'The Five' on Biden's handling of COVID amid new Omicron variant

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Joe Biden 'has blood on his hands': Greg Gutfeld

'The Five panel respond to Omicron COVID variant, which was first detected in southern Africa

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," November 29, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST (on camera): Hello, everyone. I'm Dana Perino, along with Dagen McDowell, Geraldo Rivera, Jesse Watters, and Greg Gutfeld. It's five o'clock in New York City, and this is THE FIVE.

President Biden pushing for calm over the latest COVID variant, Omicron, after causing panic with a travel ban against eight countries in Africa starting today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic. We will fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and confusion. We have more tools today to fight the variant than we've ever had before.

The best protection against this new variant or any of the variants out there the ones we have been dealing with already is getting fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO (on camera): But the doctor in South Africa who discovered the variant said the world could be overacting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: At this time what we are observing is mild cases. There is nothing significant that says we are moving into a real program moving forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO (on camera): And President Biden being accused of hypocrisy over his travel ban. And this tweet when the then candidate accused President Trump of being Xenophobic for imposing a travel ban on China during the start of the pandemic. But the White House says that it is not the same this time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What the president was critical of was the way that the former president put out, I believe a Xenophobic tweet, and how he called, what he called the coronavirus and who he directed it at.

The president has not been critical of travel restrictions. We have put those in place ourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO (on camera): But Greg, the virus is going to mutate, we knew that. But one thing is interesting when President Biden was talking if you've seen the background, there's Christmas decorations and it was just on the Fourth of July --

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS CO-HOST: Yes.

PERINO: -- when he declared independence from the pandemic but it continues.

GUTFELD: Such a racist. I mean, it is amazing. Not only does he have blood on his hands for the number of people that have died under his watch, which is now more than when Trump was president and Biden has the vaccines. So he has blood on his hands and now he's also a racist for this travel ban.

PERINO: Wow.

GUTFELD: Yes. I'm just trying to feel like a Democrat.

GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE: Really?

GUTFELD: That's --

(CROSSTALK)

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Geraldo doesn't have any talking point.

GUTFELD: Yes. I just took --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: He is trying to make the lead.

GUTFELD: No, I'm trying -- I was just channeling exactly what they did when -- I mean, everything that they criticize Trump for has turned out to be correct, whether it was the vaccines which they said were dangerous or you can't trust them or the travel ban, you can go back even further to whatever you want.

But this new variant fear is wearing off on the American public. It's like a deadbeat relative that says it's going to stay for a couple of days and it's now going on months. We're ready, we're done and this is actually good news. When you have a mild variant that's contagious, basically what that is, is nature's vaccine, right?

You're giving everybody antibodies, you might get mildly sick, you probably won't get sick. Nature is providing the solution to its own problem. This is why we champion natural immunity.

So, I'm really sick of the word bracing. Right? We are always bracing for something. We are bracing for riots, we are bracing for hurricanes, we're bracing for a new variant.

Why don't we just as a media stop bracing for things and just explain it as factually as possible, which is, nobody really knows, listen to the experts. It's probably mild. It's going to raise your natural immunity, get on with your life. No lockdowns.

If any -- look at Australia. That's a country in which the government --

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: -- is in control, they are going to hell in a handbasket. The United States, the people control this country, don't let them lock down, don't let them do anything. They push this far enough.

PERINO: It is possible, I supposed, Dagen, some people would say, there's -- it's possible to underreact but also to overreact. Here in New York already the governor is calling on everyone to postpone their elective surgeries.

DAGEN MCDOWELL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Insanity. A friend of mine text me and said there's not this holiday party we are supposed to go to this week, and I was like, why? The variant. And I was like expletive, expletive, expletive, expletive. It doesn't make any sense for a number of reasons.

Number one, 95 percent of the immune acids in this variant are the same as the original virus. So, the vaccine companies can --

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: -- develop a vaccine. I'm a nerd, I had a lot of time on my hands over the weekend. Also, we have pills that are going to start coming out, antiviral pills from Merck. It goes up for FDA tomorrow and then Pfizer and then even Roche has one under development.

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: Where there will be no death from this virus. You will take it a pill from your doc before you ever get to a hospital. But to Greg's point, if -- so today, thank God, he said no lockdowns. He just said wear a mask, get your vax, so he's essentially doing nothing.

So, if that was -- I mean, do panic peddlers are upset about it? But if that was Trump, the reaction would be you are not doing anything different.

PERINO: Right.

