Secretary Nielsen talks immigration, relationship with Trump

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Secretary Nielsen talks immigration, relationship with Trump

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen joins 'The Ingraham Angle' to discuss her relationship with President Trump and the administration's plan to end catch-and-release on the border.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," May 15, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Good evening from Washington. I'm Laura Ingraham and this is the Ingraham Angle. Just ahead, my exclusive interview with DHS Secretary Nielsen who tells us her plans after a reportedly very contentious meeting with the president last week. Plus, Devin Nunes unloads on the Justice Department and implies that it may be hiding serious wrongdoing. Joe Digenova is with us tonight. And two former top intel chiefs flatly contradict John Brennan's testimony to Congress. Andy McCarthy has all the details. And Spike Lee rips the United States and Trump while in France as his new anti-American film gets a standing ovation. That and more tonight. But first, another DACA detour jeopardizes the GOP's new midterm momentum. That's the focus of tonight's "Angle."

Despite what you hear from the media and the left, the president and the Republican Party are winning on the issue of immigration. A majority of Americans support tighter border enforcement, are against, by the way, even increases in legal immigration, and support defunding sanctuary cities. Check this out, even in California, a new U.C. Berkeley poll finds that 59 percent of Californians say it is very, or somewhat important to increase deportations of illegals. Music to my ears. A full 49 percent support temporarily banning people from majority Muslim countries from entering the United States. That goes even further than President Trump's travel ban from just six majority Muslim countries. Did I mention that's California? Determined to fulfill his campaign promises and focus on Americans first, the president urged Congress on Capitol Hill today as they have since taken office to tighten restrictions on illegal immigration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are calling on Congress to secure our borders, support our border agents, stop sanctuary cities, and shut down policies that release violent criminals back into our communities. We don't want it any longer. We've had it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The American people have had it. It's about time we end the old, twisted approach of catch and release at the border. For all you common sense voters out there, this get tough approach makes perfect sense. The grassroots, I think the majority of the Republican Party is more unified than ever behind this agenda of the president. So, leave it to a small, liberal band of Republicans to try to splinter the party just before the midterm election. Beautiful. By the way, over DACA, of all things. It turns out that at least 18 Republicans, you see the gallery there, has signed something called a discharge petition. It would essentially give the Democrats and a few liberal Republicans run of the House floor and the ability to bring several immigration bills to a vote, including a bill granting amnesty to the DACA kids.

Normally a discharge petition is launched by the opposition party. It requires 218 signatures to engage. So, in this case, 25 Republicans and all the Democrats would need to be in favor to support it. So, CNN is reporting tonight, by the way, that they already have the numbers for the petition, but the lawmakers could provide no evidence to that fact. The peculiar thing here is that the discharge petition again was launched by Republicans as a challenge to GOP leadership and of course, to the president. Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo, notorious open borders Republicans, the prime movers. But the petition has been signed by others as well, including, unbelievably, Utah's Mia Love, Will Hurd of Texas, Mario Diaz Barart and Ileana Ross-Lehtinen of Florida, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania whose votes don't count even though he's already resigned. Fred Upton of Michigan, David Reichert of Washington, Colorado's Mike Coffman, Chris Collins, Elise Stefanik of New York and Mark Amodei of Nevada. New York's John Katko is also considering signing. These representatives should be ashamed of themselves at this point. I mean, come on. By defying their leadership and the White House, what do they do? They demoralize the base of the GOP and they weaken unity before the midterm election. So, rather than keeping a focus on the economy that is booming, these Republicans have decided it's in their political interest to turn the spotlight to immigration and the DACA kids. Who cares if it means handing over power to the opposition to do it? On Thursday, Speaker Ryan reacted to this discharge petition uprising during a press conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOUSE SPEAKER REP. PAUL RYAN, R—WI: We never want to turn the floor over to the minority and what I don't want to do is have a process that just ends up with a veto. We actually want to solve the DACA problem. Going down a path and having some kind of spectacle on the floor that results in a veto doesn't solve a problem. That is why I think it's important for us to come up with a solution that the president can support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The president already offered something in the Democrats said no to it last February. Come on. Wasting time. It's not up to a minority of Republicans whose views, by the way, did not prevail in the 2016 election cycle to now at this point try to reset the national debate on DACA. It's absurd. If they want to do something to actually help America, what they should do is urge some more moderate Democrats to help reform, let's say, the asylum process that is being abused today by illegals. Do you know that asylum applications have increased by 1700 percent over an eight-year period alone? I wonder why that's happening. At a moment, when the "Real Clear Politics" average now has the generic ballot tightening from a previous 13-point advantage for Democrats to basically within the margin of error, basically a dead heat now. This is not the moment to distract voters from their number one priority, the economy. To allow this discharge DACA petition to proceed could be a midterm turnout killer, and it will splinter the party. Focus on the things that are working and the things that will win you the majority in November. Keep the majority of jobs, wages, safety, and yes, pocketbook issues.

