Shapiro on entitlement: You're not owed anything in this world

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Shapiro on entitlement: You're not owed anything in this world

Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shaprio weighs in on the entitlement generation on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," March 18, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I will and I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington tonight. We have an absolutely packed line up for you. And I know I say that but it's really true. The President's opponents have spent the last 72 hours calling him, a white nationalist.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson is here with an exclusive to defend the President and tell us a lot of other things about what's happened at his department and Ben Shapiro has a new book out tomorrow and is making his first stop here at "The Ingraham Angle."

His reaction to "The Entitlement Generation" fostered by the left plus a new national poll that half of the respondents believe that Mueller -- the Mueller probe is politically motivated and yes, it's a witch hunt. The man who ran the Clinton probe, Ken Starr and his deputy in that case, Sol Wisenberg are here to explain why.

But first the scourge of Generation 'E,' that's the focus of tonight's ANGLE. All right, what do carbon, Ice and an egg, all have in common?

INGRAHAM: Well they're all connected to recent stories involving Generation E. The Entitlement Generation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUDENT ACTIVISTS: U G L Y Corporate scum you cheat, you lie, you ugly, uh huh, you ugly. No clean water, no clean air, pollution is everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, we received a lot of emails last week after our coverage of the international student climate change rallies and many of you were wondering, how are these kids permitted to just blow off school, shut down entire city streets, let alone inconvenience other students who actually want to do this thing called study.

Well the answer, because the activist could.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUDENT ACTIVISTS: Hey, hey, ho, ho, fossil fuels have got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho, fossil fuels have got to go. No more coal, no more oil. Keep your carbon in the soil. No more coal, no more oil. Keep your carbon in the soil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Of course, it was easier hanging out with your friends and emoting about saving the planet and chanting really badly or studying let's say, the federalist papers or doing your physics lab. Well, come on, that's an easy answer especially when schools excuse the absences, teachers themselves are encouraging the protests or that it is overwhelmingly left wing and college admissions, well, they undoubtedly count activism as a legitimate extracurricular activity.

And naturally, members of Generation E believe he or she should get into the best colleges, even if he or she does not have the best grades or the best course. And they develop by the way, this warped view of their own self-importance because Mommy and Daddy raised them to believe that they were special, really special.

Special in every extra special way. Come on, these are parents who hung their kids soccer participation metals on the bulletin board in the kitchen, they helped them write their term papers, they help them do their science projects.

How else would an 8 year old kid know how to design his own homework app. And as a college admissions fraud story revealed, these are the types of parents who even commit crimes to guarantee their kids have doors open for them.

I think it's important to ask this tonight, what's the end result here? Well, many of these young people and it's not just the wealthy kids grow up to be demanding entitled adults and even ingrates and at a time when American students are falling behind in science and math and reading, more and more kids at the same time here are indulged and even encouraged to become political activists before they've even earned their first pay check.

According to one assessment out of 71 countries, the US was 38th place in math and 24th science. But forget about mastering things like math or science or life skills such as manners or self-reliance or speaking and writing ability. And why bother with all that, when society celebrates you for being a punk with a political point of view.

Oh, case and point. At the university of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, grad students are now demanding that the school remove ICE and border patrol job listings from their career services platform. Why?

INGRAHAM: Because the university should not, "allow racist and abusive organization like this to recruit students." My friends it's not just though on American shores. Take this example from Australia, this went nuts over the internet over the weekend. A 17-year old cracked an egg on the head of a right wing politician.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. FRASER ANNING, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA: People are getting attacked in their own --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now as you could see, the politician stupidly took a swipe or swing at the kid and the video of the incident went viral. He was filming it, wonder of social media. Well, that's when the praise from celebs starts coming in.

Actor Armie Hammer in an interview today said, "I love that guy. I hope he inspires copycats. Everyone should be like egg boy. Everyone.

Egg boy should get together with pyjama boy, it'll be fun. All right, think about the Covington Catholic kid, Nick Sandman, he just stood still and the elites like Armie Hammer and others like accused that kid of being a racist in a provocateur.

But in the Australia case, they take the kids side because the politician, he assaulted albeit with an egg, was himself far right. So if the target is someone not telling the social justice line, it's okay to assault him, even have copycats.

And if it's gotten worse though than this because now, the activists are even feeding on their own. When Chelsea Clinton showed up at NYU to pay her respects after that horrific slaughter in New Zealand, a member of Generation E didn't thank her. She confronted her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words you put out into the world and I want you to know that and I want you to fell that deep inside. 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there.