MCDOWELL: You are insensitive. How reckless are you. You are uncaring and unserious. That would be the reaction. But we could be grateful because lockdowns do more harm than good.

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: We should be happy going into the Christmas season. Biden is not likely to lock down, and also, his approval ratings are in the commode so he doesn't have the political capital to do it.

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: So, it will be great --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: What's interesting, Geraldo, is that Democrats seem to believe that the COVID is both the cause of his political problems but also the solution to his political problems.

RIVERA: Well, if he moves decisively and it looks as if he has it under control, but it does not seem that. I mean, I was very pleased no new lockdowns. I think that's the headlines of what happened -- happened today.

But you saw what happened with the equities market Friday, people are really on edge, parents of school age children, you know, parents with school age children are very worried that their lives could be totally disrupted again because of this thing.

Christmas looming, you know, with bracing for more disruption. We are bracing for more panic. I believe that if Biden can't control COVID his presidency is a failure. If he do -- if he does control COVID, then I think that he has a reasonable expectation of a successful presidency.

But it's all about COVID, it's not about the economy. It's COVID, COVID, COVID. We are sick of it and you want to be through with it. You just want to put it in the rearview mirror and every other cliche but the fact of the matter is, these things pop up --

PERINO: OK.

RIVERA: -- and I think to minimize them so can't really --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Greg had a great point though about the trans -- if it's more transmissible but it's more mild, then that might be a good thing so then everybody can actually get back to normal. There was this also, Jesse, Dr. Fauci was on the Sunday shows, you might find that a little hard to believe.

WATTERS: Yes.

PERINO: And we had a little sound from something that happened there. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: They get up and criticize science. Nobody is going to know what they are talking about. But if they get up and really aimed, they are bullets at Tony Fauci, well people can recognize there is a person there so it's easy to criticize, but they are really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO (on camera): Jesse?

WATTERS: Science created the virus. The virus was created in a lab. You can't criticize the science that created this deadly pandemic? Isn't that the scientific method, by the way, you constantly have to challenge the science? If we didn't constantly challenge and attack the science, we would still be curing things with leeches, we'd have leeches on, Geraldo, if he was near COVID or something like that. This is crazy. And it's hard --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: He'll get lost (Inaudible) his mustache.

WATTERS: You can have one right there. And it is --

RIVERA: I just trimmed it.

WATTERS: -- it is interesting because I do think and it's hard for me to say that Biden did the right thing.

PERINO: Yes.

WATTERS: You hear about the mutation. You slap a travel ban on and then you assess. And the early assessment looks like this thing is not that malicious. And that's according to Goldman Sachs and the scientists two people that I trust much more now than Dr. Anthony Fauci.

And it looks like the vaccines are going to be effective against this new mutation. Would you imagine Pfizer coming out and saying, you know what, no, our vaccines are not effective against this new variant. Yes, right, everybody throws their hands up, no one would buy vaccines anymore they'd lose $4 billion.

New variants are profitable for Pfizer and Moderna. Of course, they're going to be effective. Of course. I'm not worried about the new strain. I'm worrying about how the government is going to overreact to the new strain.

PERINO: Yes.

WATTERS: If they are not going to allow elective surgeries here in New York --

GUTFELD: What are you going to do about that?

WATTERS: My lipo. My nose, my lipo, my hair implants. And if they dare close down restaurants, I might have to run for president just on reopening restaurants.

PERINO: And save America.

WATTERS: I'm going to -- I would win on that platform.

PERINO: You might actually.

WATTERS: I would.

PERINO: You might,

GUTFELD: There is a bigger problem here that no one is addressing and I have to bring it up for America. You are wearing a black tie with a blue jacket.

PERINO: I noticed that.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: You notice this --

WATTERS: Emma said this wasn't good. Yes.

GUTFELD: You notice this.

PERINO: I notice that --

GUTFELD: No. You cannot -- you knew that I would be thrown out of the house if I left wearing that.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: A funeral?

WATTERS: Shut up, Geraldo. You have a mustache.

MCDOWELL: Just tell people it's navy.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: It's a darkening.

WATTERS: I'm color blind.

PERINO: Yes. All right. Up next, Democrats in a panic about inflation are not going to be happy what the president just did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD (on camera): President Biden bailing on a huge speech about inflation today as Democrats beg Joe to take action. Vulnerable liberals are reportedly worried the supply chain crisis is going to bite them in next year's midterms.

Biden was supposed to reassure Americans after meeting top CEOs about this issue earlier, but he abruptly scrapped those plans and rescheduled the speech for Wednesday. Jesse, what does this mean is rescheduling?