So, if you are upset like I am about what these liberal Republicans are trying to push, call your congressman, call your congresswoman, tell them how you feel about this. This parliamentary stunt will not go down well with the GOP base, I can tell you that right now. My radio lines were ringing off the hook today. You would think, by the way, that Republicans -- just back up for a moment, would learn their lesson at this point after that disastrous 2007 Bush- McCain amnesty. That went down in flames. A lot of us and talk radio were up in arms about that and lead the revolt against that. And after the disastrous 2013 Schumer-Rubio gang of eight fiasco, that amnesty behemoth was so bad even Rubio himself disowns it now. At least he learned his lesson. Republicans as the party in power have a real chance to break the midterm election curse, not lose many seats, maybe not lose any, maybe even pick up a few seats, but only if the amnesty fanatics are defeated once again. And that's the "Angle." Joining me now for reaction is Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and has cosponsoring his own immigration bill. Congressman, here we are again. Gang of Eight, disaster. Bush-Schumer went down in flames, 1200 pages. The McCain-Bush disaster back in 2006-2007, another killer for Republicans. Your view here?

REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R—VIRGINIA: Well, Laura, we have control of the House, we have control of the Senate, we have the White House, why would we turn that control back over to the Democrats and have another fiasco like the ones that you just described? It's important to address this issue, but this issue is how are we going to secure our borders, close the loopholes like the asylum loophole that you just described, and there are many others, and make sure that people have confidence that their government will keep them safe in their communities and along the border of this country. That's what the legislation that I along with Mike McCall, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Raul Labrador, chairman of the immigration subcommittee, Martha McSally, chairman of the Border subcommittee, came up with, and it does address the DACA situation in a fair way, but only in exchange for making sure that we don't let this problem continue in the future.

INGRAHAM: So, in this discharge petition madness -- people hear this like their eyes are glazing over I'm sure, but it's really important because weird stuff can happen with a discharge petition, as you know. Wouldn't end catch and release, it looks like they wouldn't end catch and release, the chain migration. All these things that are multiplier effects on illegal immigration and immigration amnesty in this country, massive increases in legal immigration, none of it would be affected.

GOODLATTE: The risk is you will get an unbalanced bill where you work address DACA and none of these other things and 180, 190 Democrats were joined with 30 or 40 Republicans and pass something that the overwhelming majority of house Republicans and the overwhelming majority of House Republicans, the American people and certainly the Republican base would not be satisfied with because it wouldn't address the problem.

INGRAHAM: But Congressman, Congressman Curbelo said a discharge petition is precisely the way to get this done. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CARLOS CURBELO (R), FLORIDA: No one here is interested in a spectacle. We are interested in having a debate. We are actually interested in answering the president's call to action in September of last year when he challenged Congress to come up with a bipartisan solution to this immigration question. This discharge petition process is probably the most constructive ever because we are not bringing forward one bill. We are offering the opportunity for four bills to come to the floor, including one that's backed by immigration hardliners and another that would be drafted and filed by the speaker of the House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOODLATTE: The answer is he should work with the Republican leadership and with the committee, the Judiciary Committee, to produce one bill that Republicans can get behind and the president can sign into law.

INGRAHAM: Chairman Goodlatte, thank you so much. I just spoke moments ago, by the way, exclusively with Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen about her relationship with the president and pressing immigration issues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

INGRAHAM: Great to have you, Madam Secretary. Thank you for coming to the set tonight. So, you had a big, fiery hearing On Capitol Hill today. It's always fun. So, this is a big day for you. Kamala Harris decided to hit you on the issue of separating children from their parents, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your agency will be separating children from their parents.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: What we will be doing is prosecuting parents who have broken the law just as we do every day in the United States of America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can appreciate that, but if that parent has a 4- year-old child, what do you plan on doing with that child?

NIELSEN: The child under law goes to HHS for care and custody.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They will be separated from their parents.

NIELSEN: It's what we do in the United States every day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

INGRAHAM: If the immigration sob story as we call it on the radio, which is not to be diminished. These are heartbreaking situations. How do you as DHS secretary come back with the emotional push on this? How can you do this? And you kept saying basically this is the law. How do you deal with that?