Chelsea Clinton: I'm so sorry that you feel that way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does I'm sorry you feel that way mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, the young woman's shirt which I caught and I froze the frame there says it all, says college for all -- what, what, it never ends, right? Well, Generation E activists have their own set of demands, some of them are kind of listed on that shirt, free college, free healthcare, a guaranteed standard of living and a free pass if they're living in the country illegally.

And by the way, it's not just that, they would require that you accept their views on everything from climate change to immigration to economic policy because they're entitled.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUDENT ACTIVISTS: Take it to the streets. Take it to the streets. Take it to the polls. Take it to the polls.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Issues like environmental justice and gun control are affecting us in our communities now and yes, I think we should have the ability to make our vote count and vote for representatives who really are going to represent us on these issues and protect us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And the old timers like Nancy Pelosi are actually trying to co-op the energy of Generation E, the activists generation, the entitled generation by signing them up to vote early.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF, HOUSE SPEAKER: I myself have always been for lowering voting age to 16. I think it's really important to capture kids when they are in high school, when they're interested in all of this one, when they're learning about government to be able to vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Remember, she said capture kids. Well, Republicans though should take heed of these trends and movements. And offer a better alternative for the next generation. These are smart kids, a future where they don't have to wait on the government to give them what they can earn for themselves, they'll feel better about it, they'll feel better about themselves.

Activists though are in our schools and they're aggressively propagandizing, Hollywood and even churches do as well and what they're selling is a political world view that numbs the young to socialism. That's the end game.

It's an exercise in wealth confiscation that will leave us less free, less prosperous and less tied to that age old American value that hard work makes the man. Oh, well, though I feel offended that I just said man, you are an honorary member of Generation E.

You're entitled to your opinion but I'm not entitled or required to celebrate it. And that's THE ANGLE. All right, joining me now conservative columnist, Tammy Bruce, she's the President of Independent Women's Voice. Also with me is Geoff Burgan, former Comms Director for Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate, Andrew Gillum.

All right Tammy.

TAMMY BRUCE, PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S VOICE: I'm exhausted.

INGRAHAM: Generation E, Generation E, yes, how do we get here?

BRUCE: It's remarkable as Nick said, that the variety of things you show theat really have I think, a common linkage, which is -- you're right, that there's been an education if you will by people who actually do know better. We know that there is no free money.

All right, it doesn't grow on trees. If there's a redistribution of wealth, that means it's coming from businesses and other dynamics that are supposed to be creating jobs, creating income, right -- allowing people to live lives that best suit them. There's an interesting disconnect here.

And I -- look, who doesn't really want? -- If you can go and live on a paradise island and have everything you wanted at the snap of the fingers, you know you'd be Elizabeth Montgomery I guess in Bewitched. Who wouldn't want that?

The fact is though that these kids have been abandoned, these young people have by adults who know that that's not possible, who knows that life and work is something very, very different and so they're using these young people but at the same time, the Democrats don't have really anything else to offer.

The economy is good, we see what the President Trump economy and mission has accomplished force and the Democrats do I have to stand for something else but you can only argue for these things when the economy is good, I mean, that's the irony here. You can say look, we're doing so well. Americans do love to help people and this is what the Democrats are falsely telling.

INGRAHAM: Though I would say Geoff, that the Democrats in my view do stand for something but pretty radical things and I want to play something for you. This is Kirsten Gillibrand tonight on immigration, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: That should not be under ICE, it should not be under Homeland Security. Immigration is not a security issue. It is an economic and humanitarian and a family issue, there is no such thing as an illegal human.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: No national security implications of immigration?

GEOFF BURGAN, FMR COMMS DIR OF ANDREW GILLUM: I think the Senator is speaking to the very real fear that's out there. At the end of the day, this country and the Statue of Liberty in the state that she represents is a welcoming statue, it's supposed to welcome the poor, huddled masses to our shores and there's a lot of people out there that feel like we've lost that national promise.

I think the Senator and a lot of her colleagues, a lot of folks running for President are talking passionately about restoring that goodness, that openness.

INGRAHAM: So you don't think America's good letting in 1.2 million people a year, we give green cards to in the United States, most every poll that's ever been done shows that people either want to keep that steady or decrease even legal immigration, that's what -- that's Gallup every time they asked this question, the numbers are the same, even when we have new generations of immigrants.

So you think America now isn't good.

