the quality of life. But if you have pandering liberal politicians and you have civil rights litigation that allows people to smoke crystal meth on the streets, to live on the streets.

To prostitute themselves in open daylight and to relieve themselves in open daylight, that destroys the quality of life. And now in New York, have criminals committing crimes and than thinking Democrat politicians for letting them out of jail so they can commit more crimes. So the president should come out this from a compassionate approach.

And that puts Democrats on the defense, because they look like do-nothing politicians, and they look like they don't care about the environment if their backyards look like sewers.

RIVERA: Dana, Jesse's talking about counter-programming. Here you have the president of the United States going out to Phoenix, going out to the west coast at the same time the Democrats have their big debate in Nevada, obviously not an accident that he's going --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: It's super smart. It's super smart. And he said he'll do it in South Carolina. I don't know where -- how he'll be on every place in Super Tuesday, the night before Super Tuesday, but we'll see. Maybe he'll figure that out. You contrast what President Trump did when he went to Los Angeles to meet with the Olympic committee, because he wants America to be the host of the Olympics.

And he knows that what's happening in Los Angeles will definitely count against Los Angeles, which is probably a long shot anyway. But think about it. President Trump went to Los Angeles to try to clean that up, to try get us the Olympics. Remember when President Obama flew to Paris, like, or flew to Europe because it was his last ditch effort to try to get the Olympics in Chicago.

And they totally failed? It would be better -- I think it's better to try this approach, like, clean up the city and use this as a great reason for Los Angeles to be the wonderful host of the Olympics.

RIVERA: But is it sincerity that drives him or is that he's --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: I think so. No, I think he wants to win. I think he wants America to get the Olympics in 2024, sure.

RIVERA: You're from California.

GUTFELD: Yes, I am, sir.

RIVERA: So most of the homeless are in California.

GUTFELD: Yes.

RIVERA: I mean, isn't that a function of weather --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Sometimes. But we have a homeless problem here. And I think, you know, we talk about --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Here we house the homeless. We house the homeless.

GUTFELD: Not where I live.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Four percent are un-housed. In California, 70 percent are un- housed.

GUTFELD: But here's why the viewers at home should care, because right now we are talking about New York and California. These are signs of things that will come to America if you elect somebody like Bernie or Liz. Because what happens is any kind of effort to solve homelessness or to solve crime in the liberal vain will be portrayed as intolerant and punishing.

And oh, my god, you don't care for these people. Bail reform right now in New York City is catch and release for criminals. And the media calls the evidence of this anecdotal. No, it is statistical don't lie. Statistics don't lie. We are seeing 30, 40 percent jumps and a lot of crime, because they are going out and they are blatantly committing more crimes.

And we have to remember to this point. This is a cycle of degradation. Whenever Republicans come in, like whether it's Giuliani or Bloomberg and rebuild the city, it allows somebody like the de Blasio to degrade it. Because then you can start trying all these new things like bail reform, because crime has dropped. And then what happens the degradation increases again, and then you got to get another Republican. So it's a cycle that keeps happening --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: What do you do with the homeless? What do you do with them?

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: I got homeless everywhere. What do I do with them?

GUTFELD: Very simple.

RIVERA: Put them on a bus to Phoenix?

GUTFELD: No, you move them out to a government-owned area. You set up sanitation. You counselors in there, you separate the --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: So you would arrest people who are --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: You're playing the game.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: You're playing the game.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: I want to know what you do.

GUTFELD: I'm trying to tell you.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: No, because you keep interrupting me. One, you separate the mentally ill from the non-mentally ill, the people who are drug addicted from the drug addicted -- from the non-drug addicted.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: You're going to be the separator?

GUTFELD: No. You hire people to do it. So you're playing the game of life.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Oh, you hate the homeless. No, the only way you could solve the problem is through tough love. To get there -- out of underneath the underpasses, get them to an area, and then get them treated.