NIELSEN: It is the law, as you know, and I had an exchange last week with a different senator that tried to cut me off saying this is your philosophy and I said it's not a philosophy, if the law. If you enter our country illegally we will refer you for prosecution and prosecute you. At the end of every sob story, 73 percent border assault increase with people like Kate Steinle, I mean, where is the compassion for the flip side of this conversation?

INGRAHAM: The American people don't get the same treatment from Kamala Harris and others who we will be quoting tonight in the show because it's always a one-way street and I think those who are charged with actually enforcing the law are always meant to be the bad guys and yet the American citizens elected Donald Trump because they wanted that situation were reversed.

It's America first. You've actually done a lot and a lot of this doesn't get discussed. H1b visa abuse, that's bringing in foreign worker abuse.
You are working with DOJ. You are working on other ways to protect the American worker.

One of the things that is really frustrating is this asylum fraud. We've been documenting it on the show. We have American lawyers flying down to Mexico coaching clients. They say it's advising clients. What can you do on an executive level if Congress doesn't get off its backside and get this done?

NIELSEN: It's really frustrating, I got to be honest. I really share the president's frustration on this and that of the American people. The way the system works right now the threshold is so low, about 80 percent past that initial interview but only 20 percent are granted asylum by a judge, which tells us that 80 percent of that is either just a flat-out fraud or somebody who thinks they can come here because they want a job here.

Let's not asylum. I want to reunify with my family, that's not asylum. I just want to come to the United States. Not asylum. We have legal ways to do that, but it's not through asylum.

INGRAHAM: But we hear that there might be another caravan making its way up from -- I don't know where we got the new caravan, a biblical, people are coming up again because they feel like as long as they get to the border they can get into the country and they will ultimately be released, correct, or are they not being released?

NIELSEN: We are metering, which means that if we don't have the resources to let them in on a particular day, they are going to have to come back.
They will have to wait their turn and we will process them as we can, but that's the way that the law works. Once they come into the United States, we process them. We have asked Congress to fix this loophole. It's a huge gaping loophole that we need to fix because it is so abused.

INGRAHAM: One of the other thing is that I think is very frustrating to the American people is the fact that we have these repeat border crossers, people who have jumped the border multiple times, have been deported, come back into the country and yet they still get the oh, my gosh, what are you going to do about the poor immigrants, our communities are being shattered because of this enforcement.

You have actually overseen a huge increase in border enforcement and workplace enforcement, raids and so forth, which I think are being welcomed by the American people, but again, the media and the Democrats are hitting you for shattering communities.

NIELSEN: Let's go back to Kate Steinle. I mean, how sad is it that the Congress of the United States can't pass a law to simply increase penalties for criminals who have been deported to come back? The House passed it, we can get the Senate to pass it. Also, we communities, we just broke through that house last week.

The gentleman had deported four times and had final orders of removal five times and we are still dealing with him because we can't completely -- the system doesn't work. You deport him, and he comes back, which is why as you know we need a wall.

INGRAHAM: What's happening with the National Guard at the border? That was a big controversy here in Washington. I traveled the country a lot.
It seemed again like the people are saying it's about time. I hear that on the radio all the time. People calling it, why don't we get the National Guard, why don't we get extra help? You have news on more troops now going to the border, tell us about that.

NIELSEN: Very appreciative of the support of Secretary Mattis and the Department of Defense. We have about 1,600 now. With our second request we will have about 2,200. Originally, we were focused on border patrol support, but now we've extended it, so we will support the folks at the ports of entry and are intel and analysis. It's a huge force multiplier.

INGRAHAM: California, Jerry Brown saying we are not going to be assisting in immigration enforcement. What are the California National Guard troops actually doing?

NIELSEN: They are supporting CBP. They are just doing it behind the scenes. There are specific things that we worked out. They are supporting. We want each governor to do more. I talk to each governor, talk to them about once a month to give them the new border figures, what we are doing. We will continue to try to get California to do more.

INGRAHAM: We just talked to Bob Goodlatte on the show and he's very concerned about these immigration centrists. I called them liberal Republicans, who are pushing this new DACA amnesty right now and trying to push this discharge position, it ran through the House of Representatives at least. What do you want Congress to do and this president to get this immigration enforcement done the right way in order to satisfy his promises to the American people?

NIELSEN: I think the president has been very clear on this. It's very easy. We need a wall. We need to close the loopholes and then we need personnel and resources that we need. So, apprehension without detention removal is not border security. We've got to have the beds. We got to be able to apprehend, detain, and then remove. That's judges, lawyers, detention beds. It's a very easy formula to have border security. Border security is part and parcel to the sovereignty of a nation.