I think our country's had a long, evolving history when it comes to immigrants, take it -- take an ethnic group and you've seen at some point in this country's history, some form of discrimination. We are an evolving --

INGRAHAM: But they come actually legally, they came legally to the country, the turn of the century, the Italians, the Irish, legally and yes, even then they were discriminated against but now we're talking about a border where people are entering in between ports of entry, not coming in ports of entry but 76,000 people apprehended illegally crossing the border coming through ports of -- between ports of entry, that's illegal.

So you don't think we should call it illegal?

BURGAN: No, I think we've had a broken system, I think we've had a broken system for a long time.

INGRAHAM: So they should all be waived in?

BURGAN: No, I think we should actually sit down and have a real conversation within the United States Congress and unfortunately the President has so thoroughly changed the mood and the tone of this country that any kind of compromise, any kind of bipartisan solution just doesn't seem possible at this point.

INGRAHAM: Tammy, there are other things happened another place. This is Beto O'Rourke, he raised $6 million in 24 hours, incredible haul.

BRUCE: It's impressive.

INGRAHAM: People ridiculing his role out, sweat stains and you know saying he was a part time dad, he was kind of being self-deprecating. I hope that was overly harsh on. Sorry but I thought that was one of the more ridiculous criticisms of him but nevertheless he was pressed on one position today, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you for or against third trimester abortions?

BETO O'ROURKE, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So the question is about abortion and reproductive rights and my answer to you is that, that should be a decision that the woman makes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's where we are.

INGRAHAM: Yes, it's interesting how he just better cross that, he misled everyone about what that question was, it wasn't about abortion, right? When you're in a third trimester baby, a baby is crowning. My activism began on the Left through abortion rights, that is not what we were fighting for.

We were fighting for women to be able to make a decision for themselves as most Americans agree 80% in the last poll agree with the limitations of Roe versus Wade but he skimmed through that, that was about the issue now for the Democrats is about infanticide and even he can't face it.

But that is what the problem that they've got. We've seen Democrats who seem perfectly nice, in important positions of power like Governor Northam speaking really in a banal kind of way about this kind of horror and Americans don't like it because that's not what any of us would want.

INGRAHAM: How do they know Hispanics have come into this country? Almost majority of Hispanic population in the next what, 10 years in California, on its way to Texas. They are religious people.

BRUCE: They are religious, yes, the people of faith absolutely but this is something that appals everyone.

INGRAHAM: Or it should.

BRUCE: Any person of faith, any regular human being --

INGRAHAM: But I think it just rolls off his -- it just rolls -- cliche --

BRUCE: Just obscures it.

INGRAHAM: All right, I want to play something else, this is another element of what THE ANGLE is about, the entitlement grievance racket. Okay, the refusal to accept election results. Now last week, in an event in Washington, Stacey Abrams claimed, "I did win my election. I just didn't get to have the job."

And Geoff, your old boss added this on real time with Bill Maher on Friday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW GILLUM, FORMER GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR FLORIDA: Had we been able to legally count every one of those votes, not just in Florida but also in Georgia, I wonder what the outcome may be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: All right, Geoff, the left freaked out when they thought Trump might not accept the 2016 election results. They went crazy on that so why should people on the left get away with that, those kinds of comments.

BURGAN: Because my old boss and Stacey Abrams are talking about actual suppression of voters, they're talking about actual actions taken by --

INGRAHAM: So you don't -- you don't -- you tonight, you don't accept the will of the voters and the Secretary of State.

BURGAN: I stand squarely with my old bosses and squarely with Stacey Abrams. I believe they were real irregularities in both elections.

INGRAHAM: So you don't believe --

BURGAN: And in Georgia, it's like playing a basketball game where the ref then gets to take his shirt off and play for the other team. I mean --

INGRAHAM: Okay so you don't -- so you actually don't believe DeSantis is the governor of Florida, for instance.

BURGAN: I think he certainly is and I think, Governor Kemp is also the Governor right now but at the end of the day, I think we need to look at how we got to this point where there were bitter losses, where there were - - where there was frustration.

INGRAHAM: oh, no one likes to lose. I hate losing. Anytime I lose, I'm not happy about losing, I get it but they literally and Tammy, you remember this, even last week I think it was on Morning Joe, one of the bright lights on Morning Joe was saying Donald Trump's not going to concede in 2020.

They're saying, he's not going to concede and he will start a civil war, he could start a civil war.

BRUCE: Yes and this is where we have the rule of law, right? We may have disagreements about when you can make arguments that there should be a lawsuit or not, every single vote was counted and if the votes that were counted were even citizens. Bottom line is, we've all agreed that when there is the rule of law and we have judges and parties agreeing that --

INGRAHAM: How about provisional ballots, you don't even have an I'd, you get counted provisionally unless there is a particular margin or you have to go back. Provisional ballots in most states, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe, provisional ballots, even if you have no ID at all, you can vote.