WATTERS: I don't know. My sources --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Not one day but for two days?

WATTERS: Yes.

GUTFELD: What are your sources telling you?

WATTERS: My sources are saying hunter relapse. I don't have any sources.

PERINO: Jesse!

WATTERS: I'm kidding. I don't have any sources. You think I have sources in the Biden White House? Here's the thing with the supply chain crisis, I'm surprised we still have one. Didn't Joe Biden fix it when he said he was going to keep the ports open?

RIVERA: It is considered --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: What happened to that great fix two months ago? He's just going to keep them open 24/7, right? So, I look into this. Only one terminal in the two largest ports in L.A., in Long Beach, one terminal stayed up open overnight for a few days. No truckers came by. Not a single trucker came by to pick up some cargo. So, the guy, you know, we're just going to close it.

So, what did Joe did? Did he solve that truck issue? No, he slapped vax mandates on truckers, the people that literally don't come close to anyone in weeks. So that's what he did there. The reason we have this also besides moving the factories to China is because Dr. Fauci shut down this economy. No one has ever done that in the history of the world. Shut down an economy because of the pandemic.

Why did he do it? Because it mostly affects old people. Who run the country? Old people. Old people don't want to die. They run things, so they're like, all right, no one get near me. So, no one -- no one got near old people but then the old people wouldn't let anybody else get near themselves. Right?

So, everybody stayed home, and so as we came back up, Joe dropped $2 trillion in like -- I don't know, the same month as the economy reopened, that's like fiscal methamphetamines got built. Right through the moon and then we have this inflation, the economists are like, my God, I didn't see this coming. It's the only profession they got paid to not see things coming.

GUTFELD: You are --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Always unexpected when you are an economist.

RIVERA: I think I should have a drug test.

GUTFELD: You are more entertaining than drunk history.

PERINO: I love that.

RIVERA: That sounded like drunk history.

WATTERS: Yes.

GUTFELD: That's nobody -- buried within a lot of that was the truth.

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: Right?

WATTERS: Thank you.

GUTFELD: Geraldo, you were going to take issue with something there, were you?

PERINO: He said that the supply chain crisis is better.

RIVERA: I think supply chain is, they say it's eased by at least one-third and by the count of the containers, but we don't do stories about processes working. We only do things that --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: I couldn't find bananas at the grocery store yesterday.

RIVERA: Yes.

WATTERS: Bananas.

RIVERA: You are (Inaudible) in your neighborhood bodega? i don't --

WATTERS: Not a bodega. I don't go there.

RIVERA: But let me say this about inflation.

GUTFELD: Yes.

RIVERA: Inflation. Dagen is right. In a white, hot economy and we have a white-hot economy now, look, we have to face facts. The things are really buzzing. Dagen can tell us even more specifically with her great acumen in business. But with the --

(CROSSTALK)

MCDOWELL: Stop sucking up.

RIVERA: When business is humming, you know, you have -- you do have some supply issues, price goes up, people are getting more and more jobs. They are, you know for hire signs still everywhere, there are people being hired, the workforce is expanding, we have, I think a reasonable expectation in the first quarter of next year. We are going to have a functional, prosperous country if it is not derailed by COVID.

I keep coming back to it. All of these stories about everything else mean nothing if the nation get sick again and get scared again and gets cloistered again and old people get isolated again.

GUTFELD: Dagen cared to respond. He -- after he buttered you up like a butterball turkey?

MCDOWELL: The economy is not hot for a lot of people.

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: Wages adjusting for inflation, our real wages are down more than 2 percent since January of this year. So, inflation is for the upper class is an inconvenience but for working men and women in this country, it is a great hardship.

And that is something and I don't want to step on what Dana is going to talk about, but that is something for a moment when the Biden administration, Joe Biden himself, never got their heads around. They were slow to reacknowledge it, they said it's transitory. The Federal Reserve just keeps pumping juice into the economy.

You have Ron Klain re-tweeting that it's a high-class problem. Total insensitivity to people who have to choose between, OK, what am I eating for dinner and can I fill up my car --

PERINO: Yes.

MCDOWELL: -- tomorrow morning? And it's just -- so of course, Joe Biden is not going to talk today. He's like, you can see it, I have to go out there and act like I care? I got to --

RIVERA: Come on.

MCDOWELL: -- like they do not care. And Jen Psaki today, --

RIVERA: Casual cruelty.