RIVERA: Tough love to work the majority has to support it. And I believe - -

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: -- has an opportunity to rally the majority so that the era of tough love that happened here can happen everywhere. Up next, can the surging Bernie Sanders be stopped? Some in the media are not happy with his rise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: Bernie Sanders building momentum in the Democratic Party -- primary, excuse me. The candidates jumping out to a very commanding lead in a brand-new national poll, Sanders also surging in other key primary states like California and his rise is not sitting well with some in the media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that the candidates who have been telegraphing their punches against Sanders, Senator Sanders, are actually going to deliver them. Nobody just says the obvious. Bernie, you are full of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to stop grading Bernie Sanders on a curve and start asking what the country would look like if he would have become president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't see how Democrats do anything but bleed out their newfound support in the suburbs when they put a socialist at the top of the ticket.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: And Sanders supporters trying to dismiss concerns about socialism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not the Cold War anymore. When people talk about a Democratic socialism, from which I think also could be called social democracy, something I do align with. What it means is that we have a society that's fair to people. There are a lot of Americans who are not hung up on the label. They actually are much more interested in what do you stand for and have you been on the right side of these big issues?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's always fought for the issues that I think the Democratic Party is now starting to catch up to. And so ultimately, it comes down to what the policies are more than what you call yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COMPAGNO: Greg, I have a question. So why are -- why is the media surprised that this would be the result of Bernie Sanders? Like, for example, Medicare for all is like single-payer. It just sounds better.

GUTFELD: I'll tell you why, because they wasted -- OK, it's all Adam Schiff's fault. They wasted so much time on impeachment that they drained all the intellectual energy from the party and the media, who got so lustful over this impeachment fantasy, that now they are stuck with Bernie- geddon, right? It's like Armageddon? So there's no way out for the Dems.

If you nominate him, Trump gets 49 states, as Chris Matthews says. If you get a brokered convention of Bloomberg buys the election, you're going to have an excitable base go crazy. So it's basically you have two meals on the menu, one is manure, the other is compost. Either way you look at it, it's crap.

WATTERS: Sounds yummy.

PERINO: Would you like fries with that?

RIVERA: Yes, fries. I hope it is fries.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: -- like, in 2016 when Bernie Sanders eventually lost to Hillary Clinton, they didn't spend the next four years figuring out how could they then remake themselves as a party. They spent four years trying to figure out why she didn't go into Wisconsin.

WATTERS: Yeah. I mean, they focused on the wrong things. I think Greg's point is very smart about the impeachment. They botched it and now he just slid under the radar. Bernie is going to get stopped. It's just a matter of by whom and when. The polling on socialism is downright scary. Democratic voters themselves would rather vote for a lesbian Muslim who just had a heart attack than vote for a socialist.

PERINO: Let's pull up this poll. So this was -- they asked them what are the things that would make you uncomfortable or you would have reservations about? Socialism is one of them, having a heart attack or a -- in the past years, if they were older, a socialist --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: You skipped just with over 75 plus.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: I said it. I said 75 years. But I just feel like it is true. Like, everybody ages at a different rate, but 75 plus is different than it was 20 years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: It's a bad label. And that's why they are pushing back so hard because they're fighting a two front war. The Republicans are hammering them and then they are fighting a rear guard reaction on their left. But Bernie's base is about 30 percent and growing. He's winning in all demographic. He's winning head-to-head against all the other top three contenders.

So at this point, you have to think to yourself, is he really going to get specific about socialism, because all you have to ask is does socialism work and how, and how are you going to pay for it? And the answer is it doesn't work. And you can't pay for it. And that's why he paints with such broad strokes, because once you govern, you can't get in there and start banning fracking, banning AR-15s.

There is going to be a run on the dollar, you know? Everyone is going to get their money out of the country. And there's going to be gasoline twice as much. Greg, we'll have to not -- we will have to buy make an electric car.

GUTFELD: That'll never happen.

RIVERA: On the other hand, AOC is the most attractive and compelling new public official in memory. She has an amazing job in capturing the imagination of the --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: -- as a philosophy. You know optimism. We're all in this together. I think that there is potency there. The messenger, though, and I think that Greg is onto something when he says what about Nicaragua, what about Moscow, what about when it's being revealed that he's the enemy of our, you know, of the American dream.

But there is still real potency in the single-payer Medicare -- every person in America with access to healthcare, every person in America with access to public education. These are wonderful, wonderful aspirations for a country to have. And to minimize it because he's a nut job with a crazy hairdo, I think is --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Let's take a listen to one of his supporters, Emily. This is the guy, Kshama Sawant, talking about why we need Bernie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to have Bernie and we need a new party of by and for working people. We need a powerful socialist movement to end all capitalist oppression and exploitation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: And Emily, you're from Seattle where she's a city councilwoman.