BRUCE: And we've got to come to a point where we have this agreement otherwise there's chaos, isn't there and unfortunately it sounds like that kind of chaos where no election that is not won by Democrat, isn't considered serious and that's a problem.

INGRAHAM: Geoff, I'm really glad you came on tonight by the way. I was joking with Geoff that he looks so young. Is he carded, he's like yes. I said, I want to be carded, thank you for being on with us.

BRUCE: He's young enough to where he's going to learn a few lessons I think with conversations like this and maybe become a Republican.

BURGAN: No, I look forward to coming back in 2021 and having a peaceful transfer of power from the President Trump to the Democratic nominee.

INGRAHAM: Keep believing that, my friend but I'll accept the results of the election.

BRUCE: And there's a unicorn in the back as well.

INGRAHAM: All right, well, we're glad you came on. Ben Shapiro by the way, has something to say about Generation E. He's going to tell us about his new book, an "Ingraham Angle" exclusive coming up plus Glen Greenwald is here.

Why he says the Democrats have wasted the last two years, wow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Members of Generation E believe he or she should get into the best colleges even if he or she does not have the best grades or the best course. And they developed by the way, this warped view of their own self- importance because Mommy and Daddy raised them to believe that they were special. What's the end result here?

Well, many of these young people and it's not just the wealthy kids, grow up to be demanding, entitled adults.

Oh, my next guest has become a sensation touring colleges across the country and offering the very message that I stressed in tonight's Angle. Joining me now, Ben Shapiro, Editor in Chief of 'The Daily Wire' and author of the brand new book, "The Right Side of History" in stores tomorrow. All right Ben, I want to begin with what we were talking about earlier and it dub-tails into everything you've write about in your book.

The emergent merging politics of grievance and entitlement, Generation E. Your thoughts on how to best thwart this, combat this, cure this.

BEN SHAPIRO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DAILY WIRE: I mean, I think that the best way to combat a lot of this stuff is to focus on achievement and freedom and responsibility. The fact is that freedom comes along with the duty to achieve and you're not owed anything in this world, why should you perceive yourself to be to owed to a college slot?

Why should your parents give you everything? That that sort of mentality is foreign to a lot of the bases for western civilization and the basis for America, this idea that we were supposed to go forth and conquer, that we were supposed to forge into the wilderness and we're supposed to build something out there, that sort of mentality unfortunately has been abandoned in favor of this grievance culture as you suggest, that says we're owed something from the world and if we don't get it, it's because the system has failed us well.

INGRAHAM: Well, and even the shirt that that young woman was wearing, a tee shirt when she was confronting Chelsea Clinton of all people like Chelsea Clinton. Isn't that kind of -- Hey, I'm so sick of the phrase, jump the shark because that's jump the shark but isn't that telling you a lot about just how pathetic this whole entitlement movement has gone when Chelsea Clinton is targeted.

SHAPIRO: Yes, I mean, when Chelsea Clinton is too radical for you because she's too far on the right, I think that may be you've not just jumped the shark, you've jumped the entire aquarium. It's demonstrative of how subjective feeling have taken the place of objective facts.

What Chelsea Clinton had to say about Ilhan Omar was basic objective fact, she was speaking anti-Semitism, Chelsea Clinton called her out on that and somehow she's now responsible for the Christchurch shooting because she did all of that but that's how some people feel and therefore it becomes the truth and they've been told that that right and that they're special and that they are -- they're wonderful individuals because they go to places like NYU.

And because their parents told them, they were special and so objective fact never actually has to be brought into the conversation.

INGRAHAM: And speaking of 'The Right Side Of History', Ben, your book, I mean, we got major heads of major department at Princeton University. Eddie Glaude Junior, he's on MSNBC getting back to that Christchurch slaughter, this is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDDIE GLAUDE JUNIOR: Part of what New Zealand represented and represents is in some interesting sort of way in my view, an wholesale attack on what Donald Trump has enabled. I'm not trying to blame what happened in New Zealand on President Trump but he has helped create an environment for this sort of carnage to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So that's where it's going so he might not have pulled the trigger but it's the environment of Trump that created the hate and intolerance etcetera, etcetera. That's reverberated across the airwaves Ben, for the last 72 hours plus and it's still going.