MCDOWELL: Jen Psaki today kept -- keeps saying that build back better this giant welfare monstrosity is going to help inflation. See, again, those egghead economists are stupid. They didn't see this coming. The feds, the inflation rate is three times what they expected it would be. And Jen Psaki is standing up there telling the American people what they know is not true?

GUTFELD: All right, Dana.

PERINO: Well, I think part of the thing is that they initially said inflation wasn't happening and then they said it would be temporary. And then they said, well, it's really not that bad. It's only going to be a dollar more.

GUTFELD: Right.

PERINO: Or it's a high-class problem. But then they realized, wait, the poll numbers are actually showing something bad. So, then they started to blame everyone. But the problem is they're not on the same page in terms of who they are blooming.

For example, they are blaming energy companies for rising gas prices, while at the same time talking to OPEC begging them to increase production.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: So, it's like one bad thing after another.

GUTFELD: There you go. One bad thing after another --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: One comment.

GUTFELD: -- from the Biden administration.

RIVERA: How can you condemn build back better at the same time you bemoan the situation with the lowest paid people the most humble amongst us?

(CROSSTALK)

MCDOWELL: Because it's inflation that's eating into their wages.

RIVERA: I mean, why not -- what you are making is an argument --

MCDOWELL: You know what --

RIVERA: -- for build back better.

MCDOWELL: You are evident, you -- it's not because it's a welfare monstrosity and it pumps more money --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: It takes fewer --

MCDOWELL: -- it pumps more money into an economy that doesn't need --

RIVERA: Child tax credit.

MCDOWELL: -- more fiscal stimulus.

RIVERA: Pre-K.

MCDOWELL: Yes. Money that the economy doesn't need --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: It helps the poor.

MCDOWELL: -- number one. You know what --

RIVERA: Your professor care.

MCDOWELL: -- you are evidence of what Democrats think about doing nothing. It's anathema for them --

RIVERA: I'm a Republican.

MCDOWELL: Get the hell out of the way, that's what you are ought to do in this economy.

GUTFELD: All right. And on that happy note, it's great to be back although I need a haircut. Look at that thing, huh. All right. Bail reform backlash, a relative of one of the victims blasting the dirtbag behind the parade rampage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RIVERA (on camera): Outrage over a so-called progressive bail reform after the Waukesha Christmas parade massacre, seven children still recovering in the hospital one week after a derange driver out on $1,000 bill for alleged domestic violence plowed his vehicle through the crowd, killing six, injuring more than 60 others.

The uncle of a little girl fighting for her life talking with Judge Jeanine this weekend. And some choice words for the violent ex-con wife-beating punk allegedly responsible for the mass murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: What do you want to see happen to Darrell Brooks after what you saw this past Sunday?

RYAN KOHNKE, UNCLE OF WAUKESHA VICTIM: After hearing everything that he had when they read out all of the charges that he had prior to what he did on Sunday, it made me sick to my stomach. I hope that he spends the rest of his life in jail in isolation. I hope that he has a lot of time to sit in there and think about how he negatively impacted all of these people's lives in this community for the rest of his life.

PIRRO: All right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA (on camera): And Trey Gowdy blasting the left for their role in pushing ridiculously liberal bail reform policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TREY GOWDY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: We don't need prosecutors to react after there are six bodies laying on a parade route. We need prosecutors and politicians who prioritize public safety beforehand. And there are still those on the left calling for lower bonds.

The rest of us need to remember for all the Novembers to come so we can make sure these criminal sympathizers and apologists masquerading as politicians and prosecutors are never in a position to influence policy again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA (on camera): The driver of the vehicle, Dagen, Darrell Brooks, 39- year-old Darrell Brooks, he has called for violence against white people. He has noted his admiration for Hitler. Can we safely call him a racist?

MCDOWELL: You can call him a murderer, alleged murder.

GUTFELD: No, but calling him a racist is worse, remember.

MCDOWELL: Right.

RIVERA: But wouldn't you call him a racist if he were white and the crowd was black?

MCDOWELL: I don't know because I don't play that. I don't play that game. He is an alleged murderer who should have never been on the streets.

RIVERA: What about the race thing?

WATTERS: If I saw him on social media, which I have, he is a racist. He is a black militant racist and I'm comfortable saying that.

RIVERA: And yet nobody is saying it out side of the step --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: No one will say it, Geraldo. No one will say it obviously because the media does what it does. I found out through the U.K. Daily Mail this guy was convicted of trying to blow up a casino in Las Vegas.

RIVERA: I didn't know that.

