Rep. Nadler announces formal impeachment proceedings are underway

close

Video

Rep. Nadler announces formal impeachment proceedings are underway

Reaction and analysis from Fox News contributor Guy Benson and radio host Richard Fowler.

This is a rush transcript from "The Story," August 9, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JON SCOTT, HOST: Thanks, John.

Mitch McConnell, declaring victory tonight as Twitter reverses its decision to lock his campaign's account because it posted this shocking video of protesters calling for McConnell's death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's in there nursing, his little broken arm. He should have broke his little raggedy wrinkled-ass neck.

Just stab the mother -- in the heart, please. No, -- that he'll get a pension. Die!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: Good evening to you. I'm Jon Scott, in for Martha MacCallum, and this is “The Story.”

The three-day saga over the threatening video which is once again viewable on McConnell's campaign account ended after the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and top conservative groups vowed to stop any spending on Twitter advertising if the social media giant didn't "address this disgusting bias". Here is President Trump today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have now in a little while. All of the heads of the biggest companies coming in, and we're going to talk to them. They treat conservatives, Republicans, totally different than they treat others. And they can't do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: That meeting with tech leaders the president spoke of was also focused on the rise of online extremism and what can be done to thwart future massacres like those in El Paso and Dayton. Michael Beckerman of the Internet Association was in that meeting. He will join us in moments to tackle both of these issues.

But first, Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning-Point USA.

The president says conservative voices are being stifled online, Charlie. You've said essentially the same thing.

CHARLIE KIRK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TURNING POINT USA: That's exactly what's happening. An independent study by Collette showed that out of 22 people that were politically active on Twitter, 21 of them had voice support of President Trump. And the one person that didn't got suspended temporarily from Twitter for posting a personal cellphone number.

And look, anyone who engages on social media can see both the very apparent bias like what we saw with Mitch McConnell's Twitter account. And I'm glad that there was a hard line drawn, and that Twitter essentially righted a wrong.

There's also the subtle bias, the people I don't have the ability to go to the big airwaves and draw attention to this. And you could see in both the language of some of these videos that have come out, of some of tech executives apologizing for the results, the 2016 election which we saw with Google.

And look, these tech companies have an enormous amount of power but they also have an enormous amount of responsibility. Because people look at them as neutral platforms, and they have to start acting like it.

SCOTT: Well, let's talk about the McConnell situation for just a moment. The Senate majority leader is home, recuperating, after breaking his shoulder. His house gets surrounded by protesters, and when his campaign account sends out some video on Twitter of what some of these people were saying, his campaign account gets suspended. How do -- how do they justify that?

KIRK: And they didn't justify it. Now, it's important to remember that the McConnell team, they appealed the decision, and then, Twitter doubled down. And then, finally, today, Twitter backed off because of such an enormous amount of backlash from the Trump campaign and the Republican Party.

But mind you, it wasn't Mitch McConnell's volunteers or staffers that were the one saying these vile things, they were simply cataloging and publicizing it. And it's important to note that for a specific period of time, almost 12 hours, Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader didn't have a Twitter account. But Hamas did and Antifa did.

Antifa, the very same organization that does this is -- these sort of a tactics that goes outside of people's private residences, says vile things and sometimes goes as far to assault journalists in the streets.

I don't understand how Twitter and these tech companies can continue to do these things, use very sort of loose explanations, and then, be OK with it. But I think there's a lesson here, that if you put that, if you attack the pocketbook, and you threaten that, some very -- some very real change can occur.

SCOTT: Right, because the RNC and the campaign, said, "We're not going to buy anymore Twitter advertise until you relent.

KIRK: That's right.

SCOTT: Do you think that's why Twitter back down here?

KIRK: I would have to -- well, I think it might be two-pronged. I think that plays a part in a piece of it. Because imagine, it's not just the Trump campaign and the Republican Party, but imagine, all Republicans did it.

Look, I mean, if they actually want the most amount of business, why would they want to disenfranchise 40 to 45 if at most 50 percent of the country, it's not good for business. But secondly, this is an indefensible position that they were taking.

That Senate majority leader's political team that was simply cataloging the hostility and the radicalism towards himself, he is the one that should get penalized for that? It's inexcusable, but this is a pattern of behavior, it's a pattern behavior from these tech companies and their excuses are flimsy at best and this is a major issue heading in 2020. I applaud the president for tackling it head-on.