SHAPIRO: Well, there's certainly a narrative that's being driven by the left when it comes to the Christchurch shooting. Every single person in western civilization who saw that and was a decent person, was appalled by that slaughter obviously and the attempt to immediately jump into the manifesto of the killer and then give it the broadest possible coverage by the media, to do exactly what the killer wanted, which was to generate all sorts of political controversy in an attempt to tear apart western civilization is really quite despicable.

And one of the things that I thought was so fascinating if you actually take a look at the manifesto which I would recommend everyone should not but if you actually take a look, what the killer does is, he says essentially western civilization is white people and what you see from the intersection left is a similar perception of what western civilization.

Western civilization is a hierarchical system of racial domination, that's not what the West is at all which is why we all as civilized human beings, mourn the slaughter of innocent people, no matter what their religion, living in our civilization.

INGRAHAM: The right view of history means the correct view of history with its warts and its achievements and triumphs and sadness but finally Ben, on folks that are thinking of inviting a conservative to a campus to speak or a conservative going to -- there are a lot of people who are -- who are just you know, not doing it.

Jerry Seinfeld won't perform on college campuses because of the political correctness. What do you say to those people who don't want to deal with the grief that you deal with, Dinesh and other people.

SHAPIRO: You know, I certainly understand it but at the same time, don't give up the fight because the fact is there a lot of people who are hungering for a message that is tolerant not only of humor but also tolerant of diverse viewpoints and people want discussion on campus.

I just spoke at University of Michigan last week. We had a 1000 people in the audience and 6000 people on the waitlist, that's not because I'm something special, it's because there really is a hunger for a different point of view at a lot of these campuses, that's being shielded from by the administration.

INGRAHAM: An actually exchange of ideas, what a shock, on a college campus. Ben, congrats on the book, we can't wait to read it, thanks so much.

SHAPIRO: Thanks so much.

INGRAHAM: All right, have Democrats wasted the last two years of governing over fruitless obsessions. With the Mueller report now winding down, the Democrats stepping back from their calls to impeach Trump. Was the democratic obsession over Trump and Russia really worth it for their party?

Here with answers, Glen Greenwald, founder of the Intercept. Glen, great to see you like you notice that hardly any of the democratic Presidential candidates and the list is growing seemingly by the day, they even mentioned Trump and Russia so is a reality finally sinking into the Democrats or some of these new polls about Mueller, really what they're thinking about.

GLEN GREENWALD, CO-FOUNDING EDITOR, THE INTERCEPT: Yes, we actually saw this Laura, during that 2018 midterm where the victorious Democratic candidates, knowing their local districts really well, almost never mentioned what Democratic National Committee and MSNBC, excuse their redundancy, have spent the last 2.5 years obsessing on.

To the exclusion of virtually everything else, which is not just the claim that Trump colluded with Russia but that Russia actually controls Donald Trump in some sort of you know, in some sort of Clancy, kind of espionage way as a result of blackmail or other kinds of leverage.

That disappeared from the winning campaigns in 2018 because they know that people don't wake up in the morning worried about Putin and the 2020 candidates now see that the wheels are falling off the cart of the Mueller investigation and barely mention it at all in recognition of that fact.

INGRAHAM: And Glen, Pelosi, I noticed, she was out there today in Missouri and she was -- she was backtracking a little bit on that big bombshell admission last week on President Trump and impeachment, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: I said, he's not worth it. It got your attention. I've been saying this for two years that he shouldn't be impeached but when I said, he's not worth it, then it got the press and what he's not worth is the financial stability of America's working families and that's what we're trying to correct.

And when the time comes, we'll see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Do you believe her, when the time comes, we'll see?

GREENWALD: Just think, please think about how stupid that is, what she just said. The overriding theme of the Democrats for two-and-a-half years, going back to the 2016 election, as I said earlier, is that Donald Trump is blackmailed by or controlled by the Kremlin and forced to do things against the interest of his own country, the United States, and in favor of this foreign adversary.

Now, if that were true at all, if Robert Mueller had any evidence of that and hasn't shown it to us, he would almost be guilty of treason. And if Nancy Pelosi really believes that Donald Trump is serving the interest of Russia and decides, oh, we are going to just take our time in removing him from control over the nuclear arsenal and the executive branch and the military until we feel like we are ready to do it, you would wonder, does Putin have something on Pelosi, too? Why would you leave in place somebody controlled by the Kremlin for two years if you really believed, if you have evidence for it? And of course they have none and they don't have the integrity to just admit that.

INGRAHAM: Glenn, just two months ago she is on Twitter, and she's tweeting, what does Putin have on Trump? And then the whole press corps in United States just forgets she said that. Just two months ago.