WATTERS: Yes. Now why is the U.K. Daily Mail breaking that story and the U.S. media doesn't know about it? That's a shame. Also, I don't like using the word bail reform anymore. That's liberal lingo, they created that. It's not bail reform. Nothing was reformed, they just got rid of bail.

Call it jail reform then. They just want to keep people out of jail. Now, that's not reform. Why do we need to reform bail? Bail has been working for hundreds of years. You don't reform something that's been working for hundreds of years, you keep it.

And the reason white liberal prosecutors like this whole bail reform thing is they think all black people are in and out of prison all the time. It's like the same like, one percent of these people that are committing the same amount of crimes and getting released over and over again and then they are going out and they are preying on the black community.

Black community doesn't like bail reform. They are getting revictimized by the same people that are being released by white liberal prosecutors just so they can fulfill their savior complex. They need to focus on protecting the community instead of protecting the criminals.

RIVERA: Bail reform aside and we are going to deal with that more as the program progresses today.

Dana, what about the fact that CNN reporting this -- I hate to put down rival networks --

GUTFELD: Oh, I do too.

RIVERA: -- but they said that the SUV plows into crowds, something along that. It wasn't that black militant driver --

PERINO: Rammed his car ---

RIVERA: Rammed his vehicle purposely, apparently, into a crowd and killed six people aging -- ranging from 11 to 81 years old. It's that it was an SUV plowing -- I mean, it looks like they're bending over backward to create a narrative -- going back to Jesse's point -- it is a narrative that they have they have created, they are living with, they are you know, embellishing and going with.

PERINO: When the terrible person that used his vehicle to ram people and killed at least one, I believe, injured a couple of others in Charlottesville at that event, we talked about that for months. And that was a terrible event and he deserved everything he had come into him.

And this one, after he kills grandmothers and children at a Christmas parade, knowing all that we know about his background, and to Jesse's point, they certainly know about the social media, they're suddenly much more interested in every other topic. It's telling.

RIVERA: Well, January 6th principally. But you have to call them out, Jesse -- Greg. You have -- bail reform is a real issue. People should not be held unnecessarily. Prior to trial, you should have an expectation that they will show up and they will not be a harm to the community until they are tried.

But there is a level where it's ridiculous, $1000 bail for a guy with the rap sheet that goes back 50 pages is ridiculous.

GUTFELD: Yes, I mean, there is -- there's an interesting thing going on and it's a tell. When a white person commits a crime, let's say -- and it's reported by MSNBC or CNN -- that person will be blamed or the race as a whole, white supremacist, right? It's a product of white -- Kyle Rittenhouse, obviously a white supremacist they claim. Now, they're getting their asses sued rightly so.

But when it -- when it is a non-white, what happens is it becomes the object whether it is a car, a gun, a shopping cart thrown from an overpass or a rock. A recent headline from CNN -- I think it was yesterday -- Asian woman was attacked with a large rock.

PERINO: Right.

GUTFELD: You get to the second or third paragraph, you find out it's a 31- year-old male. But there's a tell there. If it's -- you must divorce responsibility from the individual who is responsible because you will be deemed racist by the legacy media and the activist class.

Nobody wants to be seen as racist, so what they do is they bury the suspect. Also, it is another example of the famous phrase of soft bigotry of low expectations. We don't want to say that these people commit crimes, right? That would -- that would be terrible. So, what they do is they go out of their way to mask it.

And now, to your point about bail reform, it's based in this stupid idea that we're criminalizing poverty. We're not. Because we're -- there's -- in these crimes, generally, everybody is in the same income level. So, let's not pretend it's Jesse and some other guy, you know, makes $7 million, $8 million year and some guy who, you know, runs a hot dog stand is like committing the same crime. That's just to get back at you.

RIVERA: But you want a level of bail that is commensurate.

GUTFELD: Yes.

RIVERA: If it's this guy that makes $7 million, then he should have a big bail like, 7,000 --

GUTFELD: But you know -- but that's based on -- that's based on an illusion --

RIVERA: Smaller but still reasonable.

GUTFELD: It's based on illusion that people in the same income brackets commit different -- it's not that way.

PERINO: Right.

RIVERA: Of course.

GUTFELD: So, after the riots in like '68, the conclusion was hey, it's racism and inequality. 50 years later we have these riots and what do we blame it on? Racism and inequality. Even after --

RIVERA: The snatch and grab.