SCOTT: Real quickly, you have said that conservatives tend to acknowledge this bias, pointed out, and then, kind of throw up their hands and say, that's the way of the Internet these days. What do you think they should do beyond that?

KIRK: Well, it's a difficult question, because as conservatives, we're inherently more appreciative of the free market. And we don't want to use regulatory power, we don't want to put more bureaucrats towards any sort of problem.

But this is a difficult conversation that's happening right now on the right. And you see it in robust -- in a robust conversation which is what is the proper role of government when you have three or four companies that control basically all the lines of communication online.

Are they monopolies? Should they be treated as monopolies? Should be platforms or publishers? And I think though, the lesson here is that we as conservatives should not just throw up our hands and say there's nothing we can do.

There is something we can do, I think the Republican Party and the Trump campaign did the right thing through trying to challenge the pocketbook. I think a conversation needs to happen about what is the correct role of government and potential litigation against these tech companies.

SCOTT: Turning Point founder, Charlie Kirk. Charlie, thank you.

KIRK: Thank you.

SCOTT: Earlier today, White House officials met with social media and technology leaders to address the rise of violent extremism online in the wake of last weekend's attacks in El Paso and Dayton.

Our next guest was at that meeting. Michael Beckerman is president and CEO of the Internet Association. Michael, how did it go?

MICHAEL BECKERMAN, PRESIDENT INTERNET ASSOCIATION: Thanks for having me. It was a really productive conversation. These are horrific tragedies that happen far too often in our country, in our society. They have to stop. We all have a role to play, and the meeting at the White House was a great conversation. Very productive about talking about all the positive things that our members are doing as good actors in society. On trying to take down hate speech and extremist content from the platforms to be part of the solution.

SCOTT: Well, but what about the kind of thing that we were just talking about with Charlie Kirk. When Mitch McConnell's campaign account puts out a video of the threats that are being directed against him and gets suspended? Can you explain that?

BECKERMAN: Absolutely. And this is -- this has greatly shows how difficult his calls are. The reason that, that video was taken down was they have terms of service they don't want, violent speech or threats against people.

The video was not just taken down from Senator McConnell's campaign. It was taken down across accounts because it was threatening harm against him. And again, it shows a difference. Clearly, there's a difference from the video coming from the Senators campaign showing the violence that was portrayed towards him, which is absolutely awful and has no place on or offline.

But it was also taken down from people that were spreading it because they wanted violence against the majority leader. And that's terrible. And so, again, like Twitter, Twitter did the right thing in the end. But it shows how difficult these calls are, they don't want violence on the platform, and they don't want that kind of hate speech, and that's why it was taken down. It wasn't based on political bias or anything else.

SCOTT: But Charlie Kirk and other conservatives argue that there is a double standard and that conservative voices are far more likely to be silenced than liberal voices.

BECKERMAN: Listen, I've spent my career in Republican politics and in conservative politics. And these companies, I assure you have no interest business or otherwise to disenfranchise half the country.

In fact, the social media platforms are one of the best ways price since talk radio, or since Fox News for conservatives to get their voices out. There are more conservatives on platforms that are able to without a filter, reach an audience, and there's countless examples of folks who had their start on social media, and then, later discovered by networks such as yours and are picked up in other places and later on invited to speak at things and have audiences of millions of millions of people because they got to start on social media. The platforms are not biased.

SCOTT: Back to the meeting at the White House this morning, are you inviting executive action or some kind of legislation to -- you know, force some of these companies, the Google's, the Facebook's, the Twitter's of the world to try to police themselves to prevent the advocacy of online violence?

BECKERMAN: Executive action or legislation is not needed. One of the most positive parts of the meeting was educating folks at the White House and in the administration about all the positive things the companies have been doing for many years both independently and within groups of companies to fight extremism and hate on the platforms. And it was very educational --

(CROSSTALK)

SCOTT: But extremism seems to be on the rise.

BECKERMAN: Extremism is on the rise in our society. This is issue that is not an online-only issue, and the companies are working hard both independently and with government agencies here in the U.S. and around the world.

There needs to be more cooperation between government and private companies. But not -- let's not pretend that extremism only exists on the Internet or online. This is a problem that we have in our society, we need to be more civil, treat each other with a little bit more respect.