INGRAHAM: How many people, about crossed the border last month in the United States? Family units.

NIELSEN: So, take the original caravan location. We had about 100,000 people that crossed that port of entry each day. Most of that is legal traffic but again we are talking about millions, hundreds of millions of people that cross. About 1.1 each day between the two borders. It's a lot of traffic but buried in there, of course, are those who are seeking to abuse the system. It's a broken system. We've got to work with Congress.
Congress has got to close these nobles.

INGRAHAM: We have 203 percent increase in illegal border crossings from March 2017 to March 2018 I think by family units overall. It's a huge increase. Why? What's going on?

NIELSEN: Well, I think they know a couple things. If some of the loopholes are they know if they cross between the ports of entry nothing will happen. If they bring kids, they will be released. The kids will be released in 20 days under a court case, right?

If they are criminal, they will serve a little bit of time and under a different court case they have to relist them in six months back to the communities, the criminals. If there other than Mexican, we can put them in expedited removal if they are children involved. They know better than Congress. They know better than most of us, so they know the loopholes, they are exploiting them.

INGRAHAM: Are you on the president good now? There was some concern last week. He's very impatient for change, I've noticed that, Madam Secretary.

NIELSEN: He's frustrated, and rightly so. Can you imagine, here is the president of the United States saying I want to secure this country.
Americans must come first, and Congress is saying we don't have time, we are busy. We got to go on recess.

INGRAHAM: You were here for the long haul?

NIELSEN: I am, yes, ma'am.

INGRAHAM: It's great to see you. Thank you so much for coming in.

NIELSEN: My pleasure.

INGRAHAM: We really appreciate it.

NIELSEN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

INGRAHAM: The House Intel chairman gives perhaps the strongest hint yet that something is rotten at the Justice Department. Joe Digenova up next on what Congress has now discovered.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes strongly criticized the Justice Department over the Russia probe on "Fox and Friends" this morning. He said the DOJ should have never opened a counter intel investigation into a political party and questioned its rationale for doing so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE DEVIN NUNES (R-CA), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: I think if the campaign was somehow set up, I think that would be a problem, right? If there were somehow meetings that occurred, and all of this was a setup, because we have yet to see any credible evidence or intelligence that led to the opening of this investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: By the way, the only thing the media ever does is trash, Joe Digenova knows this, trash anyone who questions what the Justice Department has done, including of course, Devin Nunes.

Let's discuss all these developments with former U.S. attorney, as I said, Joe Digenova, and former federal prosecutor, Sidney Powell. Joe, let's start with you. We first learned yesterday that the FBI had approached Oleg Deripaska in September of 2016 and floated this collusion theory to him involving Manafort, Manafort is colluding with the Russians.

He just left, basically left them out of the room and said I don't even like Paul Manafort, that's ridiculous. As far as we know, not revealed in any way to the FISA court. If it was, they should come clean on that, and now new concerns about this source that they were trying to keep quiet.
Where the state of things now?

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: The state of play now is that it is abundantly clear that there was no legitimate basis even for a counterintelligence investigation, let alone in criminal investigation.

It is quite obvious that John Brennan was at the head of a group of people who were going to create a counterintelligence investigation against Trump by creating false information which was going to be fed through Carter Page and fed through George Papadopoulos so that it would be picked up, reported back to Washington and provide the basis for a counter -- a fake counterintelligence investigation.

And it was all Brennan's doing. And that is why the Justice Department is viciously fighting, revealing everything they can about the source in London who everybody knows the identity of.

INGRAHAM: Blame the source in London.

DIGENOVA: The source in London was another person who was feeding false information to George Papadopoulos and others about collusion, which did not exist. And everybody knows who he is and it's just a matter of time before his name comes up.

INGRAHAM: Sidney?

SIDNEY POWELL, AUTHOR OF "LICENSED TO LIE": They are manufacturing at all.
I think they started with the abuses of the FISA intelligence. The FBI gave unfettered access to raw FISA intel at least as far back as 2015 to at least two private contractors. I would guess Fusion GPS is one of them.

And I think they used that raw FISA intel to put together their fake narrative and essentially recycled it through Christopher Steele and other people with probably input from others in the intel community, people at the State Department like Sidney Blumenthal and of course, Peter Strzok and his role in it. It's going to be something when we get the IG report.

INGRAHAM: Sidney, you wrote a piece positing that perhaps Mueller granted Comey immunity? Can you tell us a little bit about that theory on why that might be the case?

POWELL: Mr. Comey is parading around the country very cavalierly and seemingly without a care in the world. He is contradicting his own statements to Congress and his public statements out on his book tour. And Mr. Comey is number one, known for protecting James Comey.