GUTFELD: Yes. Even after implementing the same things that we were supposed to implement after 1968, we did for five decades. And we are worse off than we are now by excusing actual violence, real violence, saying an object -- an object is responsible. That's 50 years of progressive reform for you. There are no more criminals, just crimes by inanimate objects.

RIVERA: By Ghislaine Maxwell. Up next, some media in a panic over how the new COVID strain could hurt Joe Biden's presidency.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: Oh, no, no, no. No folk music. No folk music.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: I didn't pick the song. Guys, guys, let's go. Come on. It's just a song.

GUTFELD: It's about time.

WATTERS: It is?

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: Oh, you wouldn't know.

RIVERA: Blue sea and the sky with diamonds.

WATTERS: All right, Geraldo. The media in total panic mode over the new COVID variant, not because they think it's going to harm Americans, but because it's going to hurt President Biden's political standing. And the real danger is those scary Republicans who stand in Biden's way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK TODD, HOST, MSNBC: Does he take this opportunity to sort of push back at all of the Republicans? Does the president use this as an opportunity to basically use the bully pulpit, push back at all of this vaccine misinformation that's out there, and grab a hold of this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say that this poses a significant challenge to the Biden administration particularly on the economic front. Heading into an election year for the abiding administration which is critical, it could spell trouble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: Trouble for Biden, not the people that could get sick.

PERINO: OK, so I really think that these hosts need to start reading more of what I'm reading which is left-wing substack.

WATTERS: Oh.

PERINO: OK, this is where you can find out where people are really talk -- what people are really talking about on the left. Because of the holiday weekend last week, we sort of missed it. But there was a study that came out and the Democrats said, you know what, we better read this, you know, we really should read this because you dig into why Democrats voted against Terry McAuliffe in Virginia and for Glenn Youngkin. Almost all of it had to do with COVID closures, lockdowns, and especially schools, and the masking, and the overreach of government.

And so, you had all of these left-wingers saying, everybody -- we should -- everybody should take notice of this. And it goes into holiday weekend and you get these Sunday shows saying wow, this is going to be really bad. The best thing that Biden could do is probably what he started to do today which is let's not panic, let's not do any more lockdowns, and then he should go a step further and saying, and actually we should take the masks off of kids in schools. We have -- we should do that to that -- we should do that starting tomorrow.

Like, that kind of thing would actually help him. He was able to try to win -- he won because of COVID, but now he's eight points underwater on people thinking that he doesn't give them accurate information on COVID. So, this is actually an opportunity for him if they would just read left-wing substacks.

WATTERS: And he was on uh the cover of the Post today, Gutfeld, because he went shopping in Nantucket. A big sign says masks inside and he's got no masks.

GUTFELD: Typical racist with blood on his hands. You know, when you -- but going back to what -- what was that guy's name, Todd Chuck?

WATTERS: Chuck Todd.

GUTFELD: When you decide to see everything through one lens, in this case, it's a political lens, you end up being a dope who roots for things that harm people but will benefit your politics, right? So, then you have -- what you end up is you have an entire progressive movement that roots for a country to hit rock bottom because they're going to be the ones that are able to regrow the country and save the day. The problem is, the party that creates the problem always claims to be the one who solves it.

WATTERS: Did you see the Michigan game over the weekend?

PERINO: I do.

WATTERS: There's like 100,000 people in that stadium. Michigan is getting slaughtered by COVID-19, number one state per capita COVID case. No one says anything about dear Gretchen. No one says anything.

RIVERA: They beat Ohio state. I am not interested in that.

WATTERS: Not interested in talking about that, I'm sorry.

RIVERA: Not at all. You know, we need a policy moving forward where the president can, you know, bring the country along with him. Those commentators that you saw there, those same commentators in January were ebullient. They were so euphoric. They were -- and their ratings were ticking up and Rachel Maddow was, you know, beating Hannity for 10 minutes and --

WATTERS: Don't you dare.

RIVERA: But then -- but then as Biden's presidency took hold and it started to wear him down and COVID was stubborn in the economy and the supply chain and all the rest of it, then the commentators also became deflated and defensive and they identified totally with the man in the Oval Office and they see their own prospects rise and fall with this.

WATTERS: They were -- that is true. It's a good point.

DAGEN MCDOWELL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: They're still awesome though at ignoring facts or not doing any work at all because it's Chuck Toad --

GUTFELD: Chuck Toad.