COMPAGNO: I live there. Yes, exactly. And, you know, there was a an internal race against her where a lot of people in Seattle who are massively and clearly unhappy with that socialist regime we're trying to -- trying to get this entire wave of resistance essentially to her and it just didn't work, and she was -- she was reelected.

And to your point, Geraldo, you said, you know, when it -- when it becomes revealed that he is the enemy of the American dream, it's clearly shocking all of us. It's already revealed. His statements belie themselves. It's totally obvious with everything that he says. But to your point earlier, Greg.

GUTFELD: Yes.

COMPAGNO: When is that going to receive any attention or when would these voters who are all 19 and ridiculous really understand what's going on. And you know, 538 predicts by the way that by March 3rd, he will have 41 percent of the delegates, and then Bloomberg and Biden 18. And I think it's important to point out that right now obviously, like it's not overwhelming yet. He's just the clear front runner. And then it looks like Bloomberg is who is closest to chasing him, but --

PERINO: We'll see tonight if that can pan out. All right, next on THE FIVE, Mayor Pete Buttigieg lashes out against Trump supporters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COMPAGNO: News smears against Trump supporters from the 2020 Democrats. Here's Mayor Pete Buttigieg trashing Christians who support the president. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not going to tell other Christians how to be Christians. But I will say, I cannot find any compatibility between the way this president conducts himself and anything that I find in Scripture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COMPAGNO: And Joe Biden continues to try to stir up tension.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLLE WALLACE, ANCHOR, MSNBC: I'm asking if you think Bernie Sanders is acting Trump-like and his refusal to disavow people that may be unsavory, but that are very enthusiastic about him?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, by the way, the white supremacists are very enthusiastic about Trump.

WALLACE: Right.

BIDEN: It's not whether they're enthusiastic about him, it's the things they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COMPAGNO: Dana, how dangerous are those comments by Mayor Pete to his campaign?

PERINO: Well, remember, like, who his audiences right now is the -- are the Democratic primary voters and so they are aghast that Christian evangelicals would actually support President Trump and they can't understand it. And they constantly are asking and writing articles over and over again about how could this possibly be, and they won't accept the answer.

But the other thing is, to me -- well, if it's dangerous, I don't know for him in the long run. But the great thing about Christianity is that it's not for us to judge. Like it's not our job. There's somebody else in charge of that. So you could just stop it at that sentence by saying, I'm not going to tell other Christians how to be Christians, period.

COMPAGNO: Jesse, are those comments by Biden just another indication that he's stuck in 2016 or like 1916?

WATTERS: I don't like that game that politicians play where they say you have to disavow these people and then you have to -- because all it is, is the democrats make Republicans disavow their own people. And then if you ever point out anything on their side, they act like nothing happened.

But with regard to Pete, he's barking up the wrong tree. He has his own issues with Christian compatibility that he needs to pay attention to within his own party before he starts pointing fingers.

RIVERA: Like what?

WATTERS: Well, I think it's clear that African Americans have a little doubt about whether they'd vote for him based on his lifestyle, but that's not my issue. My issue is when he says that Christians --

RIVERA: That's a pretty big ---

WATTERS: -- no, when he says Christians have to separate what they see from Trump with Scripture, Trump is the biggest crusader for the values that Christians hold dear in the culture war. He's the biggest culture warrior we've had in a long time talking about not kneeling for the flag, appointing pro-life judges, he says Merry Christmas. Remember he brings that back.

But if you look at the Democrats, he's fighting a war against them who were there trying to what, sue nuns over ObamaCare, try to boot the pledge out of schools, and, you know, partial-birth abortion. So I think Christians know Trump is not a born again, you know, evangelical. They see him for what he is, and they appreciate the things he fights for, not what he does in his free time.

COMPAGNO: Greg, you had some thoughts on the Biden comments?

GUTFELD: Well, yes. I mean, I've been fairly nice to him, but I think he's a pathetic, dim-witted loser.

WATTERS: Oh, no.