GREENWALD: Exactly. You know what, I know you know we've been working and expose about some really incredible criminal acts on the part of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is in Washington this week --

INGRAHAM: Yes, he's here.

GREENWALD: -- to meet with Donald Trump. And yes, there -- and actually he's going to be on Shannon Bream's show next, I believe, there you see what a real scandal would look like. He's only been in office for two months. There's incredible amounts of concrete, tangible evidence that has been publicly disclosed linking him to the world's worst paramilitary gangs and extrajudicial murderers in the country. That's what a real scandal looks like.

Instead in the U.S., we have two years of speculation and conspiracy theorizing and all kinds of espionage fantasies that the Democrats are now realizing is never going to come to fruition. Mueller has not indicted one American for the crime of collaborating with the Russians, and people don't think he's going to.

INGRAHAM: Glenn, we're almost out of time. There may have been places and areas where we could've worked with Russia, even with our disagreements about Crimea, or whatever, but there may have been things we could've worked on with Russia that we couldn't do because of Mueller hanging over Trump. I mean, just maybe.

GREENWALD: That's the key point. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says that one of the two greatest threats humanity faces is the possibility of nuclear war between Russia and the U.S. Obama tried to work with Putin in Ukraine and Iran, in Syria. Trump wanted to also, and just hasn't been able to because every time he did, they said, aha, that's proof that he's a Kremlin stooge.

INGRAHAM: Glenn, thank you so much.

And ahead, a new poll revealing Americans' trust in the Mueller probe is eroding, yes. What did two major players from the last independent council have to say about that? Former special counsel Ken Starr and his former deputy Sol Wisenberg, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)  INGRAHAM: A new USA Today-Suffolk poll finds that over half respondents believe that the probe, the Mueller probe, amounts to nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt. Well, here to join us now, better voices, I can't think of them. He ran the Whitewater investigation, Ken Starr, and his deputy in that case, Sol Wisenberg. Both are Fox News contributors.

All right, Ken, I remember you faced plenty of criticism back in the 90s.  So what do you make of this poll, anything?

KEN STARR, FORMER WHITEWATER INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: It's going to be a great news for the president, and it shows that attacks on the prosecution work.  That was the tack of bill Clinton, primarily through surrogates like James Carville. The president chooses to do the attacks himself. And there's no question, it erodes the confidence, especially as time goes on. And the indictments, even though there have been indictments and criminal pleas and so forth, guilty pleas, nonetheless there has not been an indictment that points specifically to collusion. So I think fatigue, but also just the effect of the president's attacks.

INGRAHAM: Sol, thoughts here? A lot of people in the office, not all of them, but a good chunk, will put up a graphic, donated by Democrats.  That's dispositive about how they're going to handle the case, but I think that was one of the facts that drove people to think, this might not be all that fair in the end. And now the Democrats are backing away from collusion.

SOL WISENBERG, FORMER DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: I'm not sure that that was the key thing, Laura, because what's so fascinating about these poll results is how narrow the gap is between those who approve and disapprove of Mueller since October. So something has happened since October. Maybe fatigue, maybe the cumulative effort of things like the way Roger Stone was taken down, I don't know. But I do think it's important to point out that Bob Mueller will be no more affected by the polls then we were. Also, he's got a long way to go before he's as low as we were. We were only two points ahead of Saddam Hussein.

INGRAHAM: I remember.

WISENBERG: And one point behind Albert DeSalvo. You remember who he was, don't you? He was the Boston strangler.

INGRAHAM: But Ken, you had all of the media against you. You had all the media against you. You had pretty much everyone against you at that point, maybe not talk radio, and a few others.

STARR: Yes, we felt a little embattled, but we were determined, trying to do the right thing. And by the way, there were some real truth seekers, as you know, Laura, Souceman (ph) of "The Washington Post," Jeff Gerth of "The New York Times." But you're right. Overall it was really a very ugly. So we were just determined to try to do our job as best as we can.

But to come back to your point about the partisanship and what Rudy calls the 13 angry Democrats and so forth, I wouldn't use those terms, but I will say this. In light of the criticism that these were very active -- some of them were very active, then you need to take steps to provide confidence on the part of the public, may be skeptical members of the public, that this is not politically inspired. So that's one of the reasons, just very briefly, we hired Sam Dash of Watergate fame, a Democrat, to come on board and to give us his advice and counsel. He approved of every word of the referral that we made to the House of Representatives. We do not have those kinds of assurances from Bob.

INGRAHAM: Dan Abrams was out there talking about Trump's desire for transparency and whether it will be there or not, and he has a theory, Sol.  I want you to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN ABRAMS: Why would the president suddenly be supporting transparency for something that he doesn't think should exist?