So, I think it's entirely possible and we certainly should be asking the question of whether Mueller has given them absolute immunity. I think that's a distinct possibility and as I've said at the end of the article in "The Daily Caller," inquiring minds want to know.

INGRAHAM: We never really learned, did we, how many people got immunity in the Hillary email investigation? Do we even learn who got what immunity or when?

DIGENOVA: We know that the number --

INGRAHAM: Sheryl Mills.

DIGENOVA: Yes, we know that a great number of people got immunity who never should have gotten immunity, but I want to get on something that Sidney said that is really important. People don't realize that there are two court opinions from the FISA court in which the court outlines how illegally FISA intelligence information was given to private contractors that the FBI was using. All of that was designed for the unmasking and then the leaking of the names and that was all done by private contractors.
The FISA court objected to it and it never stopped.

POWELL: And it was done deliberately at the FBI. It was done deliberately. If you look at the FISA decision, FBI lawyers signed off on it.

INGRAHAM: I want to play for you guys the former acting attorney general.
Remember, she's the one who marched those agents over to Mike Flynn for that impromptu interview in January of 2017 and now she's speaking out again. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SALLY YATES, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is a time-honored tradition at the Department of Justice, at least since Watergate that is not partisan. That there is a wall between the White House and the Department of Justice when it comes to criminal investigations for prosecution.

And there have been moments where there's been a slip here or there, but everybody has recognized that that is aberrational, that the rule, the norm is that the White House doesn't have anything to do with criminal investigations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIGENOVA: Sally Yates is full of it. Not only that -- let's remember how this whole thing got started. She claimed that a Flynn the Logan Act by doing everything that was perfectly legal. Where is she on John Kerry on foreign soil?

INGRAHAM: Have we heard from her on that?

DIGENOVA: Where is Sally Yates on John Kerry and the Logan Act? Sally Yates is an embarrassment to the Department of Justice. She is a hotdog lawyer who never should have been acting attorney general.

INGRAHAM: Sidney, do you want tee off on Sally Yates, one of our favorite people? Go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNEY POWELL, AMERICA FIRST SENIOR POLICY ADVISER: One of our favorite people, yes, that helped frame General Flynn, barred the inspector general from any access to the national security division of the Department of Justice when the machinations were happening and Bruce Ohr was running a back channel between the FBI and Christopher Steele after Christopher Steele was fired from the FBI for lying to them. Of course none of that was revealed to the FISA court in any of the approvals, and she signed at least one of them.

INGRAHAM: Sidney, when I'm listening to Sidney, don't you just want her to say, oh, bless her heart.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Oh, bless your heart, Sally. I love you, but boy did you screw this up. But she's a partisan --

POWELL: Partisan animus towards this president.

DIGENOVA: Sally Yates is a partisan hack who had animus towards Donald Trump, and she let it infect the professional work of the Department of Justice, and I believe that some of the things she did were criminal.

INGRAHAM: Thanks to you both.

POWELL: That's why she was brought in.

INGRAHAM: So that's Sidney's theory.

DIGENOVA: She's the consiglieri. She was brought in specifically to do that stuff. Absolutely, Sidney is absolutely --

POWELL: Exactly. Laura, you've got to check out my new website Creepsonamission.com.

INGRAHAM: Catchy title, Sidney, thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Former CIA director, by the way, John Brennan, as Joe D. alluded to, has some explaining to do. Even Obama intel chiefs are now contradicting him. Andy McCarthy next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Two former top intel officials are contradicting a key claim made by former CIA director John Brennan in the Russia investigation.
Remember Brennan testified before Congress last year that the salacious Russian dossier was not used in that official intel community assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But the dossier was used in the assessment, at least according to a report of a classified letter sent by former NSA director Mike Rogers to Congress.
Former director of national intel Jim Clapper also told CNN that the dossier was used in the assessment.

Let's discuss this and other developments with former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy whose peace in "National Review" today is titled "Retracting the Retraction, Fusion Simpson stands by testimony that FBI had a spy in Trump's campaign." Andy, great to see you. Where are we now on this?
Brennan seems to be completely disgraced. He has been contradicted even by former Obama intel chiefs. What gives?

ANDY MCCARTHY, "NATIONAL REVIEW CONTRIBUTING EDITOR": There are misstatements that you make which are innocent misstatements, and then there is stuff that you say which is not only wrong but like so galactically stupidly wrong it's hard to explain.