GUTFELD: He's a fumbling -- he's fumbling feeble dolt who needs to go because that was a fatal error what he did. What he did was he smear Trump supporters using the extremist contamination ploy, like, oh, the white supremacist is going to be happy. So we want you to think that anybody that supports Trump is somehow shares those same intentions.

Never mind, Joe, that Trump has done more for minorities than you ever have. He's done stuff for black colleges. He's done stuff for jobs and wages and prison reform. Joe, what do you do? You point to Barack and you say hey, that's my black friend. That's all you do. So I'm sorry.

When Trump breaks records with the black vote, someone should weal Joe out and show him the facts and then he can -- he can -- in his stupor, they can ask him for a comment, because that was garbage. And them chuckling over, what a bunch of jackasses.

COMPAGNO: Geraldo, I wanted to get your thoughts on actually on Amy Klobuchar which is also on our 2020 radar. She was getting mocked after saying this to Hispanic voters. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So let me tell you about me. My name is Amy. And when I took Spanish in fourth grade, my name was Elena. They gave me the name (INAUDIBLE) because I couldn't roll my R's very well. And so, with E-L-E-A --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COMPAGNO: Is that Hispandering or just fumbling?

RIVERA: You know, Hispandering is a great title. I just want to say briefly that I think that Biden is guilty of the -- of what I see very commonly the ask a Democrat, do you think all Republicans are racist? And too many of them hesitate before they reluctantly say, no. So that's -- let's put that.

In terms of the Hispanic vote, I think that this is a vote that's up for grabs. The President has in this harsh language about immigration left an opening for the Democrats to expand that base. I urge him, I talked to him personally, speak with compassion about this population. This is a population that you can -- these are entrepreneurial people, faith-based people, family-oriented people. These people could be Republicans, as George W. Bush famously said.

So I want the president to be much more expansive and much kinder when it comes to that whole border issue. You can build the damn wall. I don't care about the wall as long as there's big doors. He says there's going to be a big door. I think that the President now has a historic opportunity to expand the Republican party in a way that we have not seen since Ronald Reagan in the second term.

This is -- this is huge, and he can do it. He's just the guy to do it. I see him working it in the African American community. I want to help him you know, to get that language -- that language to the DACA students the DREAM Act students. Let's -- these are people that you want to bring into the American dream. This is -- let's do this.

COMPAGNO: If those values are shared regardless then of nationality or country of origin, wouldn't they then be attractive to, as you were saying, the policies that have been furthered by Trump that have resulted in, for example, higher wages, achieving the American dream, faith-based judges, etcetera.

RIVERA: Yes, sure. But you got to be -- you know, sometimes you got to play to a certain crowd. It doesn't take a lot. Spanish people are very open. They're very -- you know, they love to be loved. And I don't think it's that difficult for the President to do. He has just the personality to do it.

COMPAGNO: I love to be loved too.

RIVERA: OK.

COMPAGNO: All right, coming up next -- yes, the latest examples of liberal intolerance on America's college campuses.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: So it's safe spaces spread throughout our college campuses, are such places getting any safer? Not from the walking brain dead that's for sure. A new study shows that as badly educated far-left activists continue to label words as violence and ideas is not wrong but evil. They've helped turn arenas of free thought into monuments to the East German secret police.

The new study found that a quarter and students believe you can silence views that they don't like and it's OK to obstruct the speakers in order to do so. Six times as many liberals felt that way as non-libs. And while nearly all conservatives said that they would be friends with a liberal, a large minority of libs wouldn't reciprocate.

No wonder 70 percent of conservatives fear expressing their views in class. So this is where you send your kids not to be educated, but to be indebted. No longer to engage, but to punish each other. It's a place where its gatekeepers realize the only way to preserve their bad ideas is to enlist zombie students to cooperate against their rebellious peers, like guards in a prison camp.

Does this help shape young minds? Well, if those mines can be found, they can certainly be shaped into what, one wonders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Slash his throat. Every (BLEEP) Republican. Slash Republicans' throats. Slash fascist throats. Death to fascists.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why the (BLEEP) did you accept the position? Who the (BLEEP) hired you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a different vision than you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You should step down. You should not sleep at night. You are disgusting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Are those healthy minds? Are they people you can work with upon graduation? Hell no. You don't want to be around that. To them community, empathy, skepticism, nonconformity, and free thought are oppressive. Where once parents sent their kids to college to be educated, now they're sending them to be institutionalized. It's a cuckoo's nest and the lunatics are coming for you. All right, Geraldo, you were -- you were a young dude in the 60s.