Did Matt Whitaker tell president Trump something that has led him to exude this kind of confidence?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sol, Dan Abrams, crack court reporter.

WISENBERG: Well, I still see President Trump attacking the witch hunt all the time. So I'm not sure that I buy that. And one of the problems with President Trump, he's a political genius. But when he's talked about this investigation, I've said this before, he acts like somebody who has something to hide. So it'll be incredibly ironic if there is no, ultimately no collusion case and no obstruction case against him.

But keep in mind, when you attack relentlessly prosecution teams, they are human. And they feel it. They try to be professional to it, as much as they try to, they feel it. And any toss-ups in that report by Mueller and his team I think are going to go against the president. They've been putting this up with this for two years. And I agree --

INGRAHAM: I've got to get out. But I thought justice was blind. Mueller was Godlike. Guys, thank you so much.

And up next, Ben Carson, an exclusive you do not want to miss. He's going to be defending this administration against the attacks of racism. Coming up, Ben Carson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: In the immediate aftermath of those mass shootings at two mosque in New Zealand, the media worked overtime to try to link President Trump to the tragedy, of course. This sick narrative continued today with new, odious charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, he's crazy. He's a white nationalist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Racially and ethnically insensitive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A personal grievance that is precisely consistent with the white nationalist agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This whole racial bigoted perception of the president is an albatross around his neck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now exclusively, I'm so happy he's with us, I've been asking for him to come on for a while, is Ben Carson, of course the secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Dr. Carson, you're the only African-American in the cabinet. You can take a swing at that. I heard "white nationalist" repeated so many times in relation to the president, his policies, those are white nationalist. His emphasis is on white nationalism, over and over again. Your reaction?

DR. BEN CARSON, SECRETARY, HOUSE AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: There is a narrative that's being painted there, but I've had an opportunity to interact with racist people throughout my life. And he is not one. He is so easy to be around, so relaxed, and treats you with the utmost respect.

And I talked with him early on about the plight of many people, particularly in the inner-city, and the compassion that he showed is very impressive. But he doesn't wear it on his sleeve. He believes that a rising tide lifts all boats. And he doesn't go around playing identity politics. He says, he just let's fix this so everybody does well.

INGRAHAM: One of the things that I found the most amazing that got almost no coverage, because you've gotten hammered recently -- we'll get to that.  But you actually worked with Bill de Blasio. You can't get pretty much more of a liberal mayor then Bill de Blasio. But you worked with him because the New York housing authority has been plagued with all sorts of problems. Dilapidated housing, rodent infestation -- if just goes on and on. There was a federal takeover of New York City housing authority, January 31st it became official. I would've thought de Blasio would've hammered you. De Blasio went on and on about how it's a new path forward.  He said you are very responsive, you were very responsive. "What we have done today creates a strong path forward," he said, "a tangible path forward." But he says "It will change and improve the lives of public housing residents. We wanted to make sure there would be results." What happened there? You and he are pals now?

CARSON: I will tell you what really happened, and I wish this would happen in our Congress, too. We just decided to put the people first. We said, whatever we talk about, let's always keep the people at the forefront and do those things that will actually benefit them.

And that's the approach that we've taken in all of our HUD projects. And we're looking at our react scoring, we're looking at ways to get people out of the squalor. A lot of people say, why do you let people live in this dilapidated place? It's because we don't have another place to put them.  As soon as we have another place to put them, believe me, we do that.

But you have to weigh all of these things very carefully, and having grown up around that, I'm very, very interested in making sure that we give people the kind of quality life that will allow them the freedom to think about something other than, are they are going to survive the night.

INGRAHAM: Rents are going up in cities across the United States, and yet the left, a lot of fair housing activists, say, well, HUD is cutting programs, 18 percent proposed budget cut for this fiscal year, 10,000 units of public housing are lost to decay every year according to your own department, and saying that you're not doing enough to address this.

CARSON: There are a lot who believe that just throwing money at the problem is the only solution. We're looking at a lot of solutions.

First of all, the budget that has been proposed makes sure that we protect everybody in all the housing programs. Nobody is going to be thrown out.  But we are looking at things like the RAD program, Rental Assistance Demonstration, which comes and remodels and rebuilds a lot of these dilapidated places and takes care of that deferred maintenance that's been put off for so long because the system that we have been using just allowed it to continue to accumulate and people to get further behind. And we're changing to a public-private partnership system.