So let's think about it. The intelligent assessment is January 4th of 2017. By the time they get it, by the time they do it in October of 2016, so months before, they have used a dossier to go to the FISA court to get warrants. So why on earth if you are going to go to the FISA court and go through all the hoops that you have to do to get an approval of the FISA warrant, go to a federal judge, swear out an application, relying on it, and then for the predictive purposes of an intelligence assessment you are not going to use it? Who would believe that?

INGRAHAM: Is Brennan lying?

MCCARTHY: Well, he certainly not telling the truth. He's certainly not being accurate. What's going on in his brain, I don't know. But this just seems to me -- Laura, it's like the equivalent of saying, I did the assault, but I'm going to fight you over the jaywalking. It just seems to me that it's obvious that they used the dossier for the intelligence.

The intelligence assessment was a joke to begin with, and I'm not saying that just because of what subsequently was in it. We know how government works. Usually if you were going to order up a report like this, it would take a year to do something like this. But Obama ordered it. He wanted it done before he was out of office. It was not a full intelligence community product, and they did it because they were furthering a narrative that the election was -- that Russia stole the election, it was hacking and it was done for Trump. And I'm convinced that it was done for political purposes.

INGRAHAM: I know this is like an obsession of mine, but I always go back to Susan Rice's email to herself that she wrote afternoon on January 20th of 2017. So the inauguration has already happened, Trump is already sworn in, and she types out an email to herself reiterating, or stating that Obama always wanted to do things, I think she said by the book.

MCCARTHY: Because if you've been doing things by the book for eight years who obviously have to remind each other to do it by the book because otherwise someone might forget.

INGRAHAM: So they said he had been doing this all of this by the book.
Who writes an email like that? And why?

MCCARTHY: Yes. And the other interesting thing about that is what she also says in there is that what Obama said is that we have to think about if there is information that we can't share with the incoming folks, meaning the Trump people. So if you combine this with everything that went on, it's pretty clear I think that what they did was they made a scheme that allowed them to perpetuate the investigation without cluing Trump in on exactly what the investigation was about, and that's why they told him he wasn't a suspect.

INGRAHAM: Your piece about how perhaps human intelligence used, spying on the Trump campaign, Kim Strassel's piece last week, you've been doing some thinking and writing on this.

MCCARTHY: I think Simpson said that Steele told him the bureau told him they had a source inside the campaign. It looked like he tried to weasel away from that, or somebody speaking on his behalf did, but it turns out that his lawyer when confronted by Grassley sent a letter in saying he stands by his testimony, so the uncorrected record now is that he was told they had a source inside the campaign.

INGRAHAM: What would that mean legally?

MCCARTHY: I don't know. I don't want to get all over them. There some things I think they deserve to be leaked all over on. If you are going to hit them for giving an uncorroborated dossier to the FISA court, I'm not sure it's fair to also say that they shouldn't be allowed to do the things you are supposed to do to verify and corroborate things, which is to use informants and that sort of thing. So I think we need to know what they did.

INGRAHAM: It's inside a campaign, though. Somehow -- it's like that visit to Oleg Deripaska in September of 2016. They go to a Russian oligarch who they had worked with before on getting Bob Levinson out of Iran. They go to him and throw out this theory about we think there might be Russian collusion involving Paul Manafort. He's like, I'm suing Paul Manafort. I don't like him. That's absurd.

MCCARTHY: I think that's a threshold of evidence that you have to get to justify opening this investigation, and they don't make it. And what they've been trying to backtrack all along is that the origin of this investigation -- if you are going to do something as serious as do surveillance on a political campaign, you better have a very, very good reason.

INGRAHAM: They've got to have more than this poor bumbling Carter Page, God bless them, or this Papadopoulos minor figure in London who it looks like they are trying to set up by having the contact go and meet with him and plant stories with him as Joe D. just said. That's it? Papadopoulos and this Carter Page they struck out with Deripaska who said you are basically insane.

MCCARTHY: The reason they called this collusion from the beginning, the reason this was the narrative, prosecutors don't care about collusion.
They care about conspiracy. You have to have an agreement to violate the law. They never had evidence that there was an agreement to violate the law.

INGRAHAM: If I thought there was any conspiracy on the evidence I've seen now and what I've seen now, it's a conspiracy to either prevent someone from becoming president or undermine him as an insurance policy should he have become president. That's the only conspiracy that I could possibly see. That's a complete supposition, but this gets weirder by the day.
John le Carre novel, I wouldn't believe it.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: That would never happen. Andy, great to see you in studio.
It's always on remote.

And by the way in his new film on the KKK, director Spike Lee has David Duke say --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America first.