MCDOWELL: Chuck Toad, Chuck Toad -- he's talking about Republican states, the best states in terms of cases of COVID per 100,000. Florida of the 50 states is the best state, Alabama, and Hawaii, and then Texas, which has a vaccine mandate ban. The worst in terms of the number of cases is Vermont. It's the -- it's the fourth-highest or one of the worst. Fourth highest in terms of cases, also the highest percentage of fully vaccinated individuals.

So, it's Vermont that has a case problem but not all of these wide-open states where you can just suck face with a stranger in Miami if you feel like it.

WATTERS: Oh.

PERINO: Oh, wow.

WATTERS: Well, then, Gutfeld will be booking a flight later tonight. Two huge trials kickoff for hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett and accused Epstein madame Ghislaine Maxwell.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MCDOWELL: Two high-profile trials starting today. Hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett about to face justice after years of delay. He's facing charges for filing false police reports over the phony attack he blamed on Trump supporters. Then there's Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial. She's accused of recruiting underage girls for creepy pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Greg?

GUTFELD: I got to go with the Smollett one because I keep thinking what would happen if the races were reversed, if there was a white creep who elaborated a hoax involving Black BLMers who brutalized him and now he's going to trial -- what -- how would that be looked at in the -- in the media. It would be a huge story. If he get -- if he got off.

I mean, the whole goal of this was to incite a race war. Why else would you do this? And there would be violence on the street if the white version of Jussie Smollett got off. So, I think that this deserves as much attention as it would if that were the case, because I think this is incredibly important. The goal -- whatever he was trying to do, was to hurt Americans and hurt America and smear half the country, so --

MCDOWELL: And beef up his own profile --

GUTFELD: Right, yes.

MCDOWELL: -- at the same time because that's what gets you -- get you juice.

RIVERA: Saved his career, right.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: Profile race, you know, mission accomplished on that point. And now -- one thing that's a disappointment for me is that both of these trials will not have cameras in the courtroom. So -- whereas, in the Rittenhouse trial, you could follow it every day and you could learn things. Like, for example, when the prosecution put on the witness who said, oh actually, I did point a gun at Kyle Rittenhouse.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: Everybody watching the trial was able to see and hear that. I think that whoever is in the courtroom, they'll do a good job of reporting it, but it won't be the same. And if you think back to what happened, when Jussie Smollett did this act, immediately there were all of these politicians and celebrities coming out to defend him. Where are they now?

GUTFELD: Kamala Harris was right in front.

PERINO: And Biden too.

WATTERS: To that point, a lot of very -- I'd say, people with advanced degrees in media and politics fell for a hoax while the rest of the country was like, OK, it's below freezing and you're not ordering food delivered?

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: Like, you're saying a black guy is going to wait with a noose around his neck for a half an hour like a necklace, that he's not going to take it off. I mean that's crazy.

GUTFELD: Under his collar.

WATTERS: And you know why this really hits home? It's because he was doing this to gain sympathy to renegotiate his deal with the Empire show. That was a Fox show. That money would have come out of my pocketbook. How dare he?

RIVERA: You're $7 million. I think Smollett will plead to one of these charges of disorderly conduct. He has six disorderly conduct for filing false police reports. I think that he will face with an insurmountable case, will plead guilty.

I am outraged by the Maxwell case. You talked about Daryl Brooks, the creep who ran over his girlfriend, then killed six people in the -- in the parade, and he was at $1,000 bail. Ghislaine Maxwell has been in jail for 17 months for no bail. They gave her no bail. She is sitting in prison prior to trial accused, get this, of events that happened between 1994 and 1999.

WATTERS: Geraldo, she's a flight risk.

MCDOWELL: She a flight risk.

RIVERA: A flight risk. She offered to put up a $28.5 million bond.

WATTERS: She's going to escape to a country that has no extradition.

RIVERA: So, you take her, you throw her in solitary confinement ---

MCDOWELL: Allow me to educate you on the federal bail law.

RIVERA: Solitary in 17 months.17 months.

WATTERS: You're defending a sex trafficker.

RIVERA: I am defending justice.

WATTERS: An underaged sex trafficker.

RIVERA: The prosecutors in this case are guilty of political lawyering --

MCDOWELL: She deserves to sit in jail.

RIVERA: Because you don't even know she's guilty. How do you know?

MCDOWELL: Because she's a flight risk, because she was hiding during COVID --

RIVERA: She was not hiding. She board a house in New Hampshire.

WATTERS: Yes she was.

MCDOWELL: Oh, yes, she was, a $1 million house.

RIVERA: They're holding her because they don't have a case.

MCDOWELL: Let me educate you real quick. Let me speak.

RIVERA: They have no case.