RIVERA: I was.

GUTFELD: Is this different? Are these like -- was there more intelligence?

RIVERA: It was pretty rough in the 60s.

GUTFELD: But, I mean --

RIVERA: And it was pretty intolerant on the left.

GUTFELD: But are they crazy people like that?

RIVERA: I think it sticks out more because we've had -- we've had a couple of decades of gentility so we're shocked. But it was pretty raw during Vietnam and the end of civil rights. It was pretty raw.

GUTFELD: But you could talk to people.

RIVERA: To racial thing was pretty raw. I just want to say that the only thing more difficult socially than being a conservative is being a moderate these days. I call myself roadkill. I get it from the left, I get it from the right. And our old boss Roger Ailes used to say, the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill. So I'm a roadkill. That's what it's like.

GUTFELD: But you're a handsome roadkill, Geraldo.

RIVERA: I am dashing.

WATTERS: You got some -- you got some roadkill right on your lip.

GUTFELD: Emily, are colleges a lost cause for free thought? Can we just create our own?

COMPAGNO: Maybe. Yes, I mean, (INAUDIBLE) certainly did. I hope not, though. And I grew up without social media, without the Internet.

GUTFELD: Are you Amish?

COMPAGNO: I'm older than I look. And growing up -- you know, I grew up in the Bay Area in Berkeley, and my teachers, everybody, they were all, you know, still practicing hippies from the 60s. And they totally fostered my then goals of being an Air Force fighter pilot, and I loved all that stuff. And I felt like this just makes me so sad to see especially in Berkeley, because I grew up in such a different environment, even though all around me were people who felt so differently, I was still supported.

GUTFELD: That's true.

COMPAGNO: And in law school, as president of the Federalist Society in San Francisco where my whole role was bringing the other view to debates, I never got any crap for it. It was -- it was all supported. And I'm not trying to paint this rosy existence, but just that that was our reality. My best friend from home goes to a revolutionary meeting every Sunday, and it's all fine.

But now for some reason, I don't know if it's the amplification from social media, or the different times, whatever it is, but it certainly doesn't feel like it used to.

GUTFELD: Dana, you were in the Weather Underground. A lot of people don't know that. But no, but --

PERINO: I'm so short.

GUTFELD: I think -- so short. Emily brings --

RIVERA: I don't think there's a height requirement.

GUTFELD: I don't know. But that it's -- it used to be you could actually have a conversation. Is it because of the -- I think it's the identity politics and the intersectionality has created an oppressor versus oppressed.

PERINO: Add social media to the mix and that it's very combustible, and then it's also viral so then we all see it. I have friends whose kids are getting ready to go to college and there -- they really are at a loss. They don't know what to do. They're super worried about it. They want their kids to be able to do -- go to a good place.

It's interesting, though, because the increase in tuition, you could almost track with the increase of these incidents.

GUTFELD: Oh, that's true.

PERINO: But there's a place like Purdue University where former Governor Mitch Daniels is a president. They just announced, I think was yesterday, their ninth consecutive tuition freeze.

GUTFELD: Wow.

PERINO: So -- and there's like using free-market principles like figure it out a way to do something really smart. And there are universities like that, but they're the exception.

GUTFELD: Well, I'm going to start buying their chicken.

PERINO: That's a good idea.

GUTFELD: So, Jesse, you have daughters that are going to be in about a decade college-bound. Are you going -- is this going to bother you or are you going to homeschool?

WATTERS: I better start saving up. I'm in a homeschool, Greg. I can barely take care of myself. No, I have liberal friends and I have conservative friends. And it's great because when we all get together, we all just make fun of the liberals.

PERINO: Yes.

WATTERS: And that's what being in college is about. You have a few drinks and then you bust the chops of people you disagree with and it sharpens your skills. And then if you're data conservative, it's great too because then they can just pay for dinner.

RIVERA: But it is interesting because hard times do make people more tolerant.

COMPAGNO: But it's such -- it's such a luxury for these kids to be screaming in that courtyard.