CROWD: America first. America first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's just to make sure you know the film is really about Trump. That's very subtle, even though it's set in the 1970s. Up next we're going to look at Lee's new film and his shocking and obscene tirade against Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Filmmaker Spike Lee is using the KKK to bash President Trump in his new flick that just premiered at the Cannes film festival in France.
The audience repeatedly broke into huge applause and gave black Klansmen a standing O. The film is about an African-American who infiltrates the Klan back in the 1970s, but Lee said it was his job to connect the story to the present day. So he blasted the president at a press conference for his response to last year's Charlottesville protest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPIKE LEE, FILM DIRECTOR: -- was given the chance to say we are about love and not hate, and that -- did not denounce the -- Klan, the alt-right and those Nazi --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And that might not be the most controversial thing the filmmaker said. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: The United States of America was built upon the genocide of native people and slavery. That is the fabric of the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: It was built upon freedom. Freedom with flaws that preceded it.

Let's discuss this with FOX News contributor Kevin Jackson along with civil rights attorney Leo Terrell. Leo, let's start with you. Strong words from Spike Lee. I've had the chance to meet him once. He's a very pleasant guy. He actually married my law school classmate, believe it or not. They are a lovely couple. But the word MF word about Trump, of course you are going get huge applause for that in the elite circles of Cannes. What does that really accomplish?

LEO TERRELL, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: What's wrong with it? I don't find anything wrong with it.

INGRAHAM: What's wrong with it? What if someone on FOX said it about the president of the United States, President Obama?

TERRELL: Excuse me, Laura. FOX fair and balanced, play the tape. Trump is the king of profanity. He uses profanity all the time. He's a New Yorker. He loves to engage. So let's be very clear. Donald Trump is not a choir boy. He uses profanity all the time. He's a New Yorker, he loves it, and the Republicans look the other way.

INGRAHAM: Leo, forget profanity. First of all, Leo, I don't think you think using profanity against any president is the way to move hearts and minds. I don't think you believe that. But let me tell you about the thing that I think was most outrageous. When he said America was built on slavery and basically the subjugation of the native people. I think America was built on this crazy idea of liberty and freedom. We are all flawed. We've had flaws in our history, but America is built on this amazing idea of freedom. Do you agree with that?

TERRELL: Let me just simply say this, Laura, since I love history and government. When this constitution was created, me, because I was black, I was considered three-fifths of a human being. He's absolutely right about the historical shame of blacks being considered property when this country was created on the so-called allegation of liberty. Blacks were not free when this country was created, that's a fact.

KEVIN JACKSON: Yet another ignorant comment. Yet another ignorant comment.

TERRELL: Don't call me ignorant, that is a fact. Don't call me ignorant.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Will you just shut up?

TERRELL: Be professional. You don't tell me. Laura, clean him up. Clean him up. He's being rude.

INGRAHAM: Let's just do it one at a time, guys. We don't have to call names. Let's leave the name-calling to Spike Lee.

TERRELL: Thank you.

JACKSON: First of all, the three-fifths compromise was essentially what this particular gentleman doesn't understand is that it was to give human hood to black people. Spike Lee learned that and it was an embarrassment to him.

All this nonsense about America -- where do you want to live? There's a lot of people in America who would like to tell you if you don't like it here, go somewhere else, because I will tell you something, many of the Africans you people like to call African-Americans, you yourselves, there are many Africans that would love to come to this country and trade places with you, and they would do it in a New York minute. Spike Lee, like you, is an ethnocentric racist. You want to paint Donald Trump as a racist, and it doesn't matter what he does you are going to say he's racist because you have been trained to be that. You've been trained to say that.

TERRELL: Laura. Laura, did you hear what he said?

JACKSON: You don't look at anything Donald Trump does. You don't look at anything that America offers.

TERRELL: Did you hear what he said at the beginning, Laura? Did you hear what he about blacks being given three-fifths status?

JACKSON: You don't look at anything that America offers to blacks who are very successful in this country and you just dismiss it. Tell me where you want to live.

INGRAHAM: OK, Leo, go ahead.

TERRELL: Laura, when are you going to cut him off? Thank you, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Guys, hold on, both of you. Hold on, I want to stop for a second. Both of you were having -- we're trying to have an honest conversation. Kevin can get hot on stuff, but Leo you can too. I can too.
We all can have a real conversation, maybe make a little progress, because I think Spike Lee that says love on one side, hand, and hate on the other.
I think love is not calling someone an MF. Love is saying, OK, President Trump, maybe I don't agree with you on Charlottesville, maybe I think you handled that bad. Where can I work with you?