MCDOWELL: This is a segment I'm running.

RIVERA: They're trying to --

MCDOWELL: Here's the federal -- here's the federal bail law. You're allowed -- in 1984, Congress passed federal bail law. You're allowed to deny bail on two grounds, flight risk and danger to the community.

RIVERA: Where is Ghislaine Maxwell going to hide? Where is she going to hide?

WATTERS: Everywhere.

MCDOWELL: She can hide overseas because nobody knows where the money is.

RIVERA: She's been living right here. This is ridiculous. Injustice.

MCDOWELL: Way to stand off for a sex trafficker.

RIVERA: Mob justice.

MCDOWELL: "ONE MORE THING" is next.

RIVERA: Mob justice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: It's time now for "ONE MORE THING." Jesse.

WATTERS: A major correction I need to issue about leeches. I said they were not used in the medical community anymore. Dagen McDowell has informed me they are used for breast augmentation surgery around the nipple area and then also for face work for blood flow situation. Also, the U.K. Daily Mail just retracted the story about the guy threatening to bomb that golden nugget, but he did pimp out a 15-year-old and get her pregnant. That's what he's a sex offender for.

But what I'm really here to talk about is John Rich and Mike Rowe, an unlikely duo have released a brand new song called Santa's Got A Dirty Job, and just in time for Christmas. The song is great, so is the music video. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN RICH AND MIKE ROWE, SINGERS (singing in duet): Santa Clause has got a dirty job. Santa Clause has got a dirty job. Santa Clause has got a dirty job and he does it all night long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: So, 100 percent of the net proceeds are donated to mikeroweWORKS and Folds of Honor, two great charities that are making a difference in the lives of skilled trades, people and families of vets. And buy or stream the song on Apple Music, Spotify, and every major music sites.

PERINO: Let's get that one in number one as well.

WATTERS: Let's do it.

PERINO: All right, Greg.

GUTFELD: Ourselves don't talk. All right, let's do this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Animals are great! Animals are great! Animals are great!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: That's right. I haven't done this in a while. In honor of the new upcoming Sex in the City movie, let's take a look at this little fellow. Yes, that's a baby spiny anteater, otherwise known as a short-beaked echidna which is at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney Australia. People are saying, but what does this have to do with the new Sex and the City movie?

PERINO: What?

GUTFELD: Figure it out?

WATTERS: What's that supposed to mean?

PERINO: Tiny anteater?

GUTFELD: No, I don't know. I'm not -- I'm just going to leave it at that.

PERINO: OK. If I think about it in the middle of the night, I'll send you a text.

GUTFELD: Yes, please send me a text.

PERINO: I will do that. All right, so --

WATTERS: Don't text him in the middle of the night.

PERINO: OK. You're right. You're right. I'll just wait till the morning. OK, Thanksgiving, some people wonder, do we -- have we lost the meaning of Thanksgiving? Well, I don't think so. There's still some great things that happen out there.

There's a woman named Susana Orrego and her husband Edward. They recently moved to Brookline, Massachusetts from Columbia. She studies at Harvard, I believe. Yes, Harvard Medical School. So, she's never had a Thanksgiving dinner with like traditional American family and food. And so, she put a note up on next door, the app that everyone seems to love and hated.

And she got 200 people inviting them to dinner, complete strangers invited them. They ended up going with Carol Lesser from Brookline and they got to be with her family, have an instant connection, and a great time. And I thought that was just a lovely little Thanksgiving story --

WATTERS: Lovely.

PERINO: -- for your Monday after the holiday. Dagen.

WATTERS: Everyone meet Grady Ogilvy from Australia, a human wrecking ball. I don't know if this has sound but --

PERINO: OK.

WATTERS: Oh.

MCDOWELL: Yes. I think that we need some sound effects, Greg.

PERINO: Crash, bang, boom.

MCDOWELL: There you go.

PERINO: Boom. All right, Geraldo.

RIVERA: Geraldo's abbreviated Geraldo news with Geraldo. We're just back, Erica, Sol, and I, beautiful cruise of the West Indies on board the Seabourn Odyssey. We went to Saint Martin, Saint Barts, Saint Kitts, Barbados. It was great.

PERINO: Did you go to Saint Kitts?

RIVERA: Oh, that's the -- that's the cranberry sauce. I finally had cranberry sauce.

PERINO: Did you go to Saint Kitts?

WATTERS: Oh, there he is with his shirt off.

PERINO: That's it for us. "SPECIAL REPORT" is up next. Hi, Bret!

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