INGRAHAM: That's what they don't like. Is that what's going on? I have to confess, I didn't follow a lot of what HUD was doing, because I'm focusing on all these other -- but they are actually opportunity zones, obviously that's a huge, huge effort that's currently underway. But they had MSNBC saying current and former HUD people say you don't have a sense of urgency, because you are very calm, unlike me. You are very calm, Secretary Carson. Where's you sense of emergency?

CARSON: Would you like to have a neurosurgeon who panics every time --

INGRAHAM: Panic, that's what they want.

CARSON: No, they are looking at things the way they used to be. We are looking at things the way that they need to be. And we are changing things. And they can't relate to that. And I don't talk about them. I don't blame them. They just can't understand. And they don't talk to us.  And when they do talk to us, they distort what's going on. So I don't really worry about them. I just worry about doing what's right.

And the proof will be in the pudding. And we are working to get people out of poverty with the opportunity zones. People have made a lot of money over the last couple of years. Now we are providing a mechanism where they can take their unrealized capital gains, invest them in places that have traditionally been neglected and give people a chance.

INGRAHAM: We're talking Englewood in Chicago, we've got a lot of new friends there from our show that we did there, Englewood, Compton, we are going in parts of Detroit because those are traditionally not conservative places. But I think we would hope that we'll see real progress in these cities.

CARSON: Our understanding is that our people are our most viable resource.  And if we develop them and make them productive, we only strengthen ourselves as a nation. We only have 330 million people. China and India have four times that many people. We will never be able to compete with them unless we learn to develop our people, and I think we understand that.

INGRAHAM: So apparently you just put your feet up on your desk all day and sipping Mai Tais, heading down to Florida on the weekend. Your schedule is getting hammered. These are by the people who cover the Congress whose home every night, every week at Thursday afternoon.

CARSON: The way I look at it, if that's the worst that they can find, that I go home some weekends and that I may leave early on a Friday in order to get there, if that's the worst that they can find, as much as they've been scrutinizing, we are in pretty good shape.

INGRAHAM: This job compared to neurosurgery on children, what are you finding most frustrating, and most fulfilling?

CARSON: Of course, as a surgeon, I still have a surgical personality. Get it done.

INGRAHAM: Want it done now. Get it done.

CARSON: And here you have to deal with bureaucracy. And bureaucrats tend to think that the rules are much more important than the goals. So adjusting to that, but not adjusting to the point where you can capitulate to that. Trying to change it.

We brought into HUD now a CFO. We didn't have a CFO for eight-and-a-half years. Can you imagine with the billions of dollars flowing through there?  So there was really not the kind of fiscal control that you would expect.  Now we have that. We are bringing in the kinds of controls that actually will allow us to give more freedom to the various jurisdictions because we can keep track of where the money is and how it's being used and what the timelines are. All of those things are changing. We are upgrading our I.T. systems. We still have a good ways to go, but we are making progress there.

INGRAHAM: Is it the slow pace of things? Everyone is like, oh, Ben Carson talks so slowly. We need people to talk more slowly if they're making sense, in my view. But I would imagine that's frustrating for you, the slow pace of change.

CARSON: It's very frustrating.

INGRAHAM: I know it is for the president.

CARSON: It is.

INGRAHAM: Are you going to stick around for a while? Are you going to be in the cabinet for a while?

CARSON: I plan on it. There was this hoopla a couple of weeks, Carson is leaving. I was asked what am I going to do. I said my preference is to go back in the private sector. It was extremely enjoyable. And you had a great deal of freedom. And you a lot of influence because I was speaking a lot more at that time. But what we are doing is also incredibly important.

INGRAHAM: Does that mean you're going to stay for the next year?

CARSON: It means that I will definitely finish out the first term. And I'm open to a second term.

INGRAHAM: Secretary Carson, do not be a stranger. We need to see more of you. We get a lot of request to see you on the show. Please don't be a stranger. We love to have you on.

CARSON: Absolutely. As Arnold said, I'll be back.

INGRAHAM: All right, up next, which 2020 candidate gave Chris Matthews a tingle up his leg? It's tonight's Last Bite.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J.: I got into Stanford because of a 4.0, 1,600, 4.0 yards per carry, 1,600 receiving yards --

(LAUGHTER)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: That's legit.

BOOKER: That's legit. I was a high school all American football player.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Wow. Cory Booker got a 1,600? Wow, that's pretty good. Chris Matthews might have a new man-crush this cycle. That's all the time we have tonight. Don't forget, new podcast drops tomorrow. Subscribe at podcastone.com at iTunes. Shannon Bream and the "FOX News @ Night" team take it all from here.

Shannon?

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