I think Spike Lee actually could agree --

TERRELL: But let me ask you --

INGRAHAM: Leo, let me just finish. Let me finish. Spike Lee and the president could actually work in a positive way to get it. I bet they could do things together in Chicago, in Oakland, in Miami and Boston. I bet they could actually work together. Instead they are separated by misconceptions and mistakes probably on both sides. Leo, let Leo speak.

TERRELL: My turn, Laura, my turn. Thank you. Thank you.

Laura, let me respond to that in a very good-faith manner. Democrats and Republicans, Republicans you can respect, they all criticize the president and the way he handled Charlottesville. Some of his own cabinet members resigned. And he basically gave cover to some of those hate groups. Play some of the hate group messages that they perform in Charlottesville.

So when you're talking about compromise, where is the moral leadership from our president who is not the most articulate speaker when it comes to the use of words? My point is this, it extends both ways. If you want Spike Lee and African-Americans to extend their hand, the president has to extend his hand as well.

And one final point. What your other guest said about African-Americans being considered three-fifths, that will come back to haunt him. That was a shameful comment.

JACKSON: No, it won't.

INGRAHAM: Kevin respond real quick. You have 15 seconds and we're out.

JACKSON: At the end of the day, Donald Trump has done more things to help blacks that this gentleman doesn't want to acknowledge.

INGRAHAM: Guys, I love you both. We don't agree on everything. I adore you both, and we can have compromise and actually work together. We will
take a break and be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Oh, goody. Here's a story you probably won't see on the evening news. It begins with the Mother's Day party this weekend near Sao Paulo, Brazil. Suddenly a gunman rushed in and grabbed a woman's bag. You see it there. But he picked up the wrong group to rob as evidenced by the school's security video.

The mothers desperately tried to yank children out of harm's way, but one woman stepped towards the assailant. Off-duty police officer Katia Sastre pulled out her own gun and put the man down. Sastre fired three times, hitting him in the chest and the leg, then pinning him to the ground with her foot until police arrived. The robber reportedly got off one shot that hit nobody, and then his gun jammed. Oh, no. The gunman died, but the governor of Sao Paulo praised Sastre, tweeting her courage and accuracy save mothers and children yesterday at the door of the school.

Stories of armed citizens saving lives are just not all that uncommon. But they just don't fit the media's narrative, don't get much play. For example, just two weeks ago a woman stopped an intruder who kicked in her door in Limestone County, Texas. Laura Williams held them at bay until police arrived. Now what did the woman used to stop the intruder?
Hairspray? No. A pistol.

We could go on and on and on. You know what the stories reveal? What the major media work so hard to suppress. Guns do save lives, especially used by women who know how to use them. That's what I call real girl power leveling the playing field.

We'll be right back with the last bite.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's time for the last bite.

Actually, two bites from today, both showing the disconnect between potential 2020 presidential candidates and, well, normal people. Here is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker describing his field trips to flyover country and research on actual Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER, (D) NEW JERSEY: I've had the privilege now traveling to midwestern communities, traveling to the rural south, traveling out west.
I've read books like "Hillbilly Elegy," and everything I can to try to understand other folks. And when I'm reading books like that I'm thinking to myself, oh, my God, these folks have so much in common with folks that live in my neighborhood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: If you mean overtaxed and underrepresented, then yes, Cory, absolutely. He talks about them like they belong in the Smithsonian, do you notice? I've been visiting these people.

Here is senator Kristen Gillibrand on the challenges she imagines women with real jobs must face.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, (D) NEW YORK: We don't value women in society and that's just a fact. And it's not just I feel exposed because I'm tearing up because I'm not like a man. How about I'm tearing up because I'm so angry and frustrated and my emotional intelligence is what is going to make this company succeed. If it wasn't Lehman Brothers but Lehman Sisters we might not have had the financial collapse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Lehman Sisters. OK. How about I'm tearing up because New Yorkers keep sending the cast of clueless to Washington? Oh, my goodness. Remember, these two politicians represent what many believe to be the Democrats best hope ahead of 2020. If this is the best they have to offer, Trump should be feeling pretty good right now. And this gets us back to my Angle. Republicans, do not screw up this golden opportunity to continue winning elections because the ideas Trump has embraced are actually winning ones. Don't abandon them now. Don't go back to your old ways. That was a loser -- 2007 amnesty went down in flames, 2013 amnesty went down in flames. Don't try any cute little tricks, parliamentary discharge petitions or others, because we are on to you. That's all the time we have tonight. See you tomorrow on the radio. But we want to hear your thoughts about tonight's show, so tweet me @IngrahamAngle. Shannon Bream is next. Miss Shannon.

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