But the companies absolutely are working hard every day on their own developing new tools with technology, A.I., human reviewers, and talking to government agencies all the time to make sure we can stop some of this extremism, and be good actors. But not -- but not every site is like that.

SCOTT: Michael Beckerman, from the Internet Association. Michael, thank you.

BECKERMAN: Thank you.

SCOTT: Next, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee drops a bombshell regarding impeachment and ignores the heating of many in his own party including Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, CNN: What should the country have learned from the Houses role in impeachment in 1970?

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER FIRST LADY: I think that it's such a serious undertaking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAFTALI: What should the country have learned from the Houses role in impeachment in 1974?

CLINTON: I think that it's such a serious undertaking. Do not pursue it for trivial partisan political purposes. Restrain yourself from grandstanding and holding news conferences and playing to your base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: That's Hillary Clinton last summer cautioning on impeachment in a Nixon library project interview. Not all House Democrats though are interested in listening to her advice when it comes to President Trump with the impeachment push now reaching a record new level.

In a major escalation of rhetoric, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat for the first time announced publicly just what is happening. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER, D-N.Y.: This is formal impeachment proceedings. We are investigating all the evidence. We're gathering the evidence and we will at the conclusion of this hopefully by the end of the year vote to -- vote articles of impeachment to the House floor or we won't. That's a decision that we'll have to make. But that -- but that's exactly the process were in right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: With us now, Guy Benson, the host of the Guy Benson show on Fox News Radio and Richard Fowler, a Senior Fellow at The New Leaders Council, both are Fox News Contributors. Richard, up till now Jerry Nadler has sort of privately exhorted Nancy Pelosi to move forward with impeachment. Apparently, he hasn't gone gotten anywhere with that. She's been pretty reticent to talk about impeachment or to say that it should happen. Is this his way of making that public push?

RICHARD FOWLER, CONTRIBUTOR: I'm not sure that's his way of making a public push or not because I think this decision will come down to what this speaker decides to do on what bill hits the floor. And like I said before and I'll say it again, this is not -- this is a game of two things.

One, it's a game of what happens in the court of public opinion, and number two it's a game of math. And whether or not the House decides to move forward with impeachment proceedings, you still need 67 senators in the United States Senate who will vote for an impeachment. And right now, those numbers just don't exist and I think speaker Pelosi understands that very well.

And while it is the job of the House to provide oversight, they should continue to investigate. There just don't seems to be the votes in the Senate to get an impeachment motion through which is why I think the Speaker is so reticent to do it.

SCOTT: Guy, should more House Democrats listen to that interview with Hillary Clinton from last summer? She said you don't take impeachment lightly and she knows from personal experience having obviously suffered through it in the 90s with her husband Bill Clinton, but also she served on the House Committee for impeachment -- House Judiciary Committee that impeached Richard Nixon.

GUY BENSON, CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. You know, I can understand, Jon, why some Democrats might be reticent or reluctant to take advice from a woman who felt like she didn't have to go to Wisconsin or Michigan in 2016. But in this case, I actually think that she's right. But were wait passed that advice.

All the advice that she gave there and the soundbite was sound and has been ignored by a lot of these Democrats, in particular, Jerry Nadler. I don't know what the heck he's talking about saying this is a formal inquiry. It's not.

And Richard was talking about math. let me remind people of some math. What was it, two weeks ago there was a vote on whether or not to pursue a formal impeachment inquiry and the vote was 320 to 95 against, more than a three-to-one margin.

So I think Nadler in this particular case, he understands what the math is in reality. He also sees polling. Emerson had a new poll out last week. The number one priority of Democrats still the base is impeachment so he's trying to placate some dum-dums by telling them this is happening when in fact it is not. Words have meaning and he's wrong.

SCOTT: Is that that all this is, Richard? Is this Jerry Nadler and some other Democrats trying to placate the hardliners in their party who really want to see the president impeached?

FOWLER: I'm not sure of that. I mean, I think what we saw in this -- in volume two of the Mueller report was a couple of different instances where this president obstructed justice. With that being said, once again, I think this is a debate for the court of public opinion, and right now what House Democrats lack is the court of public opinion.

The public is adamantly against impeachment probably because there is a likelihood that people today can beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election which is where I think we should beat him. If you have a problem with this president, register to vote. Go vote and vote him out in 2020.