GUTFELD: Yes. When you have -- when you don't have war, you create your own. All right, "ONE MORE THING" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WATTERS: It's time now for "ONE MORE THING." I'll go first we have a feeding frenzy.

GUTFELD: Look at that.

WATTERS: So everybody likes ice cream and we also like the Cheesecake Factory. Now, we can combine the two into this delicious premium cheesecake ice cream extravaganza. We have birthday cake, chocolate cookies and cream, key lime original, salted caramel strawberry. They basically combined ice cream with a piece of cake, and here are the results. I'm going to try some of this salted caramel.

COMPAGNO: This cheesecake flavor and it was delicious.

RIVERA: Oh yes.

WATTERS: That's so good.

COMPAGNO: I'm going to try the birthday cake.

WATTERS: That is.

GUTFELD: This is offensive.

WATTERS: I don't always tell the truth with the food court stuff or with the feeding frenzy, but I'm going to tell you which one --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Some of it is fake news. This is the real deal. So go to the CheesecakeFactoryathome.com to check out where your local Cheesecake Factory is to get some ice cream.

GUTFELD: They had the world's biggest menus. You know, they're like fashion models, you can't pick it up.

WATTERS: Greg, you don't go there, but --

GUTFELD: No, I go there when I'm on the road. I go there when I'm -- but this is -- this is lactose intolerant intolerance.

WATTERS: OK.

GUTFELD: Because people like me can't -- I'm moving along.

WATTERS: I'm playing a little bit more.

GUTFELD: I'm plugging my podcast. All right, if you go to Fox Newspodcast.com, is that what it is? Or just go to my -- I have a great interview with Jeff Rohrer. He was a former NFL linebacker, Dallas Cowboys. The only football player in history to marry a man. And he painted that picture of me. See that? So it's a pretty wild interview.

PERINO: He's good.

GUTFELD: Go to Fox news.com podcast slash Hello, Greg, whatever. I don't know what it is.

PERINO: It isn't easy.

GUTFELD: It's not easy. They don't make it easy. Fox, come up with something simple. Podcast.com, how about that?

WATTERS: Dana.

PERINO: All right, so two off duty Kentucky police officers thwarted a robbery while they're on their date night. So this is Detective Chase McKeown and Officer Nicole McKeown. They are of the Elizabethtown Police Department. They've been married for six months. They're there in Louisville. They see this guy come in with a mask and flashes gun at the cashier.

And look at those amazing public servants and they just chased him right out of there, which is amazing. They drew their guns as they had the right to. And thank goodness that they were there to do it. The McKeowns caught the suspect. They held him until local police arrived on the scene.

GUTFELD: Did they leave a tip?

COMPAGNO: Dream date.

PERINO: And they were -- they were having a local fried chicken.

WATTERS: Where was this?

PERINO: In Louisville.

GUTFELD: Oh, fried chicken.

WATTERS: Nice. She's going to love that. All right, Geraldo.

RIVERA: I am outraged by the outrage that greeted the President's pardons today, the presidential pardons. They are forgiveness. They are showing mercy.

WATTERS: What did you do, Geraldo?

RIVERA: Michael Milken, the junk bond guy, one of the great philanthropist, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. five Super Bowls. I mean they committed their crimes, they -- but the two --

GUTFELD: Those really affected me the most.

RIVERA: They are pardoned by the President yesterday. Bernard Kerik, the police commissioner of New York City during 9/11, a hero to his core, a wonderful person, a guy who has just really been a pillar of strength. He went to jail for four years for nothing, for giving an underpriced home renovation. It was awful. And the other one that I really supported was Blagojevich, the -- Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois.

WATTERS: There you go.

RIVERA: I ambushed him, but then I later became friends with him and he had some very nice things to say.

WATTERS: All right. Emily, take it home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD BLAGOJEVICH, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS: How do you probably thank someone who's giving you back the freedom that was stolen from you. He didn't have to do this. He's a Republican president. I was a Democratic governor. And doing this does nothing to help his --

WATTERS: Sorry, Emily. You're not the first or the last person to get big- footed by Geraldo.

COMPAGNO: Just really quickly. We're so glad that Ryan Newman, NASCAR racer is out of the hospital. Prayers were answered. Prayers continue for him in his recovery.

WATTERS: Yes, we are. All right. "SPECIAL REPORT" is up next with Bret.

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