SCOTT: Guy, he mentioned the Mueller report. The Judiciary Committee under Jerry Nadler is suing Don McGahn, the former White House Counsel saying they want him to come appear before their committee. He spoke for 30 hours to the Mueller investigator.

BENSON: Yes.

SCOTT: And you know, we all saw the report. What more do Democrats on that committee want?

BENSON: You know, I feel like we're in reruns here. Richard and I were on this show together just a few weeks ago talking about the exact same topic of impeachment and we keep bringing it up because the Democrats keep stepping on the rake and insisting that we all talk about it when it's not working for them.

They can talk about Don McGahn. They can fulminate about all this stuff that they want. We had two years of a thorough investigation, a lopsidedly democratic donor-heavy Mueller team, they came up with no evidence of collusion. They made no recommendation on obstruction.

And we've all seen the Mueller report. It's been out there now for months at this point. And the notion that Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff are going to come up with some new evidence on this front that Mueller couldn't find, OK guys, good luck.

SCOTT: Guy Benson and Richard Fowler, let's hope we're not talking about the same thing two weeks from now.

BENSON: We probably will be.

SCOTT: All right, thank you both.

FOWLER: We'll have to see what happens. We'll have to see what happens.

SCOTT: Enjoy your weekends.

FOWLER: Good to see you, Jon.

SCOTT: You bet. Next, what the Constitution says about whether stricter background checks and respect for the Second Amendment can co-exist. Andy McCarthy joins us on that next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's been no president that feels more strongly about the Second Amendment than I do. However, we need meaningful background check so that sick people don't get guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: Fox News alert. The FBI announcing just moments ago it has arrested and charged a Las Vegas man for possession of illegal guns and explosives that may have been used in a plot to bomb synagogues and gay clubs. According to a statement released by the Department of Justice, the 23-year-old "promoted white supremacist ideology and made threatening statements."

According to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, threats of violence motivated by hate and intended to intimidate or coerce our faith- based and LGBTQ communities have no place in this country.

We are not going to publicize the name of this young man but we can tell you that he was profiled by a different T.V. station back in 2016 when he launched a one-man armed citizen patrol of his neighborhood.

Meanwhile, President Trump sending the strongest signal yet that he could soon employ Congress to take action on background checks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think we can get something really good done. I think we can have some really meaningful background checks. We don't want people that are mentally ill, people that are sick, we don't want them having guns. Who does?

I think a lot of really meaningful things on background checks will take place including red flags, including a lot of other very, very important items. The Republicans are looking at it very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: As some question whether revamped restrictions would infringe on constitutional rights. Our next guest argues the Second Amendment and so- called red flag laws can be reconciled. Andy McCarthy is a former Federal Prosecutor and a Fox News Contributor. Good evening to you, Andy. You --

ANDY MCCARTHY, CONTRIBUTOR: Great to see you, Jon.

SCOTT: You've just written in that piece in the Hill -- I would point our viewers to it if they haven't seen it yet, that you can have meaningful background checks, you can have red flag laws and still preserve the Second Amendment.

MCCARTHY: Yes. I basically address red flag laws, Jon, more than anything else. On background checks, I think there are some significant constitutional issues, although I'm persuaded at a National Review, my brilliant colleague, Jon, you a professor of law at Berkeley has written a piece on background checks that flushes out what the constitutional issues are.

I think there's a close call in particular about whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to regulate gun sales within a state interest -- you know, completely intrastate gun sales but there's authority for the proposition that they can.

And my piece which address red flag laws simply points out that while I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the Second Amendment, all of our rights are -- all of our fundamental rights, none of them is absolute. And I would just point out that in terms of predictive judgments that we make, every time someone gets arrested in federal or state court, a judge has to set bail.

And even though the Eighth Amendment says that you can't -- you know, you basically have a presumptive right to bail, the court can't set excessive bail. We have pretty significant restrictions on our liberties. Judges can find someone's a risk of flight or a danger to the community and actually jail them for lengthy periods of time even though they haven't been convicted of anything.

SCOTT: In all of the discussions recently over these mass shootings, horrible mass shootings that have taken place, it's often forgotten that that one of the worst shooting events in recent memory was directed at members of Congress.

Steve Scalise who was hit by a bullet that day, talked to our Julie Banderas about background checks and their effectiveness. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIE BANDERAS, ANCHOR: Do you believe a background check would have potentially prevented other shootings including yours?

REP. STEVE SCALISE, R-LA: I don't see how the things that they've been proposing lately would have done anything to prevent these shootings that we're talking about. So again, let's focus on solving the problems not just trying to assess blame to other people who didn't pull the trigger.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: So he has his doubts at least about background checks. What about red flag laws? Would the guy who shot Steve Scalise, would he have been picked up?

MCCARTHY: It's hard to say, Jon. I mean, it's impossible for me to say. What I think the inquiry should be is, would these laws catch other potential shooters and are they reasonable restrictions.

To my mind, they don't have any kind of an intrusion at all on reasonable law-abiding gun owners.

I don't think it's a proper objection to it that the laws or the regulations could be abused, or the courts could make bad decisions. I mean, if that was the reason not to take action then we would never take action.

So, I think it would be nice to get rid of all of the politics, and I do agree with Congressman Scalise that, the issue here is what works. And we ought to try to get past all the hysteria and get down to the business of empirically what it is that would really actually help us reduce the shootings.

SCOTT: Very good advice from Andy McCarthy. Andy, thank you.

MCCARTHY: Thank you, Jon, have a great weekend.

SCOTT: You, too.

Up next NBC Universal pulls the plug on marketing a controversial movie about hunting deplorables for sport. But is it too little too late?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every year a bunch of elites kidnap normal folks like us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where they did get you from?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wyoming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mississippi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Orlando.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And hunt us for sport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Hollywood is really terrible. You talk about racist. Hollywood is racist. What they're doing with the kind of movies they're putting out, is actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: President Trump calling out Hollywood over a controversial new film set to be released by NBC Universal. It's called "The Hunt" and it centers around elites hunting and killing deplorables. The plot some are decrying as insensitive in the wake of recent mass shootings.

Chief correspondent Jonathan Hunt has the backstory.

JONATHAN HUNT, FOX NEWS CHIEF CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Jon. We should point out off the top here, that we have not seen the movie. We have not read the screen play. As far as we're aware neither has the president. And we have not seen any suggestion as he appeared to make that race is anything of a factor in this movie.

But there are political overtones in the trailer. And the Hollywood reporter claims the movie was originally called "Red State Versus Blue State." It also reports that early in the screenplay one of the characters says, quote, "nothing better than going after the manner and slaughtering a dozen deplorables."

That of course is the same word Hillary Clinton famously used to describe Donald Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential election campaign. We cannot independently confirm that line about deplorables is in the movie. What we have seen is one of the trailers released by Universal, in which two characters talk about the right of wealthy people to hunt other humans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We pay for everything. So, this country belongs to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hunting human beings for sport.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're not human beings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Now, Universal is having second thoughts about the movie's themes and possibly even its release. Telling Fox News in a statement, quote, "Out of sensitivity to the attention on the country's recent shooting tragedies, Universal Pictures and the filmmakers of The Hunt" have temporarily paused its marketing campaign and are reviewing materials as we move forward."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY MCCALL, MEDIA PROFESSOR, DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: They need to be thinking of more creative ways to try to sell messages. And when you have hyper political kinds of confrontations regarding violence thrown in, I just think it's a cultural lover, and I just think it's too bad that the Hollywood quote, unquote, "entertainment industry can't do better for our society."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Now, this is not the first time by any stretch that real life events have affected a movies reception or release. "Collateral Damage" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was pushed back after the 9/11 attacks. And in 2017, the remake of "Death Wish" was delayed months after the mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. For now, the projected release date for "The Hunt" remains the same, September 27th. Jon?

SCOTT: Jonathan Hunt, thank you. Joining us now, Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire, host of the Michael Knowles show. You know, Hollywood loves to slam the president for as they put it, "dividing the country." And yet they put out a movie like this?

MICHAEL KNOWLES, HOST, DAILY WIRE: Of course. I live in Hollywood and it truly is Gomorrah by the Sea. But I actually disagree with the criticism of this movie, in particular. I think it is admirable that Hollywood is finally admitting what we have all seen far too clearly this week, which is that liberal elites genuinely detest their fellow countrymen who are conservative.

You know there was a CNN contributor Wajahat Ali who said that a public call to murder Mitch McConnell gave him faith in the country. Former CNN contributor and current cannibal Reza Aslan publicly called for the murder of senior counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway this week.

I mean, this has been shown again and again, mainstream liberals, mainstream Democrats, all the way up to Joe Biden, who is openly condemning the president and consequently half of the country as white supremacists.

We are seeing that not just the fringes but the mainstream left in this country genuinely despises conservatives. The Hollywood didn't invent this. They didn't come up with the title deplorable, that was Hillary Clinton in 2016 who called half her countrymen deplorable and irredeemable.

Art is supposed to reflect life and from what we've seen of this movies it seems that it's actually doing a pretty good job of reflecting the political situation in this country.

SCOTT: So, is that why NBC Universal is so politically tone deaf that they're only willing to suspend the promotional campaign, but apparently still going to release the movie?

KNOWLES: Of course. I hope they do release the movie. I mean, NBC Universal is putting it on. They probably had an insider track into how liberal elites really view half of their countrymen because they own NBC News and MSNBC News.

I think this is a movie that conservatives should encourage to be released. It shows that disdain that we have long suspected is true of our liberal elites. It doesn't cut both ways for conservatives viewing liberals in this country.

You don't see movies in the other direction, these conservatives don't actually want to go down there. We don't have the sick fantasies about liberals in this country. But the mainstream left genuinely does. We've seen it for this whole past week. And I look forward to seeing the movie.

SCOTT: It's quite similar to, you know, the Hollywood actors, the Liam Neesons of the world who blast individual gun ownership, for instance, but then have guns featured in every single scene of the movies that they make.

KNOWLES: Of course. It's total hypocrisy. And you've seen the hypocrisy in the reaction not just to this movie but the reaction to those tragic shootings that occurred a week ago, which is we're told that we need tone down the rhetoric, we need to tone down the hatred, we need to have love for our fellow countrymen.

But just look at the vitriol that has poured out all week from people on Twitter all the way up to Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC, who said that President Trump wants more of these white supremacist mass shootings all the way up to presidential candidates.

That is the reality that's going on here. And there is so much tripe that comes out of Hollywood, so many ways in which Hollywood tries to portray leftists as good and noble and wonderful and perfect and virtuous, and conservatives as awful and deplorable.

And I think here you're actually seeing that script flipped, whether it's because of some bizarre fantasy that leftist Hollywood has, or because they're actually intuiting the culture. But either way, I totally welcome it.

SCOTT: It would be fascinating to see whether anybody at NBC Universal is watching your thoughts and what decision they make about whether to actually release this film or not.

Michael Knowles from the Daily Wire. Michael, thank you.

KNOWLES: Good to see you. Thanks.

SCOTT: Would an endorsement from pop star Taylor Swift have made all the difference in Hillary Clinton's campaign? Our ladies night panel is here to answer that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCOTT: People love her music, she has 84 million followers on Twitter, and now pop megastar Taylor Swift is finally coming clean about why she did not endorse Hillary Clinton publicly in 2016.

Telling Vogue magazine, quote, "Unfortunately, in the 2016 election you had a political opponent who was weaponizing the idea of the celebrity endorsement. He was going around saying, I'm a man of the people, I'm for you, I care about you, I just knew I wasn't going to help."

Here now for ladies night, Lisa Boothe, Carley Shimkus, and Jessica Tarlov. Thanks, ladies, for being here.

CARLEY SHIMKUS, REPORTER: Happy to be here.

SCOTT: All right. So, essentially Taylor Swift was saying, Lisa, that, hey, you know, Hillary already had the likes of Lady Gaga and, well --

(CROSSTALK)

JESSICA TARLOV, CONTRIBUTOR: Katie Perry.

SCOTT: Katie Perry. Yes.

TARLOV: And Beyonce.

SCOTT: What does she need me for, I'm just going to -- you know, my endorsement is just going to backfire. You buy that?

LISA BOOTHE, CONTRIBUTOR: Why does she need to endorse anyway? I think it's so dumb right now where people in Hollywood or musicians feel compelled or pressured to have to weigh in on politics. If you're in an unrelated field why do you have to weigh in, period. I think that's dumb and sort of the stupid premise that we've seen lately.

Also, she made a comment saying would it be an endorsement or would it be a liability, which to me screamed of arrogance, that somehow she believes that her endorsement would make a material impact on the election anyway, which we know it would not.

And the thing that the biggest beef with Taylor Swift is the fact that she tries to say that she is this feminist but she is constantly playing the victim.

TARLOV: OK. She was actually a victim of sexual assault. And I do think that when you have 84 million followers and one of the most successful recording artists in history, and Hillary Clinton lost by 77,000 votes, there is potential that she could have done something there. But I happen to completely agree with her logic. I'm glad --

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: Do you think she could have suede the election?

TARLOV: No. I'm saying that she could have made difference there. I mean, you're talking about very slim margins that she does have a huge influence. But she is right, President Trump did weaponize the celebrity endorsement. It ended up being a liability. All the conversations about the coastal elites.

And we're all sitting here in New York and L.A., you know, sipping our lattes loving Hillary Clinton and she ended up not winning the election. So, I agree with what she did.

SHIMKUS: I'm all for anyone speaking out on issues that matter to them.

(CROSSTALK)

TARLOV: Matter to them

SHIMKUS: We have First Amendment right. I think everybody should use it. What I don't like is when celebrities use their platform to bully and harass people that they disagree with. Alyssa Milano trying to shame Jon Voigt for being a Trump supporter. All these celebrities that came out and told people to cancel their Equinox subscriptions this week.

I don't think that it's good or positive when you try and shame people who have a different world view than you do. But if there is a Democrat, the Democratic celebrity that says listen, I support universal healthcare but I respect your opinion as well, I think that's fine. The funny thing is that that doesn't really happen anymore. It's always, you know, butt and heads in a bad way.

(CROSSTALK)

SCOTT: Talk about shaming, I mean, Kanye West went after, you know --

BOOTHE: Well, but being a Democrat in Hollywood or in the entertainment space is not brave at all. I mean, that's just commonplace. It doesn't take a lot of bravery to come forward and a say --

(CROSSTALK)

SHIMKUS: And Kanye West had a lot of --

BOOTHE: -- I support Democratic causes.

SHIMKUS: Yes. The thing that was interesting about Kanye West, as his point was freedom of thought, where he was literally saying I support President Trump, I think he's a great guy and people should be allowed to support whoever they are, whoever they agree with without the other side shaming them. So, I thought --

(CROSSTALK)

TARLOV: Yes.

BOOTHE: And you're ashamed.

TARLOV: Obviously --

SHIMKUS: Although the whole Kanye thing was weird, that was true.

BOOTHE: And you're ashamed for it.

TARLOV: And obviously, you have a right people on the other side like Chance the Rapper who has been a long-time friend of Kanye West, Jon Legend who explained to him why as really an African-American man you should not be supportive of President Trump and the Republican Party.

But I would like to say what Kid Rock said today about Taylor Swift was absolutely disgusting, and he was doing that on social media. And people should be a lot nicer.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: But can't Kanye West make that determination on his own as a black man of who he wants to vote for.

TARLOV: Yes.

BOOTHE: Or whose policies he believes in. Why is it up to John Legend to tell him what he believes should be.

TARLOV: Well, first of all, we are friends and I think that informing each other, like I talk to you offline about things that I think --

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: Yes. But you're not like you shouldn't believe what you believe. We respect the fact that we had --

(CROSSTALK)

TARLOV: I'm getting there.

BOOTHE: All right. All right.

SCOTT: All right. Let's talk about another entertainment event, that is the notion that Disney wants to remake the movie "Home Alone." Macaulay Culkin, remember this moment?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MACAULAY CULKIN, ACTOR: I can't seem to find my toothbrush, so I'll pick one up when I go out today. Other than that, I'm in good shape.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHIMKUS: What a cute little boy.

BOOTHE: Yes.

SCOTT: Yes, he was once upon a time. But, you know --

BOOTHE: Once upon a time.

SCOTT: -- is it time for a remake?

SHIMKUS: Well, the thing -- the thing with -- remaking "Home Alone" would be challenging because everybody has, every kid has a cell phone now. So, if mom and family leave for the airport, just call the kid's phone and say, we're coming back now. I'm sorry. It's very hard to leave your kid fully alone.

SCOTT: I'm sure -- I'm sure they'd work something on the script.

BOOTHE: Also looking back at "Home Alone," it's actually a story about child neglect. How does this kid keep getting let by his parents? His parents keep losing him? Like that's not a -- that's not a happy story.

TARLOV: It's a fun adventure tale.

BOOTHE: It's a tale of child neglect.

SHIMKUS: They were -- they were loaded, though. That house, massive.

TARLOV: Look at the Christmas decoration.

BOOTHE: Yes.

TARLOV: That he ended up pulling off. Whether it's like just putting in, and the New York one, I enjoyed that.

SHIMKUS: And I do really think that Hollywood is just cranking out reboots.

TARLOV: Yes.

SHIMKUS: So, the originality factor really isn't there. I think there should be a standing rule, if a movie was originally made in black and white subject for a remake. Anything else, in the '90s, not enough time.

SCOTT: One of the great films of my youth, "Parent Trap," Hayley Mills, impeccable, the most gorgeous thing ever, then they remake it with what's her name.

TARLOV: Lindsay Lohan.

SCOTT: Lindsay Lohan.

TARLOV: But she was actually good.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOTHE: She was, yes. Just leave her alone.

TARLOV: Both of them are good. I do prefer the original. And it made me really excited to go to camp. Not because I thought that I would find my twin there, but sorry, if that's a spoiler that's what happens in the movie. But I do think the remake was good.

SCOTT: Macaulay Culkin for his point, for his part, put out this tweet. "This is what an updated Home Alone would actually look like."

BOOTHE: Yes. This is when you said that he was once, I think you said he was once a really cute kid. That's why I laughed. Because this image was in my head.

(CROSSTALK)

SHIMKUS: He's in -- I think he's cleaned up --

TARLOV: Child stars tend to not age fantastically.

SHIMKUS: No. Yes.

SCOTT: Jessica --

BOOTHE: No judge.

SCOTT: -- Carley, and Lisa, our ladies night panel.

TARLOV: Thanks, Jon.

BOOTHE: Thank you.

SCOTT: Thank you.

SHIMKUS: Thank you.

SCOTT: Enjoy the weekend. Next, more than 20 Democrats will campaign at the Iowa state fair, how did a rural American recreation become a political requirement?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this what it's like to the state fair to be like.

TRUMP: This is beyond what I expected. This is amazing, this has been amazing day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: It's been a day of love. I mean, I love people. And we're going to make this country great again and we're going to do it fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCOTT: Here is a little history for you. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first candidate to visit the Iowa State Fair. That was back in 1954. These days, it's a mainstay on the presidential campaign route. With 22 Democratic candidates flocking to the fairgrounds over its 11 days. That's two candidates per day.

Correspondent Hillary Vaughn is live in Des Moines with the backstory. Hillary?

HILLARY VAUGHN, CORRESPONDENT: Jon, the road to the White House rolls right through the Iowa State Fair. Iowa is the first state to pick their president on caucus day so it's one of the very first stops on the campaign trail.

Candidates get 20 minutes to make their pitch, butter up Iowans on the soapbox, while being peppered with questions from caucus goers, but it's not all about the speech. It's also about what candidates eat. They have their pick of fried foods and meats on a stick.

Ronald Reagan was the first presidential candidate to flip a pork chop at the fair and it has been a tradition for candidates to try it every election year since.

There are some flips and some flops like Mitt Romney in 2007 when his pork chop landed right on the ground. Even President Trump try to pork chop and went down in history as the very first presidential candidate to arrive at the fair by helicopter.

Jon, there is a point to all this pork. Iowa produces more pork than any state in America. So, Iowans are proud of it and want candidates to know that their livelihood is right there sizzling on the grill in front of them. Jon?

SCOTT: I suppose, Hillary, that you could, if you're a candidate, you could bypass the fair and maybe it wouldn't hurt you with votes -- with votes but the Iowans would talk about you an awful lot, wouldn't they?

VAUGHN: Yes, and it may hurt you because Iowans are a little spoil and they're used to getting their 20 minutes on the soapbox with the candidates but they are also used to getting to follow them around the fair and eat fried foods like corn dogs with them, too.

SCOTT: Funnel cakes. Give me some funnel cakes any time. Have you had a chance to check out some of the booths yourself?

VAUGHN: I tried pork on a stick and listen, it met every expectation that Iowans said for their pork on the stick. You know, they sell 90,000 of those every year at the fair. So, they go through a lot of pork here.

SCOTT: Hillary Vaughn, Hillary, enjoy the weekend.

That is The Story of Friday, August 9, 2019. But as always, The Story goes on. I'll see you again tomorrow night at 6 p.m. Eastern for the Fox report.

Content and Programming Copyright 2019 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2019 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.